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oldladydatin · 5 years

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Second Chances...

I’m going to share this because well this is a pretty anonymous blog for one so I feel comfortable and two every year at this time it’s something I think a lot about, it’s a part of who I am. I realize this is going to be some hokey shit. If someone shared this story with me I would think it was some hokey shit they made up to justify their beliefs. It doesn’t really matter to me, even if I hallucinated it, it made a huge impact in my life. Eight years ago today I was laying in a hospital bed, all alone, with Sepsis, not responding to antibiotics, and I was worried I was about to die.....

A lot of things led up to this day. I had been struggling with depression and anxiety since middle school. I mostly self medicated, I’d been on antidepressants, I’d been to therapists, none of that helped. When I met my ex husband I was a drunk, honestly. I drank a fifth of gin in front of him and then we went driving on trails in the woods and I was barely buzzed, he kept asking if I was okay to drive and I was because I drank like that a lot. On top of struggling with depression and anxiety, I was raped when I was 17 by a friend I trusted and I just sort went off the deep end. I took drugs at parties and didn’t even ask what they were, I was okay with dying. I was angry at the whole fucking world. I never talked about being raped, I told my husband about it later in our marriage, but that was it until I was in my 30′s. I was embarrassed more than anything, I worried I brought it on, like how messed up is that? I worried it was somehow my fault that when I said no 12+ times he didn’t understand it, I didn’t want people to see me like that. All my bad behaviors escalated after that, I went from sort of caring to not caring at all. I used to cut myself and hide them with the like three dozen bracelets I wore all the time, that got worse and I didn’t even necessarily try to hide it. I went from partying once a week to whenever I could. I drank more, I did more drugs, I drank and drove all the time. I got in more trouble. I tried to drop out of school, I wasn’t necessarily struggling academically, I was smart, but I barely went because I’d have panic attacks and I had migraines all the time. I just quit caring. I wasn’t sexually active, I sort of hated being touched after that. I started seeing someone and I never had sex with him, I was too messed up and it was hard being intimate. My ex husband and I were intimate because I felt safe with him, I trusted him. However I wasn’t ever very affectionate towards him, I really struggled with that. My family wasn’t very affectionate, so I didn’t grow up with a lot of touching to begin with, it’s something I’ve struggled with as an adult and oddly being a nurse has helped me get past this, I hug patients all the time, and hold their hands. I was very affectionate with the Mark’s and I loved that feeling, they always made me feel safe and I trusted them, I think those things are important to me in a relationship.

One day I got a speech from someone I really didn’t even realized cared about me, but he cornered me and lectured me at a party and he meant it, like it was heart felt and I listened. So at some point I was trying to fix myself, I wasn’t doing a great job but I was trying. I had just quit smoking and doing drugs when I met my husband, I was very slowly working on myself. By the time I met my husband our friends were getting into meth. I didn’t have a lot of sense but I had enough to know I didn’t want to do meth. We made the decision to move about an hour away from our friends to a town with more work, where I was already in school studying art. We got engaged and moved into together, yes in that order, I’m old fashioned. I struggled with depression more after we moved, I was very clingy and dependent. I struggled with being sober all the time. I was a mess. I tried different medications, I tried therapy, I tried being a workaholic, I tried any and everything. I never talked about being raped in therapy, I just tried pretend it didn’t happen and it wasn’t apart of me. I graduated with my art degree and we decided to start a family. It took years to get pregnant but I got pregnant. I was the worst pregnant woman on the face of the planet. I had hyperemesis gravida, it’s a real thing. I threw up so much I was chronically dehydrated, the people in the emergency room knew me by first name. I continually visited them for dehydration, migraines, UTI’s and for episodes of vomitting that didn’t stop for hours. By the third trimester I had quit school and I just laid on the couch and cried all day, I was so depressed it was unreal. We talked to the OB doctors about it and they started me on antidepressants that were safe during pregnancy. They tried to schedule a c-section because of my anatomy they already knew I wouldn’t be able to have her naturally. I insistent on a natural birth, I went 24 hours in labor after my water broke, no drugs, trying every damn thing I could and still ended up with a c-section. I felt like a disappointment as a woman, c-sections are viewed by some women as the “easy” way out. It was a major abdominal surgery, that took weeks to recover from and the experience emotionally damaging and I was already struggling.

I had severe post-pardum depression, possibly psychosis, also a thing. I had panic attacks, I had a hard time even grocery shopping because I’d walk in the store and it would almost warp and seem so endless that I thought I wasn’t getting out. I was trying to load a trailer at one point to move things to our storage unit and I started hallucinating that bugs were crawling all over me. I never slept, when I did I had nightmares. Everything people said to me was blown out of proportion. If someone nitpicked the way I was holding her I felt like they were criticizing me as mother. I decided to kill myself. I picked a date, wrote a letter, it wasn’t me thinking about it, I had a very well thought out plan. My husband found out and we went to the ER and I spent 3 weeks in a half way house for psych patients, doing group and seeing doctors, the whole thing. After that it was psychiatrists and more pills and more diagnosis. My ex husband got laid off from his job and decided it would be best to try to live in another state. I was excited to go one an adventure, but for my health it was probably the worst thing we did. I needed what little support I had at home. In other states this just got worse until I was in another hospital, 3 more weeks I had gained almost 100 lbs between the side effects of the medications and stress eating, At times I barely got out of bed. I was actually in the process of trying to get disability because the panic attacks were so bad I was barely able to hold down a part time job. I was so desperate to feel better I even went to a therapist about the rape but talking about it was so overwhelming I only went to three sessions and quit. I was addicted to drugs that I was prescribed. They prescribed me ambien and ativan. I would pop ativan all day. I would get in an argument with my husband and just pop some ativan during the argument. I started out taking 5 mg of ambien and eventually I was taking 30 mg, I’d run out of pills and barter for more at the job I had. I would take them and black out and go do stuff. It was all very scary.

I got what I thought was the stomach flu, I was throwing up all week. My ex husband brought home a pregnancy test and asked me to take it. At this point this man never touched me. I didn’t even remember having sex with him in the year before that. Partially that was my fault, because we had sex and I was on ambien and ativan and I didn’t remember it and that made him feel like he took advantage of me so he wouldn’t touch me. As it turned out I was pregnant, We had, had sex when we went home for Christmas, I was drunk and on drugs and I didn’t remember it. This pregnancy was worse, it started with detox. I called my psychiatrist multiple times to try to find out what to do about the medications because they weren’t safe to take during pregnancy. They never returned my calls, so I just quit taking them. I was so sick, I couldn’t sleep, I was sweating so much I was repeatedly changing my clothes, when I did sleep I was having nightmares. I was throwing up all the time. It lasted a few weeks. When I had my first OB appointment I was honest with them about this and they told me I was very lucky that I hadn’t miscarried because of withdrawals. I had the hyperemesis crap again. Migraines, anxiety, I struggled to breath because of my weight, UTI’s, I’m just not good at being pregnant.

We made the decision for me to go home because I was too sick to take care of my daughter and my ex husband worked. My ex again decided we were moving to another state and I was already so stressed out and I just wanted to go home. But my Dad is extremely critical of me, especially about the weight. I had lost about 45 lbs during the pregnancy at that point and when I told him that he said good for you, you’re not supposed to lose a bunch of weight during pregnancy. We met my family half way because I was too sick to sit in a car for 12 hours, so we stayed the night and drove the rest the next day. I wore jeans that were too tight for this trip because I didn’t want my Dad to make fun of me for wearing sweat pants. They dug into my stomach and I was uncomfortable, I was sweating a lot during the trip. Within the next few weeks the area around the button where they dug in the most became red and started to hurt, and hurt a lot. It just kept spreading and swelling and I was too uncomfortable to sleep. It felt really hot so I’d put ice packs on it at night trying to get comfortable. At my first OB appointment there she diagnosed me with cellulitis and started me on antibiotics. It continued to spread. My parents kept down playing it they didn’t really think I was sick or that it was anything serious. My Dad made comments about how I was just fat and needed to get up and move more. They even took me to a mall because I needed to walk around and then they were going to take me to Apple Bees for my birthday, even though I didn’t like Apple Bees, because they had a lower fat menu. I could barely move I was so uncomfortable, I told them I didn’t want to go and after the mall we just went home. The next day I went to the ER with my daughter, I borrowed a car and lied about where I was going. Within 3 minutes they admitted me, they had medical students in and out of my room to see this infection. Within two weeks I had my son 5 weeks early, he was immediately put on bipap and shipped off to the nearest NICU. I didn’t see him for 4 days and then they transferred me to the same hospital because I had gained 70 lbs from swelling and the infection continued to spread. What started out as a nickel sized red area now wrapped around my entire abdomen to my back. They tried not to do a c-section because it was close to the infection by then but I ended up with an emergency c-section anyways and they were afraid of it spreading to the incision, so they transferred me. I continued to not improve at the other hospital. It wasn’t until I was transferred that I ever heard the term sepsis. I freaked out, I didn’t know anything about it but I knew it could kill you. I had sepsis and I was not responding to antibiotics and they would discuss this in the hallway outside my room. I still insisted on getting up to shower everyday but I couldn’t do it by myself. My ex husband would help me shower and I would stand there and cry. I couldn’t wipe when I went to the bathroom. The entire thing was embarrassing. Eventually I was on oxygen and they were discussing survival odds outside my room, I had no idea what any of it meant.

