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emilyofjane · 3 years

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Why the Disney Princesses definitely need therapy: a Hot Take

Snow White

Losing her parents as a child and having to learn to take care of herself at a very young age (Snow White is 14 in the movie, and judging by her work ethic, she appears to at least have some experience with living independently before moving in with the 7 dwarves)

Lack of socialization due to isolation

Depression due to isolation and loneliness. This makes the whole “Someday My Prince Will Come” thing much more believable, because Snow White really isn’t in any sort of immediate danger and doesn’t need “saving” or whatever; she’s just tired of being alone and wants human companionship. (And tbh who can blame her? The poor girl’s literally talking to birds and moved in with the first group of humanoid creatures she could find ffs)

This one’s a bit of a stretch, but I’m pretty sure Snow White would also have an unhealthy fear of strangers and/or an irrational fear of being poisoned after the whole apple fiasco

Cinderella

Being raised in an abusive home environment for most (if not virtually all) of her life

The complete lack of positive social interaction throughout her life has probably led to problems with social withdrawal and isolation at some point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she has repressed symptoms of chronic depression due to loneliness.

Her closest emotional confidants are literally two talking mice, and that just screams “My only friends are animals because their love is unconditional I’ve been invalidated and unloved by every human being in my life” (aka extreme emotional neglect)

She probably has tons of questions about her biological parents that were never answerd because, again, her stepfamily hated her, which would obviously lead to some emotional baggage

If we consider Cinderella III: A Twist in Time to be the new canon, she definitely has some unresolved PTSD from her near-death experience (the “almost getting crushed to death in the carriage because it was transforming back into a pumpkin” scene)

Aurora

Existential crisis because the three fairy godmothers basically rewrote her entire identity as “Rose” and hid the fact that she was a princess

Never knowing who her real parents were as a child, leading to emotional baggage similar to that of Cinderella and Snow White mentioned above

Either the emotional burden of having to make up for 16+ years of lost time with her biological family, or the grief of losing her biological family without ever getting the chance to know them (idk whether Aurora actually got to meet her parents by the end of the movie or if they died before she woke up, because I don’t remember exactly how much time had passed while she was in the coma)

Speaking of the spindle prick-induced magical coma (which is a really long-winded and inefficient way to kill someone honestly, idk what Melificent was thinking), Aurora also has to deal with the emotional burden of how much time has passed while she was in a coma, which would only further feed into the existential crisis and emotional trauma in bullet points 1 and 3.

(Also, off the record, but Aurora’s entire life post-movie is just a hot fucking mess and she really deserves a second movie exploring that concept imo. I know that Sleeping Beauty has already gotten a live-action villain spinoff, but the story of Aurora herself really deserves to be reexamined under a modern lens also. Aurora is easily one of the most overlooked Disney princesses and tbh she deserves more love.)

Belle (feat. the expanded lore from the live-action movie)

Witnessing her mother die from the plague in their own home

Being forceed to move from the more culturally progressive city of Paris to the unnamed “poor provential town” in the movie, where she is clearly the odd one out and is subject to gender inequality on a daily basis (in the form of being publically shamed and socially ostacized for being an educated woman)

Being regularly sexually harassed by Gaston, which is further exacerbated by the villagers and their close-mindedness. Not only is Gaston’s behavior enabled and encouraged by the villagers, but they even go so far as to idolize Gaston — as shown during his namesake song — despite his obviously predatory actions, simply because he is a cishet white man that they find conventionally attractive

Watching her father get arrested despite being 100% innocent...TWICE

Also being arrested when her father is wrongly convicted a second time, by none other than her abuser

Watching her lover — who besides her parents was the first person in her life who truly loved her and respected her intellect despite being a woman — nearly die in her arms, as well as everyone else in the castle (who ALSO respected her regardless of her gender) nearly die at the same exact time.

...And you know, Stockholm Syndrome or whatever. (But tbh, given how everyone in the castle was very kind and respectful and how the Beast was a tsundere at best, Belle would probably suffer far more from PTSD brought upon by Gaston and her previous environment than from “Stockholm Syndrome” in a castle where everyone actually treated her like a normal fucking human being. Unpopular opinion I know but as a sexual assault survivor this is literally a hill I will die on.)

Jasmine

I’ve actually never watched Aladdin all the way through, so unfortunately I can’t give a full analysis of Jasmine’s conflicts...but I have seen that gif of her saying “I am not a prize to be won” and that just screams “I’ve suffered a lifetime of female objectification and gender inequality despite my social status, and not even in the highest position of authority possible am I allowed to have a voice” and idk about you but that is really fucked up man

Ariel

PTSD from being manipulated by Ursula to give up her voice and nearly losing everything (both her previous life in the ocean and the promise of a new life on land with her love interest) because of it

Near-death experience from *vague hand gesture to whatever the fuck that was at the end of the movie*

Inevitable depression from abandoning the only home she’s ever known (the ocean) and leaving her friends and family behind

She’ll probably also need some form of behavioral therapy to help her adjust to her new home on land, whose culture is still extremely foreign to her — and maybe even additional therapy for social anxiety, given how her first 3 days of human interaction were so mortifyingly embarrassing that she’ll probably be laying wide awake at 3 AM and thinking “oh my god I can’t believe I looked Eric’s parents dead in the eyes and brushed my hair with a dinner fork” for the next 10 years.

