#god the warzone really bugs me for how random that was

[mirageformed]

@sunderedhearts​​ -- nancy & robin raiding hop’s cabin ♥

     The route to the cabin felt like searching off a treasure map. Denfield; see a large oak tree. Swing a right to a road with a dead end, and then a five minute walk from there. Not to mention, it was booby trapped for intruders. The chief of police had been preparing for a war since ‘83, when all this started. There were times when Robin would stop and think of what her life would have been to continue to live obliviously where her worries were normal teenager things and not who would end the world this year. After the Russians, she’d hoped it would have stayed that way, that it was over. But her life would never go back to when ignorance was bliss. She knew the truth and what was out there and their party, their friends, brought together under the unfortunate circumstances, needed all the strength they could muster.

      Suck it up, deal with it, and prepare for the battle ahead. That was all she could do now.

      ❝You know, you hear about people who plan for the apocalypse YEARS in advance. Moving out into the woods, society breaking down. I wouldn’t have pegged Chief Hopper to be the one to do it. But I guess that saves us some weird looks around town.❞ Not that there wasn’t enough talk about the mob currently trying to hunt and maim Eddie. Nowhere was safe in Hawkins.

      Even if they won the fight with Vecna, which she was incredibly iffy about, going to the Upside Down hadn’t been in the cards. But if Robin really thought about it, their fight would have landed them there eventually. The source of it all, the place where the Mindflayer had made its home while it tried to attack Earth. There was no telling what else lived there. The bats were dangerous, with poison in their fangs. The meat monster had been broken down people from Hawkins, all structured together like a mash potato sculpture combined with horrific sentience operating like the monster from ALIEN. It’d taken Billy Hargrove out, puncturing him with its ugly appendages when they couldn’t stall any longer with the fireworks. The damage remained on him. He never could wear a shirt and even if he was showing off the “goods” for free--she wanted to roll her eyes into the back of her skull--the large scar marring the center of his chest pulled in more gazes than lustful curiosity. He’d barely survived. That was just a taste of what that monster could do.

      Vecna could attack whenever he felt like it. Breaking bones like candy canes at Christmas, he reveled in the torture and preying on the traumatized psyche of his victims. Max and Steve were both at risk, and perhaps even Victor Creel. Was the only way to lift the curse with Vecna’s death? They didn’t have time to figure out any other solution, sadly.

      There was the Demodogs that would molt and grow after they ate, and had even eaten Dustin’s cat, Mews. The Demogorgon that’d taken Will Byers, who, a year later, became possessed by the Mindflayer. His mom had been right to remove them from Hawkins, faraway where her family was safe and where Will didn’t have to think of the last few years. But they needed El, and her powers, more than ever now.

      What else lived in the vine and spore invested world Robin didn’t want to imagine. How a man could survive there, living in the contaminated air without food or water for so long. However, with all the movies she’d watched since getting a job at the Family Video, Robin could piece a few ideas together. They may have seemed improbable, but they were facing a man who’d tried to kill his whole family and was back for revenge all these years later after being sent to a lab to be a science experiment that later lead to the doctors kidnapping a bunch of other super powered children that the government covered up. It didn’t have to make sense.

      ❝Hopefully the boys are having just as much fun as we are.❞ Hatch was a sexist piece of shit who'd been looking for any excuse to throw them out after her outburst. She knew she’d ruffled a few feathers in that office. If only she hadn’t messed up the names. But going back for a second interview and follow up would have seemed suspicious. The rich man and lawyer act would have to pull through. They’d left Victor Creel distressed in his cell, humming sorrowfully to himself. In the end, he was just a feeble old man, trapped in his hell and memory of that night.

      The cabin was coming into view, tucked away between the towering trees. There were holes in the wall and the roof had caved in, damage from the Mindflayer a year before. Dead leaves littered the ground, the porch was covered in pine needles and more leaves, needing dearly to be swept. It was a cozy little nook no one would think to come out to unless they knew where to go. The perfect place to hide a girl from a lab and hope no one would find them.