One night I was awake in my room alone in the dark, I was worrying because it had been like 4 weeks and I was just getting worse. This light came on in my room and I was able to relax. I felt better, even the burning, throbbing feeling in my stomach felt better. I felt like I was being comforted. I don’t know how to explain it but I felt like I could just go in that moment. I felt like all the pain and suffering could be gone if I wanted it to be. I considered it. I considered leaving the world behind for a split second, just letting everything go. Then I started to imagine this whole life, where I was happy, where I was a good mom, where I didn’t hurt and not just the hurt from the infection, but the hurt in my heart that I had been struggling with my whole life. I thought about my daughter and my baby who I was so in love with already. He was let out of the NICU after only 7 days and he was doing great. He would smile and laugh everytime he heard my voice, nobody in the NICU had ever heard a baby that little laugh. We had a really strong bond from day one. I missed my daughter, I missed cuddling with her on the couch and listening to her stories. I felt like I had so much to live for and I wasn’t ready to die. I made a promise that if I lived I was going to live. I wasn’t going to run from life anymore. I was going to make better choices and work towards being happy. I made a promise to change. The light faded and I was alone in my room again. But I felt hopeful, I wasn’t worried I was going to die anymore. Within 2 days with no explanation at all the swelling improved, the infection was going away and I was responding to antibiotics and they didn’t change them. My labs were coming back better. They started me on lasiks and the weight was coming off and I wasn’t on oxygen. Within four days I was going home after a month long nightmare, I was taking my baby home. I just continued to improve.

I wake up everyday and chose to be happy. I make better choices, I started working on myself. My ex husband hated that, I think he actually liked me being codependent. and suddenly I wasn’t, suddenly I was going out and doing things alone, or with the kids. I was painting and drawing, when we got settled I started taking art classes. The instructor wasn’t sure why I was taking her class and convinced me to help teach painting at this community center. We moved again and we ended up homeless. I had such a good attitude about this I was like well we’ll just camp until we figure it out. My kids and I lived in a tent for an entire summer, and it was fun. My ex worked and they provided him with hotel rooms. The kids and I hiked, swam, rode bikes, made art, we did all kinds of cool things. To this day my kids think we were on vacation. I changed my whole attitude and when we got settled I went back to school for nursing. I wanted to help people the way people helped me. I wanted to make a difference and I am. I still struggle sometimes but I think about that one moment and the promises I made and I shake myself out of it and get moving. I don’t take drugs, I’ve been offered Vicodin, or ativan by doctors but I’d rather struggle. I drink socially maybe once a month and never when I’m struggling. I’ve been struggling the past month and went to three metal shows and only had water. Every year around this time I think about where I was at 8 years ago and I count my blessings. I think about my life and the promises I made that day and take a look back and try to decided if I’m living up to them. If I’m not I try to decide how I can do better the next year. Some of the best things can come out of the worse days, and that’s what happened 8 years ago. 8 years ago today, I got a second chance.

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aljauv-blog · 5 years

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January

I’m not sure how it happened, but it happened again. Once I lose control over it, it’s game over for me. It’s a scary feeling to be out of touch with reality, when my mind takes full control of what I’m doing – sure, that’s what a mind is for, but unlike other people, those are the demons that take over control.

Moving to Helsinki was supposed to be a new beginning for me. I was happy Joone trusted me enough to give me the opportunity to live with him in the city, otherwise I would be living in the streets of New York by now. I was going to share an apartment with him but only under a few conditions: first one; to quit heroin and cocaine, and slow down on the alcohol. Second; to behave properly, which only works for me if I follow anger management classes again and see a therapist. I was going to start at my new job on January 15, a software engineering job – it was a big opportunity for me to get my life back again. Make money and save money to move back to New York. The first week in Finland was terrible, a living nightmare, truly. I was withdrawing from heroin and cocaine – I was sweating, feeling paranoid, behaving very aggressive towards people around me. I could easily smack someone. I have never seen Joone that moody before, I could see at his face that he was done with me. And he’s always the happy, fun guy who wants to keep things positive all the time. He ordered a seat on the other side of the plane because I ‘embarrassed’ him. When we landed in Helsinki, we had to meet the Airloft staff for an explanation. Great. That was just our flight journey, but it continued to be like that for the rest of the week at least.

I didn’t have any drugs, and I had to wait for my antipsychotics to come overseas, which was due to the end of the month. I felt really scared when I was sober, I was on the edge of losing myself. I knew it was coming, I could feel it. Anything could trigger it. But I tried to stay strong, and sometimes when I felt really messed up I just drank a bottle of vodka which helped me go through the day. Joone was not happy with it, clearly, while he was busy making plans to renovate and design the house. I just couldn’t be there where his mind was at that point. I became an insomniac; I couldn’t sleep without medication or drugs, I hardly slept 2-3 hours on a night and because of that I became delusional. I had dreams about my childhood with my father back in Finland. What he did to me and to my mother, the smells of rotten flesh, the tracks of blood on the walls – and even when I woke up in bed, I saw my father bending over me wanting to strangle me with his bare hands, and it made me panic, and felt like I was suffocating. But it was only a delusion, I realized everytime Joone ran up to me to help me. Joone was very concerned, while he had a busy job himself he couldn’t fully focus on because of the care he had of me. And it made me feel bad, like the fucking bug I am, the stress I cause for the people around me that love me. So, what I do is detach myself from those people by isolating myself or walking away from home – I don’t like the feeling of bothering people with my crazy mind all the time; enough is enough. I needed a break from my people, but the dangerous thing about is that I have time alone for myself, and just in those times when I feel like I’m on the edge of something scary, it can be seriously triggering.

Moving to Finland reminds me of all of the things that went wrong in my life. This is the land where I was born, where the misery started right away. I was born in the wrong family. My mother was a sweetheart, but my father’s negativity ruled my life; no one or nothing could beat his negativity – negativity in a sense that was not just emotional and physical abuse, he made me feel very frightened about life on a very young age. He made me believe in Devils, witches, he showed me what murder is like (he has some blood on his hands), he showed me what happens to a human and animal corpses once it dies. He literally, showed me, in front of his eyes. In Satanic ritual nights, we went into the woods, with other members of the Satanist community including family members. I was about 4 years old when I saw my father stick a sword in a goat’s heart, with a big smile on his face, to sacrifice the goat by burning it to ashes. Everybody was clapping and yelling. I remember I was crying and I wanted to escape and go back home but my father busted me, got insanely furious, tied me up to a tree and left me there during the whole night on my own in the woods. There were fucking bears there. Lucky for me it was around May, so the temperature wasn’t that cold anymore. But traumas like these will stick with me for the rest of my life. The way he behaved at home was insane, my father is a true lunatic. Very paranoid, schizophrenic, but more than all, the Devil himself; and he believes to be; he is a Satanist, and as a Satanist you have to believe to be your own ‘God’, and that’s the motto he lives by. He could do anything to me and my mother. He had no boundaries. He would abuse me in front of my mother’s eyes until the point I blacked out, when all I remember was how I heard my mother hysterically crying and screaming, and my father hysterically laughing like some psychopath. After several smacks I wasn’t even conscious anymore. But it happened every week. I remember the sleepless nights I had as a child, when my father would sneak up to my room and tell me one of his ghost/witch stories, right after that he wanted to touch me. And he didn’t want me to scream for my mother, so he pushed a pillow on my head and nearly suffocated me, while he was doing all kinds of things. And I remember all the restlessness I experienced as a child. Everything was so terrifying. I never knew the feeling of safety, it wasn’t there; my mother could give me it to me for just a moment, until my father disturbed it once again. And these are just a few memories, but I could write a book full of them.

I struggle with not just schizophrenia, but very intense PTSD, and ever since I came back to Finland, I constantly see flashbacks from my past. Just split moments of those traumas, but the most horrifying images flash before my eyes. In combination with schizophrenia, it can make me very delusional. Just about the moment I mentioned earlier, how I saw and felt my father strangling me when I woke up from nightmares.

Just one night, I remember walking out the door, without telling Joone, without telling anybody, knowing it wasn’t a very good idea, but somehow I felt like I needed it, like some kind of trance I ended up in. I sat on the stairs of the city centre in Helsinki – it was snowing – I was cold and alone, smoking cigarette after cigarette. My first day at work was the day after tomorrow. I remember thinking, ‘now this is a realistic thought I’m having’. But that thought quickly faded away. I don’t know, I just couldn’t live in reality anymore, it took me too much effort to keep pushing myself back in reality, because I felt my mind constantly wandering off. Thinking about my past; the urge and desire I have to kill my father; how sorry I feel for my mother all the time; how I became the mentally fucked up person I am today; how I fuck shit up, how I blame all the misery on my father; my drug habit I’ve been dealing with since age 16. All of that… it doesn’t go away. I need to accept the loop I’m living in. And sometimes I can not believe I am alive. Barely alive. Physically, well, I’m physically strong. But mentally… Mentally I am so damaged… That I doubt if things will ever be OK with me. I was lost in thoughts.

