#like oh you thought no health care stuck in one place forever depressed and alone with no education was bad

[jensensitive]

I've always hated it here, I've always wanted to leave and run away and i don't know how not to want to, but I'm just trapped forever while it just keeps getting worse and worse and the anxiety and depression builds and builds

#like oh you thought no health care stuck in one place forever depressed and alone with no education was bad #get ready for 2.0 baby #fun fun fun times #elle personal #not to make everything about myself I'm mostly terrified for the people i love #because we live here #negativity

[jenonctcity]

Na Jaemin

Part of the Bad Boy Series – Differences: My Ending

Badboy!Au

Warnings: Mention of Death, Mental Health.

Word Count: 1.1k

Summary: Jaemin is struggling to get over your death. Despite having his friends by his side, he still feels like something is missing.  

 (This is NOT the epilogue.)

The days went by slower than Jaemin could comprehend. He felt like he was watching the clock tick by, second by second as every time he glanced at the clock what felt like ten minutes had in reality only been three minutes. He found it ironic that when he was with you the time went by faster than lightning. But now he didn’t have you, and time went by like a slow painful death. He winced as he thought that to himself. How could he even compare clock watching to the death that you had gone through.

He sighed to himself. He just felt so bored all the time. The last four months that had gone by since he said his goodbyes to you had been the slowest most boring and mentally draining months of his life. But he couldn’t figure out a way of making time go faster. He didn’t feel ready to go out partying, nor did he feel like going out and socialising with anyone other than his closest friends, which even sometimes he did his best to avoid conversation with them. His wrist had made a full recovery, but he still didn’t have the confidence to get behind a wheel of the thing that had killed you. Well, he knew it technically wasn’t the car, and was the driver of the car. But the last time he was in the driver’s seat of a car was the day he lost you, the love of his life, forever. So, his normal past time of street racing was out of the question for the time being.

He knew he was lucky to have the support system that his friends and their girlfriends had in place for him. He appreciated it, he really did, but nothing could fill the hole in his heart.

So, he sat, staring at the wall. Bored and stuck in his own head, which was never a good case for Jaemin. He’d had more depression spikes than he cared to admit, but he wanted to stick to his promise of living his life and not giving up when his love never got that chance to choose whether she wanted life or death.

It was one day, when he was watching the tv that had an old rerun of scooby doo playing that a lightbulb went off in his head, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, he felt that spark inside of him again.

“What the fuck is that?” Renjun asked upon walking into the apartment and seeing Jaemin on the floor, kneeling beside newspaper spread out on the floor and a soft looking pet bed beside it. The puppy that sat on the newspaper wagged its tail upon seeing a new arrival in the apartment, and was about to run over to him when Jaemin scooped the small fluffy puppy up.

“It’s a chihuahua.” Jaemin said with a big smile on his face.

“It’s a squirrel with a collar on.” Renjun replied back, grimacing as he set his keys down on the coffee table, keeping a distance between him and the puppy. It’s not that he disliked puppies. He just wasn’t keen on small ones.

“Don’t be rude! He didn’t mean that Fang, ignore him.” Jaemin cooed to the fluffy tan coloured puppy in his hands in the same way he spoke to his friends’ kids. The puppy wagged its tail again and leaned its little head forward to lick Jaemin’s nose.

“You named it Fang?!” He asked with his eyebrows raised in surprise at the name that did not match the dog’s appearance.

“Yeah, what else was I supposed to name it?”

“I don’t know, Alan or something?”

“Oh like Alan is better.” Jaemin scoffed and rolled his eyes. Renjun sighed and moved to sit on the couch. He no longer lived in the apartment, but he had been tasked with checking up on Jaemin today whilst the other guys were busy, and luckily, he didn’t have daddy duty today, so he was free to hang out with Jaemin. He was starting to think that perhaps he left Jaemin alone for too long on his own though since Haechan left the apartment that morning and texted Renjun to remined him that its his turn to check up on Jaemin, he hadn’t mentioned anything about having puppy. So Renjun assumed that whilst Jaemin was left to his own devices for a few hours that’s when he left and bought himself a new friend.

“Why a chihuahua anyway?” Renjun asked, rubbing his hand over his face and sighing.

“Because the apartment is too small for anything bigger. Also some guy was selling him on facebook marketplace so I decided that I would give him a home.” Jaemin’s reply left Renjun sighing again.

“Do the guys know you bought a puppy into the apartment? It’s technically none of my business since I live across the hall now, also Jiyeon loves dogs so its kind of cool, but Haechan lives here, and so does Jeno and his girlfriend, and they’ve just had a baby. I’m not sure they’ll be too thrilled about this…” He said in a slow, non-accusing way as he didn’t want Jaemin to think he was attacking him or being too negative about what he’d done. Jaemin simply shrugged and looked over at Renjun.

“What are they going to do? Tell the suicidal widower that he has to get rid of his puppy?” He shot back at him and Renjun’s eyebrows raised in surprise, before he nodded with a hum.

“Fair point. Just…I don’t know. Like I said, none of my business. Not my circus, not my monkeys.” He shrugged again and reached over to pet the chihuahua, Fang, on the head. He had to admit, that when he walked into the room, he had seen a light behind Jaemin’s eyes that he hadn’t seen in a long time, and it felt nice for him to see that. He just hoped that the puppy wasn’t a temporary fix for Jaemin and that that he’d made the right decision in buying a puppy. “Whatever makes you happy bro.”

The front door opened and Jeno came walking in, shrugging off his jacket and dumping it down and the couch as he pushed his glasses back into their spot at the top of his nose. He looked over at Jaemin, doing a double take before pausing and squinting at him through his glasses.

“Why are you holding a guinea pig?”

“IT’S NOT A GUINEA PIG!!!” He knew Jeno’s eyesight was bad, but come on.

#differences #jenonctcity differences #nct #nct dream #na jaemin #lee donghyuck #lee jeno #huang renjun #just a lil something for you differences fans #nct fluff #nct angst #nct smut #nct dream angst #nct dream fluff #nct dream smut

[skyeofloxlay]

Personality / Brief history / important things about MC / Reader for my fanfics or when I make requests.

Okay, I decided to do this more for myself when I make a request to someone, but this is also useful to let you know a little more about the MC / "reader" of my fanfics.

The MC is a cis-woman of almost 1.60cm in height, (age may vary) but generally the age will be between 20 and 23. She is heterosexual/straight (I don't know if there is a difference between the two things, but I don't understand why I would have two words for the same thing) and usually in fanfics she has never had a boyfriend before the character she will be together with (be it Jake (Duskwood), Jason (Todd), Spencer (Reid) or any other character). 

She was born in Brazil and lived a large part of her life there, and depending on what story she is in, she makes an interchange trip abroad because of college, and because of that she lives far from her family and lives alone, but she has her faithful companion, a male Schnauzer dog (his name in fanfics is undetermined.)

MC has always been a lonely person, because after several events in the past she does not trust people easily, and the only people she does trust are her family, but she still has trouble talking about her problems to them.

Furthermore, MC is a very shy, introverted, anti-social person and suffers from social phobia, which of course, is a perfect combo to be an alien in society and not be able to make friends, even if she wants to.

MC also doesn't know where it all started from, but she does know that she has probably suffered from anxiety for many, many years, even though she only discovered it a short time ago, and went to get help even less time ago.

Because of anxiety, she ends up being stuck in her own world, or I should call it, hell itself. Her mind is a mess, bad, unreal and meaningless thoughts invade her mind all the time, and because she has been this way for so long without help and not knowing what to do, her situation has worsened to the point where her anxiety starts to change into a depressive anxiety.

However, as much as she has been suffering with her own mind for years, she can always count on her family whenever she needs them, even if they are distant from each other, they are inseparable. 

Her father, as much as he doesn't understand most of the things she goes through, supports her and wants the best for MC, and so he does what he can to help MC pay for psychological treatment, and even though he doesn't understand, he always makes her smile and laugh, even when the situations are bad, even though he was always busy because of work, he always did what he could to be together, even in the simplest things, like family lunch, playing video games, watching movies, shopping together.

Her mother, on the other hand, has been through similar things like MC, and always try to help her the way she can, always speaking encouraging words, helping MC to do her things when she couldn't, sleeping next to the MC when she couldn't sleep because of anxiety, always being by her side, always supporting any decision, no matter the situation, MC's mom will always be there to hear her, either to hear about something that MC wants to do a lot or when she has some fear. 

And there is also her younger brother (3 years younger), as much as they ended up arguing for silly things, he is her best friend, maybe her only true friend, always having fun together doing what they like, protecting each other, always being one for another, even when it was not known which words were right to say.

MC is blessed to have such an amazing family, and as much as she couldn't say "I love you, you are everything to me" to them, she loved them with all her heart and soul, and she couldn't say what would happen to her if she lost them, but probably something really bad would happen.

As much as it seemed that MC doesn't care about other people, maybe looking selfish and boring to others, she cares a lot about others, but she knows that this is also one of the big reasons why she suffers from anxiety, caring for others more than for herself, and for her own mental health, she had to try not to think so much about the problems of the world that she cannot solve. 

Some people may think that she was wrong in doing this, but she wanted to have some sanity, even if little and trying to recover, than to go crazy with things that are impossible to fix, at least impossible for her to fix.

(Some other things about MC, but now simpler, because I'm out of time and too lazy, help me)

- Very distracted

- Very clumsy

- Nerd

- Dreamer / lost in her own world

- Impulsive

- Impatient

- Think too much about everything

- Studious

- Lonely

- Forgotten

- Problems with deadlines, do everything at the last minute.

- Avoid fights / arguments with people she doesn't know, but if it's someone close and it's a silly fight, she'll defend that she's right until the end, if she's wrong in the fight, she'll just be quiet for a while. If it is a serious fight, she will argue for some time until the tears stop her from continuing, and then she will be silent for a long time.

- Too stubborn

- Sarcastic with the closest people

- Always try to look for the good in people, but it is impossible for her to achieve kindness in certain people.

- Pessimistic

- Very sensitive / hurts / cries easily

- Perfectionist

- Very insecure

- She cannot express in words what she feels for other people

Likes:

Chocolate

Coffee

Rainy days

Winter

Music (Mainly, pop and  rock)

To drive

Flowers

Taking pictures (mainly of landscapes)

Animals

Old things, like things related to the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, or things from centuries ago

History

Books

Learn things

Horror stuff (games, books, movies)

Mystery

Horseback riding

Nature

Farms

See the city lights at night

Night

Games (both video games and board / cards)

Comics, Movies, Series etc about Superheroes

Mexican food

Travel

Psychology / Understanding the human mind

Buy drawing materials and books (even though she will never use / read them)

Big clothes

Wind

Ride a bike

Explore Abandoned Places

Dislikes:

Summer

Hot days

Insects

Spiders

Her mind

Who annoy her

People fighting

See things or people comment on things related to death or illness

Having to be patient

Who speak ill of her family

Working in a group

That people belittle her feelings

Parties

People

Delays

Alcoholic beverages

Buy clothes

Make up

High heels

Short dresses

Physics

Fears / Phobias / Things that bother her:

Spiders

Falling / High height

To drown

Die

Getting seriously ill

Dark / Night

To sleep

People

Speak in public

Losing her family

Stay alone

Crowds

Closed places

Tight clothes (Because she feels they are suffocating her)

Arrive late

Forget things

Having a car accident

Never be loved / Stop being loved

Future

May her fears come true

Skills:

- To draw

- Write

- Cook

- Game programming 

- Sing

- Play keyboard and guitar

- To compose

- To dance

Hobbies:

Basically, it's her skills + reading + playing video games + taking pictures of the landscape.

Job:

Usually she either works as a waitress in a coffee shop or works in a supermarket (working at the checkout or replacing products on shelves)

As much as many find it strange, MC is very happy in her work, and does not mind working in "simple" jobs (basically jobs that earn little), and as much as she doesn't have much money, just enough to live reasonably well, she is happy with what she has and doesn't care about the money.

College: 

She studies digital game design

I think that's it, there are some other things that I only do when I'm writing specific situations, for example, MC's opinions on certain subjects, and honestly I don't have time at the moment to make the MC's different opinions, and just say that she tries to be as neutral as she can, because she knows that extremes are never good, and that when asked which side she is in a situation (depending on what it is, but usually she says), she says doesn't have a side because it doesn’t identify herself by either side, because both are extreme, and this usually leads people to think that it’s on the fence, but it’s not like that, it’s more or less. "You were teleported to a place, there are two paths, one on the right and the other on the left, at the beginning of each of these paths there is a person, each talking about their paths and talking about why their path is the best of than the other and why you should follow their path. And then you must make a choice of which path to follow " But MC does not agree with either side, and will not wait there to see which side gives her the best benefit as many would do, she goes there and moves on, where there is no path, where there is no one, because she doesn't want to be on anyone's side, she wants to make her own opinions, and not follow what a group is saying. 

Oh, and one of the philosophies she follows is of yin and yang, which says something like "There is good and there is evil, both need each other to exist, there is no good without evil, and no there is evil without good, and that nothing can be completely good or evil, since, however small, there is evil in good, and there is good in evil. "

Some phrases she would say:

"You can say anything about me, but don't come and talk about my family"

"I can't always do it, but I always try to be balanced, because I know that nothing comes out of extremism, no matter which side."

"I'm a Christian, I may not have proofs but I believe in God, but I don't believe everything in the Bible because it was made by humans, and I know that many of them used and still use people's faith to do very bad things . "

"Sorry, but I suck at remembering names, in fact, I suck at remembering."

"Shit, I knew I was forgetting something."

"I hate logic, most of these things don't make any sense!"

"At least I have you with me here DN" (DN = dog name)

"There is nothing that is not so bad that it cannot get worse"

"I think I celebrated too soon"

"I sleep! But no matter what I do, I will be forever sleepy!"

"No matter what I do, my thoughts disturb me from the moment I wake up until bedtime, and even while I'm asleep. And it happens every day."

"Sometimes ... I think ... people would be better off if I didn't exist. I just hinder and hurt people." 

"I don't know when or how it started, I just know that I have been scared forever"

"I don't do it because I want to! It's not my fault if I'm easily distracted"

"I think writing is the only way to say what I feel"

"Yes, I know, I'm crazy, you don't have to tell me that"

"I'm not a normal person. Maybe I'm not even a human? What if I'm an alien and I don't know? A synthetic human? A robot with high artificial intelligence that is identical to that of humans?"

"I don't like to be afraid, but I love to see and read horror stuff."

"I love old things, they are so fascinating"

"What day is it today?"

"I just wanted to have a little courage that other people have"

"I have no hope of anything, as always, every time I had hope, very bad things happened, close people and pets died when I had hope that they would survive. For me, hope has long since died."

"I think, in a way, I am a miracle, just like my brother. I mean, it was almost impossible for my mom to have a baby, and look, here I am."

"I'm not cute!"

"I'm not short, I'm average height, it's the rest of the people who are very tall"

(Maybe I wrote a lot? Did I overdo it?)

