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#despite my body dysmorphia being really bad the past days too
tomboyyyaoi · 10 months
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hmm ed/dysphoria/dysmorphia tw i just need to talk abt this somewhere, just general body insecurity issues ahead
summer gets so hard for me coz i really really struggle with my weight, body dysmorphia, dysphoria and it doesnt help ive also noticed my posture getting worse (ive basically got a hump in my neck and its really making my insecurity issues worse)
ive had a bit of weight gain recently which i thought id recovered enough to be okay with but im really not, the main issue being its really noticable at my chest, it also doesnt help my posture is abysmal so it really only serves to make me feel worse about myself and feel more insecure in clothes that are loose around the neck, i thought i was okay being my bigger self but god ive fallen down a bit, ive been eating healthier (much needed since ive been unemployed and going out less) and ive really enjoyed it but ive been eating like shit and feeling like shit the past few weeks n it doesnt help my mum took a video yesterday which im basically front and centre in and god. my posture, my double chin, my face has never looked rounder it was awful, i cried, ive never felt such a disconnect between my brain and body, it made me really dysphoric too, i didnt think i looked like that.
ive been in a hoodie all day despite sweating my ass off, i cant take it off without thinking about my boobs and neck and posture, i feel terrible, i really thought i was doing better than this.
the problems less so that i look fat its that i look feminine when i get bigger, i can only think abt being this cute round little girl and its not me anymore, i dont wanna feel tied to that, i know its so unrealistic for me to ever be skinny but if i could just look a bit more androgynous, my chest isnt exactly small enough to get good binding results, its just really putting me back in the mindset i was in when i was at the peak of my ed in high school on this vicious cylce of starving myself then binge eating, i cant go back to that, i dont wanna go thru that again, but i can feel it creeping up on me and im really scared
ive also been really stressed about my birthday coming up where my mum gets all sentimental and embarrasses us by putting baby pics up everywhere and she absolutely does not respect how deeply insecure it makes me (she insists our birthdays are equally for her as they are for us which, i guess, but still) im just terrified to have so many eyes on me while im at a really bad place with my insecurities rn, im just really having a bad one
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cagesings · 2 years
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J.OHANNA  B.ARKER  ︰  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑    𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁    𝟶𝟶𝟷    :    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄.        
NAME  :  j.ohanna  b.arker
EYE  COLOR  :  green
HAIR  STYLE  /  COLOR  :  falls  past  her  waist,  curly,  yellow  (  a  shade  close  to  wheat  ).  i  have  a  whole  post  about  it  here
HEIGHT  :  5′2″  /  157  cm  
CLOTHING  STYLE  :  despite  her  ‘wealthy’  growing  up,  johanna  prefers  more  simple  dresses.  she’s  also  pretty  sensitive  about  certain  materials  &  dresses  get  bonus  points  for  being  looser  around  the  stomach  area.  johanna  cannot  stand  tight  clothing.  if  she’s  wearing  a  dress  that  makes  her  feel  insecure  about  herself  (  if  it  makes  her  stomach  look  larger  in  her  mind,  her  shoulder  broad,  her  arms  rounder  ),  she  covers  it  up  with  a  shawl  to  protect  herself.  post  canon  she  tends  to  prefer  long-sleeved  dresses  since  it’s  comforting  &  they  hide  the  scares  from  the  madhouse.  johanna  usually  wears  pinks,  blues  &  whites.  never  black.  she  refuses  to  wear  back.  
BEST  PHYSICAL  FEATURE  :  hair.  because  of  her  body  dysmorphia,  jo  finds  it  really  difficult  to  find  really  anything  she  loves  about  her  physical  appearance  -  except  for  her  hair.  she  actually  loves  her  hair  &  is  very  proud  of  her  curls,  though  she  probably  won’t  ever  admit  it.  
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟸    :    𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄.        
FEARS  :  the  loss  of  her  freedom,  loosing  loved  ones,  going  insane,  r.ape,  her  guardian  
GUILTY  PLEASURE  :  in  modern  verses,  she  loves  watching  d.isney  movies.  she  missed  out  on  them  as  a  kid  &  they  calm  her  down  a  little  bit.  
BIGGEST  PET  PEEVE  :  people  underestimating  her  really  gets  on  her  nerve  because  she  survived  an  insane  asylum,  she  freed  herself,  survived  an  encounter  with  a  serial  killer,  etc.  just  because  she  looks  like  a  small,  frail  victorian  woman  does  not  mean  she  has  survived  nothing.  she  also  hates  it  when  people  assume  things  about  her.    
AMBITIONS  FOR  THE  FUTURE  :  obviously  during  canon,  her  biggest  drive  to  trying  to  free  herself  from  her  abusive  guardian,  but  post  canon  johanna  mostly  just  wants  to  see  the  world.    
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟹    :    𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒.
FIRST  THOUGHTS  WAKING  UP  :  when  she  does  sleep,  she’s  probably  recovering  from  a  nightmare  or  some  sort  of  night  terror.  :’)  
WHAT  THEY  THINK  ABOUT  MOST  :  whatever  is  worrying  her  at  the  moment.  this  can  be  as  drastic  as  ‘my  literal  guardian  wants  to  marry  me’  or  ‘are  all  of  the  words  in  the  entire  world  doing  okay  right  now?’    
WHAT  THEY  THINK  ABOUT  BEFORE  BED  :  again,  everything  she’s  worrying  about.  it’s  bad  to  the  point  where  she  can’t  sleep  or  just  doesn’t  for  hours.  
WHAT  THEY  THINK  THEIR  BEST  QUALITY  IS  :  personality  wise?  jo’s  pretty  self-deprecating  &  was  raised  by  turpin,  so  she’d  probably  say  her  hair  again.  but  anyone  else  would  probably  admire  how  she  can  still  stay  soft  after  everything  she’s  been  through  
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁    𝟶𝟶𝟺    :    𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓’𝐒        𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑?
SINGLE  OR  GROUP  DATES  :  single.  group  dates  would  probably  stress  her  out.      
TO  BE  LOVED  OR  RESPECTED  :  loved.  she  takes  love  over  most  things  because  she  was  without  it  for  so  long.  
BEAUTY  OR  BRAINS  :  brains      
DOGS  OR  CATS  :  .........birds
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟻    :    𝐃𝐎        𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘…
LIE  :  she  was  raised  by  one  of  the  strictest  men  alive  of  course
BELIEVE  IN  THEMSELVES  :  no.  she  needs  some  self  esteem  so  bad.  
BELIEVE  IN  LOVE  :  despite  everything,  yes.  johanna  saw  it  out  her  window  all  of  the  time.  one  day,  one  day,  she  hoped,  it  would  happen  to  her,  too.    
WANT  SOMEONE  :  desperately  
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟼    :    𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑  …
BEEN  ON  STAGE  :  nope.  she  would  die.  
CHANGED  WHO  THEY  WERE  TO  FIT  IN  :  not  really?  she  doesn’t  really  have  anyone  to  ‘fit  in’  with.  but  she  would  pretend  like  there’s  nothing  wrong  in  order  to  fit  in.  
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁    𝟶𝟶𝟽  :    𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒.
FAVORITE  COLOR  :  blue
FAVORITE  ANIMAL  :  birds.  she  cannot  pick  a  single  favorite  bird,  but  she  does  actually  own  larks  so.  
FAVORITE  BOOK  :  her  selection  of  books  were  quite  slim  growing  up,  but  she  would  probably  say  one  of  shakespeare’s  works  was  her  favorite  during  canon.  post  canon,  she  discovers  j.ane  a.usten  so.  
FAVORITE  GAME  :  this  girl  was  so  sheltered  she  doesn’t  know  what  a  game  is.    
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟾    :    𝐀𝐆𝐄.
DAY  THEIR  NEXT  BIRTHDAY  WILL  BE  :  february  20th
HOW  OLD  WILL  THEY  BE  :  eighteen
𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟿    :    𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇  𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄.
I  LOVE  :  my  larks
I  FEEL  :  worried
I  HIDE  :  myself  
I  MISS  :  leaving  my  room  
I  WISH  :  i  was  loved
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tagged  by:  @luckhissoul​  (  thank  you  so  much!!!  )
tagging:  steal  it!  
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per1shed · 3 years
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went out without a cardigan, just with a shirt (not an oversized but a tight shirt!!) two days in a row bc it’s boiling and i just COULDNT and it took a lot but i’m okay with it i think
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izlaria · 3 years
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Someone you like (part 2)
This is the second chapter of my “Someone you like” inspired fic. It’s also available on AO3 in case you prefer that platform.
Feel free to write comments in the tags or send me messages about this. I love feedback!
16 and 14 years old
Pidge Gunderson. I am Pidge Gunderson.
Katie looked herself in the mirror, trying to convince her brain that the image reflected was hers, that it was a boy, with no previous links to the Garrison, someone who had wanted to go into Communications.
It didn’t really work. All she saw was Matt: his glasses; his short, unkempt haircut; his nickname for her.
Maybe it was better like this. Katie had initially meant to immerse herself in this new identity, to go so deep into Pidge Gunderson that no one would be able to see past the cover, but the truth still kept slipping through her defenses. Katie was a Holt and her family was missing, so she was gonna find them. Pidge was just a tool.
It would be easier if there weren’t so many risks in studying at the Garrison.
Her father hadn’t brought her around often, but Katie had become infamous among the night-time security for her excursions to discover sensitive information regarding the Kerberos mission. Iverson, in particular, was probably expecting a new advance on her part.
He hadn’t recognized her, yet.
Sometimes Katie worried that she’d already been exposed and that they were just gathering evidence before actually making a move against her. If the Garrison was willing to lie about her father’s and brother’s deaths, then she couldn’t overlook the possibility that corruption ran deep within the organization.
She sighed, tugging at the ends of her hair.
“Come on, Gunderson!” she heard someone shout from outside her door. “You’re coming to lunch with us whether you want to or not!”
Lance continued to make noises, probably talking to Hunk. They usually threatened to hack into her keypad if she didn’t come out to join them for meals. Katie couldn’t really understand their stubbornness. She might have appreciated their offer of friendship back in Middle School, when she’d felt ostracized by her peers, but now it was just another hazard to her already convoluted plan.
“Go bother some poor girl, McClain!” Katie shouted in response, feeling more inpatient than strictly necessary.
She knew that Lance meant well, but she didn’t have time for his hijinks. Katie had a duty to her family, first and foremost, and any effort spent placating her teammates was a waste in that regard. Not to mention that Lance had a knack for attracting attention that completely opposed her own need to remain unseen.
Her door slid open with an elegant swoosh.
Katie poked her head from the bathroom to glare at the two boys who stood there. Hunk had the sense to look ashamed, but Lance just grinned.
“It’s bonding time, Pidge!” He stepped into the room, arms wide open. His easy smile was the same as ever, despite the news they’d received earlier that day about their performance stats. It was probably why Lance was there, after all.
Katie actually felt a little bad about the whole thing. She wasn’t particularly invested in training as a communications officer and, though she wouldn’t say it affected her retainment of the knowledge demanded from her, it certainly translated into frustration when they were in the simulator.
She wasn’t much of a team player, Katie could admit.
“If you’re trying to get on my good side, this is not how to do it,” she grumbled, trying her best to keep her voice low. Too much of a change would eventually weight on her vocal cords or sound plain ridiculous, but a difference in pitch and speech patterns were certainly necessary to disguise her true identity. Thankfully, any slip up could be attributed to puberty, as she’d been seeing many of their male classmates endure the difficulties of cracking voices.
Lance took her by the shoulders and shook her indiscriminately. “Quit being the worst!” His cheerfulness hid the vexation that Katie knew he truly felt. “We’re having burgers today, so I’m not letting you bring us down.”
She snickered. Lance was notorious for his love of junk food, despite Hunk’s attempts to get them more nutritious meals. He frequently spoke about his mother’s cooking but didn’t seem to have that same interest in the dietary plan prepared by the Garrison.
Katie couldn’t really fault him for that. Their meals were usually so blend that they seemed to withdraw taste from any of the condiments added.
From behind Lance, Hunk had finally gathered enough courage to come in. He looked around in such false innocence that Katie might have believed him, hadn’t she caught him going through her drawers the previous week. That boy was nosy as hell.
Just another reason to keep them away.
“If I go with you to the cafeteria, does that mean I can get you out of my room?” She fixed them with a stony look.
“For a time,” Lance offered, all cheeky and bright and annoying.
Hunk put a hand on his shoulder, pulling his friend back from Katie. “We noticed you didn’t eat yesterday, again.” He sighed. “If you took better care of yourself, we wouldn’t come here so often.”
Katie let that reasoning sit with her for a bit. She usually sneaked granola bars and other less-perishable types of food into her room to eat while she worked, but it was true that she didn’t really sit for meals unless the boys pushed her. She didn’t think they would notice.
It brought a strange warmth to her chest. She’d felt cold for so long now, always at arm’s length from those around her. Her mother had tried, but she was grieving and her suffering filled her until there was no more room for her daughter. These small kindnesses had gone away with Matt.
She struggled not to reach into her pocket for the picture she kept of them. Hunk had a curious soul and Lance was a gossip; they had almost caught her one too many times.
“I guess I did want your input on how to recalibrate this old radio I found in the junkyard…” Katie huffed out a breath, which the boys took as a surrender.
“Ah, nothing like the smell of oil and grease to really improve the day!” Lance put an arm around her shoulders, but she quickly dodged away, lest he recognize anything different about her body. Even though she was already pretending to be a boy, Katie didn’t want to also have to pretend to be trans. It was a line that she dared not cross, morally.
She felt the dysmorphia more acutely than she’d imagined she would. As a child, she had enjoyed cutesy things and dresses and her long hair. The sudden departure from those possessions was supposed to remove her from her previous identity, but Katie would always know the truth. There was no escaping it.
More than anything, it was the inability to choose that left her frazzled. The loose clothes and glasses and boyish haircut didn’t bother her and they did give her a liberty that more feminine wear didn’t, but Katie wished the circumstances allowed her to be a girl too, sometimes.
Alas, here she was, stuck between Hunk and Lance as they basically escorted her to the cafeteria. Matt would have a conniption if he ever found out there were boys breaking into her room at all times of the day.
“You thinking about those amazing fries we’re gonna get?” Lance sighed dreamily. “Honestly, I don’t know how they do it. Every other meal freaking sucks, but then Monday comes around and the cooks just nail it!”
Hunk chuckled, nodding along. “They probably want to put us in a good mood for the week. Everybody knows that getting back to classes after the weekend can be hard.”
“Hard? It’s impossible.” Lance dragged his hands through his face. “I nearly fell asleep during Arithmetic today. Professor Reeves is such a bore!”