Tiana

PTSD from literally being turned into a frog

Overworking herself to the point of near burnout, and being unable to fully live out her prime adult years because of said burnout

Constantly dealing with shitty customers, bosses, and other white-collared people disrespecting her and treating her as subhuman because of her career choice, which is unfortunately a common shared experience among restaurant workers and those who work hourly wages

Since this movie takes place in the United States presumably before the 1960’s, it’s probably safe to assume that Tiana also probably had to deal with segregation, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of racism off-screen on a daily basis, which would obviously take a toll on her mental well-being and further exacerbate the issues mentioned in #3

Grief from losing her dad, which has likely been repressed due to her workaholic tendencies denying her the ability to properly take the time to mourn

I don’t even know what to categorize the whole witch doctor shenanigans as, I just know that she and Naveen are both going to need some SERIOUS therapy after going through all that shit

Rapunzel

Being raised in an emotionally abusive and controlling environment for her entire life

Being completely isolated for 18 years with no social interaction whatsoever with anyone except her own abuser

Existential/identity crisis from discovering that she’s actually a princess, that her “mom” was actually the one who kidnapped her as a baby and tried to cut her hair, and that everything she knew about herself and the world she lived in was essentially a lie to keep her obedient to Gothel

Near-death experience (the drowning scene)

Internalized fear and mistrust in strangers — and quite possibly in people in general — due to Gothel’s lifelong warnings that people in the outside world would only want to take advantage of her

Watching the woman who raised her MERCILESSLY STAB THE ONLY OTHER PERSON SHE EVER KNEW AND LOVED IN THE GODDAMN CHEST

Watching the woman who raised her LITERALLY CRUMBLE TO DUST IN FRONT OF HER VERY EYES

WATCHING FLYNN, THE ONLY OTHER PERSON SHE EVER KNEW AND LOVED BESIDES HER GODDAMN ABUSER, FUCKING DIE RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER before she miraculously healed him

Because Flynn’s revival was such an uncanny revival that not even Rapunzel knew how she did it, she obviously thought he was gone for good...and since Gothel was gone also, there must’ve been at least a split second before she healed Flynn where, for the first time in her entire life, she was completely and utterly alone. That alone deserves to be a bullet point because holy shit

I’m not even going to get into Tangled: the Series man this list is getting too long as it is

Elsa

Losing her parents at a young age

Abandonment and isolation issues (mostly self-inflicted due to her own fear of hurting others, see #3)

Internalized fear and self-doubt of her powers — and, by extension, fear and self-doubt in herself

Guilt from nearly plunging Arendelle into an eternal winter

Guilt from almost losing her sister (twice!) due to her own direct actions

(Coinciding with #3) Guilt from isolating herself from her sister to protect her, only to nearly get her killed by the very thing she was trying to protect her from

Anxiety. Just lots and lots of general anxiety.

(Omitting Frozen 2 for Elsa because I haven’t seen it yet and this list is getting too long)

Anna

Also losing her parents at a young age

Abandonment and isolation issues, but hers are moreso due to Elsa “shutting her out” as a kid and having no one else her age in the castle to interact with

Lack of socialization in general for much of her childhood, as well as any social anxieties/lack of social knowledge and etiquette/etc. that would come with it

Abusive relationship with Hans (I know it was only one day, but holy fuck that was a trainwreck. What Hans did to Anna is a literal breeding ground for PTSD and trauma)

Coming to terms with the fact that the trolls fucking erased her memories of Elsa having ice powers and that Elsa isolated herself to protect her (and not, you know, because she hated her or something)

Leftover guilt from holding a grudge against Elsa for most of her childhood for shutting her out, because NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL HER THAT IT WAS FOR HER OWN GOOD and she never knew why

Basically Anna and Elsa both need joint therapy or family counseling or something because holy shit their parents did NOT handle this situation properly AT ALL

(Also omitting Frozen 2 for Anna because I haven’t seen it and this list is also getting too long)

Moana

Surprisingly, Moana’s movie was relatively tame — in fact, because her tribe returned to voyaging and she is now exploring the seas/following her passion, these events were arguably beneficial to Moana’s mental health rather than detrimental. The only emotional baggage I can really imagine Moana having post-movie is leftover grief from her grandma dying and maybe the stress of having to put up with Maui’s shit

#shitpost #meta #disney characters #disney princess #long post #this has been in my drafts for literally a year so i may as well post it

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redrobin-detective · 4 years

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If you’re still taking prompts, how about an AU where the current user of OFA needs to view the next user as family (sibling, child, etc.) to be able to pass it on and how that would change canon. Not blood relationships specifically how they view them

Oh this is so cute, also the last of the mini prompts, this was fun thanks everyone who submitted!