Then, suddenly, I saw a woman with a child walking by. The child was about the age of 10, I believe. However, it took all of my focus and made all of my thoughts go away. They were walking in the snow, the child was laughing- they were clearly happy. I stood up from the stairs and followed them. I believe that was the point where the psychosis was triggered. I followed them and yelled, “Keila!”; it seemed to feel so right to me. That was my daughter walking there. I ran up to them and I saw the mother protecting her child as she yelled at me. She yelled “Apua!”, means ‘help’ in Finnish. I told her that that child is my daughter. I was very confused but I knew I was right, I was completely convinced, but why is Keila with that woman? It made me frustrated. The woman became aggressive towards me and started to push me away. I wanted to take Keila with me, but she started crying. Later on, I realized there were some people watching the situation. It made me uncomfortable. I looked at Keila, and my mind went empty. The mother yelled at me all kinds of things like ‘pedophile’ and ‘creep’. I wanted to say a lot of things but no words came out. She yelled at me that she was going to call the police and that’s the moment when I took off. I ran away. I kept running for about 10 minutes. I stopped to smoke a cigarette, somewhere in an alley. I started to experience the world around me somewhat foggy and blurry, and I remember I was detaching from reality. Yes, I heard a voice inside my head that made everything worse, whispering to me that I am a creep, and it is my fault Keila is dead now. This certain voice I hear, is very important to me, because he speaks the truth and all of my deepest insecurities. When he comes it’s panic time. I saw people walking by but I knew they weren’t real. The cars passing by, they weren’t real. And I looked to the sky and I felt so alone, and scared. Like the child I was back in the woods, left alone tied up to a tree. Abandoned. Frightened. And I remembered Keila in my mind, the sweet child I lost. I finally came to the realization how much I miss her. All the time in New York I was doing drugs to forget about her. Not just my past, most of the time it was her.. The memory I was pushing away. I figured I never really talked about her death with friends because what happened to her is probably the worst traumatic experience I have dealt with in my life. My father ended her in the most cruel way, like he’s been doing to a lot of people and gets away with it every time. And my father, he’s highly intelligent but it makes him behave like a fuck ass, but he is smart enough to hide from the police. From that point on, I couldn’t think about anything else but Keila. She is there, buried, in the woods where my father lives, my father knows where she is and I want to be the one to bury her, and say goodbye one last time. But unfortunately, my father lives in Lapland, which is about 800 kilometres away from Helsinki. But I was in complete trance and I probably seemed very disorganized and disturbed to the people around me, but I had to go to Kuusamo by train. Kuusamo, the little Santa Claus town. It’s beautiful there, but there’s a lot of dark energy going on. The demon inside my head encouraged the plan to find Keila’s body. “Do it”, it says repeatedly. Since that moment when I took the train, everything became to blurry to go in detail about this journey. I remember I was sitting in the train and felt all eyes looking at me, I probably have been talking to a wall or something, I acted very discomforting. I knew I was in a train but I was seeing and hearing all kinds of things that made me freak out. It was very bad. Everything was too vaguely to put into words. I do remember how things went completely confusing when two police women came up to me to talk. First thing I did was telling them that I never killed anybody, I wasn’t the guy they were looking for. I thought they wanted to arrest me for homicide. I’m still paranoid about everything that happened in the past, the blood on my hands that still smell so fresh to me. They took me with them out of the train into their car and I thought they were going to murder me, I thought those were two people dressed up as police women, they are spies from Russia. Oh, I was convinced. I started to panic and freak out and that’s when things esqualated like crazy. I’ve been put down on the floor and put in a cell for the night. Next morning, Joone came to visit me. He was very angry but very concerned about me and wondered what the Hell I’ve been up to. I never told him what I was up to. I was still very insane and everything and my speech was completely disorganized; I couldn’t really speak properly because my brain was bouncing around with thoughts. That always happens when I have a psychosis. I could hardly follow him but he thought it’s for the best to put me in a psychiatric hospital for the upcoming weeks, to shake the disease off, and until I get my medication from overseas. I agreed. He called me crazy for wanting to dig up Keila who’s been laying underneath the dirt for 4 years already. Maybe it is crazy but not for me in that moment.

The same day I went to the psychiatric hospital where I had a meeting with the chief. It was a terrible meeting because I couldn’t function properly. The world to me still felt like it was fake and I was still very focused on my journey to find Keila. Luckily, Joone was there next to me, and he told the chief about me, my health, my background. Next thing I knew I was placed in the public department. I still had no idea what was going on. I knew I had a lot of therapy sessions the first three days in the hospital. I was really numb, so I could get anything off my chest and it made it all sound so shallow. They gave me medication that just made my symptoms get even worse, but it gave my emotion back, which is not always a good thing. When I gain emotion back, I mostly get really frustrated and aggressive about everything. I can’t really say I’m a happy person, I don’t act like it. I see the world in black and white.

It was probably the 5th or 6th day in the hospital. I have a personal nurse, she’s really tough to me. I don’t know what happened in my mind, but I became very delusional and my mind made me believe that she was Keila’s mother. The girl I made pregnant when I was 17 on a vacation in Finland. And fuck, it made me angry. The nurse was talking to me about my medication but I didn’t believe her for shits. She wanted to poison me. It was Keila’s mother in disguise. I had to end her. I jumped up on her and put my hands around her neck, I wanted to strangle her. I yelled at her where Keila is, because I somehow believe she is still somewhere. I attacked her and I really felt so much adrenalin that I really wanted to finish her. But of course, there are cameras, guards everywhere around the place. The guards came to shake me off of her, they were pushing me on the ground, and I remember how I went totally crazy. I was so angry I didn’t kill her. She knew about Keila all along, and now she was trying to poison me with her medication that only made me feel worse. The guards bruised me, handcuffed me and dragged me to a different place of the building. Sometimes, in moments like this, my life is just like a movie. It’s a crazy thing but it just happens. I was put in an isolation cell. I had to stay in there until I calm down. But I have been here before, I know exactly what it is like to be in an isolation cell. It takes me back to the time when I was a kid living in a psychiatric institute in Russia, where I lived for a year in an isolation cell because, same thing; I was really aggressive.

My psychiatrist here, Kallio, she is a good person. She is about 60 years old and she’s really fun. She makes me feel calm. I was beeped up to come for a therapy session around 2 o’clock. I walked in her office and the first thing she said to me, “Oh honey, you look terrible”. I just like it when people are straight up honest. “I am terrible”, I answered. She shook her head and smiled at me, asked me to sit down on the chair next to her. We had a good conversation and she asked me about the situation that happened earlier, “a little dramatic of you, don’t you think?” Yes, I suppose. But I didn’t answer. She wanted to clear something up by mentioning the following symptoms; that she had seen my struggling with mood swings, how I could be easy and calm and next I turn into some kind of beast. The fact I can’t be cool around fellow patients in the public department because they made me aggressive very quickly. She mentioned my criminal background, how I still want to work illegally, and because I like the thrill of it- the fact that I still want to meet my father to kill him, it gives me the thrill of life. I always want to do something stupid; live my life on the edge. And my dramatic activity around here. She summed up to me and asked, “Has any doctor or psychiatrist in your life ever mentioned borderline personality disorder to you?”. Well, it made me laugh really hard. “I don’t want another label sticking on me for the rest of my life, Kallio. I have enough shit going on. What you call ‘borderline’ are to me just personality traits. I can be very expressive, that’s it.” And she gives me the ‘psychiatrist-stare’. I confessed, “OK, yes, they mentioned it earlier in my life. That I have borderline personality disorder, but that was a long time ago. I was probably 15 or something”. She nodded. But I looked at her suspiciously, and said “But I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I don’t want medication for it, I don’t want to label myself as a borderline person. I don’t want to be a person with paranoid schizophrenia AND borderline, you know how crazy that sounds?”. It made her laugh, she told me I’m not crazy. She promised me to leave it by the labels I know for now.

The next day. The nurse that I strangled was absent. She didn’t want to finish the treatment with me. Obviously. So I got a male nurse. Every morning they give me my medication but the voice in my head keeps convincing me that it’s the poison that is slowly trying to kill me. In the end, I take the medication but it takes a lot of time and effort for the nurses. I hated the medication they give to me. Back in New York, I had amazing stuff. It made me feel awake, and all the voices, the hallucinations and delusions were muted, not entirely, but for a greater part, yes, definitely. I told the nurse I’m waiting for better medication to arrive from the United States, which made me become very political and I told them in English, with my perfect New York accent, that Finland is a shot hole. That Finland is not important to anybody, and that everyone here are freaks; and I’m not talking about the people in the psychiatric hospitals, I’m talking about all population of Finnish people. I told them I was glad I was only 50% Finnish, and the rest English- which made me brag in a Sheffield account. I went kind of crazy again, very frustrated with everything. So I was sent back to Kallio’s office for another session. Right after that I became more calm again.

The next day. Joone came to visit me. He also told me I looked terrible. But he had a surprise for me, and he showed me my medication which arrived from overseas. It put a smile on my face and made me want to hug him. I felt much more comfort now I have those pills. I had to wait for my psychiatrist approval of the drugs, since it’s from America where any pills are stronger. But Kallio knew that the pills from Finland didn’t make me feel any better. Luckily, they were approved and I could start the next day with my new medication to see if things are going better for me. The next couple of days went so much better for me. I was placed back into the public department and I actually made a few friends, too. Kallio said I could celebrate my birthday at home, which was due on a Friday (perfect), but I had to be back the next day around 5 pm.

Friday, I woke up feeling great. I love my freedom and to have my freedom on my birthday is the best I could wish for. Joone picked me up with his car, and we drove to the south of the country. Back to Helsinki. I know I felt tired at the moment, just exhausted from the whole situation. Joone was talking about what to do with my birthday, who to invite, where to go, this and that. But I wasn’t that much of energy yet, even though I was excited. I don’t know, I just went really quiet after everything that has happened. Once we arrived at our new apartment, I saw how much effort Joone put in making the place look nice. Just lovely. He’s such a hard worker. I’m not a man of compliments, but you can sense it when I appreciate something. Joone and I decided to go out for dinner and party later at Tavastia, which is a rock club in Helsinki. It’s a good place. Joone was like, “you’re not going to drink much tonight, right? Since you’re on medication”. Well, once I drink, I’m gonna drink until I pass out. He was constantly saying it and I said “no, I’ll be careful”. But inside I was laughing. Of course I’m gonna drink. I’m 33 now, feel old as balls, I want to feel 23 again. We beeped up some of our friends, we don’t have many friends here yet, because we just moved here, but some old friends from pastimes were invited for my birthday mesh. I think we had dinner with 9 of us, which started around 6 until 8. Well, I couldn’t behave, I drank like there was no tomorrow. I think I had about 3 red wine, later on I went crazy on the vodka again. I just love vodka, it’s so good here in Finland. I was extremely tipsy, but so was Joone. I talked to him in the bathroom of the restaurant. “I’m drunk as shits, man”, while slurring my words. He was all happy like, “me too!”. I asked him if he cares about the fact I’m this drunk already and it will definitely get even worse tonight. He answered, “I don’t care. It’s your birthday. If you want to fuck yourself up, just do it. It’s your birthday. We’re gonna get shit faced anyway so I kind of expected it”. It made me feel so thankful for having that guy in my life. He’s all concerned and tough on me sometimes, but other times he doesn’t even care anymore and he still gives me the freedom to do whatever I want. He’s not going to boss around. I think I told him I love you or something.