“Maybe you wouldn’t fall asleep if you didn’t spend Sunday nights in town,” Katie quipped before she could stop herself.
“Yeah, well,” Lance floundered. “What’s your excuse, then? You won’t come with us, but you still look dead on your feet in the mornings!”
“I’m just not a morning person.” She crossed her arms, turning away from Lance.
In doing so, however, she came face to face with Hunk, who was staring at her with an inquisitive look. He was less loud about it than Lance, but it was clear that he also had questions about what Katie spent her time doing.
She tightened her arms around herself, feeling her stomach drop.
This was why Katie didn’t like to talk to them. It was usually easy to ignore Lance, because of how over-the-top he was, but Hunk’s gentleness and concern made the guilt rise within her. She didn’t want to involve other people in her lies, didn’t want them to believe Pidge was their friend only to be faced with a betrayal.
And that’s how they would see it, wasn’t it? Katie didn’t have a lot of experience with friendships, especially not ones as deep as Hunk and Lance’s, but no sane person would take it lightly to find out someone had lied about their whole identity and motivations.
Besides, if she ever did find out what the Garrison was hiding, it could possibly affect the future of the organization and disrupt the trajectory of every student there.
Before Katie could go further into her spiraling thoughts, she felt Hunk maneuver her into the cafeteria line. She had tuned out the rest of their conversation and now Lance spoke of a girl in his Aerodynamics class.
She ignored his ramblings. Lance tried to project this image of a lady’s man, but the few dates he’d scored since they started school never seemed to really move forward. They ended up in an endless cycle in which Lance fixated on some girl, hit on her endlessly, then finally gave up and went crying to Hunk.
Katie couldn’t see the appeal of it, but it most likely had to do with Lance’s self-esteem and need for validation.
“I think Jiya might actually like me!” he declared, despite how both Hunk and Katie were more focused on filling their trays with food. “Whenever the teacher asks me to stay behind and clean up, she stays to help! That has to mean something!”
Katie collected her juice box and went to sit down, pointedly ignoring Lance’s questions.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Hunk said agreeably. He didn’t sound too sure, but his expression showed that he was trying to be positive for Lance’s sake.
“Or, you know, the girl is just a nice person who thought you were being picked on by the teacher.” Katie raised her eyes to give Lance an unimpressed look. “And you’re reading too much into it.”
The boy scowled at her. “What would you know, Pidge? I’ve never seen you with a girl before.”
“Yeah,” she raised an eyebrow, feeling smug that the other two wouldn’t understand the humor in this. “What do I know of girls?”
Katie had to suppress a laugh when Lance turned to her with a very confused expression. Hunk, however, gave her a small, secretive smile that set off all kinds of warning signs.
“I don’t get it,” Lance complained to Hunk, then turned back to her. “I don’t get it!”
“Well,” Hunk started and immediately her heart started pounding in her chest. Outwardly, Katie tried to remain impassive. “The girls in our class all love Pidge.”
“They do?!” Lance burst out, eyes widened. His gaze shifted back and forth between her and Hunk.
They didn’t, Katie was pretty sure. Did they?
“They think he’s cute,” Hunk confirmed, waving his fork in the air as if trying to recall the exact words. “Pidge is quiet, but he’s smart and mostly polite, so Denise decided he was a good guy and the rest of the girls kinda followed her lead.”
Now that Katie thought about it, it was true that she’d helped Denise with her Bio homework and that people had been nicer to her since. She supposed they could see Pidge in a good light, especially because he seemed so much younger than the other students in Engineering.
Katie blinked rapidly to dispel her thoughts. She’d been thinking of Pidge in the third person, again.
“Fine, then.” Lance narrowed his eyes at Katie. “What miraculous advice do you have for me, oh Great Pidgeon?”
Despite his sarcasm, it was clear that Lance truly wanted an answer. It was one of the most ridiculous situations Katie had ever found herself in.
“How about you show some interest in what these girls like, instead of showboating around them?” She flicked a fry at him, which Hunk quickly stole for himself. “Sure, some people want to be impressed, but we all got into the Garrison and a lot of them already know your grades on the simulator. Most girls want someone who will listen and who they can have fun with.”
“I can be fun!” Lance protested.
“I get what Pidge’s saying, though,” Hunk intervened. Katie hadn’t meant to be harsh, but Lance suddenly looked a little deflated. “We know that you’re great, but you’re always so busy trying to be what these girls want from you that you don’t really get to know them. A little kindness goes a long way.”
Katie nodded along, munching on her burger. “No girl wants an egocentric boyfriend,” she added, mouth still half full. Lance glared at her in both disgust and indignancy.
“I don’t want to hear this from you, Mister I’m-not-here-to-make-friends!”
She shrugged and continued to eat her burger.
“Okay, okay…” Hunk put his hands up placatingly. “How about I get us some dessert and we change the subject?”
Lance glanced at him through the corner of his eyes. “Those guava-flavored popsicles?”
“You know it!” Hunk grinned back at him and the two shared a high-five.
“You’re so easy to please,” Katie commented once Hunk had gotten up. She used her last fry to soak up the mayo leftover on her plate.
Lance glared at her for a moment, before letting the last of his annoyance slip away. He reached into his backpack and took out an apple.
“Here.” He deposited it on her tray.
Katie frowned at him. “What is this?”
“You always eat fruit after we get something greasy, right?” he asked it casually, distracted by trying to squeeze ketchup onto his remaining fries. The condiment bottles in the cafeteria were continuously blocked.
“Yeah.” She blinked up at him, caught by surprise. Her voice had gone soft and she had to clear her throat to dispel the emotion that knotted there. “I didn’t think you would remember.”
Lance looked up from his food to give her an exaggerated eye-roll.
“You’re my friend, Pidge.” He kicked her under the table. “In spite of all your efforts to keep me away.”
She stayed silent for a moment, staring at the apple.
“Thank you,” she said. I’m sorry, she wanted to add, but it would make no sense to him. As far as Lance knew, Pidge was cold and self-involved and clinical to a fault.
“Don’t mention it!” He threw a fry up and tried to catch it with his mouth, but it merely bounced off his nose, marking it with ketchup. “Dang! One more!”
Katie let out a breath of laughter. Then, sitting up to better her odds, she waved at Lance. “Try me.”
By the time Hunk returned, Katie was biting into her apple as Lance complained about the ketchup stains he’d gotten on his uniform jacket.
--
She didn’t know what had driven her away from the dorms that day. There was a restless energy within her that demanded space and, though she’d never been the biggest fan of nature, it had sent her directly into the Arizona desert.
Katie felt like Pidge, today. Not like Pidge Gunderson, but like the little girl who’d yelled a misheard swearword at locked doors, until her brother had come to her rescue. She felt young and impulsive and alive, despite the grief that still weighted on her shoulders.
More than anything, she missed her mom.
In Katie’s eyes, Coleen Holt knew everything there was to know about agriculture and plant life. She was a different kind of genius from her father and brother, possessing a peacefulness about her that none of the other Holts could ever hope for. It had been a comfort through the years of Katie’s adolescence.
Sitting underneath one of the few trees distributed across the Garrison grounds reminded Katie of her grandmother’s place in Italy, where the fruit trees spread as far as the horizon. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the sweet smells that rose from the vegetation.
“I wonder if they have lemon trees here,” she murmured to herself.
“I don’t think they do, Pidge.”
Katie lurched back in shock. She felt her shoulder scrape against the tree trunk and had to stretch out an arm to keep from falling. Lance sent her a carefree grin, bent down at the waist to look her in the eye, as he usually did. It irritated Katie to no end, not only for how condescending it was, but because it always put him too far into her personal bubble.
“What are you even doing here, Lance?” she asked once her heartrate had gone down.
“I saw you through a window and thought we could eat together, since Hunk is sick.” He looked pointedly at the half-eaten sandwich she’d tossed in her surprise. “I see you started without me.”
“Well, now I’ll have to buy something else for lunch, so thanks for that,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Don’t be like that, Pidgeon.” Lance poked her on the ribs. “I even brought you something as a bribe.” And then he extended an apple towards her.
Katie took it, trying to cover up her amusement with exasperation. “Do you think I’m obsessed with apples or something?”
“Next time I’ll bring you a lemon,” he teased.
Maybe it was because she felt more herself than she had in weeks, but Katie snickered at him. While his sanguinity could be exhausting, this time it was a welcome relief from the stagnation she’d fallen under.
Lance pulled out a sandwich from his pack, one of those 30 centimeters subs in Italian bread and multiple fixings, and Katie felt her mouth water at the sight. He must have noticed, because Lance chuckled and broke out one end for her.
“I think this is a palo verde,” he remarked after swallowing his first bite. At a confused look from Katie, he clarified, “the tree. You were talking about it before, right?”
“You speak Spanish?”
“Yeah…” He sounded like he was laughing at her. “I’m Cuban.”
Katie suddenly felt very stupid. He and Hunk had probably mentioned this already, but she didn’t pay them that much attention. It was a little embarrassing, especially when Lance seemed to be memorizing every small piece of information she offered him.
“Oh.” She searched for the right thing to say. “I didn’t know. Your last name sounds American.”
The whole situation left in her a sense of déjà vu. She couldn’t quite remember why, but the words pulled at her memory.
Thankfully, Lance took it in stride. “Our family has been to the US, then back to Cuba, then back to the US for generations. My whole name is actually Lance Serrano Mcclain.”
She nodded. Normally Katie would let the conversation drop and focus on finishing her meal, but she had already decided to take a bit of a break that day, in order to be more attentive at night. It couldn’t hurt to find out more about her teammate.
“So… Palo verde?”
“It means green stick, which seems kind of unfair, because this tree is actually pretty big, especially for the climate around here.” Lance fanned himself. “I hate how dry it gets.”
She almost agreed with him, but, as far as Lance and Hunk were concerned, Pidge Gunderson had no reason to have been outside of Arizona. Instead, she pretended to ponder his comment.
“The desert can be pretty unpredictable. The lack of humidity during the day is bad, but I wouldn’t want to be caught out when the temperatures drop.”
Lance faked a shiver. “Don’t even talk about that! I have too much tropical blood to handle the cold well. Hunk’s Samoan, by the way,” and there was unnecessary emphasis to his words here, “so he’s the same.”
“I didn’t realize both of you weren’t from around here.” Katie could imagine how much they missed their families. Choosing to voluntarily leave so that they could study at the Garrison must have been difficult.
“That’s nice to hear.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just…” He scrunched up his nose, as if he wanted to take back the words as he said them. “You were so cold to us when we first met, we weren’t sure what it was about.”
It was her turn to grimace. Katie hadn’t wanted to seem like so much of a jerk. She could be snappish and patronizing, even with those she loved, but her haughtiness towards her teammates had been a façade created to keep them out. Not that it did any good.
“Ugh, you’re already closed off, again.” Lance threw his head back in frustration. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s just personal, Lance.” Katie played with the apple in her hands. “I swear it’s not about you two.”
Without looking directly at him, she couldn’t tell what expression Lance was making. He stared at her, letting the silence extend.
Then he popped the last of the sub into his mouth, spreading back onto the grass.
“We will pester it out of you.” She turned to see him grinning. The confidence there was a quiet thing, so much different than Lance’s usual hyperboles and that much more effective. She felt dazed by it. “Eventually.”
Katie had never understood what the girls in her school meant when they talked about crushes. They always seemed frivolous, going on about someone’s hair or how handsome they were or how strong. Meanwhile, Katie had simply hoped for a friend, for a respite to the unending mocking.
Still, Lance suddenly looked very interesting under this light. His chin was too pointed to be considered attractive, but his blue eyes caught the sunshine like polished stone. He could be funny and thoughtful and inventive, attributes Katie hadn’t expected to value.
She moved her gaze to where another group of students was sitting, uncertain if the heat running up her neck would translate into a damning blush. She bit into the apple to keep from incriminating herself further.
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chickensarentcheap · 3 years
Text
Never Gonna Be Alone- Chapter 14
Warnings: possible body dysmorphia, mentions of past trauma and abuse
Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @alievans007, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @tragiclyhip​
Author’s Note: I have a serious case of extremely low self esteem (thanks anon hate!) and I can’t promise when the next chapter will be out. I’m hoping within the next few days. Fingers crossed!  So I’d post the one I was holding ‘hostage’. 
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“I’m not too sure about this, Des,” Esme grumbles from behind a change room door in Bloomingdales.
It’s the last stop of the afternoon before a well deserved lunch; highly praised Thai food at a restaurant near Rockefeller that Desi had to book weeks in advance. It’s been years since she’d been THAT engrossed in a shopping trip; her feet aching and her cheeks hurting from laughing so much and dozens of bags in her possession. For twelve years she’s been caught up in her role as a mother; putting her own needs and wants on the back burner in favour of always making sure the kids never went without. Even with a ridiculous amount of money in the bank, she’d never concentrated on herself; perfectly content with her quiet and unassuming life in Australia, living rather simply and not needing much more than shorts, t-shirts, a small selection of bathing suits and a handful of jeans. It feels strange to be out in something other than her normal and preferred attire; used to choosing comfort over actual style and doing little more than throwing her hair up into a ponytail or messy bun. It had been nice to experience all of that again and had found herself most missing those younger days. When she’d pass the time with hours of window shopping and mindless browsing; daydreaming about all of the designer clothes and shoes and handbags she’d one day purchase if she ever won the lottery. But back then, it had been just that: daydreaming. And she can’t help but feel slightly guilty for splurging and buying things just for the sake of having them; outfits she may likely never wear and will hang in the closet with their original price tags still attached.
It’s hard to break free of that line of thinking; easily remembering the hard times when there’d been hardly any food in the cupboards and there’d been real worry about whether the utilities would be shut off or not. When Millie was still growing inside of her and she’d been trying to adjust to her new life in a new country; living with a man she barely knew but she already was already falling madly and crazily in love with. Materialistic things have never truly mattered; never heartbroken when she couldn’t afford brand new clothes or when their little apartment was filled with mismatched second hand furniture. Despite the financial concerns, they’d been truly happy. Engrossed in a ‘honeymoon stage’ of unbridled passion and lust; finding themselves thoroughly exploring and enjoying one another’s bodies while getting to know each other. It hadn’t been the most conventional of lifestyles; two broken people finding solace and healing in one another in Dhaka, an unplanned pregnancy, and quick and hasty cohabitation. And there’d been hard times; little quirks and hangs up the other had that annoyed them, heated arguments over stupid things, lingering trauma and plenty of nightmares thanks to their harrowing experience in Bangladesh. But somehow they’d made it work; a temperamental and moody Australian and a feisty and over emotional American. Falling in love despite their often enormous differences and making something so beautiful and lasting out of almost nothing.