Nana had told him that One For All was a special quirk, that it could be passed on but only under special circumstances. “You need love, squirt,” she’d said one training session, ruffling his unruly blond hair. “It was part of the first users quirk, only people the holder loved and was loved by in return could receive it. It’s a protective measure and ensures AFO will never get his hands on it.”

“Is that why we spend so much time together,” Toshinori asked nervously, “to uh-”

“Oh Toshi,” she sighed, pulling him close. “I already love you, I'm here because I want you to be as ready as possible to take OFA.” She pulled him back smiling fondly and giving one of his longs bangs a playful little flick. “I took one look at your sweet, determined face and it was love at first sight. And one day, hopefully a long, long time from now, it will be the same with your successor.”

Toshi kept those words close to his heart, held them tight when Nana died and he was sent away to America. Thought of them often late at night when the stress of being Number One kept him up. Damn near obsessed over them after his injury and his days as All Might were dwindling. He needed a successor and fast but because of his busy schedule, he barely had friends much less people he loved. He loved Torino-sensei but the man had retired years ago. He loved Nao but he was an overworked police officer, not a hero. And Nighteye, well they hadn’t spoken in years. It was quite sad to be able to count his closest friends on one hand, with fingers left over.

He’s feeling despondent when he saves a green haired young fan from a sludge villain and accidentally has his true form revealed. Depressed and angry, he tells the boy about his injury.

“So what you’re saying is you need a successor,” the boy mutters to himself before shaking his head and speaking louder. “You need to find someone to take your place.”

“Exactly,” Toshi says a little surprised, “I’m having a bit of trouble in that regard though...” The boy steps back and dips into a low bow.

“Let me help you All Might, as apology for my intrusion into your private life. I’m great with research and because I’m plain and quirkless people don’t pay me any mind. I’ll find you a successor so you can retire if er that’s alright with you, sir,” the kid trails off, playing with his fingers.

“Yes, I think that would be fine,” Toshi says with a small smile, a little bit endeared at the boy’s energetic mumbling and fumbling. “Now come on, lets drop this sludge guy off at the station and get started.”

He exchanges more texts with the boy, Midoriya Izuku, in one week than he believes he has since he returned from America. The boy is a fountain of information, most of it irrelevant but Toshi finds himself reading through the boy’s meticulous if scatterbrained notes on the ideal qualities needed in a candidate. More often than not, he compares said candidates to the skittish but kind boy he stumbled upon.

“You’re a damn fool is what you are, Toshinori,” Torino-sensei groans when Toshi calls to tell him that he’s found someone to help him find a successor. “Bring the kid round when you get the chance.”

“Young Midoriya or my future successor?”

“You’re an absolute disaster,” Torino-sensei sighs really loudly before hanging up. Toshinori stares at the disconnected phone in confusion. He tells Young Midoriya who just shrugs, looking positively adorable with a pencil completely entangled in his hair and a few sticky notes stuck on him. Nana would have loved this kid.

His old sidekick contacted him out of the blue to offer a candidate, a third year at Yuuei who was cheerful, charismatic and had a difficult but powerful permeation quirk.

“I’ve reviewed Sir Nighteye’s notes, I really think Togata-san might be the one,” Young Midoriya says with a sad little smile. “I guess it’s almost the end of the line for us, it’s been and honor a privilege to help you, All Might. I’ll be sure to support both you and your successor, whoever they may be.” The thought of never seeing this brilliant, ridiculous child again made his chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with his injury.

“Well we’re not done yet, lets go visit this young man together. Can’t make such a big decision without my assistant, can I?” Young Midoriya beams and he’d say its like looking into the sun except he can barely look away. They make light conversation as they walk to Nighteye’s agency when a villain attacks, of course. He muscles up and starts to push the boy back but he’s already running forward.

“You stop the villain, I’ll get the civilians to safety!” He shouts in a rush. It really is a shame Young Midoriya didn’t have a quirk, he had the perfect personality for hero work. He listens to his young friend and dives into the battle.

He’s just about subdued the villain when they throw a punch into a nearby building causing large heaps of rubble to fall down over a screaming young couple. But his heart really jumps into his throat when Young Midoriya, sweet, funny, soft-spoken, quirkless, Young Midoriya, rushes forward to help them. Toshinori grabs the villain by the throat and speeds them both towards the scene where Young Mid- where Izuku has thrown himself over the terrified people. For an awful moment, he doesn’t think he’ll make it in time. However, while he rams the villains face into the building with one hand, knocking him unconscious, he pushes upwards at the rubble with his right, causing it to explode harmlessly before it can hurt anyone.

“All Might, are you crying?” Young Midoriya asks with concern, reaching a hand out.

“You reckless boy,” Toshinori says thickly, wrapping the boy under one arm and leaping away before anyone can ask questions he can’t or won’t answer. “You could have died.”

“I couldn’t just stand there, those people needed help,” Young Midoriya defends. “I’m nobody, only my mom would miss me but but-” Toshinori lands them on a roof, nearly identical to the one where they’d first met. He deflates and sets his thin, trembling hands on the boy’s shoulders.