      ❝Maybe Steve will lay on his CHAAAARM!❞ She didn’t feel the wire snap, but the loud BANG that filled the silent forest echoed as she fell to the ground, scattering dirt and leaves as she scrambled. Heart pounding frantically against her rib cage, the loud flap of wings from annoyed birds drifted up into the cloudy sky. The noise rang through her ears, her eyes bulging out of their sockets. ❝Whoa-Oh-Oh my gosh... Guess, uh, I guess the jocks didn’t trip the traps when they came out here.❞

#sunderedhearts #🐇 ⊱ sɪʟʟʏ ʀᴀʙʙɪᴛ ᴛʀɪxs ᴀʀᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴋɪᴅs ⊱ ROBIN. #🎥 ⊱ ʟɪɢʜᴛ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ɴɪɢʜᴛ ⊱ IC. #if anyone was gonna trip those traps #it'd be robin #god the warzone really bugs me for how random that was #among other reason #hopper was literally planning for an invasion 8( #but you cant expect them to remember those details

[blessuswithblogs]

My Experiences with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Today's piece has very little to do with video games, but instead, me. This is more of an exercise in catharsis and thought ordering than something really meant for other people to read and go "o yea thats neat," but you're welcome to do so anyway. I'm also putting up some content warnings for Mental Health Junk like eating disorders and severe anxiety, as well as allusions to stomach flu symptoms (this one probably bothers me more than anybody reading). If you wish to proceed with all that in mind, by all means.

Let's start at the beginning. I've suffered from minor post-traumatic symptoms for over 20 years after the conclusions of traumatic events, usually severe illness. In the past, these symptoms have been self-limiting and usually resolved after a couple of months. Even after I was terribly ill with pneumonia, had an allergic reaction to pneumonia medication, and spent several afternoons with a nebulizer in my mouth, it only took half a year or so to mentally recover from the incident, and all I really suffered from was mild worry when I started coughing. All this changed, however, in September of 2008. A number of unfortunate circumstances occurred in quick succession and I ended up dreadfully sick with gastroenteritis alone with my dad, who also caught it. It was an uncharacteristically virulent and severe strain of whatever norovirus was going around at the time. My working hypothesis is that my brother caught it at Disneyland after using the bathroom without washing his hands like a frickin idiot, because he caught it first and then spread it to the rest of us. My mom seemed unaffected, or was extremely adept at suppressing symptoms, so she hauled my brother's sick ass back up to his dorm in Santa Barbara. Originally, this was going to be a family outing, but I argued that I really didn't need to be there for other reasons entirely, which, as it turned out, ended up dodging a bullet. We both got sick after they left, and it was a miserable night by all accounts.

It marked a couple of milestones for me. Sheltered child that I was (let's be honest, sheltered child that I am), I had never been in a position where I was seriously debilitated and my mom wasn't there to be mom at me. It was also the first time I sort of had to take care of somebody else being ill, because as sick as I was, my dad was even sicker. He's also an unreasonable old fuck who demanded that I didn't let mom know that we were both the next victims of the plague, but I disregarded that order because I was freaking out and in that pre-sick period where you feel pretty nauseated but you're not really sure if that's because you ate too fast or something or you're actually sick. She came back the next day with some pedialite or however you spell it. I was actually kind of delirious at that point, utterly sleep deprived and running a nasty fever. I still vividly recall a strange sort of fever daydream I had in the shower about The Big O being featured in the upcoming Super Robot Wars Z, which is really strange to me to this day but there it is. Showtime, I guess. Prior to this bout of sickness, I had been struggling with tummy troubles the whole year due to the stress of acclimating to living in a new state and a few unfortunate cases of much more mild gastroenteritis. By the time of this incident, I was already pretty worn down, and it turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. After making a physical recovery and doing okay for a few days, I started exhibiting severe anxiety symptoms. At the time, I didn't know it, but I was actually a fairly textbook case of post-traumatic stress disorder, and it basically stopped me from being a functioning human for a good year or so.