“I don't know if this dress is my thing,” she frets, and smooths her hands down the side of the ridiculously expensive dress. It’s far more than she’d ever imagined paying for a single piece of clothing; immediately checking the price tag and having a small coronary when Desi had shoved the garment in her direction. Money is of no concern; in a thousand lifetimes the personal bank account will never run dry, nor will there never be a steady flow of impressive income coming in. But it just isn’t who she is; a woman with her wardrobe filled with designer apparel, far more comfortable in sweats from Target and one of her husband’s ratty t-shirts. “I’m just not too sure about it.”
“What is there NOT to be sure about?” Her friend’s voice filters in from the waiting area. “It’s Herve Leger. One of his best pieces yet. And it’s fabulous and it will look even more fabulous on you.”
“It’s too short,” she laments, and tries in vain to pull the hem down closer to her knees. “I don’t have the legs for this.”
“You don’t need legs for days to slay in that dress. And Big E, I’ve seen you in shorts. I know you’ve got killer stems. You can definitely pull this off. You’re worrying over nothing.”
“But it’s too tight. Way too tight.”
Desi sighs in exasperation. “It’s supposed to be tight. It’s a bandage dress.”
“It shows my rolls.”
“Excuse you? WHAT roles? Like you have rolls. Bitch, please.”
“I’ve had seven kids. Believe me, I have rolls. I’m twenty pounds heavier than when I first met Tyler. Twenty-two, actually.”
“And does he give a shit? No. I bet he likes the curves. I don’t see him complaining. Or looking at other women. He only has eyes for you.”
“Most biased man on earth,” she mutters, and studies her form from all sides. Easily remembering what her body had looked like almost thirteen years ago; thin and toned and extremely fit. A far cry from the ‘softness’ she possesses now; dips and valleys and curves where none had ever existed before.
“Isn’t his opinion the only one that really matters? Doesn’t he find you a straight up hottie?”
“That is not the point. He could be just trying to spare my feelings, you know.”
Desi gives a derisive snort. “Isn’t he still tripping over himself trying to get into her pants every available chance he gets? Quit your bitching. You’ve got a beautiful man that worships at the temple of YOU. Now get out here and let me see you.”
“Rolls, Desi. I have rolls.”
“Bullshit. And even if you did, that dress is like a corset. All the different bands built in? They hold everything. And I doubt you have anything to hold in the first place. Don’t make me break down the door and drag you out here. I am not above creating a scene. You should know this by now.”
“Don’t you dare go full queen diva on me.”
“Oh, I will. I will kick that door in and drag your tiny ass on out here for the world to see. Desmond Brownell does not play games. He’s on a mission. And his mission is to see you in that Herve Leger. Don’t make me pull a mommy move. Don’t make me count to three.”
“I tend to go with five, but…”
“Five then. Don’t make me go that direction. Because it will not end well for you. Or me. There’ll be tears. And not on my part. And most likely security guards tossing us both out on our asses. So we do this either the easy way or the hard way. And believe me, you don’t want the hard way.”
Sighing heavily, she smooths down the back and sides of the dress and once more tries to pull the bottom closer to her knees. To no avail. It is so far out of her comfort zone; a woman that insists on always covering her bathing suit with a t-shirt and refuses to remove it. “I am going to sneak into your house at night and kill you in your sleep,” she declares, as she undoes the hook latch on the door and swings it open. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. Keep your eyes closed. Until I tell you to open them.”
“I can’t believe YOU don’t realize that you’re a bonafide MILF. Even if it’s not for you, how bad could it be?”
“Ever seen a sausage when you try and stuff too much into the casing?”
“Have you ever talked to a shrink? You do not look the way you think you look. What DO you see when you look in the damn mirror?”
“I see gray hair, wrinkles, and stretch marks. I see frumpy and plain and boring and just…” sighing, she steps into the middle of the waiting area and frowns at her reflection being cast in several different mirrors. “...old. I see old.”
“I think you’ve done lost your damn mind. Shred brains cell with every baby you had. Because you sure as hell don’t look old. Not even close. Can I look yet?”
“Do you want to be traumatized?”
“Do you WANT me to beat your ass? Tell on you? I’ll tell your hubby. Don’t underestimate me. Then both of us will get on your ass and then what?”
“He’s hardly a good judge. He’d tell me I look good in a garbage bag. He is proof that love IS blind.”
“He is proof that there’s good men out there. Good loyal, faithful men. That love every inch of their woman. Inside and out. You know how lucky you are? To have someone like that? Do you see anyone strong enough to drag him off? I’m sure he’s had plenty of opportunities.”
“If the thirsty housewives back home and the new neighbour had their way, he’d be getting all kinds of ass. All kinds of variety.”
“What new neighbour?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you over lunch. But yeah, he’s got a harem of women that would love for him to be tapping it.”
“But he loves tapping YOUR ass. And only your ass. Does he have a brother? Have I ever asked that? A gay brother by chance? Or a gay friend? Bi friend? Help me out here.”
“No brothers. No siblings at all. No gay friends. Not that I know of. But you know who WOULD have a gay friend? My sister in law.”
“I thought he didn’t have siblings?”
“Not Tyler. My sister’s wife. Shaena. She’d for sure have gay friends. And hot ones. You’ve met her.”
“Both her and your sister are fine as hell. I wouldn’t mind getting in the middle of THAT. Hook a brother up. Make it happen. I’ll be at your little Aussie Christmas. Score me a date for then. In the meantime, can I open my eyes now? Don’t leave a brother hanging.”
“As long as you promise you won’t laugh.”
“I am calling you a psychiatrist. You need help.”
“Fine,” she turns her back towards her friends, hands perched upon her hips. “ Look. But no smart ass comments and no laughing. My confidence can’t take it.”
“Your confidence needs a serious makeover. Now let me see.”
She watches through the mirror as his eyes flutter opening; slowly widening as far as they possibly can, followed by a dramatic collapse back into his seat and a hand placed over his heart.
“Fuck…” she grimaces. “...that bad?”
“That bad? That GOOD. Desmond Brownell approves. You look…” he gives two chef’s kisses. “...delicious. I’d bang you. And I have high standards.”
“I’ve seen some of your dates. Your standards are questionable at best.”
“You wound me, Big E. Mortally wound me. That…” he nods in her direction. “...was made for you. Your body is tighter and hotter than you obviously realize. Curves like a back road. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
“You don’t think it’s too much? Or should I say, too little? I am forty-one.”
“Who gives a shit? You look amazing.”
“I’ve had seven kids.”
“Especially amazing for someone that’s popped out that many crotch goblins. Sold. The dress is sold. This isn’t up for debate.”
“I can’t buy something like this. It’s just...not me.”
“It damn well is YOU. I’ll buy it for you. A little extra Christmas gift.”
“A thousand dollar dress is hardly a little Christmas gift. And it’s a little pricey, don’t you think? For fabric?”
“Honey, you really need to get out of Target and up your shopping game. I know how much money you all have, I know you can afford it. I know you could probably afford this whole store. And then some.”
“It isn’t about money. It’s about me. And being out of my comfort zone. I don’t dress like this. I live on the beach. In Australia. We wear shorts and tanks and never wear shoes. Where the hell would I wear this?”
“Date night.”
“Like we have places I could wear this to. I mean, I guess we could go to Cairns. I’ve seen women in some pretty expensive clothes there. I could always talk him into a weekend away. It wouldn’t be hard. And we are going to Santorini in April.”
“That’d be perfect for Santorini. Hell, just wear it in the house. In the bedroom. Just to spice things up a bit. I’m sure he doesn’t see you dressed up very often.”
“Try like never,” Esme laughs. “Okay, maybe that’s a lie. I DO wear makeup when we go out. And cute little sundresses.”
“What about when you got married?”
“I wore something off the clearance rack at a bridal store in Sydney. Cost a hundred bucks. It was nothing fancy.”
“But you wore a little tiara and veil and all that, right?”
“It wasn’t that kind of wedding. I was five months pregnant with Millie. It was a little wedding chapel. We had six guests. It wasn’t fancy.”
“E, you’ve been robbed. You need that bride moment. What about the first time?”
“Las Vegas. Even more casual. Zero out of five stars. Would not recommend.”
“Oh no, honey. No. That’s wrong. So wrong. You deserve so much better. You deserve a big day. You deserve to be a bride. A REAL bride. Poofy white dress, little bling in your hair, fancy little shoes…”
“Seven kids and I’m going to wear white? I think not.”
“I’m having a serious talk with that man of yours. Vow renewals are a thing you know.”
“He’s brought it up. A couple of times. Which is weird, because I never thought he’d ever think of something like that. This is Tyler we’re talking about. This is a man that can kill people with his bare hands. Who has his own brand of romance. Which I love, by the way. But it’s very odd he’d bring up something like that. Getting married again.”
“Maybe he wants to see you all done up. Looking like a bride.”
“Trust me, Des. Tyler doesn’t care about that stuff. That isn’t him.”
“Maybe he’s come to care about that stuff. Maybe he’s getting a softer side to him. Or, his soft side is getting even more soft.”
“Don’t ever tell him that. He’d kill YOU with his bare hands. Do you really think I should get this dress?”
“I think you’d be stupid not to. And you, are NOT a stupid woman. Treat yourself. You deserve it.”
“You know what? I do. I DO deserve it. And I think he’ll really like it. Maybe I’ll even give him a little sneak peek later. You know, to judge his reaction to it.”
“Oh I think I know what his reaction is going to be. Don’t wear any underwear. Just let him yank the dress up and have his way with you.”
“Maybe you know him better than I realize,” Esme laughs. “Fine. I’ll buy it. But if he hates it, I am totally throwing you under the bus.”
“Alright...alright…” Desi holds his hands up in surrender. “...I’ll take one for the team. Now get your little ass in there and get changed. This big man needs to eat.”
*****
“So this neighbour you mentioned,” Desi says, as he nods his appreciation at the hostess who seats them at their table, then gallantly pulls Esme’s chair out and waits for her to sit. “What’s that about?”
She rolls her eyes. “Natalie. She just moved in a few doors down. Her and her little girl.”
“Are you talking about the blond that has the goddamn gall to wear real fur?” Desi slides into the seat across from her. “The one that needs a chisel to take off her makeup at the end of the night?”
“That’s her. The one who looks like Sephora threw up on her face. Too bad you can’t apply makeup on the inside to make something more attractive. Because she is a real peach.”
“Bottle of your best house red,” Desi requests, and then flips open the leather bound menu placed in front of him. “How’d you meet her?”
“Well, it turns out she doesn’t just have the gall to wear real fur. She also has the gall to go after married men. And in this case, MY man.”
“Uh oh. Something tells me this didn’t end well.”
“I’m very protective of what’s mine. Maybe some people would call it possessive.”
“I definitely would call it that. Not that I blame you. I’d be the same way. Hell, I’d probably never let him leave the damn house.”
“I know what a good thing I have. I know how hot my husband is. I’ve seen him naked. Many times. What’s underneath? Even better than what’s on top. And what’s on top? That’s really damn good, know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean. And I’m just saying, I wouldn’t protest if you sent me nudes of him. Our little secret.”
“My husband IS hot. And he’s beautiful and he’s amazing and he’s this walking study in masculinity. But he’s just that. MY husband. I don’t share. With anyone.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve spent three years begging you just to let me cop a feel.”
“So I don’t appreciate some thirsty female from five doors down, honing in my territory. No one is pissing in my front yard. No one. And it’s not just that I’m possessive and there’s no way in hell I’m sharing great dick, but Tyler isn’t like that. He doesn’t do shit like that. He is a lot of things, but a cheater is not one of them. That is one thing I’ve never had to worry about. He is loyal. Fiercely loyal. And he’s had his chances. If he wanted to stray, he would have. Easily.”
“Never struck me as the type who would. He’s way too in love with you. Way too faithful. I see the way he looks at you. Stars and hearts in his eyes. He definitely thinks rainbows and butterflies fly out your ass. So this Natalie…”
“They met at the park. He took Tanner there; after their morning out. And this Natalie was there. Tyler made small talk. And small talk is even exaggerating. Tyler doesn’t do small talk. Any talk, for that matter.”
Desi nods in agreement. “Took me damn near a whole weekend just to get him to say two words. That voice though? Woody. Instant.”
“Well I guess Natalie took his small talk for something else entirely. Which I don’t get, because Tyler is civil, at best. He’s just not a people person. He tries. But you know what he’s like. How he comes across. He’s very rough around the edges and doesn’t take shit and doesn’t care for formalities. He’s a man of very few words. Whatever words he said, she read way too much into. She showed up at the house. Looking for him.”
Desi looks up from his menu, a scowl forming on his face. “She did not.”
“Oh, she very much did. And get this. She made him cookies.”
“What kind of cookies?”
Esme stares at him pointedly.
“I like details. I’m detail oriented. I can’t help it.”
“Oatmeal raisin.”
“The most traitorous cookie out of them all. For shame. I’m disappointed. If you want a man to climb in your bed, you don’t lead with oatmeal raisin. Please tell me your man don’t like that shit.”
“Rest assured, he hates them and your opinion and lust for him can stay intact. But you can believe that? She came calling on my husband. She brought him cookies. And I’m pretty sure if he’d been home, she would have offered him HER cookie.”
“Probably just as nasty as the ones she makes. Probably got cobwebs and dust bunnies and all that shit. Maybe even a barbed wire fence blocking the entrance. So what happened?”
“Well, she got the cold shoulder and snarkiness from Millie first.”
“That’s my girl.”
“And then I talked to her and she was bitchy and off hand and she’s lucky I didn’t throat punch her. She had all kinds of snarky things to say. About my name, about my appearance, about having so many kids. I let her know that I wasn’t having any of her shit. That I was onto her. I told her I didn’t know what kind of married men she was used to, but my husband isn’t one of them. That he wasn’t...and never would be...interested.”
“And?”
“And she left. We fed the cookies to the dogs. Or tried to. Even they didn’t like them. Man’s best friend, indeed.”
A waitress brings the wine; cheerfully introducing herself before taking their orders. Desi waits until she leaves before uncorking the bottle and filling both glasses. Offering a toast to a warm and safe Christmas holiday and the perks and perils of love and friendships. And they’re in the middle of sharing stories of his last trip to Australia -his encounters with the both the ‘friendly neighbourhood Aussies’ and the wildlife that so freely roams and enjoys their stretch of land- when her cell phone loudly vibrates within the confines of her purse. Had Tyler not been out with all of the children and it not been a common thing to often run into some kind of issues with handling so many bodies, she would have just ignored it. And she wishes she had; frowning at the number splashed across the screen and then dropping the phone back into her bag.
“Your mom again?”
Nodding, she takes a swallow of wine. “Third time already today. Only four or five more to go. Maybe she’ll even make it an even dozen before sundown.”