Sorry if there is something confusing or errors in English 

#I don't know what to put here

[cornwaiidesu]

a boohoo-y deep dive into my ~psyche~ cuz I had A Moment at work yesterday :P

I care too much about what people think of me. plain and simple. I have been this way since I was a little girl. my cousins would pick on me because I was the special baby girl out of the three of us and they were the two older boys. they would pick on me for being shy and soft spoken and liking girl things, and I wanted them to like me because I thought the two of them were the coolest boys in the world, so I grew to be a little tomboy. I wanted to like fighting games, and anime, and comics because those were "boy things".

but then when puberty started to set in, being a tomboy wasn't cute anymore. at least according to the bullies I had in middle school. usually boys who would call me a d*ke and make fun of me for wearing baggy t-shirts and loose pants and my dad's army jacket every single day of my life. "girls are supposed to be feminine" so obviously something had to be *wrong* with me and they would speculate shit about me directly in front of me. try to engage me in the conversation just to rub it in and of course that made me feel like shit.

so then in high school I try to flip the switch again. I start wearing tighter fitting clothes. I grow my hair out because I was constantly being dogged on my hairstyle even tho that shit was kind of REVOLUTIONARY FOR A 12 YEAR OLD LIVING IN IOWA. PROPS TO TEENAGE MRH. even back then I was a little punk. :3c I digress tho.

the beginning of high school was when I started my curse that lives on in me. I wear earrings every day of my life and I do because I convinced myself back then that I would be mistaken for a boy otherwise. and I still hold that fear because it was upheld! I started wearing dresses and skirts to school, but it didn't matter because dudes would still flip me shit and say that I was a predatory lesbian and strip me of my femininity. adults would still call me young man and sir despite being a 16 year old wearing make up, denim skirts, earrings, and covered in beaded necklaces. I would wear SO much jewelry to try to get it through people's minds that I was a girl.

but then through that came another weird thing where, like, though I was dressing ~feminine~ I was still "one of the guys" because I had a crude sense of humor and still liked comics and anime and wasn't as, for lack of a better word, "delicate" as my other (white) female friends. but then AGAIN I *couldnt* be one of the guys because it was a secret special task force essentially and I was just a stupid girl.

a lot of that fucked up my sense of self with my sexuality growing up too. I knew at a fairly early age that I was bisexual even though I didn't know there was a word for it, but I didn't want to admit to liking girls because that would mean my bullies were right about me, and if they were right about that then what if they were right about all the other horrible stuff they said about me being hideous, and gross, and weird?

because! if that was right too! a boy would never fall in love with me and have dance sex with me like Johnny and Baby do in Dirty Dancing! or would never save me from being sacrificed like Rick saves Evie in The Mummy! I'd be alone forever because boys would think I was big ugly butch with no value to them, and girls would think I was a predator and would always have to be on their guard to make sure I wasn't gawking and fawning over them. (and let's not even GET into how my religion fucked up my sense of morality about this. I have since grown out of it at least.)

every person I ever confessed to having a crush on has turned me down (mostly politely though, thank god) in my life except for one and a half. (one said they also liked someone else as much as they liked me, and since I had no self-esteem at 18 I was like "oh that's cool. let's date anyway." because I just wanted to have a boyfriend. that's the half.)

the other we kind of connected right away, whirlwind romance for me, but I don't think they ever quite felt the same way and that ended in an actual divorce anyway.

I've had three "relationships" my whole entire life and no more than that, and in my head i told myself thag was because I am fat, and ugly, and MASCULINE, no matter how hard I tried to be sweet and charming and pretty.

as I've aged I've learned about the systematic de-feminization of black women since all the way back to slavery times and shit and I won't claim to be an expert about that shit but it makes me cry that it's just ingrained into people's minds. it doesn't give us a single fighting chance from birth. it makes me feel like I'm going to be a lonely freak for the rest of my life because iowa is like one of the whitest places in the world, and my own internalized racism has convinced me all my life that I don't belong in black spaces because I'm not "authentic", I'm watered down. I've been called a half-breed and an oreo so many times.

I can't be black, I can't be white, I can't be a boy, I can't be a girl. I'm a copper penny in a jar full of nickels and dimes. I don't look the same, I'm not the same shape, and im not as shiny.

though I am attracted to women I have this OBSESSION with men, and to have a relationship with a man as PROOF. SOLID PROOF. that I am a valid woman, because there seems to be no other way for me to get the point across. and it's important for me to get the point across because I grew up with my business being the punchline, and curiosity of my peers, and the concern of my family. I couldn't exist without speculation from someone.

and then came a moment last year while I was at work, where a co-worker told me something that a person in another department who I did not get along with had told them. that I was a mean, jealous bitch who wanted them "out of the way" because they were getting too close to my friend that also worked at our store, and I was obsessed and in love with her and trying to stop a relationship from forming between the two of them. and it made me sick to my stomach. it was the thing I had been trying to steer clear from, from the moment I knew I was bisexual, but I hadn't tried hard enough. my anxiety shot through the roof. I had a panic attack. I broke down sobbing in the bathroom. this person was vengeful, I had nothing to do with them or that friend anymore, and I hadn't for months but they wanted to spread this rumor about me. and even if I truthfully denied it like I did, it didn't matter, because a person could take one look at me an think "you know, I can see that." because that's what people thought my entire fucking existence.

I cried off and on the rest of the day. I was too sick to eat dinner. I barely slept. and then I ended up puking what little food I had to eat that night anyway. I still barely ate the following few days I stayed home from work because I still felt so sick to my stomach with anxiety and at one point I got faint-ish when I had finally returned to work, and had to have help to get to the breakroom and force myself to eat. I bawled to my step-mother about it all, that I didn't feel comfortable at work anymore because it was just my words against theirs, and my bosses never held the person accountable for any of the other bullshit that they caused anyway.

it took me a VERY. long time to move past this incident. I think the only thing that ever ended up fully distracting me from it was covid and my uncle and my father's health both taking a turn for the worst last June. and even then, in between, I had such loooow moments. I self harmed and wrote mean notes to myself, stayed in bed for days. I wrote my own suicide note just to feel better, even though I knew I'd never do it. I was too chicken, but I just wanted to write it and pretend, just to release the depression pressure in my brain.

I've since been better for the most part. I know my parents love me and that I'm important to them, when just a few years ago I used to claim that I was an orphan because I was convinced that my father and my step-mother never cared to see me again because I was an ungrateful brat. I still get very lonely and long for a significant other but I'm kind of just coming to terms with the fact that unless I put myself out there, it won't happen, and im just too insecure to take the steps.

yesterday though, just for a second, out of nowhere, I thought about the claim that person had made about me even though the atmosphere at work has since changed, and things are patched up between me and my friend.

that gossiper is irrelevant now, but I couldn't help but have a little meltdown about it anyway because. like. apparently that's the vibe that I give off. because that's what everyone has said about me from day one of my life. and. I just. have to keep dealing with it. I'm stuck like this. and it sucks. and that little thought about it reminded me again.

#long post #very long post #personal #ignore me

[sup4l3e]

I’m Crazy...

I’m insane...

I've lost the plot..

I'm hopeless..

I'm worthless..

I'm unloveable..

I'm pathetic..

I'm weird..

I'm strange..

I'm not okay...

I'm a psycho... (ok this one for me might be true... question it, go on try it! i dare you! ;0 lol)

BUT...

I AM!!!

Those are just some of the things my own mind tells me on a daily basis ... yes here it comes a blog about anxiety and depression... omg!! i know right the cliche of it all. like who hasnt written a blog about depression before ...

oh woe is me! am i right?

well... thats where you're wrong!

(before i start i want no sympathy im not writing this for the "aww's" and the "bless her" comments, i dont want sympathy or empathy ... this is simply because ive experienced and lived with depression for about 14 years and if i can help one person feel better about themselves by reading this or help someone realise that they are not alone then, well, i can rest easy tonight. If anything i want to empower people)

I lived for so many years in the dark, keeping all of this too myself and you know what it did? absolutely sweet FA apart from making me so much worse, it gave ammunition to those little voices, telling me all of the above, making them win!

i didnt realise until about 2-3 years ago that talking about my experiences and how im feeling would help.

i didnt realise until about 2-3 years ago how many other people around me were going through the EXACT same thing.

Two and a half years ago i was a completely different person, i was sheltered, i was in a very toxic relationship ... with myself. Most people would disagree, they'd say i was actually in a toxic relationship with my ex partner; but i cant blame him. Dont get me wrong he was toxic and looking back i was lucky to get out when i did, however i am also grateful too him, because he showed me exactly what i dont want in my life. and being fair to him i'd lived with my own toxicity in my mind for a good 10 years before him, so god forbid i'd give him the satisfaction of all that praise coz by god did i do a damned good number on myself without any of his help. ;)

In all honestly though, i do blame myself and my own mind, because 2 and a half years ago those little voices in my own head were the only thing i was listening to, they were winning. I wasnt listening to my family who were worried sick about me, who were practically begging me to tell them what was going on in my head, who i shut out, ignored and pushed away because i couldnt cope and you know what? they didnt deserve that at all. i live everyday regretting that i put them through that, So i now live everyday hoping to make them proud of me and live each and everyday with a promise. I do however live every day regretting that i didnt let them in earlier because if i had of i wouldnt have gone through the hell i did and i wouldnt have genuinely believed "this is what i deserve" "no-one else will love you" "no-one else wants you" "no-one cares"... i wouldnt have had too live a LIE.

The lie was people did love me, i just couldnt see it, people did care about me, i just wouldnt hear it, i needed their help, i just wouldnt speak it; because at that point in time my own mind was telling me that i didnt deserve any of that, and that nobody would ever want to do that for me. So i found sactuary in a toxic person who in the long run made me the strong person i am today because if it werent for him i'd never have the confidence in myself knowing what i overcame, and if it werent for him i wouldnt have seen my family and loved ones take charge and say "Leanne enough is enough" .. they gave me the metaphorical slap across the face i damned well needed and brought me back to reality, they categorically wouldnt allow that behaviour to carry on anymore and for that i will forever be grateful!

i made a promise to them that day that i would always tell them when i was getting low again and i made a promise to myself that day that i would keep them in the forefront of my mind in all of my decisions and i would also promise to try and help anyone else who was ever in the same position i was in.

depression is a funny old thing, everyone will experience some form of depression throughout their life, some people are genetically wired to experience it, some people will experience it from a young age, some dont experience it until very late on in life, some experience it from sad/happy/overwhelming life events, some unlucky souls just never find happiness. but no matter what EVERYONE will, at somepoint experience depression. in this blog im going to try and explain how i've learned to manage and cope with mine.

A bit of a backstory of my depression, it started around the age of 14-15, my depression. I dont know where it came from but it was right around the time of my GCSE's, college, boys, hormones, and being diagnosed with PCOS (for those of you who dont know what that is its Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) i was told at a young age of 14 that i had some sort of syndrome which "would only matter when i got older", and that i had some of the prettiest ovaries the sonographer and gyneacologist had ever seen... in hindsight that wasnt going to be the compliment i first thought it was or the dismissive statement they portrayed it and brushed it off as, at all! THAT diagnosis changed alot of my life, however i will get back to that.

As most teens do around here I started studying for my GCSE's at just 15 years old. i was so stressed out i started actually hearing a screaming voice in my head. i suffered panic attacks daily, sometimes a few attacks a day, and that is where my anxiety started and then, good old depression smashed me in the face. i found the more stressed i became, the more id hear that screaming inside my head which then lead me to thinking " holy fucking shitballs im hearing voices im actually insane" therefore leading to more anxiety and panic attacks. so much so i would come home exhausted at 4pm everyday crawl into my pyjamas and climb into bed ready to do it all again the following day. (dont get me wrong i sat most nights on msn using the latest flashing emojis for EACH and EVERY letter of the alphabet, to the point it looked more like hyroglyphics and obviously getting the colours just right with the codes to make your name and status show in a rainbow. but that was all done in pj's curled up in bed because i couldnt manage much else ... however, if my mam asks i was revising and doing my homework THE. WHOLE. TIME, not talking to my friends about how hot a certain crush's bum looked that day ha! am i right! :P xoxo)

This was all a massive thing for me to go through aswell, due to the fact my dad has mental health issues and lives with schizophrenia, so, naturally at this point, you can imagine i was picturing myself in padlocked straight jackets and padded cells, talking away to the screaming voice in my head. the funniest thing was this screaming voice wasnt saying anything nasty or bad it was just my thoughts screaming at me like everything was angry, so genuinely just everyday life thoughts but those screaming at me, like, imagine thinking "leanne dont forget to pack your PE kit" but in the voice of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket... it. was. TERRIFYING!

Anyways, so yes high school was a massive contributor, then i made the choice to leave college at 17 because i, like many others, didnt have the faintest clue what i wanted to be when i grew up (little did i know id live the life of peter pan and neverland would be my sesh house OIOI!!!) In leaving college i went into full time work, as a 'temp job' until i decided what i was going to do... unfortunately, 8 and a half years later i was still their prisoner! haha, Nah, dont get me wrong i met some absolutely amazing people in that job and i did love it but i knew at the end, if i didnt get out it was going to kill me off. I'd gotten to the point in that job that i cried myself to sleep knowing i had to go back in the next day. that place contributed alot to my depression not because it was a bad job but because id made a wrong decision and was stuck there. i had to leave.

my next massive contributor, and this is where i divulge some of my REAL heartbreaks. PCOS - Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome or what i like to call Poly fucking Cystic fucking Ovary fucking Syndrome or "lets just fuck shit up!" (no im not bitter about it at all lol) because of this shit, from the very young age of 14 (like puberty isnt hard enough - spots, hair in places you never wanted boobs growing overnight, bleeding once a month being the biggest inconvenience) i have also had to deal with weight issues, hersuitism, depression, anxiety, hormones that sent me bat shit crazy, pain, headaches, fatigue, you name it i had it. but the biggest heartbreak, being told that id always have difficulty concieving and carrying a child. Anyone who knows me, and knows me well, knows i have always wanted to be a mam. (and not the sesh mam who looks after all my drunken idiotic friends on a night out ... coz i swear thats all they ever think i do lol) I mean a real mam, to a real baby. and being told at a young age that i had the prettiest ovaries the gyneacologist had ever seen wasnt the compliment i thought it was because it turned out my ovaries were absolutely covered in cysts. And for years i have tried to have a baby but alas nothing ever happens. i've had a few close calls and ive miscarried, or at least i think i did, the test came back positive but then about 3 days after that pretty pink second line, i had the heaviest period i had ever had for around 4 hours and then my body went back to normal as if nothing happened. it broke my heart.

They say the human body is delicate and intricate and should be treated with respect... i say its a machine and its a absolute twat at times, and why should i respect what in essence has caused me heartbreak from a young age FOR NO FUCKING REASON. but hey ho... life. goes. on.

so... thats my life story or just a snippet of it. and some of the reasons why i have depression.

heres how i cope...