We went back to pay and unto the next venue; Tavastia. Dark nightclub/bar sort of thing. Nothing can beat New York bars but as long as there’s booze, I’m not complaining. Joone and I made a deal how we’re both gonna get laid tonight and make it rough. Joone can easily get anybody, but quite frankly, we’re not in a gay bar this time so it’s gonna be 50/50 who’s gonna get the chicks. I’m a playful flirt, but I can’t be too drunk because it makes me really sloppy and it makes me want to skip the flirting part and go right over to the sexual part. I sometimes need to remind myself to be careful with girls. Women. Chicks. Especially when I’m drunk. We were with 6 people hanging at the bar, Joone and I, Joone’s sister; Eeva (she’s badass), Valtteri, Matleena and Seepo, people we met earlier while going out in Helsinki. Cool people. First hour Joone became friends with tons of girls, as if he has some chickmagnet in the inside of his coat. Think they were probably talking about fashion or that kind of stuff. But good for me. Thank you, Joone. The girls weren’t making much contact with me but I didn’t really fancy them much either. Then after a shot tequila, Joone was all starting to promote me “This guy here, has been a model in New York, and he’s half British!” It’s kind of embarrassing to me, I don’t find it flattering at all. All I could think was ‘Joone stop it, I’m gonna tell them myself once I get the chance’. It is crazy how these girls started to hang around me immediately. I thought it was stupid. Just because I’ve been modeling in New York, I’m half British, you want to fuck me? That is so fucking cheap. Cheap, cheap, cheap. So I ordered vodka at the bar and went outside for a smoke. Cheap bitches. I became a little frustrated but I had to control myself. Nobody talk to me. Then Matleena came outside with some guy she probably met here. Laughing. She was really shit faced, I could see. She was like “Hi Aleksander! Meet Matti!” This and that. They smoked with me, but the dude went to the bathroom inside. I asked Matleena, “do you think bitches only love me because I’ve been a New York model and because I’m half British?” She started laughing. “Who convinced you that?”. “Some girls Joone is hanging with at the bar.” “No, the right bitch loves you for the intelligent person that you are”, she said. Now, that’s flattering. I gave her a hug. I wanted to kiss her but I didn’t. Matleena, she’s alright. She’s so friendly and sweet. So we went back to the group and at the end of the hall I saw Joone sitting on the bar drinking even more shots. I knew that I probably have to drag him home again, just like last time we went out, I literally dragged him home in the snow. Next time he’s gonna pay me for it. I saw Joone was hanging with a Latino guy, and I was all like “Who’s that?” and he says he’s Juan from Venezuela, this and that, he’s gonna do him, blah blah. Now Joone has scored, I need to score as well. Maybe a couple of shots will do the trick. I went off alone and started hanging in the front hall with some girls. I pretended to be American, and they were all falling for it. I just needed to fuck someone, cheap or not. I saw Valtteri walking towards the men’s bathroom and he was all like, ‘follow me’. So I did. And he took me into the corner of the bathroom and offered me some coke. Fuck yes, that’s what I need. We went snorting like beasts and he said “I’ll catch you later”. I went back to the front hall to my girls. They were so drunk. We started talking some more. They were all starting to get clingy, especially this girl from Sweden. She was really into me. She was touching me and hugging me, and I slowly felt the cocaine rush coming. I just didn’t care anymore. We made out. I just didn’t care anymore, I dragged her to the men’s bathroom. Men were watching but they were all encouraging and supportive to our sexual act. We made it a quicky, but it was allllllright.

The rest of the night was a total blur to me. I continued to drink. Joone passed out for half an hour at least, he was backstage. I just laughed at him. All I can remember is that we had a good time. It’s fun to go out every now and then. I remember vaguely walking home from the club to our apartment. It was snowing like crazy. It was just me and Matleena, Joone and Juan. I have lost the rest of the group but I didn’t care. I think Joone tripped about 70 times on our way home because he was blinded by the snow. He fell on the hood of a random car parking in the streetway. Totally messed up. It was 6 in the morning and I invited Matleena in my bed. We were doing alright there. Next morning we woke up, feeling completely buzzed but a night like this is worth it all.

January was crazy. Literally, crazy.

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 6 years

Text

The Mechanical Dragon (Part 14)

She is a fool and she knows it. Brazen and brave, but a fool.

She is not wearing her wings.

The path before her is very empty and disconcertingly silent. She knows that she is truly alone again. She realizes, rather abruptly, that she doesn’t like being alone. Yet, she continuously isolates herself in some way or another through an assortment of means. During her prime she was feared and fearless. Traipsing the jungle Azula is forced to admit that she is afraid. For many reasons. But there is something that stands out much bolder than all else in the noiselessness. She is afraid of being alone. The fearless, lonely princess is afraid of being alone.

She almost wants to turn back.

But she can’t, lest she lose her nerve. Besides, it has taken her far too much time to pinpoint her destination, she can’t fathom having wasted all of that time. So Azula does what she does best and pushes forward.

.oOo.

Azula has left her again and without saying a word. Zirin is furious, she hadn’t expected any different being as the princess was outright about saying she would sneak away again. But it didn’t alleviate the frustration, not under current circumstances.

She hovered about Okon’s bed, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. Trips to the water pump were becoming so frequent, she thought that she was spending a good seventy percent of her day running to and from it.

Okon lets out a wheezing cough and Zirin’s heart seizes. She wraps his hand around the cup and urges him to drink as he fights off another fit. She knows that she can’t worry about the princess right now. No, Azula is on her own for the time being. If she wants to skip out then Zirin will leave her to it. “Can I get you somethin’ to eat, father?”

“I’m not hungry, Zizi.”

He is never hungry these days and for it he grows frailer. She grips his hands with what is probably more force than she should. “You gotta eat.” But she knows that he won’t. He is a stubborn man and it is going to catch up to him, she just knows it. She doesn’t know, however, what she will do when it does.

.oOo.

A little under a week later, Azula knows now that she truly is a mad woman as she stands before a decaying door. The wood is old and rotting and the stone wall it is fixed within is teeming with mold and moss. The air smells stale and musty. It sends shivers down her spine, it the odor bares too much likeness to her cellar for her to be comfortable. All that is missing is the foul stench of long dead meat. She supposes that it makes sense though, that the place reeks in such a way.

Azula is well aware that it is in her best interest to turn around, but she is also fairly certain that this is the only way to stop her nightmares. So she knocks and she waits, every second torments her, every second is a chance to bolt. But she remains, she finds it hard to imagine cowering away, it simply isn’t something she does.

When he steps into the light she can almost pretend that he is a normal guy. A moral, sane man. She supposed that they were similar in that way. Azula knows that she has caught him off guard, he is far less intimidating when she meets him on her own accord, but his shock wears off and he is scowling. It is unsettling all over again and she can’t fathom what possessed her to do this. She can’t exactly go back now. “Where is your mother?”

He is fast, but she is more so.

At first she thought he was going for a quick strike. Instead he pushes the door shut, but not before she can wedge her foot in the frame. With more strength than he had anticipated, she forced her way in. “Where is your mother?” She repeated. Her voice was lower than she remembered, more dangerous. If he doesn’t cooperate she is going to hurt him, she knows that she will and it frightens her. She is already slipping away from herself in a way she hasn’t in a very long time.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you.” He mutters, he can’t look her in the eyes.

“And I didn’t want to stay in that cellar.” Azula slowly edges closer. “Take me to her.”

He opens his mouth and she can see it on his face that he his going to refuse, so she takes him by the wrist and with her free hand she snaps his index finger back. He cries out in shock and anguish. She feels nothing. Neither delight—as she ought to—nor guilt.

He clutches his broken finger it is already swelling.

“Kozak?” She hears a familiar rasp. “Kozak what’s going on?”

It occurs to Azula that she can kill Kozak and cut off the only care that his mother has. It would be a slow agonizing way for her to die. It would fit very well.

“Are you showing me to her, or am I going myself?”

He stiffens and glares at her. But he motions her forward, she can see his bad finger still good and popped out of place.

She realizes, standing before Li, that she doesn’t know exactly what she came to do. She thinks that she wants to murder the old woman, violently tear her apart beyond recognition. She was so aged, it would be so easy to snap a few bones and bash the woman in.

.oOo.

Most of the town’s people have heard by now and they don’t like to meet her gaze as she enters the apothecary for herbs she cannot find in her garden. Painkillers with more potency, medicines that are less modest, and teas that are richer.

It is for nothing, Zirin knows. Nothing other than making her feel like she is doing something to help. But she knows that the numbing agents only take the edge off, that the medicines have no effect, and the teas only leave a desirable taste.

She wishes that someone would talk to her, she needs solace and reassurance. But she is so isolated. She feels her mind fraying again and she can’t afford to let that happen. So she goes somewhere that will help her forget, at least for a little while. The tavern is loud, it is just what she needs. She promises that she will only have a few.

And more than a few drinks later she is stumbling home in the dark, just barely making it there. Bugs buzz all too loudly in heat that is too intense, even for a Fire Nation night. The alcohol leaves her thinking that her father is going to be pissed and beat her good for coming in so wasted and disoriented. He doesn’t though, instead he does something infinitely worse.

.oOo.

Sitting across from Li, she realizes that she wanted conversation, not blood. The elderly woman drums yellowing nails upon the surface of the table, she is glowering at her uninvited guest rather wickedly. Instinctively, Azula is somewhat nervous. It is irrational, she has the upper hand here, even if Kozak decided to get involved. But he keeps very careful distance, looming in the corner of the room.

“You’re broken.” Li remarks. Azula doesn’t know if she is referring to the physical scars or the ones in her mind that brought her here. “You should be dead, you were supposed to be. Just like my sister.” Her face only grows more sinister.