“Can she not read the signs? It’s quite obvious you don’t want to speak to her. What’s her issue?”
“It’s probably easier to ask ‘what isn’t her issue?’. There’s many. So very, very, VERY many.”
“I already know about what she was like you when were growing up. I’m surprised you turned out as normal and sane as you are. It’s more than that?”
“So much more, Des. Where do you want me to start?”
“Start with the biggest one. Or most recent.”
“She hates Tyler. With the passion of a thousand fiery suns. The seventh layer of hell? I don’t think that even burns as hot as her hate for him.”
“Why? He’s a good guy. Treats you right, loves his kids. Will fight like hell to protect what’s us. Die for it, even. What’s to hate?”
“So you know how Tyler and I met. The whole ‘pretend husband and wife’ thing.”
“Yeah, to find Ovi and save him. What about it?”
“Well you also know what happened. During those five days in Dhaka. Between Tyler and I. Believe me when I say that I’m not normally like that. Spend nearly a week banging a guy I barely know. Unprotected, at that. And at the risk of too much information, Tyler was only the third guy I’d ever been with. Sexually speaking. So what happened between us? Totally uncharacteristic for me. It was unconventional. How we met. But, it worked out. We wanted more. We wanted to get to know each other. See if we could make something out of nothing. And we did. We made a life. A beautiful life. And seven little human beings.”
“And she’s got a problem with that because…?”
“After what happened on the bridge, I decided to stay. At the hospital he was flown to in Mumbai. It was touch and go and he didn’t have anyone else and if he wasn’t going to make it, I didn’t want him to be alone. He deserved better than that. And a week later they brought him out of the medically induced coma and he was breathing on his own and he woke up and he was so happy to see me. You should have seen how he smiled at me, Des. He has a beautiful smile. But that? That smile he gave when he realized I was real and I was actually sitting there? By his bed? I had never seen anything like that and I’ve never seen anything like it since. He was happy and relieved and he wanted me there. He even said he was scared to close his eyes at night because he was afraid I wouldn’t be there when he woke up.”
“He was already head over heels for ya. Guess that was his way of telling you.”
“When the hospital said they were shipping him to another back in Australia, he asked if I would go with him. By then I was already invested. I mean, it was three weeks later and I’d already spent time helping him feed himself and getting him on his feet and to the bathroom and taking him to in-patient physio and all of that. I was already in love with him. Of course I was going to Australia. It was never in doubt.”
“And let me guess, it ruffled your mother’s feathers.”
Nodding, Esme takes a long sip of wine. “She wasn’t in control. Of me. And she couldn’t stand it. Neither she or my brothers no longer had in any say in how I was going to live my life. The Esme they knew? She died on that bridge. Or maybe she was left behind. I had a chance. To make a new life for myself. And I took it. I went to Australia and I decided that was where I wanted to be. I wanted to be with HIM. So I took what money we had and I got us an apartment and he put me in charge of handling everything; medical decisions, financial stuff. And then, I found out I was having Millie. Which, to be honest, wasn’t a huge surprise because what do you expect when you spend five days having totally unprotected sex? And I told Tyler and I gave him a choice. If he didn’t want me or the baby, I’d walk away and I’d go home and I’d never contact him again. I told him I didn’t expect anything from him. And I didn’t want him feeling obligated to me or the baby.”
“That must have went over well.”
“Well, needless to say, he wanted the baby. And me. So I stuck around. I was by his side through his whole hospital stay and through all the therapy and his stint in rehab and then we settled down in our new life. And we got married and had Millie. My family? They couldn’t stand it. They couldn’t accept it. They couldn’t accept HIM.”
“All because you decided to make a new life for yourself?”
“That was it. Tyler became public enemy number one. My mom convinced everyone that he stole me away. That he was manipulative and abusive and that I was scared to leave him.”
“Jesus Christ…”
“Right? Tyler is so far from manipulative or abusive. He lived that life. He was on the receiving end of that. And he’s tried his hardest not to walk in his father’s footsteps. And believe me, he’s nothing like his old man. Not in the slightest. But no matter how much or how hard I argue, she doesn’t listen to me. She sees him as this horrible person. That took her baby girl away. And when he had the nerve to stick up for me? Against her and my brothers? That made things worse! You think they would have been happy. I found this amazing man who’s totally in love with me; who sees past all my bullshit and my ugly parts. That should have been enough for them. A guy that’s made me the centre of his universe. Who makes me happy and who I love more than I ever thought I COULD love someone. Who helped me make seven incredible little human beings. Why isn’t any of that enough?”
“I don’t know,” Desi says. “I wish I did. I wish I had the answers. ALL the answers.”
“Yet they practically idolize Mark. It makes no sense. They knew what he was like. They knew he was abusive. And they enabled him. They gaslighted me just as much as he did. And I would have left a thousand times over had they not constantly pressured me into giving him another chance. Had they not convinced me that everything was my fault. My mom stayed friends with him. Right up until he died. What kind of sick person does that? Stays friends with their own kid’s abuser?”
“You hit the nail on the head. A sick one.”
“Constantly kissing his ass and making him out to be some kind of white knight yet having all this shit to say about Tyler. They hate him because he refuses to be like them. Because he stands up to them. Because for once, someone loves me enough to have my back. That’s it. That’s why they hate him. And the things they’ve said? Especially since finding out he’s a mercenary? Constantly wishing death on him? Saying him dying would be the best thing to happen to me and the kids? Who says things like that? I almost lost Addie because of her. I came back from Ireland because I found out I was pregnant and my mom got on her bullshit and I almost lost my baby. Tyler came all the way back just to make sure I was okay. He wouldn’t have done it if he’s even a fraction as evil as they claim he is.”
“You realize it that isn’t really about him, right? That it’s all them. Because they don’t have that control. Over you.”
“I thought it would be all over and done with when we kicked my brother to the curb. I thought once he and Tyler had it out and Tyler kicked the shit out of him, that would be it. That we’d never hear from any of them again. You know how peaceful it’s been? Five years of no phone calls, no text messages, no emails. Five years of pure bliss. And now this…” she nods down at the purse sitting in her lap. “...her on my ass every day, multiple times a day. Isn’t it enough that I acknowledge that the kids received their Christmas gifts? That I showed appreciation and I said they’d send thank you cards? You think that would be enough. Our lives have been so good. Quiet and happy and peaceful. And it’s like she knows that. It’s like she knows how good things are and just has to screw it all up.”
“Normally I say just ignore them. Just wash toxic people out of your life and keep them out of your life. But if she’s as determined as she is, it’s only going to get worse. She won’t stop trying to get a hold of you. And as hard as it’ll be to talk to her, that might be the only way to get her to stop. Let her know. Say ‘thanks, but no thanks’.”
“I can not allow her back into my life. OUR lives. I can’t allow any of them back in. I will NOT have my kids surrounded by that ugliness. I will not have people around them that talk shit about their father. Because you know what? I know he’s not perfect. I know he has his issues. He’s the first one to admit it. But he is an amazing dad and he is totally devoted to those kids and they love him beyond all comprehension. And I won’t allow people to talk about him like that. I won’t allow them to break my kids’ hearts…” her voice cracks with emotion, and she takes a swallow of wine to clear away the lump sitting square in her throat. “....I won’t let anyone talk about Tyler like that. He’s not a perfect man, but he’s a good man. And he loves me and he loves his kids. He saved me, Des. In every way a person can be saved. And I won’t let anyone disrespect him like that.”
“Tell them that. Tell them EXACTLY that.”
“I have. I have said it until I was practically blue in the face. They don’t care. They say I’m ‘defending my abuser’. In what alternate universe is he considered an abuser? He has never...ever...raised a hand to me. He’s always said he’d kill himself before he ever let things get that out of control. That he’d never be able to live with himself if he even thought about hurting me like that. And maybe in a way, I DO understand some of the way they think. He’s lived a hard life. A violent life. First the military, then as a mercenary. Yes, he’s killed people. With his bare hands. But he’s never done it because he wanted to. Or because he enjoyed it. He did it because he HAD to. Because it was either him or them. He is not a monster. Regardless of what they think. Or even he thinks sometimes.”
“You’ve never been scared of him?”
“Never. And you know what? If he WANTED to, he could do some serious damage to me. He could kill me. No question about it. But that thought has never, ever crossed my mind. I’ve never been afraid of him. Not even at his worst. When he went back to drinking all the time and abusing the pain meds and we fought constantly. And yeah, there were times he DID lose it. Where he put a fist through the wall or grabbed me trying to stop me from walking away or trying to calm me down and talk some sense into me. But I’ve never been scared of him. Because even at his worst, I knew he loved me. I knew none of his issues were about me. That was him and his brain and not knowing how to cope. And they just don’t get it. They think he’s somehow frightened me into sticking around. That he’s been forcing me to have children. Because it somehow keeps me around.”
“Sounds more like they have the issues. Not you guys.” Desi reaches for the bottle of wine, refilling both their glasses.
“We’re not perfect. And Lord knows we have had some really shitty times. Where we didn’t think we were going to make it. But you know what? We did. We fixed our shit and we made things work. We both busted our asses to change. And he still busts his ass every day to make up for all the bad. We work at it, Des. Every day we work at it. Because we love each other and we both know what it's like to be from a broken home. And we won’t do that to our kids. We won’t let them grow up like that. So we work at it. And it hasn’t been easy. But there’s been more great times than bad times.”
“You two are strong. What you got is strong. No one can deny that. I’ve seen it. With my own two eyes.”
“I will not let my family ruin us. They tried. And in Colorado, they almost succeeded. But we got away. We moved back home. Our REAL home. And we never looked back. I won’t let them destroy things for us. Not when we’ve worked so hard to get where we are.”
“You’re going to have to deal with her, Esme. She isn’t going to go away. Not from what I’ve seen.”
“And I will. I WILL talk to her. After Christmas. I just want to get through the holiday. I just want things to be happy and peaceful. Especially for the kids. I don’t want anyone ruining Christmas for them. Once it’s over and things calm down, I WILL talk to her. But right now? I can’t do it. I just can’t.”
“It’s all going to be alright,” Desi assures her, and reaches across the table to give her hand a comforting squeeze. “Everything’s going to work out.”
“Tyler isn’t perfect. He’s the first one to admit that. In the same way I’m not. But you know what? We’re perfect for each other. And in the end, that’s all that matters.”
*****
When she arrives home she finds the three littlest fast asleep; tightly snuggled together on the area rug in front of the Christmas tree and covered by the knitted throw usually draped over the back of the sofa. Saju and Mac nap close by; curled up together in front of the front of the fireplace and merely blinking their eyes in a form of acknowledging her presence. She can hear Millie and Alannah upstairs; giggling and chattering, their feet stomping overhead as they play a dance game on the XBox. The three oldest boys are out in the backyard; laughter drifting inside as they hide behind ‘fortress’ walls and lob snowballs at one another. It's rare to see the three of them enjoying time together. Tanner normally not comfortable with the more raucous play and choosing quiet time; up in his room reading a book or writing stories or building intricate lego scenes in front of the fireplace.
She stands in the sunroom and watches them; smiling at how jovial and lighthearted they are. Their faces bright and happy; no cares in the world aside from the balls of snow and ice being tossed in their direction. Despite everything they’d been through, they’re spirits so brilliant and bubbly, continuing to love the world and everyone in it. Tanner and TJ (along with Millie) are able to remember the more difficult times in Colorado and being whisked to Mumbai under false pretenses; told they were going on a family vacation only to be sent back to Australia without either parent and then told their father very well might never come home. They still talk about it from time to time; how scary it had been to be away from both mom AND dad and how worried they’d been when they thought their daddy may never make it back to them. They’re able to vividly recall visiting him in the hospital; the scars and bruises on his face that had been in various stages of healing, the sling keeping his badly wounded and surgically repaired shoulder in place, the ‘cage’ that had encased his right thigh, the tremendous amount of weight and muscle he had lost. It HAD been traumatic; more than two months without their father under the same roof and seeing him so wounded and vulnerable.
They’d needed their own therapy; the trauma manifesting itself through moments of rage and aggression and troubles sleeping at night. A child psychologist recommended to them by Doctor Klein had done them all a world of good; disguising therapy with music and play and helping them express their emotions and their fears. And within six months they were back to their old selves; grades climbing and their social skills improving, the rage and aggression diminishing. It still haunts them from time to time; a fear that returns whenever daddy has to leave home for work. But for the most part they’ve healed exceptionally well; full of energy and light and humour and possessing enormous amounts of compassion and empathy.
She finds Tyler in the main floor office; a central area of the main floor that had been the previous owner’s sewing and craft room. It’s close enough to keep an ear out for the kids; able to hear them both inside and out. And a security system enables him to keep an eye on any area of the house; live images cast back to the flat screen television mounted on the wall above the desk. Five years years ago she would have called him paranoid for insisting on such measures. Overprotective, even. But that was until someone had gotten close enough to Addie to steal a stuffed animal right out of her crib. Had the culprit wanted her, she would have been long gone in the middle of the night. And they most likely never would have seen her again. The terror of that night is still very real; the thought of someone reaching across her tiny body to take something so simple in the course of sending a very clear message.
After that, Esme had vowed to never call him paranoid or overprotective again. Evil had gotten too close. WAY too close. And she now understands his fierce and rabid determination to do whatever it takes to keep his family safe.
She watches him from the doorway; intently working at the computer. Admiring the glasses perched upon his face and the lines of his profile; the strong, stubbled jaw and the curve of his lips and the bump in the bridge of his nose. The scars that had long ago become part of him. Marring the left side of his forehead and by his left eye; old wounds that he’d possessed when they’d first met. A handful of others have been added since then. The edge of a metal shovel cutting wide and deep; the scar travelling from the very corner of his right eye and up his forehead and snaking up into his hairline. And the ones left behind from Nathan. The one above his eyebrow thin and faint, the one below his eye much wider and jagged and stretching all the way to his temple. That one had been the worst; deep enough for the knife blade to hit bone and cause irreparable damage to nerves and muscle. And while most would see them as blemishes and flaws, she sees it as adding to his beauty; souvenirs of not only a hard and dangerous life, but of survival.
“Hey,” she greets as she wanders into the room. “What’cha doing, handsome?”
“Just some shit that came up. I would have ignored it, but…”
She stands at the back of his chair. Fingers and thumbs rubbing at tense shoulder muscles before wrapping both arms around his neck; leaning over him and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, followed by his temple. “Everything alright?”
“Koen ran into some issues. On the job he took. Not going as smooth as we’d hoped it would. Just had to send him some extra cash. And put him in contact with someone who could get him some extra gear.”
“He’s alright though? He’s not in any trouble?”