Well, for a long time.. and i mean a VERY LONG time i didnt. i hid it, i hid away from the world. i drank alot. i avoided family, i avoided my best friends, i avoided anything that would have brought me back to reality.

For a long time though, thats what i needed. now im not saying running away from your issues is easy and thats what you should do because its definitely not. im saying i NEEDED to do it at the time because i had no other way of coping and i NEEDED too to learn what not to do in the future. So masking, for me, was better than facing things 'alone'. In that time though, i made my issues alot worse and in fact caused more issues. it hurt my family, my friends and well hurt myself too, because in the long run i still had to sober up and i still had to deal with the same issues that got me down in the first place, i ended up in debt which contributed further too my issues. I did some very silly things which when i look back on them now i could have hurt so many people. i took an overdose of painkillers at one point around 2 and a half years ago. I felt so weak i saw no other outcome but instantly regretted doing it and made myself sick so that they came back up. i've told my mother and close friends about this previously but i think to really show how much i've learned and to reach out to anyone who is feeling the same way i did, to tell them IT REALLY DOES GET BETTER AND EASIER. i think saying that, shows my honesty throughout this post and allows for my experience and honesty really show that i want to help anyone going through the same thing.

Masking just makes the pain go away for a short period of time. learning from your pain and making it your strength is how you really overcome your own mind and depression.

It wasnt until i realised i was never alone, just how selfish and stupid id been all that time, because in masking, hiding and running away, id stupidly stopped myself from a faster recovery, less heartache, less pain and mental and physical torture. and really i stopped myself from helping others in the same position as me.

it wasnt until i learned to make my pain my strength that i truly found peace in who i am.

i still have days where those voices wont shut up, and they win and thats ok.

i still have days where i cannot climb out of bed and thats ok.

i still have days where i cry and the pain is too much and thats ok.

because i learned all of it really is ok! everyone has those same thoughts the same feelings the same illnesses. and i know that tomorrow WILL be a better day.

you just need to learn how to make it and own it as your own!

nothing has changed for me, all of those things are still true they're still real, my body hasnt miraculously healed itself, i still made poor life choices, it hasnt changed my hormonal imbalances but it has changed my mindset. it has changed my life. i made a choice to change my mindset and not let it beat me i decided to let people in. my family are my guardian angels because they never gave up on me, they dragged it out of me and frogmarched me to the doctors for the help i needed but some people dont have that support in their lives.

i'm lucky enough now, to have lived with this for long enough to know my signs, and when i know what i call, "going dark" is coming. basically when i start slipping and losing control of it again, i identify it and know how to manage it head on. unfortunately my body because of the stupid "intricate machine" i have and how broken it is (believe me the day i can swap out into an AI robot body imma sign straight up for that shit imma have me a body like Jennifer Anniston) my body however tends to go into a meltdown, i end up with more migraines, pain and infections. i also get extremely tired to the point i can sleep for a good 15-20 hours a day and thats not me being lazy (although if sleeping were an olympic sport i'd be the universal champion of it BED=LIFE) thats really me needing to reset. at that point in time when i know this is coming, thats when i reach out; i tell my friends and my family "I'm not okay" because i know now i can do that, i can talk to them.

i, personally, take medication daily, and for some reason we live in a society where people are actually shamed for doing so. i know if i dont take those 2 little tablets every day i will lose control and become a shell of who i really am. my seratonin levels drop and i practically become a robot barely functioning. so why should i be ashamed of those 2 little 'happy pills' which make me the person i want to be and know i truly am! no chemical imbalance is going to get the better of me! if i can have the help, im damned sure going to take it. along with the happy pills, aswell as alot of sleep, sunbeds, spending time with family and friends whenever i possibly can, i now have a job that i love, i also retrained as a beautician, and i love going to the gym and swimming whenever i can, ive found i can manage mine alot better. one thing that massively changed my life was limitting when i drink. i rarely go out drinking anymore and the reason is because i know deep down i will end up in a very low state afterwards. alcohol is a depressant and i wont allow that kind of thing to get me down. so now instead i choose to drink once a month if not less. i havent cut out the drink completely i just know if i want to get blinding drunk i need to be in a very happy place to do so. so i am careful where i drink, who i drink with and what i do whilst im drinking and unfortunately much to my neighbours disgust that tends to be in the house whilst singing along to whitney houston or disney songs at the top of my lungs, but thats how i know i'll not plummet the day after, and lets face it anyone whose heard me singing knows whitney had nothing on me ;)

In all seriousness though, the best advice i can give anyone living with depression is talk to someone, talk to your family, talk to your neighbour, talk to your friends, talk to your doctor, talk to your dog, your cat, the postman, the man on the bus who sits oddly close too you... just talk to anyone. tell them how you are feeling tell them your experiences. tell them what is getting to you. Find someone who you can trust, find a stranger. write it all down in a blog. video it. GET IT ALL OFF YOUR CHEST! SAY IT OUT LOUD! Just. Bloody. Talk! please!

everyones experiences with depression are different some people mask it, some people show it, some people (like me now) shout it from the fucking rooftops because im not afraid of my emotions anymore.

everyones ways of coping are different too, some people find the gym helps, some rely on medication, some rely on talking therapies... there are so many different ways of coping out there now... the only way that doesnt work is not admitting something is wrong and fighting your own mind without help, knowing something isnt right but still doing nothing about it. The only way of not coping is living a lie, you dont have to do this alone!

Basically do those things just for you, the ones you've always wanted to do! get that tattoo you wanted, quit your job, retrain, change your hair colour, buy that car, buy that dog, book that holiday.

do what makes YOU happy!

live for you and open up, people would rather know how you are feeling than see you struggle or ultimately not be here.

open up you never know someone might be feeling the exact same way you are and it could bring you closer.

but remember most importantly:

You ARE NOT Alone..

You ARE NOT Crazy..

You ARE NOT insane..

You HAVE NOT lost the plot..

You ARE NOT hopeless..

You ARE NOT worthless..

You ARE NOT unloveable..

You ARE NOT pathetic..

You ARE NOT weird..

You ARE NOT a psycho..

You ARE NOT strange..

And..

You ARE okay...

You ARE Beautiful..

You ARE Worth it..

YOU ARE Loved

i hope this helps...

thank you ☺

[empressxmachina]

Patients Zero - iii. by Imperial-Radiance

~Also on Wattpad~

*gasp* *cough*

Oh, good god. What? I thought I was— But, how am I—? Didn’t I get—? Wait, where am I?

Hard: I’m on something hard. Hard, flat, slick, and cold. My back hates this. I’m guessing it’s a floor. But I feel grooves, not just one that takes up my entire hand. It almost feels… made for me. Impossible. My eyes; they’re closed. It’s dark, behind and in front of the lids. Yet, there’s a glow: a… soft one? Not the blinding white from before? It’s cool, still, but not as much somehow. I wait for a voice to give me any sort of insight of where I am, and all I get back is just the gentle hum of a… a… Wait, is that a fan? No, is that a heater? Even on the hottest days outside in the real world – real because this is a fantasy, still, especially if I’m alive – it never went past room temperature. I… I’m boiling like I’m stuck in an oven.

Oh, my god. Am I being cooked in here? No, screw that. I’ll accept going out in plenty of ways in this diminutive state, but I will not go out as someone’s di—!

Well, this is… new? I finally lift my back up and open my eyes, and I’ve found myself lost… and in pain. Holy crap! Everything hurts! Ugh. But that’s the least of my worries. I’m alive, somehow, for some reason. But, why, and why here, wherever here is?

Am I crazy? This sure looks like a living room: not very different from my one at home. There’s a sofa, a table, and works of art that admittedly caught my vision immediately. I’ve liked to think that I’m not a leech for moving media, so not seeing a television or the like here is pleasing. There are dimly lit LEDs as large as me, a rug across the ground over there as large as me, and an actual fan even larger than me. Sure, it nearly takes up a whole wall like a fireplace would, but the latter would be unconventional. It’s blowing out heat, so it must switch between hot and cold. The only thing missing is a collection of literature of varying genres, but I doubt printing that small is even possible. Besides that, it’s like it was made for me.

But that’s just it. That’s fucking weird. It’s made for me, and how small am I now?

I must be going insane. This can’t be real. This room can’t possibly be mine—Oh. Oh shit.

That’s a kitchen over there behind me. A real kitchen – well, as real as it can be with its counters and cabinets. But it’s the actual cooking stuff that made it real: the primitive tools in the corner for refrigeration and cooking – some solar funnel/pot thing, I think – and the bruised yet familiar food scraps from my past life stacked in a triad of pyramids next to them. Wait, past life? I say that like it’s been forever since I was… ambushed… by someone big enough to make a place like this if they’re careful.

I’ve got to get out of here. But what is here? First things first, I should probably get my ass off the floor: this uncomfortably perfectly-sized floor.

O-Okay. Up and at it. The floor isn’t an ocean anymore. Appliances don’t have as much of a chance of killing me now. If I go this way, then I can sit at this table right here and contemplate all the dumb stuff I did to get here… wherever here is, not to mention there are enough chairs to fit a whole family or a group of housemates. Housemates. AmI alone here? Why am I here? Why do I keep asking myself these questions rather than just looking for the answer?

I’m irrational. This is irrational, but I must make the most of it. No, screw it, do I even have a choice? Well, with all these grabbable, sharp things around, I guess the answer’s technically a ‘yes.’ But. I’m not that depressed. I’m not. Not *sigh* that depressed. I’ve fought this long for others’ lives before and my own at this level, so why stop now? It’s not like I’m not used to being like this. It’s just this current situation that’s new… and heaven knows how much I love surprises… and rambling. Where was I? Oh, right.

If I go that way, now, then I can go to a surprise upstairs with who-knows-what… or who-knows-who. Would they really bunk me with someone else? I wasn’t one for strangers at full size, so how would they think I’d manage one on this scale!? They’re the ones that are short-sighted, not me. Ugh, I can’t wait to deal with that possibility. Though, maybe I don’t have to.

There’s the door. Huh.

I know I just got out of some stasis a moment ago, but it only just occurred to me that all the windows are covered and presumably closed. There seems to be no light peeking out of anywhere, either, so either it’s still nighttime, or I’m enclosed somewhere cut off from the world. No, the latter’s always going to be true here, now that I think about it. I don’t know where here is, but I do know it sure isn’t out there. There’s no use in not verifying it, though.

I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised how what should be a small door doesn’t have a lock. Yet, it has a hinge – two of them? Okay. Am I too dumb for not checking the windows? No, just crazy, but I knew that already. What’s crazier, though, is how I’m simultaneously right and wrong upon opening this door.

This is a small house, and this sure doesn’t look like a lab, a ward, and especially not that basement. To be honest, I kind of expected there to be grass or an equivalent on the ground here. Ground. I say that like this place containing me isn’t on a freaking table right now. Well, to be fair, they brought in real grass, plants, and stuff for the diorama dwellings, so I guess it’s not that weird. But those were for hundreds if not thousands of people on several stations. This is just me… and a house for me… on a table.

A table in what looks like a… a bedroom? I mean, I think I can make out the mountainous shapes of a bed, nightstands sandwiching it, and I think a dresser across from them, but it’s freaking dark in here. I’m surprised I can see that far away. Those LEDs boxed in my walls shouldn’t be able to reach that far, even if their brightness was somehow magnified through the cracks between windows and the door, yet here they are. Despite that, there’s no denying I’m in some resting place for some giant somewhere. Somewhere.

I could be freaking anywhere, but where?

I do know one thing: it’s damn fine that I don’t have a fear of heights. That helped me back there with the commons, so it’ll help me here, too. But, god, damn it, that drop is large. I bet it was intentional, along with my placement here. With the back edge cut off by the wall and the front sharply opening to this no man’s land of a room, I don’t have many options of escape.

I hear a heater running like a radiator under a window on one side of this table, and I’d rather not get burnt to cinders today. I could test my luck descending the curtains, but I don’t think I’m in proper form to climb or slide down. The opposite side is blocked by a chair in the corner. Falling onto a cushion might not be a bad idea. Maybe there’s a vent I can get through behind there. Hmm.

Screw it. I’d rather risk seeing my maker than wait for them to come to me. Chair, it is. It seems like the only way to go. But, should I take a leap of faith or weigh my options? Eh, watch with my luck, and this room’s patron comes back in and throws something atop of me – maybe even themselves. A smudge on somebody’s ass: that’s not legacy worthy. At least if I’m up here for some time, then I can probably make it back in the house and use it for even a smidgen of protection.

Hopefully.

Huh. Should I be bothered by how my steps aren’t clicking across this surface? I mean, they never did in the basement, but there were plenty of people around causing noise and whatever. Here, I’m alone… at least for now. That should be calming, shouldn’t it? Alas, as I continue forward, the curve of what-now-looks-like-an-accent-chair crests over the horizon and—

Oh, curse me.

So, I was right in being worried about possibly being suffocated to no end in colossal clothing. But, of all of them, did it have to be scrubs? I’m no color aficionado, but I do think that’s how that health-centric blue is supposed to look in this lighting—er, lack of light, I should say. Of course, they’re not just any scrubs, either. Any sensible physician would know to discard of their scrubs in at least a hamper to be washed after use or just use a new pair. These look like cast-offs like mad.

I’d put money down on them being his. That monster brought me here, didn’t here? Then, me being here would make sense: I’m where he lives or, at least, stays so he can watch me like some project.

Looking back at this rather extravagant house for a subspecies like me, who knows how much other preparation has been done since he acquired me? Is he why I’m hurt like this? Speaking of hurt, wasn’t I beeping before, and that led to all of this? It’s stopped now, and so was I, but is replacing it with pain much better? If I run away, then how do I know that the beeping won’t restart and lead to an even greater demise?

I’m curious, though, considering he could’ve ended me earlier while I was presumably incapacitated if that were his goal. But what if he may have plans for me, instead? What if he’s planning for me to run away, and that’s why he’s away, probably watching from afar? The basement had cameras whether they wanted us to know they were there or not, and I bet there’s some in here, too, with night vision, thermals, and all that other fancy gobbledygook. Ugh, it’s dark and distant in here, but damn it, I’m going to find one if it’s the last thing I—

Are you kidding me?

Do not tell me that’s been him this whole time. Him, and he’s that? Well, that’s poetic as hell, isn’t it? He was going to take me out beforeall this crap started. Now, he’s going to do me in here, instead, screwing me sideways and 1-upping me even more so.

In my visual pursuits of a camera, the last thing I expected to find was an I.D. To surprise me even more, I recognized the face on it. I remember my first time seeing it.

I was on a lunch break, just reading in my journals about Match Day – how it had been the largest amounts of matches in history or whatever – and then Doc Adams suddenly broke the fun and excitement, coming in with a list of our future interns. One of them was him. If it had been just a few years prior, then I would’ve been excited. After all, there’s nothing wrong with more doctors, right? But, Adams, the louse, has… had been trying to get me out of the doctoring game since.