“Yes, you’re right.” Azula agrees. Only part of her means it. She doesn’t pine for someone to put her out of her misery anymore, not since she received her wings. Yet part of her, a very large part still believes that she deserved to.

“What do you want from me, princess?” The word is unpleasant coming from that mouth and in that tone. “Are you hear to kill me? String me up for slaughter in front of my son like a hippo-cow.”

Azula gets a faint impression that this is what Li has in mind for her—complete with a brand-new outfit of hippo-cow skin. Again, Azula is hard-pressed to suppress a shudder. “That’s not what I’m here for.” She still doesn’t know what she is here for, where she wants the conversation to go.

“Then, what?” Li askes in her gravely drawl.

“I’m not a monster.” Azula declares. “Lo wasn’t supposed to die.” Was that really what she wanted to say? Did she truly spend all that time tracking Li down and making the journey there to try to convince Li that she is actually a remotely decent person? It seems so pathetic to want to please a woman like Li, and yet that is exactly what she came to do.

Somewhere down that miserable path she was walking, Azula decided that she still cared for Li. Li who taught her to firebend, who helped give her what made her who she was. Li who taught her about womanhood instead of mercilessly leaving her to a mess of awful surprises. Li who took care of her when her father was busy and her nannies were out.

Li who left her scarred and damaged beyond genuine repair.

“You are and you always were. You always will be.” Li is very firm. Her opinion isn’t going to waver, but Azula still seeks to try. “It’s a shame.” She clamps her hand around Azula’s skin. Somewhat soft, and somewhat familiar skin. Azula jerks her hand out of Li’s grasp. “The hog-monkey wings suited you so well.”

Again, Azula disputes this. “I was…sick.” That’s what Zuko had always said when referring to her psychosis. “I wouldn’t have sent her away if—”

Li hisses and covers her ears. “You would have, you would have, you would have! Demon! Beast!” She abruptly gets to her feet. “Right from the start, I knew it right from the start. I told Lo, I told her that you were a demon child.”

“That’s not true.” She was beginning to wonder though, maybe it is true. It crosses her mind briefly to let Li bind her up again and start stitching. She thinks of Okon and of Zirin—she can’t be a monster if she has love for them. Is that what that was? Azula realizes that she doesn’t really know—or maybe, remember—what love is.

“Do you know what they did to beasts when I was a girl?” Li asks with a snarl. “They took them into the center of down, cut out their tongues, gouged out their eyes, and fed it to them so that they can eat their own meat as they had the meat of the good villagers.”

Azula thinks that Li might just be more out of touch than she. In all of her years, she had never heard of such practices taking place in the Fire Nation. She doesn’t have much time to dwell on it though because Li lunges at her. Reflexes take over, Azula can’t recall having done so, but she sees the dying flicker of a lightning bolt.

Li is on the ground, smelling faintly of smoke. There’s a tang of burning meat in the air with a hint of copper. The woman crumpled on the floor is sorely unarmed. She doesn’t have a knife nor fire. Not even a blunt object. She is just a fragile old woman. What she does have, is a blackened hole in her chest. It blisters and gushes.

A loud scream rings out. She thinks it could be her own for a moment, but it is much too masculine. Kozak drops to his knees, cradling his mother. He screams again, a dismal hybrid of anguish and rage. His eyes meet the princess’ own.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like that…

Li wasn’t supposed to die…

She knows that she is wide-eyed and that it is a show of weakness that she can’t afford in front of such a formidable enemy. Yet she can’t seem to shake her own horror. So she does the only thing she can think of at the time. She makes a break for the door, leaving Kozak to his grief.

Now Azula knows that Li is right.

She has killed Lo and now she has killed Li.

.oOo.

“Father.” She sobs into his chest. “Father.” The word is weaved into her cries. “You gotta come back, you gotta. You can’t just go ‘n leave me all alone.” She shakes him. “You ain’t say goodbye, don’t you know you gotta say goodbye?” She can’t help but hope that he will wake up, maybe if she coaxes him…

“You know how many drinks I had tonight, fa? I went ‘n had more then four.” He is supposed to wake up and scold her, send her to her room without a meal. He was supposed to discipline her.

She realizes at once, that he is punishing her. She’d neglected him for a game of forgetting at the bar and so he went and died. If only she had stuck by his side. If only she was a responsible caregiver.

A responsible daughter.

For her folly she is alone. Alone and furious.

That princess. That evil, selfish princess. She had a nasty habit of disappearing when Zirin truly needed her and she was sick to death of it. Her focus shifts again, back to her father’s body. She is lost, she doesn’t know what to do. “Father, please.” She whispers again. “I nee’ja to wake up fer me.”

He remains still.

There is still some warmth lingering on his skin.

#Azula #Zirin #Azula/Zirin #Avatar #Fanfiction

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markipwiwer · 6 years

Note

Request if you still take them: maybe anti getting too much electrical energy or glitchy energy and he goes in some sort of tunnel vision state, and it takes both wilford and dark to calm him down and tend to his wounds p.s I love reading your work some times it's the highlight of my day

So this ended up being a spiritual successor of another request and I’d link it but I’m on mobile (as always). It’s called “Backed Up” on AO3 though. I really did want to do something with this again so thank you for requesting it. And you have no idea what that means to me, there are writers that I am constantly looking up to, getting excited every time they post something new. So the idea that I could be that for someone is just…… whoa man

It had been a week since Anti had fully been restored again, with the disgruntled help of Google Red. And he’d been ‘hanging out’ a lot more with Bing. That was, there was a lot of silent sitting, holding hands, transferring of information.

It was through Oliver, Yellow, the softest of the IRL units, with which Anti had been able to find exactly which hospital that bastard was in. The stupid hacker guy that had torn Anti to literal pieces. And Oliver did have other decent information. But as Anti quickly discovered, the entire hospitals network was super outdated and wasn’t compatible with the sleek, modern IRL units.

And Bing was pretty cool to hang out with anyway.

Anti could have, if he wanted to, gotten the information he needed to go and haunt the shit out of that guy and be out in a flash again.

But there was something… hypnotising about knowing the schedules of hundreds of people. Knowing who lives and who dies according to the system. Knowing everything down to peoples eating habits in the cafeteria, or the little corners of the grounds staff go for cigarette breaks. It was empowering.

So Anti spent days on it, slowly ruminating, building a plan, down to the predictable minute.

Dark and Wilford had never seen him this hyperfocused on something before. And it was a little unnerving. On one hand, Dark was glad that Anti was slowing down a little, formulating things instead of being impulsive and erratic. On the other hand, Wilford noticed he was considerably more distant and quiet and… not that Wilford was usually the jealous type, all things considered, but he was spending an awful lot of time holding hands with Bing. Wilford wanted to hold Antis hand more often.

He was also… buzzing a lot more.Usually, Antis touch was a light tingle at best. But he’d given Wilford several electric shocks without meaning to in the past few days and Darks hairs stood on end from the static when they merely got close, let alone held each other or kissed.

It was like Anti was accumulating power. Not that Dark had any particular problem with that, it would make him more useful on missions and hunts. But if he and Wilford knew Anti at all, they knew that kind of thing could get to his head pretty easily.

One day, Anti looked… almost dressed up. As dressed up as Anti got. Clean skinny jeans, for once, despite them still being ripped, a black tshirt with the sleeves merely rolled up instead of being cut off, a clean bandage around his neck and a worn leather jacket to top it all off.

Wilford wolf whistled in his direction in the kitchen. Anti didn’t react. Wilford tried a slightly stronger approach.

“Got a fancy date, darling?”

Anti shrugged, seeming to be reflecting and concentrating on something Wilford couldn’t see.

“Somethin’ like that.”

“Is it with Bing?”

Wilfords question was simple, but it took Anti by surprise enough that he stopped looking into the distance - or right in front of him, Wilford couldn’t tell - and actually looked at the pink idiot.

“What? No. Why would… no, I’m working on somethin’.”

Wilford scooted closer, raising his eyebrows. This was allowed in their relationship, it was fine, but Wilford being himself, loved all the juicy details.

“Working your way into his robotic heart, it seems like.”

Anti rolled his eyes and focused back on… whatever he was focused on. He pulled out his phone, checking the time, before putting it back in his leather jacket.

“No. Bings been helping me with the hospitals network.”

Wilfords eyebrows furrowed.

“…Hospital? The one where -“

“Don’t even say his name. He’ll be either a shell of a man or dead soon, and no one will remember him.”

In that moment, Anti sounded an awful lot like Dark. It was disconcerting how driven he was about this one guy. Granted, this one guy took a limb and a chunk of his stomach but still. Anti promised he’d go easy. This just sounded more hardcore, maybe without the same manic tendencies that Anti usually put into things.

“…alright. Well then, have fun, cutie code, and don’t overexert yourself. We want you back home in one piece this time.”

Wilford tried to add a jovial tone but it fell on deaf ears and Anti bit back.

“Thanks.”

He didn’t like feeling weak.Anti checked his phone once more before disappearing in a chaotic mess of frayed programming.

“Bing, I need to know what Anti has planned. He was really… I just need to know, okay?” Wilford tried to reason with the Android, with limited success. Luckily, Dark happened to wander in while Bing was trying to explain how it wasn’t super easy to just give Wilford the plans since they were encrypted.

“Bing, you will explain to me what Anti has planned for his course of revenge. In a way that we can understand.”

Bing clenched up for a moment, before a light shone past his eyes.

“… Admin user detected. Dude, he’s gonna kill me for this…”

“And we can put you back together. Now explain, that’s an order.”

Bing huffed, but obeyed. He rattled off Antis plans about the hackers doctors schedules, security schedules, when things were most vulnerable, what was and wasn’t controlled by machine. Anti was going to take away his pain medication first, and instead pump him full of psychosis-inducing drugs. He’d be sent to the psych ward, they’d have a bed available later on in the day. Until then, the guy would stay tied down, hallucinating and in pain.