“He’s fine. Nothing he can’t handle. I know I said I wouldn’t bother with work stuff until we go back home, but…”
“Sometimes it can’t be helped. It’s the nature of the beast. It isn't the most predictable of careers. I’m glad to see you survived your day out with the spawn. Is your sanity still intact?”
“What was left of it. I don’t know how much I had to begin with.”
“I also noticed all seven AND Alannah made it back. Success.”
“They were good. No trouble. They all behaved themselves. Shockingly.”
“Your feral offspring all behaving at once? Hell must have frozen over.”
He gives a small chuckle, then turns his face into her and presses a chaste kiss to her lips. A frown tugging at the corners of his mouth as he pulls back to look at her.
“What’s that look for?”
“Why do you still have your hat on? It’s fucking boiling in here.”
“It’s part of my surprise. I have something to show you.”
“Yeah?” A slow grin begins to spread across his face. “I’ve already seen you naked. Many times. Not that it’s not awesome each time it happens. I’m not complaining.”
“As much as I’d love to just drop my clothes right here and rock your world, it’s something else. I did something. While I was out.”
“New ink?”
“Nope.”
“You got something pierced, didn’t you. Something naughty. Something very naughty.”
“You wish. Those days are long behind me. But it is a surprise. And I want you to promise you won’t freak out. When you see it.”
“How bad is it? Usually when you tell me not to freak out, it’s pretty fucking bad.”
“It’s not bad. It’s just...surprising. You ready?”
“Is it a good thing I’m already sitting down?”
“It’s probably for the best. Turn your chair towards me and close your eyes.”
“Esme…”
“Tyler…”
“What the hell have you done?”
“Just do it. Humour me. Please.”
“Fine.” Turning his back towards the computer, he closes his eyes. “This isn’t where you tell me you want to try pegging is it? Because I thought I’ve already made it perfectly clear that there is no fucking chance of that happening. EVER.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s nothing sexual. Get your mind out the gutter, sheesh.”
“I’m sorry, have we met? It permanently lives in the gutter.”
“Never mind viagra. Maybe they can give you something to calm your dick down.”
“You’d miss it. Don’t deny it. It would hurt you just as much as it would hurt me. Are we going to do this surprise sometime today or…?”
Removing the knit beanie from her head, she tosses it out the desk and then runs her fingers through her hair. She feels naked and exposed; the dark tresses that had once reached the middle of her back now shorn and styled into a side parted, sleek bob that skims her earlobes. “Promise you won’t freak out.”
“I promise I won’t lose my shit.”
“Okay...open them...but remember, no freaking out.”
“I don’t know what the big deal is. If it’s nothing dirty or kinky or piercing of some kind…” His eyes flutter open, then slowly widen as the reality of what’s before him sets in.
“You hate it don’t you.”
“I don’t hate it. I just...wow...that’s...NOT what I was expecting.”
“You do, don’t you. Hate it. I knew you would. You always hate when I do something with my hair. Like when I decided to get bangs.”
“In all fairness, I didn’t hate them. I just wasn’t a fan.”
“But you HATE this? This haircut. You hate it being so short, don’t you.”
“Actually…” he slides the chair closer to her and lays his hands on her hips. “...I love it.”
“Yeah?” A smile replaces the nervous frown. “Really?”
“Really. I wouldn’t lie to you, Me. That’s not who I am. Not anymore, anyway.”
“You sure you like it? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”
“I think you look beautiful. It suits you. You got this cute, tiny little face. Your hair shows it off. I really do love it. You look amazing.”
Placing her hands on the sides of his face, she leans down to kiss him. “It was time for a change. Something different. Something I didn’t have to spend hours on when we go out. You’re sure? One hundred percent? You really do love it?”
“I do. You look beautiful.” Laying a palm on the back of her head, he pulls her down into a kiss. And she laughs into his mouth when his free hand latches onto her hip and she loses her balance and topples into him. “You’re beautiful, Me. Always.”
“I really was worried you wouldn’t like it,” she says, as she settles herself sideways on his thighs. “So you’ve made my day. My year, actually.”
“It suits you. You look amazing, baby. I wouldn’t lie about that.”
“Speaking of making my year, I’m about to make yours.”
“We’re talking about butt stuff, aren’t we.”
“No!” she laughs, and playfully tousles his hair. “I mean, maybe later. When the kids are out.”
“Where are they going? You banishing them to the backyard?”
“Desi offered to take them.”
“All of them?”
“Every last one. Even Alannah. He’s going to take them out for dinner and to Central Park. To see Santa and the reindeer. Maybe do some skating. And then, he’s going to take them to his place. They’re going to have a camp out. In the living room.”
“So we get the house to ourselves? All night?”
“All night,” she confirms. “And well into the morning. You know what that means?”
“Butt stuff.”
She sighs in exasperation. “I means you don’t have to wait until New Years Eve for wild and crazy AND noisy sex with your wife.”
“We might have to tone down the noise. The kids will be right next door. They could still hear us.”
“That’s a fair point. So noisy is out. But wild and crazy are definitely in.”
Tyler grins. “I can do wild and crazy.”
“Oh, I know you can. You’re a master at it. A master at anything sexual, now that I think about it. Man, did I ever luck out. Landing you.”
“I don’t know, I think I’m the lucky one. Girl like you putting up with my shit? You’re one in a million, babe. No doubt about it.”
“I love you,” she says, pressing a kiss to his ear and then nuzzling his temple with the tip of her nose. “More than you could ever know. And thank you. For being you. And for loving me the way you do.”
Smiling, he turns his face into hers and places his lips to her brow; a hand coming up to comb through her hair, palm settling on the nape of her neck. “You’ve made it pretty damn easy.”
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peterstanslizzie · 3 years
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Re-watching Lizzie Mcguire: Episode 2.8 (Inner Beauty)
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Miranda and Lizzie making detention fun
- Gordo wants to expand his filmmaking repertoire and so, he wants to shoot his own music video for the song, ‘Us Against The World’ by Play, starring his best friends, Lizzie and Miranda whom are both practicing their dance moves in Lizzie’s living room:
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“Britney, Britney, Janet and J Lo” vs “ Brtiney, Janet, Janet...”
- The both of them then take a snack break to which Gordo get all concerned about because he thinks they’re not taking his new venture seriously. Relax Gordo, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break lol. 
- In school the next day, we see Miranda being upset about getting a B on a recent Science test. She basically feels like she’s coming up short, which I can totally relate. 
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- To make matters worse, she now thinks she’s fat after looking at the stills Gordo took of them from rehearsals the other day. It’s sad to see her nitpick every single body part on that photo. Anyways, it’s pretty clear what direction this episode is going to take and what issues that are going to be tackled, which are body dysmorphia and eating disorders. I definitely have my own personal opinions regarding how Miranda’s storyline was handled in this episode but I’ll save it for the ‘Overall Thoughts’ section. 
- Lizzie and Gordo are clearly shocked to hear how negatively Miranda views herself and she also declares to them that she’s going on a diet. 
Crash Diet Woes
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- At lunch, Gordo notices that Miranda isn’t having anything to eat. Miranda gives the excuse that she had a very heavy breakfast in the morning. Even after Lizzie tries to offer her some of her own lunch, she strangely acts like she just got a paper cut and has to go to the bathroom to run her finger over cold water. Girl, we know you’re not a good actress...stop it! 
- After leaving in a hurry, both Lizzie and Gordo are even more concerned now because it’s obvious that Miranda is forcing herself to go on a strict diet. Lizzie even points out that Miranda is not that kind of person to starve herself like that.  
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-  After school, Lizzie and Miranda are going through another practice session and this time around, they’re showing their moves in front of Lizzie’s mom, Jo. Jo is super impressed with the girls and asks Gordo if she can be in his MV (music video) too. but he kind of indirectly shot her down lol. But worst of all, she was trying to act all cool despite being disappointed about being turned down:
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Her face here definitely does not read “I’m kidding” lmao
- Anyways, throughout the rehearsal, it’s very apparent that Miranda is starting to feel woozy based on her facial expressions. Despite this, she still insists that she and Lizzie continue practicing. Big mistake here because a few seconds into their next run-through, she becomes lightheaded and drops to the floor. They all rush over to help her up and they ask her what’s up. Miranda lies again and says she had a really heavy lunch when she definitely did not. Lizzie is definitely concerned about her best friend’s wellbeing. 
Defensive Miranda
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- Some time after Miranda’s fainting spell, Lizzie and Gordo are discussing what they should say or do with regards to Miranda’s problem. Well, it’s mostly Gordo who’s talking because he’s not giving Lizzie any chance to give her two cents. But I got to say this; It’s unfortunate that Gordo thinks that just because Miranda is a girl, he feels like he can’t talk to her about the issues she’s facing with her body image. As her best friend, I feel like he should at least hear out what's going through her mind. But again, I need to remember that Gordo is just a teenage boy and he can’t help but to feel awkward in this type of circumstance.
-  Next, we see Lizzie at the mall with Miranda to shop for new outfits for their upcoming MV shoot. As I’ve predicted, Miranda feels dejected going through the rack of clothes she thinks she won’t look good in. Lizzie tries putting things into perspective with Miranda but she just gives off this nasty and defensive attitude towards Lizzie.
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Again, what’s with the attitude?
- Lizzie decides to come clean and be honest with her best friend by saying that she’s making a bad decision by going on all these crazy fasts. I generally feel like what Lizzie said to Miranda was appropriate, especially after reminding her that they’re best friends and she should feel comfortable being able to open up to her. 
- Miranda is just not having it with Lizzie and says something really passive aggressive and in the end, she just storms off. I feel like being Miranda’s friend is exhausting at times. 
- At home, Lizzie is feeling down about what just happened and she explains to her mom about the problems she’s facing without revealing Miranda’s identity. Poor Jo first thought that her own daughter was the one with body image issues. Also, who is Lizzie fooling when she tells Jo that she’s talking about a friend? It’s pretty clear that this friend she’s referring to is Miranda lol. Well, at least to me it would have been obvious.
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-  Well, Jo is just as shocked to find out that the person is actually Miranda and she freaks out about it some more after connecting this to the fainting incident in their living room a few days ago. Luckily, she calms down and tells Lizzie that if the situation doesn’t improve in a few days, she will have a sit down with  both Miranda herself and with Miranda’s mom. Daniela. 
Opening Up
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- It’s the day of the actual music video shoot and Miranda surprisingly shows up. Gordo tries apologizing to her for the comment he made about her eating too much but Ms. Sanchez is still upset at him for who knows why. Lizzie then steps in and apologizes to her for butting into her life and her issues at the mall.  But she also tells her that she’s very concerned about her wellbeing and it’s actually scaring her. Aww poor baby.
- In my opinion, I feel like Lizzie doesn’t have to explain her concern over Miranda. I think it’s very obvious that Lizzie only has good intentions. But I guess sometimes it’s good to break it down to the other person who is going through the motions. Fortunately for all three of them, Miranda opens up to them about all the issues she’s facing at school and the pressure she feels coming from her parents regarding what she wants to do in the future. 
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- Because of the overwhelming pressure she’s facing, she feels like she needs something in her life that she is able control, which are her eating habits. I think this is a very common feeling to have amongst people who suffer from eating disorders or body dysmorphia. And I like how Miranda explains that it’s something that she really feels deep within even though it doesn’t make sense on paper. It’s just how our brain works really. 
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I wonder if that look Miranda is giving to Gordo is a good one or a bad one lol
- Lizzie explains to Miranda that she relates to her struggles as well because she too, feels pressure to fit in. Even Gordo shares the same feeling for being non-muscular and probably short lol. She then reassures Miranda that being her best friends means that they will support her through this no matter what.  And  in the end, Miranda thanks them for having her back. I'm glad she came around lol.
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Rock those flips Hilary!
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The teacher definitely has some moves of his own too!
- The episode ends with our favorite trio watching the fully-shot iconic MV of Miranda and Lizzie dancing incredibly and looking amazing together at the same time. But most importantly, they look healthy and happy.
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Miranda is definitely feeling herself in this music video
B-Plot: Matt’s 5687th Career, An Artist 
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The resemblance is uncanny
- In this episode, Matt’s storyline centers around him being an artist, to which his school apparently thinks he’s a very talented one at that. They notify Jo about his ‘newfound talent’ and she wants to nurture that in him. I can already tell this whole plot is going to be campy. At least Sam is questioning this whole thing:
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“Sensitive? Matt eats mud!”. ICONIC
-  We then see Matt creating a portrait of Lanny in the backyard using the splatter paint technique, if I’m not mistaken. As expected, he makes a mess outside because he got his paint all over the patio, the plants and even Lanny himself. I don’t get why Jo is encouraging this given all the shenanigans he  pursued in majority of the past episodes. But most of all, I wonder who is the teacher at his school who thinks he has this talent? I could be wrong though; He might actually have a gift....
- Later, they decide to take Matt’s work outside and both Matt and Lanny are now going through pieces of junk outside to see what can be used for his next masterpiece. I smell disaster in the horizons for sure.
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- And I was right! The Mcguire home is ridden with all the trash Matt and Lanny brought home with them from the junkyard.  Jo and Sam sees this and they are just shocked. But I’m very surprised to see that Jo is still trying to encourage Matt. I thought she would put her foot down by now. 
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OK. This should be the trigger lol
- Matt pretty much butchered poor Sam’s car. Jo finally sees that Matt has crossed the line (when she should have reeled him in days ago) and tells him to stick to creating art on paper. This boy needs to be restricted, which come to think of it...it’s not really an appropriate word to use given the main storyline of this episode but I’ll just leave it at that lol.
Overall Thoughts
- I feel like this is the first episode of Lizzie Mcguire so far that dealt with a very serious topic, apart from maybe the bullying situation Matt was facing in the season 1 episode, ‘Sibling Bonds’. Episodes like this one really stood out to me over the years till today because it was mainly on an issue a main character was facing both physically and internally.  And it had nothing to do with relationship drama or girl drama. So naturally, the episode was very memorable.
- In terms of the execution of Miranda’s eating disorder storyline, I had issues with it but I also have some positives to say. Let’s start with the negatives; I just feel like the show kind of made it seem that Miranda’s body image issues went away within a week of it popping up. You can see by the end, Miranda was happy with how she looked in the music video. In fact, she was even praising herself. And that’s just not the reality of most people’s struggles with ED and body dysmorphia. These things just don’t go away so quickly. That being said, I definitely don’t think Miranda had an eating disorder based on what I’ve seen in this episode. But because things are shown through the lens of a children’s TV show camera, things might not appear to be so clear cut. 
- But I could view them having showed the viewers that Lizzie and Gordo having Miranda’s back no matter what means that they will continue to be there for her in case the issues she’s facing do come back. Moreover, I wish that the show would’ve added a separate conversation between Miranda and her mom or at least show Jo talking to Miranda because I think including adults in this would add more seriousness to the situation. Again, this is a TV show that is targeted towards kids and young preteens. So, there’s bound to be some problems here and there. 