It’s because he knows that I’d be better at his job than him, and the supervisors at the system H.Q. have been telling us both this. I can’t help that I love – loved– helping people directly so much to not replace it with a tedious desk job, even if it looks over pretty much everyone else in the hospital. Thus, his solution was to put more and more people in our ranks to dilute the focus away from me. It worked for a while until someone had a symptom that they didn’t know how to treat, but I did.

Despite my knowledge, this new guy was perfection, though, and from across the ocean, no less. I bet Adams creamed his pants at him on the list: this—What’s his name again? Oh, yeah: this ‘Mikul Merchant’ or whatever. I wonder how many bribes Adams had to make to get him. But that doesn’t matter now, does it? The first day for the interns would’ve been months ago, and the kid and I are both here, apparently, with him ruining my life just as much if not more so than he would’ve been without this wretched disease.

Though, if he was already on this continent way before then, then he must’ve been excited, too. After all, I’m sure his home country has its own center like this where he could’ve been. Why was he here, and how in the world did he turn out to be a carrier, too?

Upon registration, everyone is given I.D.s, but rather than having the random number sequences and barcodes the others get until they’re rendered useless by dwindling heights to where they can’t carry the damn thing, carriers’ listings are just ‘zeroes’ with a Q.R. code. I’m positive that’s how that self-deprecating squad of bugs found me and put their emotions out on and into me. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one here, so why would they charge me rather than someone like him? Well, besides his youth, foreignness, and relative handsomeness that may correlate with them, unlike me, he’s a carrier of and might as well be immune to both strains.

Curse this minute minutia. Curse my imperfections. But, most importantly, screw this—!

*CLICK* God, no.

Before I can even blink, a beam of light blinds me, revealing the previously dark side of the room and thus allowing me to see that this isn’t just a bedroom but more like a hotel room. A vanity adjacent to a closed closet appears. It’s spanning across the wall opposite me, this table and chair, that house of mine, and the window. How I didn’t see the reflection of this house in the mirror beforehand is beside me. But, no other reflection aside from my own hasn’t yet come into view, which makes me wonder if this is genuinely that giant’s room.

I know I used to come across my team’s scrubs in my office on occasion, so who’s to say that a lead person isn’t just keeping subject/’Doctor’ Merchant’s clothing with them for testing or safekeeping? Though, I don’t think that just throwing them across a chair shows its direct importance or proper sanitation practices. Or, maybe there’s another type of experiment going on. Perhaps it’s just dealing with me and what I do in this new location? Either way, that doesn’t answer whose room this is or why—

Never mind. There, he is. I’m here with him. I should stop doubting myself. No, this is the one time I should challenge anything and everything I’ve ever known.

Emerging from what I assume is a bathroom, a lanky, lean embodiment of a supposed human comes through. Supposed. Humans aren’t meant to be that large. It’s almost godly – the glow of his mostly bare, solely-pants-wearing, towel-draping-necked form – but I’m not glorifying a monster, checking his face and onyx hair over the sink and counter like he hasn’t done anything wrong. His auburn skin with no marks in sight is so nourished like he’s been able to bathe sensibly and get proper sunlight. There’s not one eye bag or wrinkle like he’s never had a single stressor in his life: the pampered, pompous prick. I’d almost say he’s prettier in person, but beasts are never pretty.

If you’re here, then you should be under all the stresses. Yet, here you are, flouncing around almost naked like you aren’t contracted with and spreading disease! If that’s the case, then why the hell am I here, trapped with you—!?

You… You… You’ve got to be kidding me. I mean, it was only a matter of time, but… don’t fucking dare.

Before I can even comprehend it, his almond gaze snaps on me like a locked crosshair in a gun’s sight. I try freezing in place, but I’m sure the vanity lights are making my eyes glow like a beady animal’s, so it’s all in vain. Aside from that, I didn’t think he had even noticed me at first, but then he had squinted his eyes and cocked his head like an inquisitive dog trying to hear. Just to test my luck, he even acknowledges me… or whatever he thinks I am if he doesn’t know for sure for some reason,

“H-Huh?” He sounds so soft, almost… Nope, I’m not going to say that. There’s no way he actually cares. I… I’m nothing in comparison. He’s taken out souls larger and smaller than me, so what difference would I make? “Is something there?” See? ‘Something.’

I’m a thing now.

I almost thought he’d salivate for his new toy, treat, or whatever I am to him. He’s already been a predator in public upon thousands of eyes. How much craftier will he be, all alone? I’m not going to wait to find out. Even if that’s what he’s expecting me to do, I don’t care. It’s fight-or-flight, and the former is definitely out of the question.

“W-Wait!”

Like hell, I’m doing that.

#g/t #my writing #patients zero #giant male #sm #male giant #medical fic #pandemics on my mind lmao

[delicioustrashlove]

To me : a honest open letter to my self. deep breath and open up and express 

What do you know . You went back there again and all though you held on super tight you couldn’t keep him could you? Of course not. You’ve lost your self every-time chasing him and you’ve never been able to catch him.

I thought I wouldn’t survive this one. I thought honestly I was not going to make something of my self . I whole heartedly was ready to give up . What ever happened happened and I could care less it’ll never be as bad as losing you. And I truthfully connived my self that my happiness only lied in your arms.

It took me so long to cry . Once I got back Colorado the reality of my new home, it was such a blur . For a while I pretended you died. To some how help my heart forget you. And thats all I wanted was to forget you. I deleted every picture and every single video .I blocked you on everything I could think of that youd have access to talking to me through . And for what . Just to black out once a week and tell you how much  I miss you and that I love you . I drank my self silly . I mean every event every party every outing I had to be there I had to be anywhere but in reality . Because reality meant no you. It meant what once was and will never be again,, reality meant excepting my feelings. And I wanted so badly to be tough and strong. I’ve gotten my heart shattered a million times by you , you’d think I would get easier . It didnt it was worse . I was so fully invested in you that life didnt exist with out you in it . I didnt know what that felt like anymore . I was so wrapped up In you so blind to reality . Loving you meant losing my self . I lost my self 4 times a year for 5 years trying to keep your heart. I broke my own heart letting you back in to my life so many times . I knew better . But the love I had for you was so much stronger . I couldn’t stay away . I also revolved my entire world around you , so when you where gone I felt so literally like the world was ending . I lost my whole life . I realize now thats not healthy . You have to always prioritize your health and well being before anyone . You have to love you before you love anyone. So wed break up id self destruct then Id put all my pieces back together the ones you broke. Id fix my self and I would get back on track I was moving on I was happy then just like that . One phone call at 10pm where you clearly to drunk to remember the conversation id be on a plane. Drop my job my home my family My friends … quite literally everything just to be with you . Just to love you. All I ever did in this world was so unconditionally love you. I thought I could hate you I did for a while . But I dont anymore . You where apart of my journey and it almost killed losing you but it was supposed to happen . It was part of the plan that god has for me. You coming int o my life brought so much love and bond that ill never feel with anyone else . I will never love someone the way I let my self love you. And when the lesson has finally been learned only then I can move forward to the next chapter. And your purpose in my life was love and lots of lessons and lots of growing . You think god doest hear your heart crying you think he gave up on you ya know , but he never did. In the end you’ll see there was such bigger picture. 5 years I spent going back to you and leaving you. Why did I always go back ? Because loved you but I clearly wasn’t seeing what god prepared for me. He wouldn’t believe his lessons or fallow his guidance so he kept bring ing me back to you so I could relearn and remember why I left and well you might be my soulmate your not meant to be in my story forever . Only a couple chapters . And once you’ve served your purpose to my life that god wants me to have experienced and learned I will be able to move forward. I first must let you go . And I finally am starting to. I got so unhealthy and so sad and so stuck and caused so many health problems to my body . So much that was almost to much to prepare. But I made a choice one day . I chose my self , and not you. I chose to love me and not love you anymore. I commented intently to my family and I mean really gave it my all. I learned that no matter what my parents wouldn’t never leave mom behind .and im going to everything in my power to be a good girl to them and build our love and our relationship . And I think that was gods purpose all along. You cant keep whats not for you . And I didnt understand that when we parted ways. I accept that now . And I know as I continue to stay on the right path god has such beauty waiting ahead for me… look how much I loved you and all I did for you imagine how much I will love the right man. I did alot. Every time we break up I have to fix my self . But I know now its all apart of the journey . All those trials with you just made me stronger it made me braver it made me wiser and it made men grateful for the good ones.  You breaking my heart was one of the best things to happen to me in the end. Because I never would stopped loving you I never would have left you behind. I would have always been your biggest fan and continued to love you till I ended up hating my self. You have the courage to set me free was the kindest thing you ever did for me. At the time I didnt get it but who I am now and what I ve accomplished for my self and how when you try really hard to be better and I mean really hard things kind of fall in to place. God smiles and says okay you deserve this you’ve learned you’ve grown . I manaaged to accomplish that goal of being close to my family . We are so close and we love trust and respect eachother so much . Our bond is very very strong . I managed to get my self too a doctor , I found out I complete sabotaged my health . And oh ya I have 14 allergies !!!!  And some of the effects of those allergies after time has caused a harmful build up to where I was 3 years away form being diabetic , my thyroid completely stopped working . Amplifying my anxiety and my depression . The last month. I was in az i would get sick a lot . Id eat something and get sick . The problem was I was so fuxking drunk all the time I didnt ever thing anything of it. I’ve destroyed my guy and its a blessing that wildly and randomly this doctor asked if she could test me . And we found a lot of issues and also got a lot of answers to a lot of my health issues. Im starting treatment for that . Ill be injecting my self every other day with medicine to help my body repair the damages I have done and it will also help fight allergic reaction and build immunity so this doesnt happen again . I also !!! Am taking my meds again . Different ones but im glad I chose to take this chance on them again . I figured if im going to  put my health and happiness first I dotn need to be drinking and If im not drinking a lot fo stuff is going to come to the surface and I don know how well ill be able to handle that reality. I also like I said thought. Was going to kill my self. I was so heartbroken so so so sad. I knew I needed help and I reached out and got. Now im happy and stable and I get out of bed and I have energy and im so present and to active. I work out everyday . I eat healthy and I lost some weight . My highest weigh t was 168 before our florida trip I got down to 147 , when worked for Linx I was 145 then after being with tj again my mental health went hay wire and I lost my self again . Completely lost. And when I got back to co I was 153 pounds …. I would shift from 145 to 147 … then I just stopped worrying about it and started doing something about it. I channeled all my sadness in to exercise . Im sad go work out im bored go work out im happy hey go work out get that good flow !!  Your angry you miss him what ever it was I worked out then it became all I could focus on cus I learned to love it so Much . I took on running again I put in the work . Things finally where falling into place . I was getting my self back and this time it was better then ever . Better then ever before . I unlocked this door and its been so beautiful. I one day weighed my self just to see assuming id be 145 I was 137 !!!! Wow !!! A week later I was 135 and today I am 133!!!!! Its so cool and feels so good to not be depressed not feel pretty in my clothes. And iliv Amy self. So much . I hope I start working at hooters soon and continue to have a great life. I finally got approved for unemployment and ally back pay and also and extra 13 weeks after mine runs out. Things are just happening . I wasn’t going to get any hadn’t outs . But I was at the bottom thats for sure and you know who was there ? Not tj not the guy you literally did everything for no not him . My mom and my step dad and my brother . They took me in . And it was hard and uncomfterable , but I just stopped going out stopped drinking as much . And did things for them no matter if they where mad at me or if it was awkward.i committed to being good fo them . And I knew it would take time . But little by little ive managed to accomplish all my goals . When I used to be the queen of quitting. I cant wait to see even more of what god has in store for me. And who I become . My skins cleaning up my body is losing weight I more active im healthy and im very in touch with my desires and my well being . I care and love and respect my self so so much. Its like a huge spiritual awakening. I love being alone . I dont feel like alone deserves me right now to be honest .Its gong to take a lot for me to love again but its okay . Not everyone deserves that form me anyway. I worked so hard to me this . To be who I am right now and I won’t let anyone take that away form me. You cause harm to my heart my well being just by !! If you disappoint me disrespect me or hurt me its done . You lost you dot meet my needs your not benefiting and there’s to many many and women on this planet . Ill never waist my time on the wrong one . Ever again. I respect my self to much to put someone over me! And I stand by that now and forever!!!  The new be is bette then ever and its gong to take a hell of a person to change my relationship status . And that cool im honestly not even interested . I dont care to date or hang out or hook up or even have sexual contact with anyone . Im so content with me myself and this beautiful transition im goin through I just want to focus on me and my family and my health. Because this is what its all about. This is what living is. this is life. This is beauty . This is whats important. I feel like im living . And im happy and im only going to get better and better. Thank you god for this life and thank you for giving me the strength to turn the page and start a new chapter on life. I fully trust you and the processs. And that brings me back to “god will never leave you behind” I needed to learn all those things that all may mistakes have taught me . And god has a way of constantly bringing things back Into your life if it has not yet served its purpose or taught you what you needed to learn.  I see that now. Positive mind set is very powerful . Loving your self is amazing and living through god is the best thing you can do . I will always you tj and I will always in some way wish there was a me and you forever .but I cant ever betray my self like that again. That door is officially closed.  See I thought my life was over when you said our relationship was over. But really it had just begun. Everything happened for a reason exactly how its meant to happen . Losing you meant I could finally find my self. It just lit up the path .  God bless <3 no angry  im happy and im I accept this and I forgive my self and you . Life is so Beautiful .

Some one very wise once said … -Life is not about how much you hurt its about how much your willing to suffer. ~VP

Im not willing to suffer any longer.  Except it feel it and then forgive and move forward.

[ontheedgeofrecovery]

What was different?

Hang tight, this is going to be a long one. I hope it is worth your time to read. Also, I put a hell of a lot of time into writing this, so I really hope it is helpful for someone (anyone!) out there.  

So, I was messaging with a friend the other night (and by the other night I mean a few weeks ago because this took me forever to write) who I met a long time ago in treatment (you know who you are and I miss you and love you!). As we were talking about how hard it is to be in treatment, I started thinking about my own last experience in treatment. What made it stick? Why was it that time that I was able to stop the cycle of going in and out of the hospital? I have struggled with anorexia and restrictive eating since about the age of 7. It didn't turn into a full-blown eating disorder until I was 13, but the seeds were there around 7ish when I started to become very rigid about what and when I would eat. Anyway, it's been a long struggle. And then from 13 to 31 I cycled in and out of treatment. I literally have lost count of how many times I have been admitted - I don't say this to brag (I have noticed this is a thing in treatment), but rather to emphasize that clearly something was not clicking for a long time. In the summer of 2014 my treatment recommended palliative care and to stop trying to get better in the hospital. Basically, let nature take its course. 

I pretty much accepted that the only thing left to do was die, but then decided to give it one last go and embarked upon one of my longest stays in treatment ever (October 20, 2014 to August 22, 2015). Although to be fair, I "left" many times. Usually for a day or two and then I would come back and resume my stay. I am so lucky I found a place and a treatment team that was willing to put up with my flight impulses and always accepted me back. I went from inpatient to PHP to residential to PHP to inpatient to PHP, and then finally IOP. I really hung in there and allowed myself to get to about 90% of my ideal before I discharged. Which I don't think I had done since being 15 and being at Remuda. While I clearly think this is one of the bigger players in how I got myself stable, there are others. 