Let's talk a little about PTSD. The classical understanding of this disorder is that of combat fatigue, something that only soldiers in hellish warzones suffer from after seeing their squaddies get blown up by the Vietcong or whatever. A largely more enlightened view than the previous perception of the disorder as "shell shock" or, even worse, "malingering," but one still inadequate for a modern clinical context. PTSD can be brought about by any sufficiently traumatic event meeting with a sufficiently susceptible person, as per the diathesis model of medicine. If that's what they're still calling it. It's actually been pretty long since I've taken any psych courses, the last two years of college was mostly just filling in credits with random bullshit. At any rate, while soldiers are a large demographic of PTSD sufferers, people can contract it from just about anything -- car accidents, sexual assault (this is a big one, almost assuredly more prevalent than in active combat personnel), and, of course, severe illness. It took me a long time to actually be honest enough with myself and my various therapists to reach the diagnosis. I had suspicions, because even then I was studying psychology, albeit in highschool elective curriculum, and I was at that point familiar with most high profile mental illnesses like PTSD, depression, schizophrenia, and what have you. I also knew, however, that young students diagnosing themselves with diseases they had recently read about in a textbook was also a definite phenomenon. Thus, I was reluctant to bring up the possibility and actively downplayed symptoms, both because I had no faith in myself to make an even marginally accurate diagnosis and because I felt ashamed of the possibility. People get PTSD from actual trauma, not a weekend bout of stomach flu, or so I thought. To be honest, I still feel pretty ashamed of it, but I'm old enough now to know that lying to myself and others will get me precisely nowhere.

Fortunately for me, I think that my therapists and psychiatrists at the time were altogether too clever and perceptive to be fooled by a fairly half-hearted show of resistance. We didn't really give what I was feeling a name until quite a ways into it all, but from the outset, my treatment was focused on alleviating these symptoms. And, wouldn't you know it, the SSRI anti-depressants I had been on-again-off-again taking since I was 14 were also the medication of choice for treating post-traumatic stress. It took a long time, but I eventually managed to get myself together enough to start community college, then transfer to a UC school and graduate. Not without difficulty, mind you, but it's still fairly miraculous to me that it happened at all. I had occasional flare-ups, usually linked to a trigger of somebody else throwing up in my general vicinity. My brother seemed to make a habit of coming home from college only to immediately get sick, which was always harrowing. To this day, I don't know how one person can contract so many instances of gastroenteritis. I always seemed to avoid catching his bugs, probably due to my redoubled hygiene practices and general hypervigilance, though there was a period in the summer of 2012 where I got sick with -something- that made my stomach miserable. Not enough to puke, but enough to make me really worry. That was the summer right before I went to go live on my own in campus housing, so, I ended up coming home on weekends to keep myself together.

Recently, as you may or may not know, I've had a major resurgence of symptoms after a very mild case of stomach flu. I honestly wasn't sick for very long, or very violently, but it was enough to bring bad memories flooding back and reopen a terribly inconvenient can of worms. At the time, I was not on any medication due to just generally being at a fairly high level of functioning but a fairly low level of Have Money. I still feel that the decision was mostly sound, but I severely underestimated my potential reaction to a triggering event. Which I suppose in and of itself was a good indicator of my mental health prior to the incident. With the old wounds reopened and no psychoactive agents to help with the pain, I got. Bad. I'm doing better now, thanks to meds and the passage of time, but I'm still not at full capacity, and summer was utterly dire. One of the halmark symptoms of PTSD is going to great lengths to avoid situations and stimuli similar to the trauma that originated the illness. Unfortunately for me, it is very difficult to avoid "feeling nauseous" or "eating food," though God knows I gave it my all. With my comorbid emetophobia back in full swing, I drastically altered my diet and eating habits. I heavily favored foods that I could cook or supervise the cooking of and foreswore fast food and takeout of any kind. Going to a restaurant to eat was out of the question - my first time back to one was this sunday, and it was an altogether miserable experience for a lot of reasons. My handwashing has increased in frequency to the point where I occasionally need to stop myself from doing it unless absolutely necessary so my skin doesn't crack open. Above all, I have been eating a lot lot lot less. Hearing compliments about weight loss is nice, but given the circumstances, it's hard to enjoy them. I spent most of the summer forcing myself to eat and drink when I really, sincerely did not want to. I found comfort in hunger. Hunger was a signifier that all was well, that my body was operating within acceptable parameters, that being hungry and vomiting were not states that could coexist - at least, that was the thought process. The stomach is more complicated than that, of course, but defense mechanisms rarely make a lot of sense.