- As for the positives, I recall myself pointing out earlier in this review that Gordo should feel like he should be able to talk to Miranda about her issues. And so, I’m very glad that he was included in the scene by the school staircase with Miranda and Lizzie. If it were just the two girls, I would honestly be upset because Gordo is supposed to be Miranda’s best friend too and differences in gender shouldn’t dictate the conversations best friends should have with one another. So, that made me feel really glad.
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self-loathing-boi · 4 years
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10 things I hate about ED’s
1. They’re so hard to hide, you get so isolated. You stop going out for lunch with friends you stop going on nights out bc it involves a meal and high calorie alcohol you miss your friends but you avoid them at all costs. You never realise how much humans revolve their lives around eating and using it as their main way of socialising until it’s 3am and your drinking the last bit of Diet Coke and water.
2. When you eat you want to do it alone so you can cry after, or like me excessively weigh yourself praying that the numbers aren’t higher but sadly for you when you eat you HAVE to do it infront of a family member to prove to someone that you’ve eaten and not be upset about it until you’re alone.
3. Constantly hearing ‘you don’t need to lose weight’ ‘you’d look weird skinny’ ‘you’re just big boned’ ‘it’s puppy fat it’ll go away by itself’ -that shit is easy to say when you’re already happy with your weight and how your mental relationship is with food, you’re not helping!!!
4. The fear of telling someone and passing it on like a contagious disease. Letting people in for your sake sometimes is selfish, I mistakenly have and dragged people into my disgusting behaviours. It’s not a competition but when you have an ED that’s your ED’s choice, not yours.
5. One of the hardest things is when you’re doing really well and the numbers are going down and you don’t feel that weak you see the worry on your mums face the pale sheepish look when she sees Youre too busy and won’t be in for dinner again, how You don’t have something when You arehome bc my diet says not to eat after 7pm and my boyfriend buying all my favourite junk food and quickly throwing away bits when I can so I don’t eat it. The worry that they’re going to straight out confront you some day.
6. Body dysmorphia. I can’t see my body the way other people see it. I understand that you can never truly actually see something from someone else’s perception 100% everyone is different how they interpret and see things is completely up to how their minds work. I know that. But the feeling of being scared or feeling nauseous when you know you’ll have to look at your own body from as simple as getting out the shower and lookinh in the mirror to something like family photos, doing your makeup, seeing your reflection outside, Shopping with your friends and not letting them see anything you try on, not letting them see you have a panic attack st your own relfection. Body dysmorphia is the worst, it’s not eating for days and feeling like you gained weight when you walk past a something that you see yourself in.
7. I can’t stress this enough but the isolation is by far the worst part, you want to feel special and included but somehow you always make yourself think food will affect it and if you don’t plan to get better you don’t plan to tell anyone and cut yourself off. You lose so many friends when you’re already feeling alone and you create distructive cycles of behaviour that change you forever and the way you think, just the way you treat yourself
8. How dangerous it is, it’s so bad for your body by now I’ve acquired enough information about food technology and nutrition that I genuinely believe I could be an amateur nutritionalist or dietician. Most of the time I can calculate exactly how much calories are on my place by lookinh at it and tell you where most of the calories come from from each part of food and their components, I know that bulimia is pointless because the tongue absorbs most of your calories that you’re trying to spew up, that laxatives destroy your insides, that everything is temporary. Knowing just how incredibly important it is to eat but still not loving yourself enough to do it, no one can eat for you, no one can do this for you, you have to do it.
9. Trying to recover. Trying to unlearn something is so much harder to learn something. It takes 3 weeks to add something to your routine, to make it a ‘habit’ so when you do something like this for 3 years sadly you don’t unlearn it in three weeks. Sometimes you’ll be fine and other times everything is too much. Emotions and mental states are like waves sometimes it’s calm but there’s so much hidden under the water the currents that sweep anything nice away and genuinely just so hard to treat yourself with enough respect to look after yourself after hating yourself for a long time is so so difficult but I can only imagine its worth it when you finally find happiness
10. The worst thing about ED’s is how much I love it. I love that I only feel good when I’ve faster for over 24 hours. I love when I stand up and I go into a different universe for a second because low iron. When I find an old piece of clothing i never used to fit but now do. When I hear someone say I look like I’ve lost weight. When my clothes become baggier. That getting better seems pointless despite all I know, I feel like I’m part of it, not it being a part of me That when I started smoking bc of it I thought ‘whatever kills you quicker’ that I hate myself so much that I don’t deserve to get better and be loved until this disease tells me so I hate that I’m part of it, it’s not part of me
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murmeringox · 4 years
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Making it Divine
Gender dysphoria. Body dysmorphia. These are terms thrown around in the trans community, on the internet, by friends. But what is it? Gender dysphoria is defined by Wikipedia, bastion of common knowledge, as “the distress a person feels due to a mismatch between their gender identity and their sex assigned at birth.” But what does this look like? What does it feel like? Who is gender dysphoria, and how do I know if we’ve met?
Conceivably, gender is the interaction between the human soul, the essence of a person, and their physical body, the body with which they can move about and interact with the world. You may not believe that the soul exists apart from the body, though I do. Perhaps then, this definition will not fit you, your experience. I think that’s fine. I can only speak from what I know, how I walk through the world. The soul, then, would in some sense be genderless. How can the essence of a person have a gender? Every society creates their own gender roles, their own performance of humanity to which people can subscribe or not, and every society is so wondrously different. If we all come from the same source, then who we are must grow from that interaction between the essence of our humanity, that spark of commonality, and the body and space in which we grow up.
That body, then, though it can be betrayal, is still intimately important. Even if we ultimately must modify it for it to be the home to house our personhood, that gap between who we are and what is ascribed to us, perhaps that is gender dysphoria.
I remember, before my body changed and left my personhood behind, or perhaps a better way of thinking about it is, in the time before my body got out ahead of me, when I was a child, no one could tell my gender. Most, upon seeing me, thought I was a boy. I knew this was wrong, and was vehement in my rejection of it, to the point that at 7 my parents got me a shirt that said, “yes I’m a girl, and yes I could kick your butt.” I loved that shirt. It spoke of my strength, and it used a bad word. Although I also remember some secret part of me falling at “girl.” I remember fighting boys in pre-K to prove that I could, that I wasn’t weak. I remember when I suddenly…had breasts. I don’t remember when they grew, although I do remember being taught to hate my body. A teacher calling me smelly, annoying, bad. A body that was changing, becoming abysmal, at the same time I was beginning to doubt myself on a fundamental level, to doubt my knowledge of who I was because my body was disagreeing with me so loudly.
And the only coping mechanism I knew of was eating. Eat my way to happiness, coasting high on the serotonin of processed sugar stuffed into my mouth when no one was looking. Climbing a chair to secretly eat years-old candy canes no one remembered, because it was the only thing in the house. I needed it. To feel good. To feel anything but hate. And as my chest grew, I grew too, hiding a womanhood I never wanted, never should have had, seeking control over my body the only way I knew how. And then later, many years later, when I was fearful and in a different place, far from home, doing the opposite. Starving myself, seeking control in the only way I ever could over this body: through food.
But I still wasn’t aware of the gap. Couldn’t see it. Didn’t realize it was there. Not in my first year of high school, when I changed my name to SJ. To be cooler. (to have a less gendered name.) Not in my last year of high school, when I got a breast reduction. Because of my back pain. (to have smaller breasts, to hide them.) Not when I came out to myself as nonbinary my second year of college, but didn’t really tell anyone and didn’t change my pronouns. (it’s easier this way - no one really has to know.) Not when I came out to my family. (well, nothing really has to change.) Not when I wanted to start using they/them pronouns. (well, a little change). Not when I held my chest in everyday to see what I would look like without breasts at all. (but I don’t need a binder – that’s too far.) Until one day, it wasn’t. And I knew I needed surgery, I needed to regain control of this body that had grown and held me lovingly, but ultimately was not enough to hold my humanity, my essence. Or rather to be the right reflection of who I am, to be the person I see walking through the world, though it was already perfect.
I didn’t know. I didn’t have the words for the hatred I felt, for why I hid my chest. Fpr the gap between who I am and the form I have now. Why I feel uncomfortable giving hugs, feeling my breasts pressed against me. Or wearing swimsuits. Or feeling my chest move when I run. Or jump. Or do anything goofy. Why I don’t want to participate in sports, though I love them, because my body feels weak, with a moving chest that I am always absurdly aware of, that holds me back without my even knowing why or how. For the way I sit hunched over, hiding them. For the clothes I pick, and what I feel confident in. For my favorite part of my chest being the flat place between my breasts, where I can feel my ribs, where I can pretend it is flat all the way across. For the way I hate my lovers touching my breasts, and the way I pretend I don’t because I think I should.
I didn’t know that this IS the gap, made manifest in my bones and in my flesh. Not in my mind or in my soul, those pieces of me that know who I am without words, knowing beyond understanding, past my own mind, into my deepest part. No, this gap between who I am and the body that holds me is in that body itself. That beautiful body, which does so much. So much more than it means to, I think. A programming that no mind strength can overcome, a natural process, that perhaps, if gender is a society writing on a body, would not bother me in another place and time. That perhaps didn’t bother me in another place and time. But which does bother me. Every time I move, see myself, silence myself when I want to be loud, still myself when I want to run and bounce the gap is made manifest. That gap between my self and my body, which sits boldly on my chest.
I am not a man. And frankly, I have no interest in it, though men are wonderful creatures. But neither am I a woman, despite what a stranger looking at me might think. Even as a child, I knew that word was not the right fit for me. My father, who saw my self-hatred and mistook its roots, would always try to gender me, push me lovingly into the safe boxes society had built for him, worried that I was flailing because I was weird, but perhaps could be fixed with his understandings. “You’re turning into a beautiful, young woman.” “You’re almost a young woman.” “What a brilliant, young woman you are.” I remember resisting, saying I am not a young woman. I don’t want to be a young woman. He would smile, or frown, or get angry. He thought he understood. He did not. “But you are.” Beyond my control, a body assigned to me and a gender that came with it, and who I was didn’t matter beyond the form I had.
He was wrong. He didn’t mean to be cruel, confirming something about myself by which I was trapped, that I hated and because I didn’t know why I hated, turned that hatred inward. He would never try to hurt me, I know that. My body remembers though, that he did.
My mother, for her part, viewed this choice, to reject my breasts, as to reject motherhood. “So, you won’t be a mother,” she said when I told her. She doesn’t remember this now, claims that I “heard her say that” because that’s “what I thought she meant.”Because though she said it, it’s not what she meant. But she said it. I remember. My bones do too. I do not reject parenthood, motherhood, fatherhood. I want to raise children. Or perhaps not, if the world ends, but either way these ruined breasts of mine would not give up milk. And they are mine, not my children’s. She would never try to hurt me, I know that.
My sister views it as…perplexing. Confusing. Beyond comprehension. She cannot fathom a life without breasts. But she is, of course, a woman.
As for my brother, I do not know what he thinks.
For me, this is crossing that gap, building a bridge across my personhood, is a movement towards myself, a hand extended to me. If my body is a house it is haunted by the ghost of a young girl and the ghost of a young boy. And the girl is loud, and must constantly come out to greet the guests, and be beat by the world for being so obnoxious. She doesn’t want to be the first one out the door. The young man, he is quiet. He wants to step forward, but no one ever sees him. He is golden, and silent. This is my way of opening the door to him as well, inviting him out into the light, to dance, and be merry with those who visit the house.
To be comfortable, and see my essence reflected in my body, reflected by my world. So that when I am called she, my body does not against my will confirm a title I did not earn and did not want. So that my bones will know, as my heart and mind do, of who I am and who I always was. So that together this skin and flesh of mine can rewrite stories and memories, bring that boyish light out of my childhood and into my present, for that little tomboy, a type of neither boy nor girl, can come back out and play. And play in boy’s clothes and girl’s clothes, my clothes, without confirming anything about me but that I occupy space between. A sacred space. For what is beyond humanity, what is the sacred, but beings beyond gender, a creature that being neither man nor woman, and understanding neither of what one is, is able to be themselves completely and wonderfully? And those beings too, upon seeing the tools which they were given, recognizing that this gift was given in error, and in occupying their place as men and women, refine that space, redesign it, make it more and greater, make it sacred. Those who intimately understand gender, in a way I cannot and never have, and become their highest selves, in beauty. What are trans people, but a taking of this construct called gender and making it divine?
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all-of-your-mercy · 4 years
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Despite treating my blog as a way to freely express and provide personal perspectives of how I portray specific ideas / items ( that usually fall into something that's related to me ) and often have a negative undertone around them
I do truly aim to recover from past things that lead to me with such ideas / perspectives, and I do truly aim to develop new forms of thinking that lean into a more positive outlook.
Honestly? It's always been too fucking hard. You'd think I could just be 3 steps into something that's getting better, then I get FUCKED with intensive forms of emotions ( and they are never good to begin with ) and I fall back -100 steps and back to the amateur level at handling things.
I hate not having remote opportunities for resources to get better, I hate the possibility of being seen vulnerable in the eyes of my relatives or anyone close to me because I see the lack of positivity / mental stability as failure.
I have close people, yeah, I could always talk to them. But I hate It, you know? Everyone has some sort of issue and I hate being a part of someone's build up of bad events(TM) because now they know someone who's going through something pretty fucking intense. It could make them think that their feelings are lesser to what they are going through now, or have them believe that they are incapable of help, just because one's mind is just too stubborn for rational thinking or remote stability and their advice ends up unheard by the stubborn mind.
I can't help it, but I hate expressing anything to anyone / anything. I loathe the concept of journals, I loathe the idea of sharing my mind because I already have a low circle of who I can really express to. They are individuals with their own issues; to begin with.
I hate the fact that past events, past encounters of people made me escalate to having some sort of inferiority and superiority complex altogether. I always see myself lesser than anyone, yet GOD forbid I don't aim to be overly better to fill some fucking temporary ego gauge; that probably even exists because that's how I evolved my acceptance to anything remotely good said about me, going too far with It because I've had the good words so rare for me, that I have to put remote shit like this to a high pedestal and treat it as a reason that "hey! I'm not as bad as you think! someone said I'm nice to them!". Meanwhile people are supposed to be half and half on the "goodness" level.
I can't help to strive so hard to be seen as a good person, so at least I can see others perspectives about me, that aren't just pure hatred compared to how I have it for myself.
I feel like THIS is the reason why I'm simply prone to losing connections / relationships / etc. It's my die hard strive to be seen as SO good, that when I'm at my worse -- My dysfunctions, my TENDENCY to isolate myself heavily and rid of people during my MOST vulnerable status destroys everything I achieve.