What was different? How did I allow myself to stay that long in treatment and sit through the discomfort of gaining almost double my body weight?

Well, there is no one simple answer, but I have been mulling it over in my head the past few days and I thought I would jot down my thoughts 1) because I feel stuck where I am at in recovery and maybe this will be motivation and 2) I don't have many readers, but for those of you who are out there maybe this will be helpful? So here they are in somewhat of a particular order (though these have changed over time in how they contribute and maintain my "recovery" (I hate using that word, because I still struggle a lot with food, but I am so much better than where I was and maybe this is what recovery looks like for me?).

Anyway.

1) Cannabis -  This is kind of what kick-started the whole journey. I was 31 and had NEVER been high. Not edibles (well, obviously), not smoking. Nothing. I was absolutely terrified of getting high. I had heard so many stories of people getting paranoid and having panic attacks. I am already so anxious that the thought of something making me more anxious was an absolute no go. In addition to that, I am a rule follower and smoking weed was definitely against the rules. 

My brother came to visit in March of 2014. I was not in a great space. This gets confusing because my brother and my ex are both named Nick, but we called my brother Nicky growing up so that is what I will call him here in order to differentiate. Nick had been trying to convince me to try smoking for years, pretty much since we started dating in 2008. I was steadfast in saying it was a no-go. However, Nicky made a compelling argument that I had tried everything else and was dying anyway so why not try it as a last-ditch effort to save myself. Or at the very least make the time I had left enjoyable.  

I did and it opened my world in so many ways. It made me feel more connected to a greater whole. It made me realize that I am not alone in this world and I felt less isolated. Coming to terms with this made me realize how insignificant I really am in the overall scheme of things. This really helped me put into perspective the amount of time and energy I was putting into something that was not contributing at all to the betterment of society, my relationships, and I was not okay with this. 

It also reduced my rigidity. Things just seemed clearer when I smoked. It was kind of like a veil lifted. I had more room for flexibility. Smoking also fills me with a feeling of hope (similar to my feelings of connectedness). Things just don't seem so dire and pointless when I am high. It seems like things could be different, that I can choose a different reality. 

And finally (I don't know why this is, but I would LOVE to do research on this someday), I saw myself somewhat accurately when I smoked. For some reason when I am high I am able to see myself more realistically. My distortion doesn't completely go away, but how I see myself is definitely closer to what is real. I would look down and see my body and be like, "oh shit, this is really bad”. This even happened to me tonight when I smoked. All day long I was feeling really uncomfortable in my body and seeing myself way bigger than I actually am. I hate to say "fat," because I don't see myself as fat, I just see myself as a little above average - which everyone tells me is not true. Tonight though, I looked down and was like, yeah, I am at a normal weight, but I am on the low side of normal and I could see it for a little while after I smoked. 

I don't know if that makes sense, but basically starting to use cannabis made me see things from an entirely different perspective. Throughout the summer of 2014 I gradually began to believe that things could be different. That maybe the amazing clarity I had when I smoked was how things were supposed to be. Maybe if I could get to a better place I would feel the happiness and hope I felt when I was high. Maybe if I gained weight things would get better. And for the first time in a long time, I believed it. 

2) My (now ex) husband drew a hard line in the sand - This was a huge influence as well. I started my treatment journey at Princeton (which I chose because I had never been there before - I also knew they had private rooms and that was a huge draw. Also, to be totally honest, I had been essentially banned from a number of other treatment centers for being a repeat customer and always leaving before I was ready). However, I signed myself out after a month.I had a million reasons - I was the oldest one there, they were making me gain weight too fast, I knew everything they were teaching me, it was depressing, I was sick of being on bedrest, it wasn’t fair, the staff sucked... on and on. 

Nick was PISSED. He had finally reached a point where he couldn't do it anymore. He told me I was not allowed to come home. He said if I came home he would either move out or that he would file for divorce. 

I was devastated. Nick had never done this before, he was never thrilled when I left treatment, but he also was a little happy to have me home and doing marginally better. I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I knew there was no escape, I had to go back to treatment. I chose a place near my family so I would a) have the support and b) if I stepped down I would have a place to stay. Nick made it clear I was not allowed home until I had put on a significant amount of weight and my treatment was onboard with a discharge from care. 

I knew if I was going to save my marriage and get home, I had to at least stay long enough to be appropriately discharged. There was no escaping it. Also, this didn't happen until a little while after, but when Nick did ask for a divorce, it hit me that I had become my dad. My father has a lot of mental health issues and my mom stuck by him through the years. But at some point, he stopped being an active participant in his own care and health. My mom couldn't do it anymore and she left him. The quote, “watching someone drown in a puddle and all they need to do is stand up” comes to mind. She just couldn’t watch him refuse to stand up anymore. 

It completely devastated him. I have always been afraid of becoming chronically mentally ill like my father and losing everyone in my life. By continuing to go in and out of treatment and cycle in and out of doing well enough to maintain relationships I was going to follow in the exact footsteps as my father. I see how miserable his life is and I continue to use that image to push to not listen to everything the eating disorder tells me. 

3) I wanted my dogs back/needed to get out of where I was living - In May of 2015 (when I was in PHP and living at my mom's boyfriend's - his name is Don - house) Nick asked for a divorce. I was doing pretty well in treatment, still struggling and being non-compliant at times, but continuing to attend every day and slowly weight restore. I still don't know entirely when the scales (no pun intended) tipped, but they did. I don't know if Nick realized how much more peaceful his life was without the eating disorder or if he just didn't believe things would change. Regardless, he said he was going to file for divorce. 

I went from "staying at Don's house" to living at Don's house in one phone call. To say I was devastated is an understatement. In fact, I am still devastated. I saw my parent's marriage end because my dad couldn't get sober and now I had done the same thing in my own marriage. I lost the person I was closest with because of the eating disorder. I guess, in a way, this was part of what kept me at treatment as well - the hope that I would get well and Nick would take me back. I still hope this will happen, but I know it won't. Anyhow, I digress.

Living at Don's house sucked. I was living with my mom again at age 32. I felt like such a failure. It wasn't even my mom's house I was staying at, it was her boyfriend's. It was not comfortable living there, it was awkward. It was awkward sharing a space with Don and his son who has a lot of anger issues. My bedroom was uncomfortable. I slept on a twin bed for the first time since I was a teenager and it was lopsided. It was out in rural NH and I hated that all my friends and anything to do was a quite a drive away. Everyone in the house smoked cigarettes and I hate the smell. But what I hated most was I was not allowed to have my dogs. 

My dogs are the most important thing in the world to me. I love those little beasts so fucking much it hurts at times. And I hadn't seen them in 7 months. I absolutely needed to get myself out of that house and get my dogs back. However, I could not do this without a job. And I could not get a job while I was still struggling so much with eating and reliant upon the structured schedule PHP was providing for me. I made it my mission to get to a point where I could hold a job and get my own apartment. If I was going to stay well long term and not have to be re-hospitalized, I knew I had to give myself more cushion room in terms of weight gain than I ever have before. 

4) Yoga - Yoga has become really trendy lately and with good reason. There are so many benefits to yoga that go far beyond the physical. For me, the primary thing I learned in yoga is that if you stay persistent, the uncomfortable gets more comfortable. And things that seem impossible become possible. 

I have a very special relationship with avoidance and perfectionistic behaviors. I tend to avoid things I am not good at or not even try at all. I hate being uncomfortable. Like, no one likes being uncomfortable, but I have a particularly difficult time with it. Not being good at something and building the skills you need to get better is often very uncomfortable. I pretty much have always shied away from things that challenge me to the point of being uncomfortable. This is for a couple of reasons 1) I hate not being good at things 2) It doesn't seem worth my time if I suck 3) Getting better at things requires being uncomfortable at some point and I don't like it. 

I often do not stick with things that I am not good at or require discomfort on my part. I will try to pick up a hobby and not be good at it and quit. Or I will try to get myself in better shape by trying to lift weights or run and it makes me feel discomfort, so I quit. Although I go to the gym every day, I will not do anything beyond walking because pushing myself physically is uncomfortable (though I will walk 7 miles in a go, I hate breaking a sweat). I don't like to eat because I have a nauseous stomach and that is uncomfortable. I don't like to try new things because the unknown is scary, so I avoid it. Basically, what I am saying is I never stick with anything long enough to see the discomfort dissipate and the rewards of tolerating the discomfort come through. i.e. weight restoration, facing fear foods, sitting with the feeling of food in my stomach, making choices about what to eat, physical activity, anything I am not immediately good at. 

Yoga at first seemed like a thing to get into because I wasn't allowed to really exercise and at least it was some physical movement. I was so desperate to be able to move more that I didn't care that I wasn't very good at it. Also, I went to a gentle yoga studio and everyone there was so accepting and welcoming to people who were just getting into yoga. I kept going to yoga and I actually started to get better at it. I didn't feel any pressure to be getting better, but I began to see it happen anyway.

I started taking harder classes. I started to learn to breathe through the uncomfortable poses. That they would end and that next time I did them they would be easier. A friend of mine sent me a yoga sequence and it was hard. Like, an hour long with a million chaturangas (when you lower yourself like a pushup, into up dog and go back into downward dog). The first couple times I did it I couldn't do all the chaturangas, so I skipped a lot of them. But as I did it everyday, I was able to do more and more. Eventually, I could do the whole sequence and even the jump back from crow into chaturanga! 

Committing to doing yoga every day was the first time I really stuck with something through the uncomfortable learning period and allowed myself to see the benefits of my practice. It started t make sense to me that other areas of my life could be similar to yoga - that if I didn't focus so much on the discomfort in the moment and rather on the fact that it would pass and I would be better for tolerating it that I would gain skills. I finally got that part of growing and evolving involves a certain amount of discomfort and acceptance that you won't see results right away. Yoga has taught me so much. To accept my limitations and also to push them, to breathe through discomfort, to not be so hard on myself, and that I am capable of growth and change. 

Here is a great little blurb on Reddit about discomfort and yoga: https://www.reddit.com/r/yoga/comments/5hc0b2/yoga_has_taught_me_to_welcome_discomfort_into_my/ 5) I agreed to medications - I have always had a not so great relationship with medications. I have a ton of side effects and I just really don't like taking them. Over the years I have gone on and off medications so many times. I will take them for a while, go off them, fall apart, go back on them, not really get better, have side effects, go off them - you get the idea. Even when I found something that helped I would frequently go off it after a time because I really didn't want to be on meds. 

I finally got desperate enough that I thought, hey, it improves my quality of life, fuck it. Even if the medications shorten my lifespan (worst-case scenario) then at least I had some years with decreased mental health issues. I started to really talk to a psychiatrist about finding something that worked. It was trial and error and took a little bit of time to find the right meds that a) helped and b) didn't cause horrible side effects. The two medications I am on certainly do not get rid of the obsessive thoughts or the anxiety, but they certainly make it way more manageable. 

I don't feel as much like a prisoner of my brain or that my brain is a prison - either or. And I have remained compliant instead of being like, "oh things are better, I don't need these!" Because I do need them. I have a brain-based illness and I wouldn't turn down medications if I had any other disease of the body, so really this is no different. 

6) I went slowly but surely - I stayed in treatment for a loooonnngggg time and took weight restoration pretty slowly. It sucked and I so wanted to get back to life, but every time I have done weight restoration the quick and dirty way in the past, it didn't stick. I would either leave treatment early because it was happening too fast and I was too uncomfortable. Or I would leave treatment and be unable to adjust to my new body and rapidly relapse. I knew I had to do things differently. I was very lucky I had good insurance and a treatment that was willing to work with me. Also, not lucky, but I have comorbid mental health issues (anxiety and OCD) that helped keep insurance covering me. 

7) I gave up trying to eat intuitively - This is a big one too. I always thought that recovery looked like eating normally. For me, it doesn't look like what most people would classify as normal. It is very regimented and I eat a lot of very safe foods. And I used to think that meant I wasn't in recovery and why keep trying. I might as well go back to listening to what my brain tells me and not eat. I mean, if I couldn't eat normally, why even bother?

I decided to try something different than what is encouraged in treatment. I began to eat the same thing every day. The same exact thing at the same exact times. No matter how I felt. This helped me for many reasons 1) I got used to the foods I was eating and desensitized myself a little 2) It took the overwhelming choice of what to eat out of the equation. Deciding what to eat is really stressful for me and so I often avoid it. Eating the same thing every day meant I didn't have to make decisions 3) I could stop counting calories. If I eat the same exact thing every day there is no reason to count calories. I did at first but eventually seeing the same number every day seemed like a waste of time and unnecessary. 4) I am super routine, so once I get in the groove of something, I stick with it. Now even when I feel nauseous or I had a rough day and don't feel like eating or I am having an uncomfortable body image day I still eat at my scheduled times, because, well, routine. It is more uncomfortable for me to break my routine at this point than it is just to eat what I have eaten every day for 3 years. 

I am not saying this is a great long term solution, but for people with chronic and severe anorexia, it is better than anything else I have found in managing a healthy weight. Like I said, maybe this is what recovery looks like for me right now. I hope it gets better in the future, but I am just happy to be participating in life.

8) I eliminated almost everyone I was in treatment with from my social media - Well, not everyone, but other people who were cycling in and out of treatment like I was. It just wasn’t healthy for me to see their posts. People would post how they were going back into treatment or pictures of them that were incredibly triggering. So, I didn’t want to see that anymore. It made me feel like there was no hope when I would see someone doing well no longer doing well. Or to see the constant treatment posts. Some people glorified being sick or seemed to take pride in how sick they would get or how much weight they had lost. It was just a world I needed to step back from. For me, I experienced a lot of competitive and self-destructive feelings when I would see people thinner/sicker than me. I would feel either a) I wasn’t really sick enough to need help and b) jealous they were thinner than me (I hate this part of the eating disorder and I am kind of ashamed to admit this here). 

I also needed to build a community that wasn’t treatment based so I wouldn’t miss it. I grew strong relationships in treatment that I had a hard time finding in the real world. Treatment and the community within it didn’t consciously keep me ill, but when I wasn’t there and I would see group pictures. It made me feel as though I needed to go back to the safety and community of treatment. Again, I just needed to focus on something other than anorexia to escape the cyclical pattern I was in. 

I certainly kept in touch with some people who continue to struggle, but these are the people I regularly talk to and have authentic, real friendships with - not people I just followed because we spent time in treatment together. It was sad to unfriend these people, but I just needed to build a life outside of treatment and to focus on my friendships that had nothing to do with eating disorders. It helped me regain an identity outside of anorexia. I needed to be exposed to normalcy around eating after being surrounded by people who struggled with food/weight/body image. I needed to start to have conversations outside of my obsession and dysfunctional relationship with food. 

Anyway, that was long, but I hope there were some nuggets in there that helps someone. Thanks for sticking with me through to the end if you read this! 