His precious boy, who has come to mean so much to him in so little time, the perfect candidate right under his nose this whole time. Torino was right, he was a fool. But it had been so long since he’d felt a love this strong that he’d needed a little extra time to recognize it.

“I would miss you,” Toshi sniffs, pulling him into a hug like Nana had so long before. “I love you, my boy and, if you’ll forgive this doddering old fool for his slowness, would you do me the honor of being my successor?”

By the time they show up at Torino-sensei’s house, they’ve both cried themselves out and have acquired an unseemly large bowl of ice cream. The jet hero snorts, looking them over.

“Look at you two, like snoggy nosed peas in a pod. Well get on in here, if the kid’s going to be ready for the Yuuei entrance exam, we’re going to have to train him up fast.”

#ahhhhhhh this was fun #also the longest of the rest #I was just having so much fun #not technically a prompt but I'll tag it as such #BNHA writing prompts #Toshi: I need a successor who I love in order to pass on the quirk #Izuku: Hi #Toshi: fantastic! what a lovely young man who I adore with my whole heart #Toshi: gosh if only i could find someone I loved #Toshi: sure is sad #Torino: you stupid cabbage #Anonymous

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majorshiraharu · 4 years

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Personal Ramble - Feel free to ignore

Honestly, didn’t have the best day, despite not getting out of bed till like 1pm I still had to join in on lunch. I also had to eat a type of German apple desert so my throat was swollen for over an hour and I’ve just felt sick the rest of the day. I’m allergic to most fruits, but my mom gets extremely angry if I don’t eat what she makes, so I just take allergy meds and gotta eat it anyway because I don’t want to be yelled at.

And when we were supposed to say what we were thankful for, my mom said the years she had with me before I got ill, so yeah, it sucked. She couldn’t even go one day without putting me down, not even for a holiday.... ugh.

Anyway, on a happier note, I’m thankful for everyone here. When I joined tumblr a few months back, I never thought I’d find so many amazing, talented, supportive and loving people. The support on here is really special and I’m thankful to be just a small part of it. I wish I had more energy, so I could interact with everyone, because I love you all and I want you to know that. <(’.’<)

I’m thankful for my dad and brother because without their support I wouldn’t have a place to live, medical care or anything. And I’m thankful for my best friend who has always been there for me, even if I didn’t talk much. She got diagnosed with cancer a year after I got ill and both of us were still young and going to college. Sharing those experiences around the same time and having it affect our lives so similarly was strange, but also comforting to know I wasn’t alone.

Last but not least, I’m thankful for the people I’ve been able to help in any way, or bring joy to this year. It means a lot to know that there are people I’ve had a positive impact on, especially during 2020.

This is a little more personal and sad at times, so warning about sad stuff and me talking about shitty people in my life, but I wanted to share this. Also, it let me have a good cry about the things I keep trying to repress. I made sure to end it on a cheerful note though because tldr; this blog has made me genuinely happy and gave me a purpose, which is not something I have really ever had.

All my life I’ve struggled with being able to accept any good things I did, I never felt like I was enough. I never enjoyed things because I always felt like I needed to do everything perfectly and if I didn’t, it was a personal failure, it really tore apart my mental health and how I viewed myself.

So I was really scared to share my writing or art, they’ve always been a passion, but between teachers and my mom I always felt like I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t write an essay for college projects without crying because I misspelled words so often, I cried in classes when I couldn’t read the questions on a test or if I couldn’t understand them. Even though I got really good grades I didn’t think I was smart, I always thought I was dumb, I thought I didn’t deserve those grades, and I felt like a fraud. But the reason I had those grades was because I overworked myself to get them, I was a perfectionist; I put everything I had into getting a good grade. Even if I got 100% on a test, if the teacher marked somewhere that I could have written something better or that my answer wasn’t exactly what they wanted it broke me.

I wish I could explain how much it means to have people say that they liked what I did and slowly I’ve accepted that even if my work isn’t perfect; it doesn’t need to be for it to make someone happy. That’s never something I thought would happen. Sometimes I still feel like I don’t deserve it or I get impostor syndrome, but I’m working hard on improving myself, even if people can’t see it. I hate that it takes so long to work through all my baggage, and I question if it’s worth it because I still don’t see a value in myself. But I see a value in other people, so I work on improving myself for them, I want to be better for them. I know that’s not the best mindset and that we should do things for ourselves, but it’s the only thing I have right now.

I’ve almost died four times due to complications from my crohn’s. One of those times I was actually revived, and I don’t know how to explain it, but I guess in some people it pushes them to do more with their life. But for me it felt like my life was gone, I felt empty. Everything I worked all my life for was over and just being 17 at the time I didn’t know how to move on after that. All my friends were still going on with their lives, they finished college, some got married, and even my best friend who has cancer was able to go back to college and now started her own business. People expected I would go back to college or get a job, and some said if I couldn’t work I should at least get married to “a nice guy” :/ Because I was struggling so much I ended up being left behind by a lot of people, which hurt me even more. I know I wasn’t the most pleasant to be around; I was really depressed and had no energy left to hide it, I often got angry or just cried over stupid things. I hated it when people told me what to eat or do for my health; I hated it when people touched me because it’s triggering, and when people did those things I’d either have a panic attack or I’d get angry at them. The adults that I’ve known all my life blamed me for not moving on. Family and family friends either said hurtful things or stopped talking to me because I never had anything good to talk about, and I was “miserable to be around”.