I feel like at this rate, I had become just a shell of what my young self strongly expected. My young self expected me to BLOSSOM both appearance wise and personal growth and I just became this constantly-depressed bitter individual with constant rejective sensitivity dysphoria events that lead them to even suicidal ideas; with rare desires to even ACT up on them. Still growing up being seen as unattractive or hardly appealing, because, hey! Who knew my low self esteem and self hatred will manifest into some shit like body dysmorphia!
Yes, I do use specific terminologies for things because It's the best way I can describe them. I am just aware that a person shouldn't go through this shit so strongly and have such a strongly poor perception of themselves. That's why I state them.
Who knew I would spiral into this form rambling because I'm going through intensive feelings again and do feel like this.
I will end up waking up tomorrow, feeling like absolute PISS because I've essentially showed extreme signs of insecurity / vulnerability, isolate myself further because I feel like I'm WORTHY of it, run myself on auto pilot during my studies because GOD forbid someone saw me vulnerable at school. God forbid a school connected to another one, containing both adults who study a profession and those who go through high school AND the profession would see me remotely vulnerable. I already just want to neck myself at the thought of it.
I do feel like I have failed everything I could at this age. I feel like this particular age ( the twenties(TM) ) was supposed to be the age where I could achieve remotely something.
I haven't.
Nothing of skills wise, nothing really worthy of recognition or notice. Not even long-term relationships / friendships because of own dysfunction and self destruction of those things. Nothing that could make me feel like I have actually done something in my life at all. Nothing I could remember for a longer time, because those events are just one day dopamine fillers and wouldn't reside with me forever in my mind. And I have to life with that thought for my life.
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pocketsizedlucifer · 5 years
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So. . .
Storytime:
As I’ve mentioned in my bio, I’ve struggled with this hell for years and years. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve “Recovered.” Relapsed, tried to do it the right way, only to relapse again.
I want to be so very clear when I say that I don’t want this. I would love to just eat healthy and lose/maintain weight in the manner a normal person would, I find however that when I try to I’m bound to fall back into these bad habits. A 1,400 calorie alottment quickly becomes 1,000, becomes less, and less, and less again.
This time around i’ll admit I was doing fairly well just eating healthy and taking things day by day, but something happened, I started seeing someone and things were going well despite my body dysmorphia, he seemed to genuinely just like me even though I’m fat. The situation was complicated however and before things could progress or get anywhere he decided due to the complications and their past it would be better to go back to his ex. Mind you his ex is a tiny little thing so my ed popped up and said well of course he chose her, she’s skinny and pretty, she’s everything you’re not...and well...just like that I spiralled hard, went off the deep end and now I’m back in hell.
I was perfectly fine being on my own, it sucks that a person I liked but never expected to be with or have reciprocate made the choice to do so only to change their mind. I’m not upset at this person at all, I don’t blame them. Falling back into this hell is my fault. My mentally ill brain does this.
I think part of me wants to get skinny again too aside from just wanting to be thin, because in my messed up head maybe it will prove some moot point to him? Even though his choice probably has little to do with how I look. It’s really so ridiculous. We were close friends before this, and now we barely talk due to the awkwardness.
But you know, it be like that sometimes.
That’s real life.
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sxvxrxssnape · 5 years
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my diet these days have been wildly fluctuating between being vegan bc that's what i ultimately have wanted to be for like 4+ years, switching to vegetarian after a few weeks (namely when groceries run out and i don't have much money) bc it's cheaper and i have severe anxiety when it comes to eating out/with others and it's easier to simply request no meat than no animal product altogether, to being so fucking depressed i can't bother with food/don't even care to eat so I just rely on whatever my husband makes/brings home and it's always meat based but at that point I could care less and it continues until either im so god damn tired of feeling sick all the time (ive been vegetarian for 70% of the last 6 years, and vegan for about 20% it, so my body just doesn't like eating differently and i only went vegan in the first place bc i was constantly feeling ill) or my food anxiety over what I'm eating finally overtakes my depression of not wanting to stay alive, and I go back to being vegan
but the problem with fluctuating so constantly based on my moods is that it makes interacting with people so difficult. it's a constant "wait I thought you didn't eat meat" and "but you ate the barbeque we made last week :( I tried something new with the smoker and I'm really proud of it :(" which makes me feel awful and i just give in and eat it but my anxiety is yelling at me for eating things that aren't on my safe list but my self hatred eats at me if I don't bc then I have to tell my husband, who went out of his way after work to splurge on a food item my anxiety can't handle right now because "you said you were having a bad day and i just wanted to cheer you up :(" that I don't want it and wow doesn't that make me look ungrateful
like my ideal would be a mainly vegetarian diet with vegan things mixed in whenever I can afford it/just feel like having it and the only thing stopping me from living like that is the anxiety of being a burden to the people around me/being labeled as difficult bc I won't eat something. I tend to only eat vegan at home and when I see a cool already vegan menu item and vegetarian is such a low maintenance request but the idea of having any request makes me anxious (and it's so god damn difficult, I have trouble asking if I can get a fucking crunchwrap with no tomatoes bc I feel im asking for too much) and i hate attracting attention towards myself when food is involved i hate it hate it I hate it i hate everything about it and eating it and the way foods not on my safe list makes me feel and how it feels like I'm suffocating from it
my only real saving grace right now is being pregnant i can just brush it all off with "oh im trying to keep it vegetarian like I was before but sometimes the baby is just really craving fried chicken haha :)" despite the fact that i have had zero cravings and I'm only eating x bc at this point it's that or starve myself and I'm too tired to think about food and it's a good excuse for why I'm constantly jumping from diet to diet, but I'm kinda wondering what im gonna do after the baby is born, but I'm hoping it gets better and i stop feeling like a stranger in my own body and feel more in control after the baby is born bc I can't look at my god damn reflection or keep my hands from measuring the circumference of my thighs to make sure they're still the same size and my eyes/body dysmorphia are just playing tricks on me and they're not suddenly 3x in size, and maybe everything will go back to normal after all this bc I am so god damn tired of still having food anxiety after like 7 fucking years
Sometimes I wish I was an annoying vegan animal rights activist who remained committed to their diet for the animals but i only did it for health reasons/it was the easiest step to recovery after finally reaching a breaking point with my eating disorder but apparently I never got past the "its okay to eat as long as it's healthy" step bc now whenever my depression throws my life to the side i stop caring about what I eat bc I stop caring about being alive and then its just a matter of time until my anxiety about food is worse and it's a constant cycle of it all and I'm fucking tired m8. i used to say I had an eating disorder. Had. But I'm starting to think it never actually went away. It just found a different way to manifest.
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Dietician day four
The dietitian was super sweet as usual. I got there and was sitting down studying with my index cards and she came out and got me a few minutes early. She had me put my stuff down and was like perfect you brought your breakfast so she told me to put my stuff down and we would get a quick weight. So I went in the other room and she weighed me and asked how my week was and I said I was good and I asked how hers was and she said that she was good but she was having weird Texas stuff with emails where stripe which is what she uses for her notes and payment I guess was sending her things about not having the right tax ID so I said she should probably just check the IRS website and make sure they actually have it because she was like I don’t know if it’s legitimate or what so she said she was going to forward it to her husband and probably call the IRS like I suggested. I said yeah tax stuff is never fun I’m going to have to do that soon also. When we were done we had it back in the room and she asked me how I thought maybe eating and I said I think it had gone better than the last week and she agreed but she said that I lost weight again and we talked a little bit about the scale and if I’m weighing and she was like so you already know this and I said yeah and she asked about what my scale is reading or something and I said this morning it was 119 without clothes on and she said well then that makes sense because I had 120 and she said you’ve increased your food but you have continued to drop weight. I explained how seeing the 118 over the weekend was not exactly like scaring me and to get better but at the same time like a little sobering and thinking about how if I still feel fat at 1:18 then I am probably not seeing myself right because there’s just no way that at my height that would be a fat weight and so maybe I really do you have body dysmorphia like she had said last time. We talked about riding the wave Of the uncomfortable feelings around feeling too full and sick and avoiding purging when that happens. She asked me about the fall feeling and what about it makes it feel so uncomfortable and I said I just hate that feeling of being fat and she was like fat is not a feeling and I was like I mean sort of and she was like well what is the feeling underneath the fat and when I tried to think about it like honestly it was hard to do I really don’t know what that feeling would be and I was like he only thing I can think of is like maybe there’s a subconscious connection with all of my past memories in times where I saw kids get bullied for being fat or how my best friend Had come outside crying in fourth grade saying that her mom really wanted me and not her because I was good at school and sports and played the violin and really skinny and so I think there’s also that component of rejection that goes with it but then also there’s this sense of doing things the right way which I think it comes from my parents and I explained the memory with the milk in the pancake scenario and Peggy was super nice about it all explaining and saying how all these adults around he did things wrong and there was nothing wrong with me or my body or my hunger cues even though they made it seem that way. She said so you aren’t feeling fat you’re feeling bad about yourself. She asked me if I was hearing her and I was like yes I said I don’t always process things immediately but I often ruminate on them later and I said how do you know last week I really thought a lot about how she said it was a relapse and that honestly stressed me out a lot and she was like well part of my job is to be honest with you and I was like yeah and I mean I think that’s helpful because when Lynn says things like that I’m just like oh she doesn’t know eating disorder she has no reason to be worried because I feel like I’m close enough to a healthy weight which Peggy shook her head andI was like no definitely not and I was like but when you said I know that you know what you’re talking about and otherwise it’s just easy to minimize it and say that it’s just a lapse and she was like well it’s a very ongoing lapse which means it’s a relapse and I just Kinda didn’t say anything. She mentioned me sitting and eating disorder specialist is a part of my care and I was like basically now but I was like I just feel like they are going to just tell me to challenge the irrational thoughts which I know to do and I already know what CBT is it’s just a matter of applying and doing it anyway and she was like well sometimes they can help you understand a little bit more about where those feelings are coming from and addressing them and I didn’t say anything because I was thinking in my head that I already know where the stupid thoughts are coming from but it is what it is. She mentioned talking to Lynn about things and I was like I mean Lynne definitely asks if I’m eating and what not and she was like OK will that’s good but I explained that Lynne doesn’t really Know about eating disorders and where I was like you know how I said that you’re really nice and Peggy was like yeah and I was like well Lynn is caring but she’s definitely a bit more like a blunt kind of prove me wrong and eat something kind of person and she was like was that helpful and I was like no not at all because that just makes me want to shut down and not be motivated and not talk about it anymore and she was like oh OK yeah that works for some people but not others and I was like yeah so she’s helpful with other things but with food talk it just doesn’t really go over very well. She talked about how my believes around food or just messages from old memories that we can’t change but we can change our beliefs about those foods now and so for homework she wants me to write my mom a letter that I won’t actually give to her that will basically explore how she made me feel and how I would like her to treat me now and how I’m going to take care of myself despite what happened in the past and what steps I am taking to stay in recovery now. It sounds like a very challenging task but that is my homework. She wants me to continue following my meal plan and she talked about how I can’t just be increasing my fruits and vegetables I have to actually increase my carbohydrates to and that really I just need to be eating a lot more because I need to be gaining weight. She talked about Treatment and I was like yeah I know that’s not going to be an option and she was like well what do you mean that’s not an option and I was like like it’s not something that I’m going to do and she was like well I wouldn’t say never you know because if you don’t start putting on some weight it’s an option that we need to start discussing and she said that she believes that if I’m willing to do the work and sit through the uncomfortable feelings and increase my intake that I won’t have to go that route, but she was like it’s going to suck and it’s going to feel uncomfortable but it needs to happen and you know that and I know that and I was like yeah. She asked about times this week when I felt like I had done well and I said honestly with packing my lunch that one time because it was very much prepared and I had put in a lot of thought the night before to it. I told her about how I think that I realized just how difficult things have gone with flexibility around food and I explained how over the weekend I had prepared and I had to have those zucchini muffins with the perfect bar and strawberries but that after they didn’t have it at Walmart I freaked out and drove to Publix and they didn’t have it there and then I freaked out more and drove to food city and when I didn’t have it I started crying in the store and then had a huge meltdown and cried in the car. I told her a little bit about how my husband and my conversation went around food and what he asked about and what he knows. She asked about what I think I can do this week to help increase my meal intake and I asked her if I could actually have a blank copy of the meal plan exchanges so that the night before I could actually go through and plan when I’m eating and make sure that I’m meeting my exchanges and she was like well that’s actually a great idea and I was like thank you and she was like I can actually make you one for every day for this week and I said that would be great so that I don’t have to make copies at work. She said I need to be adding in those snacks and I was like oh my God but I already feel full from this breakfast that we just ate and she was like well you don’t have to eat it right this second but at 10 o’clock or 1030 and I was just thinking I will be with Lynn during that time so what the heck but I said that I would stop at Trader Joe’s And she said that was fine I could grab a bar or something which I ended up grabbing a stupid protein shake that wasn’t even good but it’s fine and she was like you know if you’re also struggling with actually eating you could also just add in some and sure or boost and I was like um no That actually stresses me out so much because I feel like it’s just filled with a bunch of chemicals and she was like that’s fine you can actually make your own if that feels better and I was like is it basically just almond milk remix and like protein powder then and she was like pretty much but you can add in nut butters and things like that and she said that I can Google how to make my own version and she was like I saw you made a smoothie the other day and I was like yeah but honestly it was just fruit and spinach and with ice cubes and water and she was like OK yeah I know that’s not the kind that I’m talking about because we need to be giving you a lot more than fruits and vegetables at this point. I said that I needed a very structured thing like the meal exchanges right now because I think if I’m just sort of left to figuring it out then I will just end up not really doing anything he said that was good that I was aware of that and willing to make that happen and she was like obviously that’s not our long-term goal but if for right now that’s what we need to do to get your way back up to healthy that’s fine. When I had mentioned about my husband being upset over me admitting that I having anxiety about eating and a lot of things are you and thinking about being above 132 she was like one day at a time let’s not be thinking about that because that’s a long way off from where you are right now and currently my goal is just to get you up to that 132 area because even that would be great we just need to see you get some nourishment back. I said OK. She said that she knows that I’m going to feel so much better when I’m actually eating again and wait restored and I was kind of just like ha ha maybe but I was like yeah honestly I know that I’m going to sleep a lot better because in recent weeks honestly it’s been harder to sleep and she was like how come and I was like I mean aside from food dreams just my knees I can’t sleep on my side anymore without putting a pillow between my knees because otherwise it hurts and then my hip bones hurt from laying on my side. She said she thinks in general as a whole everything’s gonna feel a lot better once I’m eating.She asked a series of questions about whether or not I was abusing laxatives diet pills chewing and spitting exercising all of the little things and then she asked about the scale and weighing myself in if that’s helpful or harmful and I said I think over the weekend it was helpful because it made me recognize that things are actually bad and honestly there when I think about gaining weight I’m not sure that it will be helpful to be weighing and seeing the number going up. She asked me to try to weigh once a week and I was like I mean I’m not going to commit to something that I know that I want to you and I know that I won’t just weigh myself once this week and she was like what about twice and I was like no and she was like three times and I was like I can try and she said OK andshe said something about eating as much as I need to because she was like if those hunger cues come up in your body wants more go for it and I was like so you me and then I can have more than 1 tablespoon of peanut butter in the morning and she was like are you kidding me absolutely and I was like OK good because honestly I was freaking out so bad about this breakfast and I only did the 1 tablespoon of peanut butter because the paper said one protein and two fat and she was like give me your paper back and she wrote th she asked a series of questions about whether or not I was abusing laxatives diet pills chewing and spitting exercising all of the little things and then she said something about eating as much as I need to because she was like if those hunger cues come up in your body wants more go for it and I was like so you me and then I can have more than 1 tablespoon of peanut butter in the morning and she was like are you kidding me absolutely and I was like OK good because honestly I was freaking out so bad about this breakfast and I only did the 1 tablespoon of peanut butter because the paper said one protein and two fat and she was like give me your paperback and she wrote 3 Proteins with breakfast and was like seriously eat as many proteins or as many starches or as much food as your body is wanting. She was like you’re going to be hungry and your body is going to want to eat a lot to make up for what it is missing and to repeat it self so you should be hungry. I think I just kind of awkwardly smiled and she was like OK I believe in you and you can do this and she was just super nice and pro recovery and I said OK and thanked her.