#treatment #anorexia #recovery #cannabis #ocd #anxiety #yoga #divorce #weight restoration #refeeding #distortion #discomfort #cognitive distortions #distress tolerance #eating disorders

[youknowmejustin]

“I don’t wanna be medicated”

Lauv’s Sad Forever just came out yesterday. I just saw it today. I heard snippets of the song on twitter when he posted it before. And now that it’s done, I’m excited to hear it. So I clicked on it. To my surprise, it hit me right on the spot, it resonates with me. It’s about his time when he was depressed. What he was thinking at the time. What his thought process was. This one particular lyric stood out the most to me. The one in the title; “I don’t wanna be medicated”. This lyric, this little mantra was exactly my words during the time when I realised that it’s happening to me. I was having panic attacks once a month for a year already, without fail. If you ask me how it happened, it just came suddenly, without any warning. It’s scary. It’s even scarier that I have to go through it alone without any help. Because at the time, I didn’t know what’s happening to me. I didn’t how that there is such a thing as a panic attack. I didn’t know how the attack goes. If you ask me what happened. Here’s what happened. February 2018 was the month that it started. I was having a normal day then evening came and I was praying. But, right after my prayer ended, I had this heavy feeling in my heart that I feel so helpless and I couldn’t even get up from my prayer mat. Then the tears came out. Flowing like a river, non-stop for half an hour. I can’t really explain in words what was I feeling because all I felt was a heaviness in my heart that I need to clutch my chest so hard, the need to cry endlessly and the need for air. I literally couldn’t breathe because I was crying so so hard. I was on the ground, in the most humbling way I ever felt. When the crying ended, I thought it was just a moment where I’m stressed with life or something like that. I brushed it off so easily the first time. It was like nothing had happened after that. I carried on with life as usual. I didn’t think much of it but at the time, it felt weird. Like what came over me for me to have that crying capacity.

Life goes on. March came, it happened again. April came, and it happened again. May, June, July, August came, and it happened once a month without fail. At this point, I still don’t know what was happening to me but it still felt weird. I know there’s something going on in me that I can’t figure out. But, I still acted like it’s nothing because I thought, maybe this is just another moment amidst the busyness in my life.

September came. The first month of my second year in med school. You can imagine how busy I was trying to start a new year, trying to get used to the new subjects which were harder, trying to juggle my time between everything and trying to still get a life while having fun. It was madness!! I lost track of time often because I was just doing so much work and studying. One day, it was midnight and I couldn’t sleep that night. I was rolling back and forth in bed trying to tire myself out. I was trying so hard to clear my mind, to not think of anything and just be calm so I could get my sweet slumber because I have an early class the next day. But, I just couldn’t. Then, in a short moment of time when I was shutting down my eyes, a lot of things came to mind, it was chaotic in my head. I can hear everyone (I don’t know who but there’s a lot of people) in my head trying to talk, all at one time. It was chaotic. I can’t seem to put it off. It’s not really helping when my head started to think about things that I have to attend to tomorrow yada, yada, yada. I was so tired. I had to squint my eyes shut so hard to try to clear “everyone” out from my head. It was so scary. Suddenly, in the midst of me trying to drown out the noise in my head, my heart rate started to pick up. My heart started racing so fast I can hear it. I can feel it on my chest that it’s pumping so hard as if there’s no oxygen in me. I felt breathless. I had to come up for air because I felt like I was going to die of suffocating. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared shitless, alone and I was starting to cry so hard, my mind is still “noisy”. At that moment, I literally can’t think of anything that could help me, anything at all. I can’t think for myself, I was so helpless that when I think back about it, I wish I could help myself. I just know that I need someone to help me so bad but I don’t know how. Then, a thought came through, I need to call someone. At least someone to talk to. To help me calm myself. And the only name popped up in my head was Faz. It was so hard to even dial her number because I was already shaking. When I got through her, no introduction needed and the only thing I could say to her was “Faz...help”. Still trembling, I tried to explain to her what was I going through. I was still having a hard time to breathe when I was talking to her. Mostly, she couldn’t even understand what I was saying, literally. I gave up on explaining to her because, with my muffled voice, she couldn’t possibly understand one bit. So, I cried, so hard. Tears flowed as if I hadn’t cried for years. Faz was just over the phone, chanting soothing words to me to try to get me to even breathe. Half an hour passed, I was calmed down. That’s when I told her everything, the once a month episode I’ve been having since February, the helplessness I felt when it happens, everything. That was my first time having such a breakdown or an attack where I was completely breathless and stuck. That’s when I realised that it’s becoming worse and I need help. But, the help that I was getting all these time is just by calling Faz and hearing her on the phone, accompanying me through each attack. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it by resorting to professionals. Maybe I was in denial at the time, I don’t know. My reason was that after each attack, my life goes on as usual and I forget about it every time, so, I thought it wasn’t a big deal. Faz was saying how maybe I am just stressed out with studying and all that. Maybe I could just sort my life slowly and don’t let the stress get the best of me. Well, maybe it is because of the stress but I still don’t know. Faz was the only person in this world to know about this. She said that Am told her before to always check up on me because I seemed to be going through something difficult through my tweets. So, Am knows. Then I didn’t know how the topic came up until I told Shaz everything too. So he’s the only one in Malaysia to know. He’s been a big help sometimes when I’m going through it.

October came. Faz and Ana came to visit me in Ireland. Part of it was to make sure I was okay. I was touched. I was so happy that weekend. I forgot about my problems for a while.

Then, November came. Ake and I had a swimming date at UCD and we had a good catch up session. Over our favourite brownies, we talked and the topic came up. Initially, I had no intention to tell anyone in Dublin about this but it’s Ake, she’s like family to me. So, I did. She accepted it calmly but I can see the worries in her eyes towards me. I didn’t want to do this to her, didn’t want her to worry about me. But, I’m glad I told her. At least, there’s someone near me who knows so if anything happens to me first, Ake knows what’s up. When she tried to persuade me to ask for professional help as I told her it’s getting worse, it dawned on me that I don’t want that. I don’t want my life being affected by this illness to the point that I need professional help. Borderline is, I don’t want to be medicated. I’ve learned about mental health in my degree so I kinda know how it goes from there. So, I tried to slowly pick myself up. I want to better myself. I hold on dearly to that particular mantra “I don’t want to be medicated” but the problem is, how? A few weeks later, I signed up for a free mental health check-up that’s being held in the community near me. And right after, I was catching up with Shaz so I updated him about it. The psychological nurse told me that I might be experiencing just anxiety, but I wasn’t having it. It relieved me at first but I know something is not right with me. The one that I had in September was not just anxiety. So, from then on I tried to study myself. 

December came and it’s already winter break. My family came over for the whole break and we flew to my brother’s place in Stirling, Scotland. I was fine and I wasn’t stressed. Everything felt just right with my family by my side. You know when you’re with your family, everything just feels good, being taken care of, being loved and everything nice! Unfortunately, the creeps came in my head near the departure of my family back to Malaysia. I was stressed for some reasons that I cannot tell. I had to hold myself together and not cry while my family was still with me. I couldn’t stand it if they see me cry. I couldn’t bear the sight of them looking at me with worry if I cry in front of them. I told Faz that I couldn’t stand it anymore, I need to cry so bad but I held the tears in whenever they want to flow out so badly. A week passed and my family dropped me off at my best friends’ house in Edinburgh. As soon as I said goodbyes and the door closed, I burst. I’m not the kind of person to cry having to leave my parents. But, this is not the kind of crying you’d want to see. I went straight to the bathroom to finally let it all out. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. At that point, I don’t care if anyone sees. I was on the dry floor of their apartment, Faz on the phone, knees up against my chest, heads down and I cried, so hard. A few minutes later, Ann came looking for me and she saw my situation. I looked up and I was like “oh shit, now all of them will know”. I didn’t come to stay with them to let them know about this cause it’ll make them worry but it did and there was no turning back. Ann, Bahiyah and Nadia took turns sitting beside me, trying to calm me down. Worst of all, they were all trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me. They had no idea that I can see they didn’t know what to do. But, they stayed beside me the whole time nonetheless. 40 minutes passed and that was by far, the longest episode I’ve had. It felt crazy. I hang up the call with Faz and relax a bit. I picked myself up off the floor with the help of Bahiyah and I’m off the bathroom. We’re all in the kitchen, talking normally. Me, Ann, Bahiyah and Nadia. Then, a silence came upon us. So, I took the chance to carefully approach the subject. I told them what happened and what has been happening to me. I was so sorry for letting them find out like that, for letting them see it happening in front of their eyes, for letting them worry about me. I’m really close to them but it’s not that I don’t want to tell them but I don’t want them to worry. It sounds cliche but it’s true. God, I can still vividly remember their faces when they saw me like that, in my weakest way possible. I didn’t intend to do them like that. But, I’m glad they know now. The relief that I felt after I’ve told them was indescribable as if a weight has been lifted off my chest. I love you guys to the moon and back.

January 2019 came and I had a great new year with friends. It became my resolution to do whatever I can in my power to better myself and to always think positive towards every situation. One thing I still hold on to is I don’t want to be medicated. That has been my drive to become better all these while. I wanted to solve things one at a time. I know now that I can choose to use my time wisely to do all the things I want to do. To put my priorities first. I’ve been really happy since this year started. I’ve been trying a lot of things like yoga, meditation, deep reflections and more to make it go away. I’ve been filling my time with things that I want to do and I know now what’s important and what’s not, what’s good and what’s bad for me. So, if I’m still talking to you, you are still a gem in my life that I intend to keep forever if God wills it. Of course, there are highs and lows but I see each one differently now. The attack does come for a visit once in a while, it still messes up with my head and I still call Faz for that but thank god, it’s been a good journey so far. 

With this, I just want to say, always keep your mental and physical health in check. This illness can happen to anyone regardless of age and gender. It doesn’t come invited so just be prepared and educated. Always surround yourself with positive vibes and goodness. Your surroundings can affect your life one way or the other. If it didn’t happen to me, I wouldn’t know until this day of the importance of mental health. If I didn’t have that courage in me to pick myself up, I wouldn’t be where I am today. So, LIVE your life to the fullest but LOVE your life too. Most importantly, love yourself. To everyone out there that are still struggling with mental health problems, keep holding on, everyone loves you and take that leap of faith to become better.

I just want to do a quick shoutout to Faz, Shaz, Ake, Ann, Bahiyah, Nadia and Am for supporting and staying with me throughout all this. I’m so blessed to have all of you close to my heart. Know that all of your words are really helpful and are my turning points in mental health. I love you guys immensely.

A confession from me, Razleena. 

[shooter-nobunagun]

[There will be no next time; there is no more.]

—all personal belongings, physical property, etc., bequeathed to my son—

The words didn’t seem real to him as they flowed across the paper, in his bold but practical script that was emboldened with each stroke of the pen while he reviewed the words one last time. With the advancements in technology, almost nobody wrote by hand anymore—but somehow it didn’t seem right to him to type or dictate something like this: a last will, something that in his ideal life, would be taken care of in the far future, together with his wife.

But the possibility for that timeline had long since disappeared; there was only the timeline that he was existing in now, corrupted and thrown far from whatever he could have possibly imagined. Maybe somewhere else, that other Adam he’d met long ago was fulfilling his dream—or rather, their dream of a blissful future, but that was not the now.

There wasn’t anything left for him; not even his son, whom Hunter had implored one last time for him to make amends with—he smirked bitterly to himself as he thought of just what his son might think of him, once he read the will. Disgust? Pity? Or maybe even hatred…certainly, the tension that existed between them still remained, an uneasy silence punctuated only by the barest of formalities. He could sense that the boy desperately wished to break through, to shake him from this haze that had befallen him—and maybe it might have, if Adam had given him an opening.

But whether it was his deal with Jack, or his own heart which had hardened into an inconsolable stone, there were no more holes left--and he had taken great pains to ensure those cracks that had remained were sealed, never to be opened again.

Hunter hadn’t questioned anymore about his sudden recovery, and mercifully the rest of the holders and doctors had mostly left him alone. Even his teammates, Newton and Gandhi, though rightfully concerned about his rather sudden change in health and demeanor, simply gave in and left him to his own devices after a few attempts at getting him to talk went nowhere. It was all for the better, for the best he kept telling himself; that the sooner he could start detaching from these relationships, the easier it would be.

If only things could be as simple as he wished. But he’d long learned by now that nothing was as it seemed.

“Tou-san? Where are you going?” He froze as a familiar voice called out to him, nearly making him lose his nerve. Of course his son would be looking for him--still trying to connect and break through.

“...Just taking a stroll. It gets depressing, being cooped up all day...” 

“...Can I join you?”

Adam grit his teeth and debated silently for a few seconds, before giving a slight tilt of the head. “Sure. If yeh want...”

The outer decks were hardly the most suitable or the nicest place, but he needed the cold air to clear his head. His son had stubbornly insisted on at least wrapping a muffler around the man, scolding him about catching a cold so soon after being released from the hospital--and Adam was struck by how much it reminded him of Sio, of how she used to complain and worry over the smallest things when it came to him.

“W-Well of course I worry! I...love you, Adam. You’re the most important person in the world to me...no matter what you say or do, I’ll always worry about you.”

“D...Do you remember?” He gave a sideways glance at the boy as they stood at the edge, just admiring the clouds being swirled by the gales. “The scarf...you said you didn’t need one, but...”

He looked down, perhaps really for the first time, and fingered the worn strands of orange and brown yarn, the lumps in the hand-knitting still evident. “...Hnn, yeh. You an’ your sister...even though I told you there was no need to make anything, you two begged grandmum t’ help you out. How much of this was actually knitted by you two, again?” He teased slightly, just letting himself enjoy this small, light-hearted moment. That was when they had been naught but six and nine, determined to make something ‘special’ for their father that Christmas--although, after hearing the story from his mother much later, it sounded like their idea of ‘help’ was to just tell their grandmother their plan and have her do the actual knitting.

“Hey, we did contribute! ...To the strands at the ends,” his son gave a small grin, and for a second Adam felt the intense rush of adrenaline that fought against the rising tide of emotions that nearly broke through that wall. Could he honestly go through with this...throw away and betray everything he’d striven to protect and promised to do since that fateful day? 

‘Remember our deal, Adam...though it is entirely up to you, t’would be a shame after all you went through to get it...’

“Hah. Yeh, you two really wer--are, somethin’ else. Just like yer mum...” Deep breaths, just stay calm and focused on the task at hand. Emotions were pointless now, nothing more than a minor distraction from his real task. Sighing, he ran a hand through the pale strands, before looking his son in the eyes at last. “Oy, squirt. You...ever thought about doing somethin’ else? Making more out of your life than just being stuck at this base all day?”

Pure, innocent green eyes blinked slowly, first in confusion and then in understanding. “Tou-san...? You mean, like...leaving here?”

“Well yeh, I guess in a manner of speaking...ever thought about going to university perhaps? You know Saint-Germain and Capa can’t tutor you forever. An’ yer pretty much old enough t’ take care of yourself now...you’ll be eighteen, soon; more a man than a boy.”