They thought I was a waste of their time; they blamed me for having crohn’s even though it’s not at all my fault; they blamed me for ruining my parent's marriage, costing them so much money, and even when my dad got cancer a lot of people blamed me. They said all the stress I caused made him get it. Even after all these years they still say all this shit. My mom reminds me every day that she blames me for everything and that my health problems ruined her life, (like how the hell do you think I feel ma) but then she also says my health problems aren’t real and I just need to imagine that I’m healthy again. She also insists that I need to fix the relationship I have with her, despite her being the one that ruined it when she told me after I got diagnosed that I wasn’t her daughter anymore. Also, somehow she’s mad at me for still holding a grudge against her for that, and also the other times she said something much worse to me, like she expects me to forgive her, and she’ll also tell me I have to forgive myself. I’m not the one who was a garbage person and idk you’d think that adults, let alone your own mother, would be better than this...

Sorry for this random dump of my emotions and life problems, it’s a bad habit. I’m not good at sharing this one on one with people because it makes me anxious. And I don’t share it with people I know in real life because most of them are family friends and don’t know how to keep personal stuff a secret. I’m lucky enough to have access to getting mental health counseling, and that it has helped me some, it’s just a lot to go through.

Thank you again for your support and treating me like an actual person that deserves to be happy. This blog makes me feel like I have a purpose again and that this time it’s something I can take my time on and have fun with. And I have a goal, something to look forward to. One day I’d like to write a book. I’d like to write a book that’s based on my life, idk like some silly teenage novel or something xD I went through so much, and I guess I want to find a good reason for all the bad, I want to turn the horrible stuff into something that’s not a negative.

I love you all <3 I hope everyone is healthy and safe, if anyone ever needs someone to talk to my dm’s and asks are always open. I’m better at offering help than I am at accepting it xD also a habit I need to work on lol and if you read through all of this, idk why, but ty and sorry it was so long.

#personal #real talk #oversharing again because I'm the big dumb #delete later #love you all so much and i'm so thankful for being part of this community <3

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chibimonkey · 3 years

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I reblogged something to my ffamranxii sideblog the other day. It wasn’t political, or a shitpost, or fandom-related. All it said was “the person I reblogged this from is someone I enjoy seeing on my dash.” I’ll admit I did it for purely selfish reasons. I wanted someone to reblog it from me. For them to see it and go “oh hey ffamranxii posts some neat shit” and to tell me through the act of reblogging that, even if I’m just posting some cute unrelated shit, or reblogging a meta discussion, or a cool fanart, that they notice me. That for one brief, microscopic minute I am a blip in someone else’s radar. That I exist, and for just a second, even if it’s because I posted some thing they also like, someone appreciates that I do.

No one reblogged it. Not a single person. I have over nine hundred followers on that blog, who reblog my fandom shit all the time, but this? In this one small thing, I’m invisible.

I know it’s stupid. It’s not like this is even the first time. All my oc posts, and anything where I try and talk about how I’m having a bad time, is just... overlooked. I talk about shouting into the void a lot, but that doesn’t really get my point across. I feel unseen and unheard. I feel completely invisible, no matter how hard I try not to be. I feel like a glitch in the matrix - unwanted, and not supposed to be here in the first place.

I’ve felt like this since I was three or four years old. I remember asking from a very young age what’s wrong with me, why can’t I be like normal kids? Why can’t I talk to people, and why don’t they listen? It’s like their eyes slide right over me, and my words go in one ear and out the other. I had a breakdown the other day to my mom. About how I’m not okay, how I’ve been very obviously not okay for years, and how I feel useless and ugly and incompetent. She just stood there and didn’t say anything, didn’t move a muscle as I was crying to her that I feel like no one cares about me or wants me around and how if it weren’t for my cats I wouldn’t even be alive right now. She didn’t follow me upstairs when I was done. She never brought it up at all.

I’ve been hearing “it gets better” since I was fifteen years old and that is absolutely not fucking true. Every single year, no matter how hard I try and how much faith I have in that statement - “it gets better” - my life gets worse. I’m thirty now, and in the past fifteen years I’ve been abused and assaulted and insulted; I’ve been thrown out of my home by my abusive ex and again by my father. I’ve been gaslighted and lied to and manipulated. I lost a child and had her replaced by cats - cats I love, dearly, but cats nonetheless; and I’ve had to sit back and watch them be abused by my then boyfriend and neglected by my parents, whose house I can’t afford to leave. I was overworked and bullied and harassed so horrifically at my past two jobs that I became suicidal and started self harming after having stopped for six years, and I am now so terrified of people I can’t leave my house, and barely manage to leave my bed. My therapist dumped me out of the blue, and said me and my life were too much for her. I and my cat children are regularly insulted by my father, to the point where I dread when he’s home, even if he’s asleep. I lost all my friends, and most days I think I never had any to begin with. I reached out, again and again, to my family and people who told me they cared, and been rebuffed or ignored at every turn. It doesn’t get better.