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talesfromacrip · 3 years
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popping off as they say:
ya wanna know some things that suck major ass? well, sit down and let me enlighten you
( a vent/rant post. mute or w.e but I’m gonna go off a bit )
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at this point, I feel like I’ll never get to go out and experience the world.
even when I’m feeling up to it or have too for appointments/shows, etc.
I could, but I’d be risking so fucking much and I hate that a lot. yet,some think it’s not a big deal when it kinda is??
like, I really wanna get the fuck out of this house, but it’s difficult nowadays. it makes me sick at times how some use their abled privileges to go out like nothing is even going the fuck on.
I feel like I’ll just be left here alone in my house till I leave this place with this shit going on. only relying on comments, pictures and silly dreams to get me by which ‘helps’ but it’s not enough
I’ll never be able to explore nature to its fullest and despite how negative I am towards it, I still enjoy it or would like too, without an issue occurring.
I’d need so many aides just to help me and people to watch me while I maneuver through.
can’t fly anywhere bc my only source of mobility would be damaged. can’t even drive.
it’s like traveling with an infant, can’t take me anywhere bc everything is essentially a danger. (an inaccessible one ._.)
plus, everything costs so much money nowadays which is something I can’t have much bc of my disability. love it, great, absolutely r a d!!
tired of missing out on so many opportunities though.
shows, little outings, appointments, vacations, fuck,anything essentially. everyone else gets to flaunt this privilege and it’s irritating bc I can’t interact as I’d like.
I’m literally getting cabin fever being in my own home.
which to some seems like a dream in my condition, when it’s a ‘nightmare’.
even when I do go out, the feeling is still 50/50 but we’ll see how that plays out more in the future
I’m so tired of advocating for disability options for the swancore community.
everyone is so fixated on members or how popular they’re posts are, etc. to give a rats ass about disabled fans.
just want them to be safe and experience a show without risk of getting sick, people standing in front of them, inaccessible venues with stairs, folks pushing them/their aides.
which, I guess is asking too much but I’ll continue even if I’m tired of it.
I enjoy this community so damn much but holy f u c k o-o
can’t stand folks nowadays flaunting their experiences when some haven’t at all or can’t bc of inaccessibility at these shows!! ridiculous
tired of dealing with arguments and yelling from my parents. constant instigating and just absolute chaos daily.
they’re good people but holy fuuuuck do they argue about some absolutely ridiculous shit sometimes.
I love them,but being stuck inside with them constantly is driving me insane.
I don’t feel welcomed in my home or anywhere with them tbh. I don’t get peace and quiet as one should.
I can’t go anywhere either and it’s just, irritating but I have to deal with bc they’re the only family I have.
only times I even get peace/time to myself without them constantly around, is when they both go to the store or do some errands together which is rareish bc they irritate one another at times or when we go to a show; which, who the fuck knows when that will be bc I’ve already missed 2 irl ones so far
no privacy whatsoever either so that’s fucked like, y’all realize why I’m getting cabin fever, which is a stupid thing thing to say but that’s what it is
I want to leave but I can’t and probably never will.
like, who is even gonna take care of me when my parents can’t anymore and all? I’m not going to a home and dealing with people I don’t know well at all.
when you can’t say something ya fave wants to hear or say anything to them that’s out of ordinary bc you don’t want to expose that you have feelings for them.
so, you just sit there in your silly little feelings and hide them yet again bc what’s the point?
can’t go anywhere much with them bc my chair is in the way. I’d be holding them back from so many experiences.-. can’t hug or hold hands or anything like that when I’d like too.
can’t help them when they need it or don’t bc I enjoy helping others more than myself tbh. I’m a homebody though and no one likes to be home it seems. not many wanna spend the day watching shit endlessly or playing games or experience an artist at work. some but it’s not enough bc there’s more to life than just, being stuck inside and all
tired of people thinking I’m this, sexless being bc I’m demi and disabled.
that I’m scared to talk about it or I’m just not interested at all, when I am.
like there have been times when I was more like that but ever since I realized I won’t be getting any procedures done to help me be independent, I just try and keep it to myself but it’s so hard.
don’t want to hookup though or do anything like that with someone I don’t know.
I want a nice relationship with someone I know well not someone I don’t at all.
I explained all this and more on my therapeutic blog thing but I guess no one cared which happens.
I’m sick of hiding these feelings, sick of this place , sick of it all
sick of waking up either sad, horny or just plain empty at times bc I can’t do anything, be with who I’d like.
just,feel even more horrible about myself bc I can’t do anything at all. I have to rely on others for the most simplistic tasks.. how am I going to be with someone , let alone the person I care about??
can’t satisfy  them ,can’t even satisfy myself so why the fuck do I even bother??
I’m tired of these, weird vivid dreams of me at school with people I know online or me doing some activity I thought I’d never do like drive/swim/running with them or by myself.
sick of going places I’ve never been or have in the past which makes me want to leave so bad and I can’t.. idk if I ever even will tbh.
sick of having dreams outside of my house in general and then waking up to the same monotonous life.. makes me feel suicidal at times tbh.
I won’t do anything like that. the thoughts make sad as is so I just continue sitting in silence.
it’s getting hard to mask my moods nowadays and everything just makes me tired /annoyed.
tired of how the dreams tease me by making scenarios where I’m living with someone I care about but will never say anything too bc I ruin things when I open my mouth sometimes :))
like, how can I tell someone we had a whole ass family and sweet gushy moments that I cannot partake in bc I can’t move for fucking shit :)) makes for awkward conversation
also tired of being in another body that isn’t mine and looks better than mine..
just, everything I’ve wished since I’ve been ill and after..
better body with actual features and not the kind that make me look like a fuckin child, pretty and slim face, actual mobility with no pain interference..
these are things I started noticing as I got older and even as young child. knowing I can’t fix whats already done in the process too, fucks with my dysmorphia more..
I hate how I get to see his body dressed in fashion or styles I wish I could do but can’t .-. hair, makeup, accessories, clothes, shoes, tights.. you get it
tired of myself when I shouldn’t be but I am.. so much I wanna do and say and sometimes I can’t. it’s there but the words get stuck. I end up saying something different and just ruin the whole thing I feel
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ndragoon · 3 years
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My brain how now resorted to the equivalent of screaming at the top of its lungs while throttling me with a baseball bat nonstop. Every small detail is reminding me of everything bad that happened to me, and it doesn't help that some of the games I've been playing lately are ones I used to play with my abusive ex, or that venmo decided to just...add him randomly to my friends list. So when I got some weird text alert saying that I had money deposited into my account, I got to see a whole listing of all the payments and notes he made recently. Which really set me off.
And that's on top of the most vicious body dysmorphia I've ever had to deal with. My brains just being utterly relentless about it. Scrolling through Tumblr is an absolute nightmare because every third or fourth post is yet another skinny overly hung otter, because apparently nobody likes or sticks with anything else despite what they say their blog is for.
My body has been swelling up and at best I'm always uncomfortable. Because my body is flaring up, so are my insides. Everything I eat is causing issues so I'm down to one can of food late in the day and that's it.
On top of everything else, my D&D group dissolved, the last person I had to play stuff with got a morning job so we can't play at night anymore, and because of my health issues everyone else just wants nothing to do with me anymore so "plans" just get put on hold indefinitely.
It really sucks when you basically have nothing enjoyable in your life because the depression that slips past the meds sucks the enjoyment out of whatever else you had left. But I suppose this, too, shall pass - albeit eventually.
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onemilimeter · 4 years
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Jurnal 11
Growing up with a lot of insecurities and anxieties influence my self-confidence throughout most years of my life. It’s obviously because since I was in kindergarten there was a bunch of kids who didn’t like my existence and what they did back then whenever they saw me, they always pushed me away. Come to think of it, it was quite traumatize because later on, when I went to my elementary school I couldn’t normally interact with my peers on the class. Like I didn’t really know how to respond something without being so annoying in other people’s eyes. Again it happend, I didn’t have anyone who I believed in class and this might be was the starting point of me having trust issues. Even now, I still have some left. 
While i was in 5th grade, it was getting better actually. Some kids were slowly becoming my friends and also I had someone to talk to, to share about cats, songs, comic books or novels, movies, etc. Sometimes on Friday after sport or Saturday after PRAMUKA, I went to my friend’s house who lives in my school neighborhood, did a simple thing, either somehing like playing barbie, watching movies (mostly cartoon), cooking, or just sit ‘n chill. I think 5th and 6th grade was the best time I’ve ever had since I entered elementary school. Another story, I remember I had a friend who was being bullied (I don’t want to use this word, but I don’t have a perfect word to express in mind right now). The bully said to others to not be close to her and back then the kids were so naive, yet couldn’t think straight, and didn’t wanna have a same problem with the bully, so they just created a wall inbetween. But me, I thought it was not a good decision to follow the bully because I was at the same position as well. Besides, this friend had enough problems inside her house, why should I put more problem into her life? It was difficult to be in the middle that I had to be accepted in both side. Again, I was just a kid turned into teenager and I didn’t know which was good or bad. So i just followed my guts and I befriended both sides. 
As time goes by I was in my junior high school, where my identity was somehow being tested because there was a lot of temptations and when I met a wrong person, I could be a different person now. My insecurity was so low before and became lower after one of the student talked about my apperance. It was a big school with bunch of pretty girls. Teenagers with thier compliacted mind won’t think clearly enough and one of them of course was me. I was so angry, but I couldn’t have a chance to throw my anger upon the bully student, who also didn’t have any nice things on his appearance, my opinion. But if someday I can meet him in a flesh, I probably would spill the tea and show my uncomfortable feelings towards him. He’ll gain what he did, sorry! Oh plus, I want to give him mirror, just in case he has an intention to reflect. Mihimihimihi...
That was a pretty traumatic experience and it influenced me on how I have been seeing myself years later, up until now sometimes. I did hate my body because I’m not tall enough but especailly I did hate seeing my face in the mirror in a public places. That was probably the results of lots commentary upon my appearances. Now I know the term is: body dysmorphia and it is a mental disorder. Periodt. If people don’t realize, it’s mainly because I didn’t show it or say it to everyone around, but the talking of flaws towards my appearances is always going on in my head. Since then it affects my confidence and how I communicate with people.  
Everytime i’m searching for an answer, like how to escape this whole self-destruction, the adults just tell me to brush it all off and to act like i don’t care. Which is make sense now. 20s is a time where you have to prioritise your selfish-ness. And it’s not wrong to be selfish, cause all of people in their 20s are selfish as well. 
What makes me really grateful is because I have a friend like Keshia. She is indeed a beautiful human being. She’s one of a kind, sih. We’re different in some ways, but I think she has a role in building my self-confidence, at least the basic one: to be santuy everytime I talk to people. I learned from her a lot. Beside her pretty appearance and her flaws (wkwkwk), she taught me, that I don’t have to be afraid facing people, because everywhere there will be a bunch of shit people wandering aroung. But, remember kind people are a lot as well. She sometimes said words of affirmations even it’s just a simple one, like “gemes banget sih mba or cakeuppp...”. It’s simple but it means so much. I can’t thank you enough for accepting me. I’m sure I made a lot of mistakes, but I’ll try to be a good friend for you and be there in case you need me. 
Then I met Citra, a sweetest human being that I’ve ever had. She’s definitely a pink sweet cotton candy. She has a lot on her plate, but she always tries to be strong despite have been struggling enough since the day 1 she was back again in Jakarta. I learned a lot lot of things from her. The good things are as an example and the bad things are as a life lessons. Her words are comforting and I believe someday she can be a book writer. Not to mistaken, i had a lot of fight too with her in the past, like friend always have things to be argued of, could be the different in preference, taste or love-life decision. But a friend will later ask each other forgiveness and things get back to normal again! Thank you for accepting me and for becoming my friend in Germany and everywhere. Keep so sweet, Cit :)
I moved to Erfurt in 2013 and slowly i befriended Mbak Ratih, who has a magic finger because she can do whatever and the results is surprisingly beautiful. She studied psychollogy major and her insight about people behaviour and what makes a human complicated is quite helping me in finding and accepting myself. Of course it has an influnce from BTS, but yeah close friends are worth to be affirmed as well for their suporting role. She teached me make up, to express what is on my mind either it’s a bad or good emotions, etc. And Wina comes. She’s quite a friend who helps whenever i need help. I think it’s such a destiny for us to be together again living in the same city and studying in the same major. Both of these people has a really big role helping me this past few years. Thank you my Aquarius sisters, hope we’ll be able to live in the same city again.
This journal is pretty long, btw. I dedicate my almost 2,5 hours, writing this letter of gratitude towards me, my childhood, my teenage years and my friends who always beside me since the day 1 i have arrived in Germany. I don’t know why i’m making this, but I guess it’s because my insecurity tries to reach me since we have been parted our ways. I must making myself busy now to not really have much care with people. Beside, it’s Ramadhan! 
Bye, all. Hope my soul will get better soon.
Berlin, 11.05.2020 (Happy belated birthday, Ayah!)
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