Silence was his first answer; the boy unsure of what to say, let alone why this was even being brought up. But Adam let no other emotion betray his face, only staring straight ahead into the distant horizon. Whether his son chose England or Japan, or hell even any other place on this god forsaken planet...he’d be well cared and provided for, courtesy of DOGOO’s very generous life insurance policy, especially for the highest-risk members of all--the holders themselves.

“...Tou-san. Are you...do you...hate me?”

The words were spoken with no malice or spite, only a child’s longing for approval from a parent; the stone wall of his heart squeezed painfully once again, but Adam withstood it. For he had to, no matter how much it hurt him to hear those words come from someone he’d raised his whole life...

“Wha--no! Of course not--where did you get that--you’re my goddamn son--”

“--then why are you sending me away?”

He froze, both at the question and the tone. For a second he’d feared that his son had guessed the true reason--and given the genes he’d inherited, it wouldn't have been a surprise; but no, there was no way--this was only natural of course, a child confused by a parent’s irrational choices. “...I’m not sending you away--well all right, fine, technically it sounds like that. But it’s not because I don’t want you around--it’s not that at all.” A heavy sigh, his chest tightening painfully so, even with Jack’s healing prowess. “...I want you to make something more with your life. You’re a smart young man--no, brilliant. Your whole future’s ahead of you; and though I know you’ve always complained about not having any powers, I think it’s a blessing in disguise. Out of all of us, you’re the only one who has a real chance at a real future; not one like this, tied down to a destiny you’ll never be able to fully control, forced to risk your life at every turn, to never know the stability and happiness of a normal life...” Hands gripped the railing as he recalled that chance meeting once more, with his other self so long ago. “You don’t have any powers; likely you never will. There’s no point in you hanging around, putting your life at risk when you could be doing so much more--”

His son should’ve been just like other teenagers his age--worrying about grades, girls, and which college to apply to. Not taking care of funeral arrangements for the deceased, or looking after his cripple of a father, burdened and shaped by experiences that honestly, nobody should have to go through. Too little, too late perhaps; but if there was any hope to be had left in this damaged timeline, it would lie with his progeny.

“I...well, I don’t know. I..I know this sounds childish, but I’ve never had a real reason to think about it. I-I mean, I always thought...we’d be together, as a family, no matter what...” At this his voice cracked, the boy struggling to hold back tears as the recent tragedies seemed all too real again, the cold reality of both his mother and sister no longer being alive. “B-But, I know you’re right...tou-san. I’m not a child anymore--I can’t be a child forever.” 

Oh, how Adam wanted to recant those words the second they left his mouth, but it was too late for that; the forces he had set into motion had long since moved forward, no way to stop them except by his own hand.

“Hey hey, no need to get so worked up--’m just askin’ a question, ‘s all. Nothin’s been decided...yet.” How easily lies could slip through his mouth, even as his real heart, the one inside the stone facade, slowly turned to ice. “Truth is, ‘ve been thinkin’ about it...even before all this shit happened. Gettin’ the hell out of here...away from all this...” He shuffled back towards the door, hands shoved awkwardly inside his pockets. “You know what, forget about it--it was just an idea; an’ even then, it wouldn’t happen right away...”

“Tou-san...” He could detect the guilt in his son’s voice, about how he didn’t mean to shoot down his father’s ideas--but whatever. All the things now, the conversations and moments they had...they were just niceties, small things that soon wouldn’t matter anymore.

“Let’s head back in; sun’s setting soon, anyway.”

Father and son walked back in silence, though the atmosphere perhaps colder than when they had first headed out. ---- The locker rooms were dark and quiet when he slipped in; all the holders who had been issued to the latest skirmish somewhere over the Pacific islands wouldn’t be due back for at least another day barring some sort of miraculous turn-around, and the cleaning crew had just come through an hour earlier. Still, he didn’t bother with the lights as headed straight for his locker--the path was etched permanently into his memory by now, years of being roused to duty by that alarm, be it the middle of the day or the middle of the night. Although he was permanently off-duty now, they hadn’t bothered to clear his suit and gear out yet--whether it was the lack of time, or because it was an unwritten rule that holders could never truly retire (Capa was still a prime example of this), it didn’t matter now. Ironically, it made things easier to suit up, as he’d done so for so many years, only this time his mission was no longer against the aliens they’d been fighting against for so long.

His heart was pounding, hands shaking as he pulled all the pieces on--the undersuit, then the actual suit, locking all the pieces in place--the motions so ingrained by now he could do it practically in his sleep. Jack’s voice whispered once more, sending him into a strange, trance-like state that numbed those fears, the doubts of what he was about to do. 

Though it was never explicitly stated, all members of DOGOO, and especially the e-gene holders themselves, knew that their goal was the protection of humankind and the planet; that their powers only be used for defense, and never for personal reasons. No holder had ever intentionally harmed another human...and deep down, Adam vainly hoped for it to remain this way.

‘Don’t be a fool, you know avoiding all casualties is near impossible; besides, most missions always have collateral--hell, even your wife wasn’t immune, and she was a holder herself.’

An ugly feeling reared in the back of his mind, and the anger suddenly came boiling back up--of all the unfairness, the burden, the weight of saving the world when he couldn’t even save his own goddamn family--

--He’d had enough. He was tired now; tired of trying so hard when everything just ended up failing, tired of fighting a war that seemed to never end, just...tired. What happened to that dream he had that day, when he took her hand and they exchanged their vows and rings in front of their family and closest friends; the dream of being by her side forever, to protect her always--and later on, their children always. He’d been a naïve fool then, believing that the war could end and they would move into the next phase of their lives as normal people. Each year, each time the battle seemed to be over yet it never was--that dream grew a little dimmer, more compromises were made--children were sired and borne despite the continued fighting, his surrender of exchanging their dream house in the English countryside for a larger suite aboard the A. Logan and dealing with raising a family while fighting in a war at the same time--until it became the only life he, and they, had ever known.

Simply closing his eyes and letting everything fall into darkness would have been a far easier option, and no doubt more painless, but even with all the fatigue, there was still one last spark that remained; that at the very least, nobody would ever have to go through what he did again.

A cold calm settled over him when everything was ready; it was the same calm he felt right before he went straight for the kill. ---- “Hn? Mr. Ja--oh, that’s strange...”

“What? Jack the Ripper? Isn’t he retired now or something...”

“Yeah, but I...” The engineer frowned, he was certain he’d seen something that resembled that flash of white hair, but now that he looked around, the hallway was entirely clear. “...Maybe I’m just seein’ things. I need a break...”

Only when the boots faded through the next corridor did Adam drop down from the pipes overhead, footsteps not making a sound despite all the metal from his armor. Years of training, and Jack’s own nature as an assassin of the shadows had made him a surprisingly stealthy fighter, though it wasn’t until much later did he start utilizing this style. Certainly, Jack’s healing powers had helped greatly, loath as he was to admit it, in giving back his strength and stamina.

“...Adam? What are you doing?” Shit. He knew that voice--the Indian brogue that never fully went away, peppered with the odd English phrase here and there. “What’s with the suit? Surely you can’t be headed out? I thought you were resting?

“...'S none of your business, Gandhi.” He didn’t dare turn around, only stoically continued walking forward.

“None of--Adam, what are you up to now? You shouldn’t even be out here, let alone all geared up--” The feet stopped, as did the voice. “...My god. You’re going to do something, aren’t you.”

He didn’t confirm or deny; and Gandhi’s question hadn’t been an accusation so much as a mere statement. Forever neutral, the balancer between all forces. How was it that two men who were so different managed to end up on almost the same path--partners who were also holders, raising children aboard a flying military base--and yet the outcome couldn’t have been more divergent. A pulse of envy flashed through his veins, the thought of this playboy who used to sleep with anyone at the drop of a hat, not even actually married to his partner and yet he still had both of them, still had Newton and their son all safe and sound while he, the quiet, loyal one who had devoted everything to a single woman lost just about everything.

“...An’ what of it?” He stopped walking at last, but still didn’t turn to face the other man. “If you wanna try an’ stop me, then go ahead--you’ve still your AU ball, don’t you?” He replied sarcastically, arms spread wide as his wings materialized.

“...Nothing. I won’t do anything,” came the reply at last, calm and even as he could given the circumstances. “I may be a peacekeeper, but I’m also not stupid. I’ve known you long enough Muirhead, to know that only a select few people can change your mind. And I don’t happen to be one of them.” It was rather peculiar now that he thought about it, that, despite them being the only two males on the same platoon, they never actually ended up being as close as some others made them out to be. Sure, they were good mates--swapping drinks and stories, clashing over advice on what to do with their significant others and raising children--and yet Mahesh had always sensed that there was this barrier that the other kept up, that he never fully let down despite all the jokes and alcohol. 

Adam would never come to trust him fully, and in some ways it was expected and deserved. Perhaps he should have tried harder to get closer to the other man...but that was in the past.

“...Sorry. You’re a good man, Mirza. I mean it. I don’t expect you to understand nor help me--but if you decide to stand in my way, then God help you...” And then he took off down the hallway, nevermind what the man had left to say--no matter what those words would be, he couldn’t hear them.

“...I’m sorry, Adam. Really, I am. For everything that’s happened...and I have a feeling, is about to happen...I’m sorry.”

There were no lingering doubts or fear as he flew down the hallway, ignoring the threat of being spotted by anyone else. Mirza, despite his wiles, wasn’t a tattler and he knew he could trust the Indian to not say anything, at least not until after. It was too bad the two men hadn’t grown closer--but what’s done was done, for now.

It wasn’t until he approached the doors to the outer corridors did he see the familiar silhouette, standing just in front. Whether it was sheer coincidence--or because somehow, the surgeon just knew--it didn’t matter anymore. Nobody, and nothing, mattered anymore.

“Fancy meeting you here, Muirhead. Don’t try an’ tell me yur jes’ takin’ to the skies for some fresh air,  ye dinnae need a battlesuit fer that.”

“Save your breath, Niall. I’m not interested.” But even as he strode up the surgeon remained impassive, simply standing there with his arms crossed, eyes weary but sharp. 

“Nay, Adam. I dinnae ken what it tis tha’s goin’ on in that head o’ yurs now...but it cannae be gud. You’d best turn around an’ go back t’ yer quarters, or else I’ll call security.”

“...Bullshit. That won’t work and both of us know it.” He attempted to bodily move the surgeon aside, but the other was actually pushing back with a surprising amount of strength. “Niall...! Don’t be a fool--”

“--I should be th’ one sayin’ that, not you,” the man shot back, emotions now coming out. “Goddamit t’ hell Adam, wha’s gotten into ye now? You’ve--it’s like yer losin’ yer bloody mind! You can’t be headed out t’ fight--not now, not ever! The other holders can more than compensate, ye’ve done enough already--”

“--Who said I was fighting Objects?” He didn’t mean to, but the sentence just slipped out, so casual and nonchalant. The look on Niall’s face was confusion at first, then it rapidly descended into shock.

“By the gods...ye aren’t seriously...Adam, ye cannae be--my god! Gods...” Though he’d been shocked many times now, this topped all the others combined. “Adam...don’t--!”

“I can’t Niall, fucking hell I just can’t--it’s too fuckin’ late for that, don’t you think?!” He roared, the surgeon letting go in fear but it was too late for Adam to take back those words. “I’ve had enough; I...I can’t do this anymore. Please, Niall...just let me be. If there’s ever one favor I’ve to ask of you...it’s this.”

They stared at each other in silence, neither moving a muscle until to his great surprise, the surgeon began to cry. “Bloody hell...oh, bloody fucking hell...Adam, mate, ye...don’t ask this of me, I beg of you...” Niall pinched his nose, but the tears did not stop. “Throwin’ yer life away like this...even though I begged ye not to...just, why?”

“I...” He stilled, unsure of his actions for just a second. Ironically, it wasn’t the other member of the Second Platoon whom he ended up considering one of his closest friends--but rather, the anatomist of the Special Squad, who eventually became his physician. Perhaps there was something to be said about the unconscious meanings of ‘patient-doctor confidentiality’, but somehow over the years, it was to Niall whom Adam ended up spilling most of his inner thoughts to, his fears and vulnerabilities, to be met with cynical yet strangely idealistic answers, and always a patient ear. “...I’m tired, Niall. Tired of everything. I’m tired of failing.”

“You--you haven’t--for the last time Adam, you haven’t lost! Not yet! Sure, we’ve been beaten down and suffered greatly, over and over again--but ye can’t just give up now! What about yur boy--surely you dinnae mean to...abandon him?” Niall grasped his arm in desperation, pleading with the holder but to no avail.

“...He won’t be here much longer. I’m sending him away--his future lies elsewhere, not aboard this deathtrap of an organization,” he spat out, eyes narrowing at the thought of DOGOO, who lured him in with promises of heroism and duty, how he was so important to the fate of the planet. “He’s nearly grown now; it’s time for him to decide his own path, without me.”

And before Niall could come up with any sort of comeback, or any last persuasions to change his mind, he forcibly shoved the man aside, though the surgeon gave very little resistance at this point. 

“...You’ve always been a good friend, Niall. I don’t regret that. Thank you...and good-bye.”

He left the surgeon still sobbing in the doorway; there was only a little time left, a short distance to cover and then he’d be free--

“--Tou-san, wait! Tou-san, tou-san!!”

But of course. Things were never as easy as they seemed, were they? He smirked wryly to himself, ignoring Jack’s whispers of simply knocking the boy out. Damned or not, he was still a father...for however little time that was left.

Harried footsteps thundered down the hall behind him, the teen doubling over for breath before he finally reached the end. “T-Tou-san...tou-san, w-wait! Please, wait...” A hand reached out, but Adam coldly turned away “...Tou-san...? You...you’re going out?”

He shrugged. “I guess you can say that...”

“B-But...where? What for--when are you going to be back? Tou-san, please--what’s going on? I thought you...don’t have to fight anymore?”

“Yeh. But this doesn’t have anything to do with the mission, or the EIOs, or any of that.” His palms were sweaty and his heart was pounding in his chest; dealing with his teammates was one thing, but his son was another entirely.

The boy paused, as if afraid to come any closer; perhaps unconsciously sensing Jack’s aura. “...Th, then...why are you all...like this? Where are you going? To another base?” A pause, and then a hand grasped his arm. “Tou-san, please, tell me! What’s going on?”

It wasn’t so much the grasp as just the action of touch that came as a shock. No matter how much he’d tried to harden his emotions, and how high that wall Jack had built was...his son was everything left to him. The last bit of living proof of whom he’d once loved, and the life they used to cherish together...it all seemed so far away now, after everything had come to pass.

“...I am going away. To another place.” Adam gently but firmly removed the boy’s grasp, despite shocked protests. “And...I won’t be coming back.” Before his son could fully grasp the reason behind those words, he keyed in the emergency manual lock-down, causing the main gates to start closing.

Warning! Manual shutdown detected! Gates closing in 180, 179, 178...