I spend between twelve and seventeen hours a day in bed, most of it asleep and the rest just curled into a ball. My appetite is gone. My hygiene is bad, because for six months during my last job I broke down every single day in the shower over everything happening to me, and the thought of standing in the shower now still fills me with dread and unease. I don’t have insurance, and my money is almost gone, so I can’t see a doctor and try to get medicated for my depression again, and I’m terrified of being dropped abruptly by another therapist. I lost a front tooth due to shoddy dental work and can’t afford to replace it, and no dental office or oral surgeon around takes Medicaid, even if I was on it, and I’m so embarrassed to speak with a missing front tooth that I just... don’t, most days. Nothing holds my interest anymore. I used to love to read and watch tv and draw and play video games and write, but I lose focus after twenty minutes, and my last attempt at posting my writing - the latest chapter to a fic that had a handful of followers - was met with silence, and now when I try I’m filled with self doubt so terrible I just give up.

And no one, no matter how much I blatantly state I want them to, has ever asked me if I’m okay. It’s like screaming in a crowded room and no one even notices me, not unless they need a scapegoat to vent their own frustrations. I can’t even open my mouth anymore without my father screaming “SHHHHHH STOP YELLING,” so I don’t. I don’t have a support system. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m not okay, and I just want someone to give a shit about that. I hate myself so much, and every single day I hate myself more and more. It doesn’t fucking get better. I TRIED. I tried so hard. But there’s something wrong with me, something about me that makes people look at me and go “fuck that bitch.” I mean, at my last job, my then boyfriend was diagnosed with cancer and nearly died, and I had to take time off to be with him because we thought he WAS going to die, and NO ONE ever asked me if he or I were okay. I came back my first day and was immediately written up for something I didn’t do and wasn’t allowed to dispute and my coworkers all called me “what’s her face” or “move.” Like. Who does that?

There’s something wrong with me, some critical update that other people got in their How To Be A Person software that I just don’t have. That’s glaringly obviously missing when I try and interact with people. And I know life isn’t the same as on tv but... other people have friends and family who support them, don’t they? Isn’t that, like, a real thing? Why don’t I? Why doesn’t anybody care?

Honestly, I’m expecting the same reception here that I got on my sideblog and with my mother. I just. Need. To get this off my chest, because I haven’t left my room in three days or my house in over a month or talked to another person in I don’t know how long and every time I bring that up as an example of not being okay I feel like no one else feels that way. Like maybe I’M wrong for thinking that’s not normal. And then I just spiral again about how there’s something wrong with me.

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cabin-20 · 4 years

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tell us abt ur pjo ocs!!!

OH BOY. OK. AAAA. so i currently have 5 main ones!! i’m on a pjo rp server w them lmao so they’re the ones i use.

sunni ly - she’s bisexual and got a valley girl accent! she’s the daughter of demeter and she’s filipino/viet/korean, and plays the bass. she ran aaay from cali to nyc looking to start a band but ended up finding out she was a demigod, so yay. she’s very grunge alt punk, and dresses that way too lol. kind of short (5’3) and very snarky! i love her. she’s not super fleshed out yet but i love herrrr. she fights with celestial bronze brass knuckles that a knife also pops out of. they’re adhd!! she’s 17 (most of my ocs are actually lol) she’s got cipa so she doesn’t feel pain, which is convenient in the way she can keep fighting even when injured, but inconvenient when she realizes she’s been stabbed. oops.

avi kollek - they are bi and nb!! they’re afro brazilian and jewish! they’re a kid of hades and very soft. they love pink and bitter foods like dark chocolate and black coffee. they use forearm crutches bc chronic pain, but they turn into double stygian iron swords!! they’re also autistic, adhd, and very gay. the person i’m starting a relationship with for avi is like waaaay shorter than them (avi is 6’3) and it’s so cute 🥺they also aren’t super fleshed out yet but they’re slowly becoming one of my faves :) they’re 17

ciara ha - daughter of athena, although her sheer dumbassery indicates otherwise. she’s got a blue switchblade made of celestial bronze! she loves chemistry and has been kicked out from the athena cabin into the big house basement if she’s doing lab stuff. she’s 18, and a bisexual disaster. she’s kind of an asshole, but she really loves her siblings even if they fight a lot. currently in the rp she’s overexhausted and fighting w her sister (again). her mortal dad was a very famous scientist and pretty much ignored her in persuit of his research. he died from overworking and left ciara barely any money despite being very rich. she’s bitter about him, and has depression. she’s got a mutual crush on a girl named jules (apollo kid) but doesn’t realize it because she’s an idiot. she likes to explode stuff also! she’s korean :)