His restlessness would get him sent to the acute ward, where security was pretty tight. But several guards went out for cigarette breaks at the same time. Just before evening medication time, power would go out in the facility. For some there, not having medication for one day wasn’t a big deal. For others, it was a huge deal. So the guy would be hallucinating, in pain, with a bunch of undermedicated, unstable people and not enough staff to deal with so much happening at once.

Then he’d haunt. He’d access screens, monitors, emergency broadcast systems specific to the hospital and read out the guys extensive medical and criminal history. He’d flicker lights, lock doors, the whole shebang.

For most of it, he didn’t need to even be in the building.A few checks on schedules and routes, that’d be it.

Dinner would come past, and later that night, Anti would finally, FINALLY, stab the hacker with a simple butter knife.

No one would actually know how the hacker snuck the knife away, or how he managed to basically impale himself, but Anti didn’t leave fingerprints by nature. It’d be an assumed suicide.

There were some extra bits and pieces but Dark had heard more than enough. Although part of him had to be impressed, this was a very strange length for Anti to go to for one person. It wasn’t really Anti. Having that kind of knowledge, that kind of control, it was already getting to Anti. Dark knew all of the warning signs.

“Where would Anti be in his plan right now?”

Bing paused, glancing at Wilford standing behind Dark. Wilford looked… sad, in some way, though Bing didn’t understand Wilford quite enough to place the emotion exactly.

“He’d be close to cutting the power by now. The other stuff was done pretty easily outside the facility, but he wanted to… see.”

Dark turned to Wilford.

“He has a lot of power right now that he’s not fully in control of. It’s going to be an effort to bring him home safely.”

Wilford looked guilty. That was it. He had been the one to let this guy live in the first place, not wanting Anti to miss out on revenge. But this was a lot more than just seeing blood spill.

The guy had made Anti feel weak. And so he needed to see how strong Anti really was.

Wilford took Darks hand.

“Let’s bring out pet home.”

Bing hesitated before they made to move.

“W-wait! Did I.. did I do anything wrong?”

“No, Bing. You followed orders.”Dark left the reply at that before transporting with Wilford to the facility.

They returned a half an hour later, black and pink fog mixing, clashing with pixels and static and screaming. So much screaming. The guy was dead, there was no way he would have survived that pulse.

The thing about Anti was he ate up mistakes. Mistakes in programming and code, all the way up to tiny surface level mistakes of information just being put in the wrong place.

Anti had caused trouble, yeah, but he also completely freed the hospitals network of bugs. Trade that for the life of a guy that no one would mess and was dead according to the system anyway? Sure.

But Anti was surging - that was the best way to describe it - and it took both Dark and Wilford to transport him back, forcing him backwards.

Anti thrashed and clawed back, his eyes animalistic and raw and too full. Black. Just black, the way they got when he was trying to be scary, except it usually wasn’t this constant.

His form was unstable and terrifying to anyone else but Dark just held him down, kept Antis arms behind his back because he knew what this kind of power could do.

Anti would spiral like this forever if he was left unchallenged.

Wicked sat in front of the raging form, on his knees, and held Antis face in his hand. Anti was covered in blood and Wilford hadn’t even realised.

There had been more than one death. The hospital just hadn’t figured it out yet.

“Hey… you need to settle petal, alright? You’re with us now, your home…” Wilford put a hand to Antis cheek, which honestly hurt at this point, it buzzed hard on Wilfords fingertips and not in a good way, not even in a sexy way. It just hurt.

Anti screamed something that neither of them understood, too much static, but it sounded work down. He screamed again and this time it cracked.

Darks loosened his grip on Antis arms specifically and instead brought his arms around to Antis front, hugging him from behind but still keeping him firmly in place. His aura rubbed soothing circles into the glitches back.

His voice echoed, and it was something close to soothing.

“It’s alright, love. We’ve got you now. You need to let this extra energy go.”

Dark and Wilford shared a look that this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing they could wear Anti down from just by fucking him.

Antis buzzing didn’t hurt Dark nearly as much as it hurt Wilford, so he used the opportunity to wrap himself around Anti, lovingly, in a way that he wouldn’t usually. Wilford continued whispering into Antis ears, about how it was okay and how much they loved him and how he did a good job today but hat it was time to let it go.

Antis form, which had been throbbing with power and making the two stand on edge, eventually, slowly, went limp. It wasn’t a quick thing, it was gradual, and every now and then, he’d get some sort of a flash in his eyes and it was like he was inspired in the worst way again. And he’d struggle. But each time, the struggle got a little easier to contain. A little weaker. Of course, they would never tell Anti he was weak. If he thought about it too much, he might come to the conclusion that he was still weaker than the both of them at full force. That wasn’t entirely true. He just loved them and listened to them. But only them.

He’d exhausted himself in the fight, in trying to bat away their care and affection. Anti whimpered and sighed in Darks arms and Wilford stroked the side of his cheek while they transported him with a lot more ease this time around. There was a small, static-y sob that escaped his lips when Wilford shifted to hug Anti, gently, from behind, and Dark took his hands. Dark kissed as his forehead, and let his own ringing take over as the prominent sound while Wilford spoke calmly still.

#requests #Long post #dantistache #antisepticeye #Darkiplier #Wilford Warfstache

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samingtonwilson · 7 years

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Marriage Material - Part 19 - Jim Kirk

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18

Summary: in this chapter, the walls are foul.

Warnings: language

A/N: IM SO SORRY IT’S TAKEN ME SO LONG TO WRITE THIS. hopefully it’s good enough to make up for the waiting period. excuse typos, i had a real mess this morning uploading this without power-- INSANE.

Jim had to test the waters. He didn’t want to ask any questions outright, nor did he feel it was wise to. He needed to test the waters one toe at a time.

It wasn’t that he was afraid you’d run off if any of the questions were too abrupt— he was actually certain you’d run off if any of the questions were too abrupt. Some questions, though, he deemed totally unquestionable even if disguised in the thickest costume. After all, there could be no subtle way of asking, “Is it a deal breaker that I possibly I kept you married to me because I’ve always been in love with you and inflated the truth until it almost burst because I wanted to make sure you’d agree?”

He thought he might try to drop hints about it, maybe pretend to have taken up that interest in literature you were trying so hard to impress upon him. Of course, there was no way he could fabricate a plot and give it a well-known name without being too obvious seeing as you walked around with an encyclopedic knowledge he was surprised didn’t cause your head to fall off your shoulders.

Then again, it would take someone with a shocking lack of knowledge to think Wuthering Heights was about accidental marriages on Vegas-like planets rather than what it was really about— which a sorely unknowledgeable Jim assumed was an apartment building filled to the brim with drama like one of his mother’s daily soaps.

He did dwell on presenting it as something that happened to a friend of his—he just had no way of doing that without making it painfully obvious. You also knew most of his friends and they all made much better decisions than he did, so that idea was dead on arrival.

Leonard thought each idea was absurd and gave Jim a firm lecture on the importance of honesty, even if it led to a result not desired by any party in question. The lecture, though, flowed through one ear and swam out of the other.

When he entered your shared quarters with a knock that went unanswered, his eyes went directly to the bed. He frowned at your coughing, sneezing, sniffling form as you sat with your back against the wall behind you.

He tilted his head when he noticed you staring at the wall.

“Grey walls. It makes me think of all the grey things I ever saw— not beautiful ones like British shorthair cats and grey eyes but foul, bad grey things.”

He snorted loud enough to finally gain your attention, heavy-lidded, dull eyes of exhaustion meeting his. “I really hope you’re quoting something and you didn’t come up with that in your infinite misery.”

“Ah, it’s John!” he cringed at the sound of your stuffy, nasally voice and could just imagine how much your loud volume exasperated the soreness in your throat. “‘John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. John does not know how much I really suffer.’ Stupid, foul John— stupid, foul walls.”

He toed off his shoes and went straight to the replicator in the kitchenette. He set a mug under the machinery and leant his hip against the counter’s edge. “God, I hope it’s literature. Otherwise you’re just delirious and I don’t feel like bugging Bones again.”

“I didn’t ask you to bug him the first time!” you shouted and forced yourself into a fit of coughs, one hand covering your mouth and the other against your chest. You squeezed your eyes shut and groaned. “It’s The Yellow Wallpaper. S’a short story.”

“Yeah? What’s it about?” He took the mug and held it steady as he neared you, his eyes on the tea to make sure it didn’t splash over the porcelain rim.

“Woman has postpartum depression and her husband’s a total dick that doesn’t understand how mental health works. He confines her to this room with putrid yellow wallpaper in an old mansion and only sees her when he comes home from work— which he seldom does.” You took the tea gratefully and handed him your PADD in return, patting the area on the bed before you so he could sit. “She stares at this wallpaper all day and the depression turns into this deep level of psychosis which has her seeing a woman in the wallpaper. She slowly goes insane and peels the wallpaper off, thinking she’s freed herself from it.”

His eyes were wide as sat and he listened to you. Partially due to the sound of your thick voice, partially due to the plot you detailed for him.

“Her husband faints when she skips around the room with bleeding fingernails, screaming about being free. She just hops over him and keeps skipping.”

“Christ, I told you to read so you could relax, starlight,” he sighed, unable to help his laugh when you scowled. He lied back on the bed sideways, his legs dangling off the edge so he could stare at the ceiling. He could hear you slurping the tea carefully so as to not burn your tongue. “Not so you could see yourself and these walls in something like— Wait, who the hell is John?”

“Her husband.”

“The one that confined her to the room that drove her insane?” he asked incredulously, propping himself up onto his elbows.

“You’re confining me to this damn room!” You pointed at the box of tissues near his head and he handed it to you promptly. You tried to sniffle and nearly cried out in frustration when your nose was too stuffed to even allow a molecule of air through.