The anxiety, fear, and tired listlessness of post-traumatic stress disorder are all well documented. I had those in spades. I think my mom caught me doing the whole thousand yard stare a couple of times, though I doubt she realized the significance of me spacing out. A particularly nasty foible to my particular situation is that one of my body's most cherished stress responses is to get sick to my stomach. Feedback loops are quite common in mental illness, and if I am not Queen of Feedback Loops, I am at very least a Minor Duchess. I know the cycle all too well. Stomach pain into anxiety. Anxiety into worsened stomach pain. It doesn't take long on my bad days to literally think myself sick. My symptoms have trended towards the more mild side of the spectrum, at least after medication was reintroduced, but I make up for it by having a trigger that creates itself. A lot of the time, the only way I have to deal with bad episodes is to try and throw myself utterly into something else and forget about physical being for a while. Long hours in FFXIV and Civ6 can attest to this. When that doesn't work, I often have to lie down and bury my head into a pillow until I calm down enough to start feeling better. It is, in a word, disruptive.

One aspect of the disorder that is not often discussed is the heightened fight-or-flight response and startle reflex. It is especially ridiculous in my case because you cannot run from your digestive system. It tends to follow you around. Be that as it may, being constantly on alert for any and all signals of potential gastrointestinal distress is utterly exhausting. You listen to your surroundings. To other people. To yourself, for any normal stomach noises that you're convinced are the sign of the apocalypse. White noise becomes torture as you try to pick up any salient sounds distinct from the hum of the fan, and a great deal of innocuous noises start to sound a lot like worried words and puking. Coughing is the worst because it shares a pretty similar aural profile to vomiting. Naturally, my dad has been suffering from acid reflux induced coughing jags at all hours, so I'm never at a loss for something to listen to in alarm. And alarmed I am! A constant state of hypervigilance necessitates a constant state of being easily startled. People coming up behind you when you're occupied with something else, for instance, becomes a terrifying experience because they just seem to materialize out of thin air. My new room has my back to the door and my headphones are noise-cancelling, so I am snuck upon on a regular basis, though at least with no ill intent. Probably. The garage door just below me seems almost vindictive in its loud rumbling, but I shouldn't add inappropriate anthropomorphization to large sheets of metal to my list of neuroses.

All of this comes down to a single thing: it's hard to feel like yourself when all of this is going on. Sometimes in a moment of lucidity you realize that this bizarre stranger who washes her hands way too much and refuses to eat anything has been ruining your life. Severe, prolonged stress creates a deep and abiding sense of unreality. You lose faith in yourself. You stop trusting yourself. The things you do don't seem to come out quite right. Interacting with other people feels like trying to talk to somebody on the other side of soundproof glass that's kind of smudgy and gross. Sometimes you yell too loud so that they can hear you, other times you mumble halfheartedly because you don't expect it to work anyway. And on rare occasions, you sort of lose touch with reality and try to beat down the pane and make a terrible fool out of yourself because to everyone else it looks like you're slamming your fists into a wall for no reason as you scream and cry. Even then, it's sort of worth it, just so you can say you've felt something other than creeping dread for a little bit.

I suppose, in a way, that this piece is part explanation, part apology, part anecdote. I haven't done as much stuff lately. I've been more reclusive, quicker to upset, a good bit spacier than usual. I've mentioned a few times that I've been suffering from a PTSD resurgence, but those are just words. There's no context behind them. It bothered me. I wanted to put down, in more concrete terms, how I've been feeling and coping and why that's cut into me being me. I don't know what this will accomplish, but maybe somebody out there will find it resonant, or even helpful. It feels necessary to get it out in the open and be honest about why I don't make many videos or streams anymore, or why I'm harder to get in touch with, less willing to do stuff with other people. I'm making progress. Hoping that I can get to the point where I could maybe hold down a job. Gotta dream big, right? Either way, thanks for taking the time to read this. It doesn't make anything that's happened better, but maybe it will help with things in the future. I'm rambling. I've never been good at conclusions, even when they're obvious and big and juicy. When it's just my thoughts, sort of stream of consciousness, I don't really know how to wrap things up because I could keep writing for a while, if we're being honest. Look in closing, 2017 fucking sucked okay.

#mental health #ptsd recovery #2017