noel yi - OK I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. he’s the son of hephaestus! he’s korean and 17. he’s got severe ptsd, :( because his mom is an evil asshole who i hate. he was adopted by a man named amos at 15, and he loves the guy bc he gave him a place to live, food, care, and let him work in the mechanics shop they lived above. amos even paid for his transition costs of testosterone and too surgery because ehe’s just that good. noel is trans and gay!! and very much in love with his best friend’s brother, ronan. he also has a samoyed puppy named diesel who is training to be his service dog!! noel loves oreos with a burning passion, and his hair is pretty long. he likes to put it up when he’s working! annnnd he’s got a lot of scars but doesn’t mind. weirdly enough every time he goes swimming, he ends up swimming in his jeans, so there’s that... lol. he also really loved big dogs (hence the samoyed over some teacup puppy) i have an angst plot coming up for him soon, but it’s after noel and ronan start dating. going to destroy all my friends hearts bc they love noel for some reason and his angst is immaculate flavor. muah.

finally, minah teo! she’s my first and favorite. she’s latina and a lesbian, and she’s 18. because the rp server (which technically is all of my characters canons since i made them for the server lol) is set present day and we go by book timeline, she was at camp for tlo at age 7. Oh and she’s the daughter of hecate and the hecate camp counselor! she had a twin named norah but she died in the second titan war :( minah has her mortal mom (yes her mom is also gay, yes all my characters are gay and not white and disabled shush) whom she loves very much!! minah has been going in and out of chb since she was 5, but didn’t attend thhe year after her sister’s death, and all during high school. she returned this year and became cc, and also had some whack stuff happen to her. she met a girl who’s the daughter of athena (and the sister that ciara is fighting with a lot) and they’re dating now :) and uhh she also lost her eye bc she was attacked by karpoi :( she’s ronan’s sister and noel’s best friend, and she’s constantly inbetween both of them crying about how the other hates them or how they are so gay for the other. it’s, chaotic to say the least! recently one of my friends character’s tried to kill her and now she’s also traumatized from that, and then her younger half sister brought her twin back to life for like 5 minutes so minah’s twin would comfort her. so that was crazy. and then minah made friends with someone and they promptly got attacked by a yale and currently she’s stabbed. UHHB YEAH. she also really loves skateboarding and stargazing, and she knows all 88 nasa recognized constellations and the stories behind them!

i’m sorry i have SO many ocs LOL. i will perhaps share art of them soon!! and if anyone from the server sees 😳😳😳 hi lmao. also i’ll probably reblog the server’s tumblr if u wanna join hehe

#lmfao sorry my ocs are my special interest LOL #i habe 2 other ocs who i scrapped tho

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halle108 · 4 years

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Life is a Bitch

To see your mom perish, what that's like. If I tried to tell you everything I felt at this moment, well, I wouldn't know where to begin. My mom died on December 15, 2019. She was suffering from Alzheimer's. She was only 46 when she was diagnosed and I was 7 when I found out. When we found out, my family had just been in a 7 car, car crash. Luckily no one died, but my dad and twin brother were severely hurt. I was 7, and I didn't understand. I was asleep in the car, and the next thing I know, my brother is flying into the window sheld. My dad was in rehab for 3 months and my brother was in a wheelchair. He's ok now, but my dad is still injured from the accident.

My dad had to go to jail on the weekends since he caused the accident. While this was happening. My mom was slowly getting worse. One day, in fourth grade, my mom was taking me to school, and because Alzheimer's causes reflexes to decrease, my mom hit into our neighbor's fence. That was the last time she drove. I remember her getting so mad that she couldn't do things or that she forgot something. Most of her friends were leaving her, not bothering to call. She was so lonely, and I was too wrapped up in my own world and didn't completely understand. I was 9, and I was a brat.

Just as the car accident chapter of my life was finally closing up, my mom started getting worse. She would get frantic and make scenes in public. She would get paranoid and forget where she was. My dad would get enraged at my mom, himself, my grandmother, my brother, and me. He blamed other people for the accident and was angry at the world for handing him these cards and taking away the love of his life. He never thought he would have to be a single parent. And he had no idea what he was doing. Now, I love my father, but he wasn't meant to be a dad, nor did he want to be. I started raising my brother and me, even though I was 8. My grandma would help. She loves us so much, and I don't know where I'd be without her.

In the summer of 2015, my dad left to pick up some groceries. It was me, my brother, and my mom, alone. She got scared, I was trying to help her, and she forgot who she was. She didn't recognize my brother or me. Then she started to scream. She cursed at me and called me all kinds of names, she started hitting me, and I told my brother to go to his room. I didn't want him to see this or get hurt. I've always been protective of him, even though he is technically 7 minutes older than me. But as she was hitting and scratching me, I just sat crying, not wanting to do anything to hurt her. I don't think my dad meant to, but he put a lot of responsibilities on me. I would hold the money and shop for us. I tried giving my mom the money before the cashier would see, I was 9, and I was embarrassed that I was the parent in the situation.