“Because you can’t even breathe through your nose,” he laughed disbelievingly, looking away as you blew your nose into the tissue. “You’re too sick to work.”

“Maybe you’re too sick to work, I’m the picture of health.”

He snorted. “Yeah? Say the word ‘mom.’”

You narrowed your eyes. “Mom-buh.”

“What was that?” he asked with a smile. “Mom-buh?”

“I’ll murder you in your sleep, John.”

Laughing, he sat up only long enough to rid himself of his command gold tunic, tossing it to the side of the room before collapsing back again. “You’re acting like Bones would even let you work. The man would have you locked away in some isolation chamber. I mean he suggested it when I comm’d him.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t take him up on that offer. What, with the way you were so enthusiastic to keep me locked in here like some sickly prisoner.”

“I’m no doctor but it seems like melodrama is a symptom of this particular virus.”

“I’m no doctor but it seems like melodrama is a symptom of this particular virus,” you repeated imitatively in a high-pitched, silly voice. “I’ll—”

“Murder me while I sleep— yeah, yeah.” He draped his arm over his eyes, his lips parted as he breathed evenly. “D’you take your medicine on time?”

“I’m a physician, shohar jaan.”

“Congratulations, your parents must be so proud. Now, did you take your medicine on time?”

You managed a smile at that, your head lolling back against the wall. “Yes, I took my medicine on time.”

“Good. Your next dose is in an hour.”

You hummed and set the mug onto the bedside table. You then shifted so you were kneeling with your knees digging into the mattress.

He could feel the mattress dip and moved his arm back to his side, watching as you struggled off the bed with a smile pulling at his lips. “Need some help?”

You shook your head stubbornly, adjusting the shirt you’d stolen from Jim around your body and holding back a shiver at the cold air hitting your bare legs. “No, I’m an adult. A strong adult, a capable—” you sneezed into your hands, groaning. “Capable adult. Independent adult.”

He nodded and held his hands up in surrender when you spun around to raise your eyebrows at him. He smiled when you turned back around, though, keeping his eyes on you as you walked into the bathroom and set your hands onto the counter.

You leant forward to narrow your eyes at your reflection. “I look like shit.”

“Because you’re sick.”

“Thanks, Detective,” you mumbled as you flicked the water on, splashing handfuls of it onto your face to hopefully wash some of the exhaustion away.

Before you could blindly reach for a towel, Jim hopped up from the bed and handed you the navy blue one that you always kept safe from him because it was your favorite. “Here.”

You whispered a thank you and dabbed your skin dry, sighing when you felt his warmth behind you as he reached for your hairbrush. You shut your eyes as he took the elastic band out of your hair, ruffling it out before pulling the brush through.

He glanced at your reflection and struggled against a smile, continuing to brush your hair and experimentally combing his fingers through. He lightly scraped his nails against your scalp and saw your tense shoulders relax, your tight grip on the counter loosen— he heard you sigh again.

Using the elastic band he’d removed, he tied your hair in a ponytail once more— a cleaner, tighter one. “That too tight?”

You shook your head and opened your eyes, meeting the gaze in the mirror. You smiled softly. “Thank you.”

He nodded, his hands sliding down your arms to your sides and landing on your hips so he could turn you around to face him. His reflection couldn’t even do justice to the brightness of his blue irises, to the emotion so heavily present there. “You are a physician. You’re a strong, capable, independent adult. You’re totally able to take care of yourself, you’ve always taken care of yourself— that’s not up for debate.”

You tilted your head.

“But you don’t have to this time,” he said slowly, his voice as soft as the look in his eyes that didn’t dare waver from yours. “You have me now and I want to take care of you. As your spouse, I sort of have to.”

You smiled when one of his hands was set against your neck, his palm cold in comparison to your burning skin. “Right. That ‘in sickness and in health’ nonsense.”

“Yeah, that,” he replied, smiling as well. He set his forehead against yours for a few moments before pressing his lips there instead and leaning back. “I love you—”

Your smile grew.

“— but you’re still burning up and I’m not letting myself fall sick, too.”

After he patted your ass twice, he took his hands from you so a chill ran up your spine. You stared after him. “If we weren’t still married for your selfish purposes, I’d divorce you at this very moment.”

“Don’t use your voice so much, you sound terrible,” he called back, placing a bowl under the replicator this time. He smiled at you when you emerged from the bathroom. “Thinking about putting some pants on?”

You looked down at your legs, your heavy head spinning as you did so. “It’s too cold without them, too hot with them.”

He hummed. “Soup— d’you have a preference?”

“Nothing noodly,” you shuddered at the mere thought of that. You crossed your aching arms over your chest as you somehow found the strength to join him in the small kitchenette. You leant your hip against the counter. “There’s still two hours left in alpha.”

“Good to know you can tell time in your ill state.”

“Jim.”

He smiled. “I’m the captain, starlight. I can do what I want.” He took the bowl of soup from under the replicator and set it down on the table beside the window. “Including force-feeding your sick ass soup and—”

“Keeping me married to you,” you said with a sigh and walked to the table, sitting down in one of the chairs and scowling at the prospect of eating. “My throat hurts too mu—”

“There could be other reasons that I asked you to stay married to me, you know.”

You raised an eyebrow at him when he pulled the other chair to be closer to you, spinning it around so he was straddling the seat and his chest was pressed against the backrest. “You never told me about other reasons.”

“I’m not saying there were other reasons, I’m just saying there could be,” he said, sneaking glances as you as he stirred the soup to cool it down a little. “If that morning I had told you I was in love with you, would you have stayed married to me?”

“No,” you answered easily, shrugging a moment later. “Would’ve dated you, though. Properly and not in this weird, convoluted way with an expiration date.”

“It would’ve been morally repugnant to inflate the truth, right? To make sure that didn’t happen?”

You nodded slowly, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “It’d be horrible. I’d feel even more like your prisoner than today’s bed rest made me feel— like the way I feel about you is some form of Stockholm syndrome.”

He nodded, trying to focus on the bowl. “Right.”

“Jim, why are you asking me all of this?”

He shrugged a shoulder, meeting your eyes with a small smile he hoped didn’t look forced. “Bones was telling me about some movie he saw. Two people get married under false pretenses— one lies to the other, the other finds out the truth, leaves the liar.”

You nodded, sniffling. “That’s sad. Could you get me a blanket, sunshine?”

He nodded back, rising from the seat and complying quickly.

Another cough tore through your body, a loud sigh leaving your lips afterwards. You took a deep breath and cleared your throat, regretting it immediately. “Did the other and the liar work it out?”

Jim draped the blanket over your shoulders and you pulled it around you tighter, relaxing. He wet his lips and sat back down in the same position as before. “Don’t know.”

“Were the pretenses totally false or exaggerated?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Were feelings involved?” your voice was even thicker with barely swallowed soup.

“Don’t know.”

“You’re just a wealth of information, aren’t you?”

He smiled.

“As upsetting as my story is,” you began with a crack in your voice already raspy from sickness, “at least I knew the whole thing before I started talking about it.”

“Stop talking before you lose your voice entirely.”

“Tell me about your day, then. I’m not gonna sit here in silence when I’ve been doing that all day— the stupid, foul grey walls, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He took a breath and smiled. “Bones isn’t speaking to Spock and I.”

You nodded with a frown, silently asking him to continue.

“Spock said you’re the better physician because of your bedside manner and that smile you use when you want to distract someone from a hypo. I obviously agreed not because I, you know, love you, but because I agree objectively.”

You tilted your head.

“We were talking about it because Bones was trying to figure out why so many people sent in requests to switch physicians.”

You tilted your head the other way.

“Not from Bones to you— every other physician to you. Krishna, Sirleaf, the short one with curly blonde hair— their patients are trying to switch to you and not Bones. He asked why they wouldn’t switch to him.”

You frowned.

“Yeah, he is a jealous guy. But we all knew that. His patients probably aren’t switching because they’re too scared of him to.”

You smiled.

“Yes, I told him that. S’like the man has no sense of humor.”

You laughed, finally saying aloud, “We’ve only been married for a few months and I can already talk to you without speaking.”

“I could do that before we got married. Perfected it during Spock’s safety seminars, remember?”

You opened your mouth to agree only to have Jim quickly stick a spoon filled with soup in it. You made a noise of annoyance.

“No talking.”

PART 20

lil tag list: (tell me if you’d like to be tagged): @feelmyroarrrr @to-pick-ourselves-up-7@star-trekkin-across-theuniverse @webhoard @dirajunara @the-space-goddess-16@whiteandblackkeys @sugarshai @goodnightwife @anyakinamidala @iwillstaywiththemforever @majisean @bbparker @heyjess-marie @kirkaholic123 @thepjofanqueen@buckybuckling@da1120 @dudahmautner @purelittleblueberry @insposcollective@our-chaoticwhispers@procrastinace @misbehaving146 @thenextdoorangel @equineaddictx @sarkastodon@20th-centu-fairy-girl @arrowswithwifi @king4thesirens @theycallmerian @bakerstgirl @jehun-prouvaire @dwarvenstache @buckypetal15 @boldlywritingtrek @klance-mcclain @curiositywillbethedeathofme

#i can't tag 3 of y'all! im sorry about that!#jim #jim kirk #jim kirk imagine #kirk imagine #kirk x reader #jim kirk x reader #captain kirk #captain kirk imagine #captain kirk x reader #star trek #star trek imagine

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avillainousmagician · 7 years

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My Big Reason to Dislike Onision

This is a very long and sort of personal post about why I got into the whole anti o business and why I personally have such a problem with Gurg.

I was watching an anti onision video and it was a general one about a variety of his shit and it had some excerpts from his cutting videos and I haven’t seen them pretty much since they were his Big Fixation of the Month when I first found out about them.

Bloody hell I forgot just how fucking obnoxious, unempathetic, inappropriate, distasteful and lacking in any proper, psychologically sound, scientifically backed up knowledge he was.