“Wha--tou-san, stop! Wait, stop! Stop! What do you mean you’re not coming back--”

“I meant exactly what I said; I’m not. Coming. Back.” Ignoring the boy’s pleas, he continued heading to the outer decks. “It’s as I told you, earlier. I don’t want you to stay here--you don’t deserve all...this. This, this suffering...losing everything and everyone you’ve ever loved and living a life that’s never truly your own... You don’t belong here; you don’t need to go through this, go through what I did. I want you to have a life outside of DOGOO. A normal one. Even if that means dismantling it from the very core.”

A strangled gasp came from behind, his son still struggling to comprehend the full reality as it finally dawned on him what Adam was about to do. “B-But, I...y-you...” Only a single sob, before the teen broke down into a furious rage.

“I hate you! You’re a bloody liar--no, a fucking coward! Trash! How could you just abandon us after all that--what about me?! I’m still here, father! Father!” Words and insults hurtled at him like daggers; his son dragging out every single piece of profanity he’d picked up, some from the crude jokes of the ship’s crew and others so vulgar he could only guess where he’d learnt it; yet it it still hurt, each word a dagger thrust into his heart, though he could betray no emotion.

“...I’m sorry. You couldn’t possibly understand the reasons why; hell, even I don’t understand all of it myself anymore.” Despite the situation, he couldn’t help but smile a little as he turned towards his son at last, the boy’s face red with tears. “You’ve grown; quite a bit actually. How did someone I used to be able to carry with only one arm end up becoming taller than me?” He chuckled a little at that long-lost memory, of when the baby had just been born and was so small that Sio marveled how Adam could hold him with just one hand. “And despite everything, you’ve turned into an outstanding young man; I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

“But then why--is this about mum?! Is this about your...regrets?”

He stilled, contemplating that answer even as the countdown continued in the background. “...In some ways, yes. But that doesn’t change what I want for you--a normal life, away from everything this place stands for--”

“--but I don’t care about that, I don’t want a normal life, I want to be with you--!” Arms clung around his waist, feet dragging on the ground as Adam continued to walk forward anyway. “Don’t you want that happiness for yourself too?! You said that I should be there for you--that there are some things even the strongest fighter can’t handle by himself, and that you’ll need me... that no matter how many times you push me away, I should be persistent...just like mum...”

At those last few sentences, Adam’s blood ran cold; those words...how did he possibly know...for there was only one place where he’d ever written those thoughts down, a long, long time ago and after that chance encounter he’d nearly forgotten...

Dear kiddo--

“Yeah...that’s right, I found that letter...the one you wrote, all those years ago...” Struggling to his feet, the teen pulled out a crinkled, worn piece of paper, yellowed with age. “I found it a while ago, actually...heh, back then I didn’t really understand what or why...but, now I know...exactly what you mean...”

Adam could only stand speechless as the letter was unfolded, and he recognized the worn handwriting that still dotted its page. For some reason, after that incident, he’d felt compelled to write some sort of memento; proof, that hope was still out there, even if it remained beyond his reach. The words were long buried in his mind over the years, but as they were spoken, it all came back as if he’d just read them yesterday. The other Adam...how was his life now? With his Sio, the one who was still alive and well, her face as innocent as his own Sio’s used to be... He wondered if they’d had kids by now; one, or two, or maybe even more? What was that world like? Were they still fighting like he was? Or had they managed to achieve that miraculous peace after all...

“Father...are you saying...that everything you wrote here, everything you vowed to do to achieve that dream...are you saying that was all a lie? During Tsukimi, and all those times when we asked why you never gave up on mum...were you lying then, too?”

Truth, lies, reasons and logic; his mind didn’t comprehend those concepts anymore. No, the only thing left in his steel-caged heart was the burning of hate, of rage and fury that left him poisoned and hollower than he used to be, Jack’s venom stripping away what little empathy he still possessed.

“If that’s what you think, then I won’t stop you.” Hands balled into fists, and he forced himself to turn around before the gates fully closed. “Just forget about it; that was a long time ago, when I was still young enough to dream...and foolish enough to hope.” He spat out those words, a dread of guilt sinking in his chest. “Now get out of here; I can’t be your father anymore. I...don’t even know what I am anymore.”

“Father, no--!” 

“You’re grown up now; it’s time for you to live your own life.” And just before the countdown ended, he pushed the boy back into the other side, the doors now fully sealed and the only thing he could hear now was the faint pounding on the glass, his son screaming and begging through sobs for him to not go.

“Come back! Father, don’t do this! You said that I should make your name heroic, for a change--how the hell can I do that now?! What am I supposed to do?!”

“Become the hero that I wasn’t able to be. That role...falls to you, now.” A heavy burden, but perhaps it was fitting, even if Adam had to cast himself into that of a villain. Heroes and saving the world...such things only existed in the dreams and fantasies of those who never suffered.

A fierce gale greeted him as he finally reached the outer deck, the sky darkening with an oncoming bank of storm clouds. How fitting, although the weather never stopped him, no matter how stormy.

“My, I must admit I wasn’t expecting your son to put up such a fight. He’s always been a rather quiet type...much like your wife? Though, I suppose he got her spirit, as well.”

Adam ignored Jack’s musings for the time being, instead focusing the sigil to life. Like the floating fortresses, the main base where the heads of command were housed was also constantly on the move for security. It mattered little that he was no longer keyed into the system--for that power, the one Nightingale had said was only to be used when the Earth was in peril...it showed him now, warped and twisted as it was, just where exactly he needed to go.

It was time. Time to put an end to all this...to the cursed bloodlines, to erase the core that had set everything into motion that fateful day, when his genetic inheritance awakened in his blood.

#documentation #to the beginning #//jesus i put this chapter off for so long #//partly due to block #//partly due to busy schedule

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Ask D'Mine: What to Do When You've Got No Insurance, No Money

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-what-to-do-when-youve-got-no-insurance-no-money/

Ask D'Mine: What to Do When You've Got No Insurance, No Money

Got diabetes and need some help? You've come to the right place.

Every week, we take reader questions and do our very best to be informative and helpful (and make you smile a little) here at our diabetes advice column, Ask D'Mine, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator Wil Dubois.

Send us your queries related to life with diabetes — nothing is off-limits here! (except of course specific medical instructions for your own care; that's what doctors are for)

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Email us at [email protected]

It's tough times out there, and for proof, here's a pair of questions from the trenches that'll make you reach for the Kleenex box:

Steve from Minnesota, type 2, writes: I had my diabetes well under control a couple of years ago with an A1C under 6 once, and in the low 6 range typically. Then I lost my insurance and can no longer afford medical care. The critical drug that helped me achieve good numbers was Actos, but it's so expensive I had to stop taking it. Now my blood sugars are screaming high. I finally just quit checking because there's no point in knowing if it's 450 or 500. What to do?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: First and foremost, let's all sit down and have a good cry.

There. Anybody feeling better? No? Yeah... it didn't help me as much as I thought it would either. Next time, we'll all try Primal Scream Therapy.

So you're absolutely right: you can't afford your Actos. I checked with Epocrates and they show the "approximate retail price" ranges from a low of $193.48 per month for the 15mg tabs, up to a high of $239.99 for a month's worth of the 45mg tabs. Not exactly chump change. I'd also bet even though this was your "critical" diabetes drug, it probably wasn't your only one.

So what to do?

Naturally, I have a plan.

First, I want you to go on the Akins Diet. (Hey, I said I have a plan, I didn't say you were going to like it.) Don't worry, this won't be forever. But in your case, an as-close-to-zero-carb-as-possible diet is good medicine. For God's sake, your blood sugars were running in the 500s last time you checked! You're at risk for glucose toxicity at this point. Cutting the carbs to the bone is an emergency measure to try and save your kidneys from extinction until we can get your diabetes medicated into submission again.

Second, go here to find the closest Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). These are non-profit clinics that are subsidized by the feds and will see you on a "sliding fee" basis. You don't need health insurance. How much you pay depends on how much you earn. You may be able to see one of their docs for free, or for a very small co-pay. Get the next appointment available.

Third, and here's where it gets really good, most FQHCs are really well plugged into Patient Assistance Programs, called PAP in the biz. This is all you need to know about PAP: you can probably get your Actos for exactly zero dollars and zero cents per month. PAP programs are run by the Pharma companies and are actually pretty generous when it comes to helping out those who are uninsured and sorta broke. For instance, Actos is made by Takeda, which uses an annual income of at or below 300% of Federal Poverty Level (around $32K for a single person) to qualify patients for assistance.

Oh... but there's one other little thing I forgot to mention. There's... umm... ah... a dark cloud of sorts over Actos at the moment. Actos may, or may not, be the smoking gun in an increased risk of bladder cancer. The FDA issued heads-up warning about the drug in June of this year and within 5 hours the water was filled with sharks in suits. There're now dozens of law firms licking their lips and trying to line folks up for class action suits against Takeda. Late night TV is full of call us if you took Actos ads and there are gazillions of websites launched by law firms trolling for clients.

So... I dunno. The jury is still out on Actos—literally and figuratively. You'll need to talk to your new doc at the FQHC about whether the Actos is still the best bet for you at this point or not. But if so, remember that it'll take about six weeks to spool up to maximum effectiveness in your body, so keep on the Akins thing until the med is working again.

Bottom line, you'll need to take something for your diabetes, given how high your blood sugar is, and in your circumstances, the FQHC and PAP is the best way to get from where you are back to an A1C in the sixes. Whether you re-start Actos, or start something entirely new really doesn't matter.

So let's reserve the screaming for Primal Therapy and our politicians, rather than your blood sugar altitude.

Note: a fact often missed in the media is that not having insurance is only one problem facing PWDs in our country. Sometimes you can have insurance and still be in the same I-don't-make-enough-f*ing-money-to-pay-the-bills-and-keep-myself-healthy boat. Consider, for instance:

Janet from California, type 1, writes: I am a single mother of three kids in college. I have diabetes, I have insurance, however I can't afford the test strips, needles, and now 4 diabetic medications along with depression, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and low vitamin D medications. I need to take care of myself but I cannot afford the co-pays. Do you have any suggestions? My A1C is 10. Now the doctor has added more testing and increased my units on Lantus & Apidra. I am ready to give up and just stop taking all medications. HELP!!!

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: So I looked into it, and the cost of an average funeral in the United States is between $7K and $10K. According the Federal Trade Commission funerals "rank among the most expensive purchase many consumers will ever make." How's that for depressing?

My point?

Oh sorry. I wasn't being clear. I was just letting Janet know that she actually can't afford to "just stop taking all medications." She's a type 1. If she stops her insulin she'll die. And dying is expensive. And her three kids will have to drop out of college and spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Believe it or not, Janet is actually in a worse situation than Steve is. If you have insurance, you can't get PAP. So that route is closed. Being underinsured, or being well-insured with an empty bank account is a special kind of hell.

But not to worry. Again, I have a plan. And again, it's not a great one, but it will do for now. So there are two approaches here, and we can mix and match them. The first is medical triage. Triage is just a way of prioritizing the most urgent needs. Remember in the old M*A*S*H TV show when the helicopters would bring in the wounded soldiers and the docs would dash out and figure out who needed to go into surgery right now and who could wait an hour or two? (Oh crap, now I've got the M*A*S*H theme music stuck in my head where it will haunt me for the next three weeks.)

Well, when times are tough, you can do the same thing with your health care—and I like to say "blood sugar first." Hey, at an A1C of 10 your blood sugar is cytotoxic. You're killing yourself in slow motion and the folks at the dialysis center are getting excited thinking of all the money they'll make off you (at more than $70K per year, that's better than seven funerals!). So in my mind, nothing else really matters if your blood sugar is a train wreck. That means insulin and test strips are the top priority. I wasn't clear if you were on anything other than the two insulins for your diabetes, but in a crunch, you could drop any other diabetes meds because it's more than possible to control your diabetes with the Lantus and Apidra alone. Ya just gotta take enough.

So using triage, you might choose to just take care of your diabetes for a while until you get it on track. Ignore everything else for a time. Will high cholesterol kill you? Yeah. Probably so. But it will take a long time to do it. Eat smart for a while to minimize your risk, but if push comes to shove you could back-burner the cholesterol issue for a year, or until your oldest kid graduates and frees up some cash flow.

Stopping your depression meds cold turkey can be dangerous, so talk to your doc about how to safely get off them if you need to. And so on and so forth. Only treating your most urgent needs during a financial emergency is a valid form of medical treatment called harm reduction. It's not the "standard of care," but desperate times call for desperate measures.

But, wait, maybe you don't need to ignore your other health challenges. Do I hear the thundering hooves of charging horses and the sound of bugles? I do believe the cavalry is coming over the hill to rescue you and it's... it's... Wal-Mart?!

OK, not quite the boys in blue that I was expecting.

Here's the deal. Open your medicine cabinet and look at your cholesterol med. Is it a fancy brand-name drug or an older generic? Rather than stop your cholesterol med altogether, talk to your doc about getting a prescription for a generic that you can get on the $4 formulary at Wal-Mart, or one of the other big-box stores. Meds for your depression and trigs are also available as generics. You can also get vitamin D supplements over-the-counter in bottles that are the size of rain barrels. And even if the generics aren't quite as effective as the fancy-pants name brand ones (and many are much closer than we've been lead to believe), it's still better to have some control over your cholesterol than none at all.

Now, on to diabetes penny pinching: One thing to check is whether your insurance has a preferred insulin brand. On the fast-acting front we have Apidra, Humalog, and Novolog. Frankly, it's the same as Tide, Cheer, and Gain. Hey, they really all work pretty much the same, and if one insulin brand carries a lower co-pay, so much the better for your wallet. Similarly, the basal insulins Lantus and Levemir are more-or-less interchangeable (there's more of a difference between them than there is with the fast-acting juice, but if you can save a bundle of money, then you can adjust).

Next, let's look at delivery devices. We all love pens, but many insurance companies will give you a lower co-pay on vials and syringes. If you're out-and-about a lot, it's hard to beat a pen of fast-acting to cover meals in public, but most of us take our basal in the privacy of our homes anyway, so using a syringe once or twice a day really isn't that big of a deal if it will help you keep the lights on, food on the table, gas in the car, and the kids in college.

And if push really comes to shove, depending on how high your insulin co-pays are, you can buy old fashioned Humulin-R, 70/30 mix, and NPH insulins at Wal-Mart under the ReliOn label for $24.88 per vial. That may be less than your co-pay. Speaking of ReliOn, I've been playing with their Micro meter recently and have found it to be remarkably accurate. The strips run twenty bucks for 50. Again, if this beats your co-pay, switch over. You should also Google your favorite test stip. You might be surprised. I saw Presto strips online at Amazon for only $14. Crazy!

Bottom line: just because you have insurance doesn't mean you always have to use it. Sometimes just getting out your wallet is cheaper than going through your insurance.

So shop smart. Stop (some meds) smart, if you must.

But don't stop all your meds. Oh, and my apologies to the funeral industry. I know times are tough for you guys, too.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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