Self injury is a side effect of mental illness. Mental illness is not a byproduct of your general life situation. Therefore, regardless of whether you are a middle class white girl at university or someone living in abject poverty in an Indian slum, you can still become mentally ill. Also, suffering is relative. This is not a hard concept to comprehend. Different things are a big deal to different people.

And mental illness is AN ILLNESS, not an emotion, not something you can will yourself out of by yourself just by ‘deciding to be happy’. That is like saying someone could just decide not to have cancer by choosing to stop their cells multiplying exponentially. It makes no sense and can’t work. Like medicine for physical illnesses, mental illness can be treated also with medicine or through therapy to help modify your behaviour or a combination of the two.

I know he claims to have just willed himself out of depression (and, of course, by onion logic that makes him totally qualified to spew his ignorant, untrue, opinion based bullshit around to his fans that are often at a very vulnerable age for that sort of thing) but that is utter nonsense and, as far as I’m concerned, is just a convenient ‘gotcha’ for him if challenged on his views on mental illness. Only it doesn’t work as a ‘gotcha’ to anyone with any knowledge or experience of mental illness. They know it doesn’t work like that and that tackling it in his way (that is, belittling people, calling them stupid and r*tarded for being ill, disregarding the research on mental health in favour of ‘tough love’ (read: manipulative, egotistical bullying) and just generally being abhorrent) is DETRIMENTAL. But of course, Greg’s style of arguing means that if he has decided he has a gotcha it doesn’t matter if you disagree because he is always right regardless. So you can’t win.

Some personal stuff under the cut. I don’t mind it being read, I mean I’ve had this blog through most of the worst stuff so it’s documented much more thoroughly than this on here anyway. It’s just very long and I don’t want to clutter things up for everyone. I apologise in advance for rambling and ranting. It's also under the cut because the properly relevant stuff is up there, below is my person experience to explain my anger at him.

I am autistic, I am mentally ill and I am also a middle class white woman at university. I have self injured for as long as I can remember. I have cut since I was 13. Before that I bruised myself. My parents divorced when I was 12. I had extreme difficulty making friends and that came to a head the first time at the end of primary school and so that was a lot of upheaval all around the same time in my life - new school, parents divorcing, loss of friends, moving houses, all at roughly the same time. Being autistic and thus not able to handle change very well, that all went down pretty badly.

Continue through secondary school. I yet again ended up with hardly any friends in the middle of it. I took that very hard and started missing school because of what I then called ‘the cloud’ and what I now know were depressive episodes. All I could do was cry.

Get to the end of secondary school. My grampa died. My favourite teacher died. And I moved away to the other side of the country, away from my partner of 5 years. I made no friends on my actual course and only three outwith it, one of whom was a man 8 years older than me that eventually turned out to just want in my pants. I didn’t realise because I was 18, naive, lonely and well, autistic - thus not great at reading people and in general, being overly trusting. That fucked me up royally. This was the time when I became very, very depressed and anxious and started medication. I dropped out of uni.

Through the years I went off the rails, went through periods of depression, mania and psychosis. Eventually I ended up accidentally overdosing on paracetamol due to dissociation. That was the worst time in my life.

Because of all this, I have dropped out of university twice and college twice. I eventually got on the right meds and got the right doctor. My partner moved through with me to the other side of the country and we have now been together 11 ½ years. My being ill caused him to have to drop out of uni too, but he graduates this year. He has been my best support throughout the whole thing. Currently, I am still seeing that 'right’ doctor and I am finally in my third year at art school at the ripe old age of 24 (25 next month, if none of this had happened I would have graduated in 2014) but it’s been very hard and I have been a cutter to varying degrees through all these years. My psychologist is fine with me doing it at the moment because we have come to the conclusion that it is my safest option of mood regulation as it’s what I have the most control over. I did originally go to him to stop it, but I have been seeing him for nearly 4 years and in that time, for a variety of reasons I do not need to go into, that is the solution we have reached. I now only do it very occasionally.

My point with this is, things have been very hard for me and mental illness has fucked things up for me repeatedly because that’s what severe illness tends to do to people. Onision acting like mental illnesses are just silly little strops that should just be laughed at or ignored is dangerous and horrendously misinformed. All this is why I care so much about what he says on the subject and why it still bugs me now, years after his big chunk of self injury videos. My race and background have no bearing on everything I have been through, most of which I have not included.

Telling myself that I was being silly and selfish and feeling like I was making it up is what got me into such a mess and why it took me until I was nearly 19 to get anything done about it. And even at that, I had years of being literally (I do not use that word non literally) laughed at by psychiatrists which NEVER EVER HELPED and just made me more suicidal and self destructive. People need support, they do not need to be dismissed or berated.

And I am not even going to get started on his ignorance about addiction, though there is a LOT I could say there too.

I don’t know if I 100% articulated myself as well as I wanted to during this post or if I totally got my point across, but I tried.

#onision #anti onision #mental illness cw #self injury cw #ableism cw #long ass post

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eastendeagle-blog · 5 years

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JANUARY

January was crazy. Literally, crazy.

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thedeadshotnetwork · 6 years

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I Tried to Figure Out Why Weed Isn't Fun for Me This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands . My friend Sara loves weed. She’s a great person without it, but when she lights up, Sara becomes the funniest, most relaxed, creative, and energetic human I have ever met. Her mind suddenly makes astounding connections and she reaches an almost post-human level of chill. Another friend of mine describes being high as feeling like you've morphed "into one of those plastic bobble head dogs with huge grins." They're not the only ones—a lot of my friends are weed enthusiasts, and it's the one thing I can't share with them: No matter how hard I try, weed just makes me feel like shit. When I smoke a joint, I become extremely self-conscious and stressed. I'll make a mundane comment about something and instantly start worrying about how lame it was. I'll leave a room and worry that the vibe won't be the same when I come back. I get into this state of paranoia, and although I'm still able to rationalize the situation in my head— Hey, you’re only thinking these things because you're stoned, you weirdo !—the paranoid thoughts don't go away. And if I happen to also be drunk I just end up with my head resting on a toilet seat, fearing that I'll be trapped in that position for the rest of my life. It bugs me to no end that weed isn't fun for me. Not just my friends, but many of my personal heroes—Rihanna, the Broad City girls, Sarah Silverman—happen to be proud stoners. I'm not sad because I think getting high is cool, but I just really feel like I'm missing out on some euphoric experience. What is it, exactly, that's keeping me from being a happy stoner? Am I doing it wrong and could I just learn to appreciate it? I need answers, so decide to contact a few experts to shed some light on my shortcomings. All photos by David Meulenbeld First, I speak to Natasha Mason, a neuropsychologist at the University of Maastricht and an expert on how THC—the psychoactive element in cannabis, which makes you feel high—affects the chemicals in your brain. She tells me she won't be able to give me a clear-cut answer since using drugs is a subjective experience and effects differ from person to person. But she tells me about a study conducted by the University of Chicago that shows that a low dose of THC in weed can help reduce stress; while a high dose can lead to feelings of fear, paranoia, and discomfort. Alongside THC, weed contains many different substances, including CBD—which counters the drug's psychoactive effects and is known to have a range of medicinal qualities . The Dutch weed I usually smoke tends to be comparatively high in THC and low on CBD, which could possibly stimulate my sense of paranoia. WATCH: How to Treat Weed Dealers, According to a Weed Dealer The environment in which I smoke plays an important part, too, Mason tells me. Research carried out on rats has shown that a fear that's stimulated by THC increases when the rats are in a new or potentially stressful environment. In addition, Mason tells me that people who smoke regularly usually experience less worrying side effects—but, she adds, it could be that people who never had negative experiences with weed are just more likely to smoke regularly. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t explain why I transform into this socially awkward, paranoid mess while my friends comfortably enjoy their high. We always smoke the same strains, with the same THC percentage, in the same familiar environment. Mason thinks my personality is to blame. "The general opinion is that THC intensifies feelings of anxiety—and those feelings are already present in you," she explains. "If you are naturally very analytical or a bit agitated and anxious, certain chemicals in your brain, like serotonin [which controls your mood], noradrenaline [the hormone that prepares your body for sudden physical action], GABA [a downer], and glutamate [a substance that helps the brain function normally] might operate differently in your brain than in the brains of more relaxed people—and that could result in a more extreme response to the THC." Floor van Bakkum, a prevention worker at the Dutch drug education service Jellinek , agrees with Mason. She thinks it's almost certainly down to the fact that I'm naturally anxious and tend to overthink stuff. "If you like to overanalyze things and try to have everything under control in your day-to-day life, it's probably harder for you to let go of that control after you've smoked a joint," she says. "Basically, you’re blocking the fun stuff." When I ask her what I should do to enjoy weed, she tells me to smoke joints that are higher in CBD. However, she also advises me to maybe just accept that you can't always have what you want—weed might just never be for me. But that can't be it. Can't I just learn to smoke weed like I learned to drink alcohol? With that in mind, I call Daan Keiman of the Trimbos National Institute for Mental Health and Addiction . He assures me that the effects I describe are pretty common with cannabis use, and that it’s quite possible I could "learn to appreciate it." I ask him if my symptoms could mean I'd be more likely to experience psychosis after smoking. "Being at risk of psychosis and having anxious feelings are completely different things," he tells me. "But you should be especially careful if someone in your family has ever suffered from psychotic episodes." After running out of experts to talk to, I finally turn to my friend Anne, who puts my mind at ease. "You know, to you, it might seem like stoned people are having a great time, but that’s not always true," she assures me. "The fact that you don't enjoy it and don't do it might just be a blessing." If she's right and I'm really not missing out on anything, that would make the whole situation a lot easier to accept. Why do I need to be part of stoner culture if it's not as fun as people make it out to be ? With that thought, for a moment, I finally do feel as content as a plastic bobble head dog with a huge grin on his face. November 28, 2017 at 04:15PM

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