Then sixth grade came. That's when everything got so much worse. On my birthday, my aunt died. I found out while I was eating dinner with my whole family. I told my cousin her mother died, she didn't believe me at first, thinking I was kidding, but I wasn't. I know I shouldn't feel guilty about it. I couldn't do anything, my aunt was brain dead. But I don't really celebrate my birthday anymore. That's also when my cousin changed, she started hanging with the wrong crowd and filled both of our minds with toxic thoughts.

My mom was in and out of the hospital and was worse every time she came out. She wasn't paranoid or turbulent; she became her old self again. Kind and gentle. But every time I would see her. There was one more piece missing. When I was in 7th grade, she moved in with my grandma. It was too hard for her to live with us and being in her childhood home was better for her. How my grandmother was able to see her husband and daughter go through this and come out alive, I'm not sure. But she is the strongest person I know. I can't imagine what that was like for her.

I would visit my mom on the weekends and spend time with her. While this was happening, I was falling into a depression. I would stop talking to people outside of school and would stay by myself. I would read, I wanted to escape, I fell in love with books and wished to be in them, even if that would be worse than the one I was living in. When my mom was in the hospital, I would go see her every day. Straight from school till visiting hours ended, and my dad and I would have to leave. I was tired, overworked from school, and felt so bad about myself. I would feel guilty if I didn't go see her and never felt enough. My grades weren't high enough, I wasn't losing weight even though I was practically starving myself, I was tired and alone and in so much pain. I'm lucky, I made some great friends who were always there, but friends can't fight your battles for you.

In 8th grade, things got terrible. I started self-harming, introduced to me by my cousin. I needed a way to let things out, and I didn't want to bother my dad and put more on his plate. He's not good with emotions, and I was scared he'd say the wrong thing or not understand. School got worse since I was taking high school classes, and my mom was almost always in the hospital. So I was also in the hospital. I didn't want my dad to be alone and felt like I had to go and that I wasn't a sound person if I didn't. I would get home at midnight. I had regents study that I went to by myself cause I didn't want to wake my dad up on a Saturday at 8 and so much homework on top of taking care of my mom, brother, and myself.

Over the summer, I practically lived with my grandma so that my dad wouldn't have to drive to Queens from Long Island every day. I would feed her, take her to the bathroom, watch her and push her in her wheelchair, since she could no longer walk. I was 13, and I was a full-time nurse for my own mother. Even as I'm writing this, I'm only 14, I'm still a child. But I was given adult responsibilities and was treated like a kid. At times I was the parent for even my dad. He can be hot-tempered and doesn't listen to anyone. I was in a dark place, and when school started in the fall, I broke. One day in October, I lost it. I've had suicidal thoughts, but I've never acted on them before, but I was done. I wanted the pain to end.

Suicide is not what it's like in the books, at least for me, it wasn't. I know that I have people that love me and I know that it will get better, that nothing is ever the same forever. But I didn't care. It wasn't that I wanted to die, I just wanted the pain to end, to feel something again. Yeah, I would laugh with friends and make jokes, and it wasn't me pretending, I was actually having fun. But it was a quick fix, it never lasted and each time it worked less and less. The second I was alone with my thoughts, whether I was physically alone or not, the pain would come. The kind of numb so bad that it hurts and it feels like it's never going to stop. So intense and consuming. I wanted it to end. I couldn't take it anymore, and I didn't want to say I was depressed because who am I to say that? I didn't want to take away from the people who have depression by self-diagnosing. So instead, I took a bunch of sleeping medicine. I woke up and nothing happened. So I told myself I would try again the next night. Ironically, that day my dad took my brother and me to see Joker. This is not the best movie to mind when you plan on committing suicide, but seeing the film wouldn't have changed anything.

That night, I binged watched the final season of the show I was watching cause I didn't want to end on a cliffhanger, and around 3 am, I took 18 pills. I didn't write a note or anything, I just laid there listening to music and waiting to fall unconscious and die. Neither of the 2 happened. My dad went to wake me up for school and I was having a panic attack. My heart was beating so fast from the meds and nerves and I was stuttering out words, trying to tell him what happened. I could barely say "table," which was covered in medicine containers. He didn't handle the situation well and started yelling at me. An ambulance finally came and after waiting for almost 3 days, I was in a child's psych ward. I think a part of me knew I wasn't going to die, hoping, even. I thought, if I die then I die. The pain will be over, and if I don't, then maybe I'll get help.

The psych ward wasn't how you think it is. I was in a small hall with other kids with issues like me. We aren't crazy, just kids in bad situations who needed help. Everyone I met there was kind and I had a lot of fun sneaking uno at 10 pm, playing with my roommates, trying not to get caught by the nurse. I was able to get on some medicine that help keep me stable and with counseling and hard work, I have gotten better. Now, don't think that everything is rainbows and sunshine. I'm not going to say that everything is all fine now. Life will never be all fine, but I'm finding more reasons to stay alive.

My mom's death hurts me so much, I had a dream the night before she was gone that she died, and when I woke up, I actually thought she was dead. She was in a hospice home and was on her deathbed. That day I went out with my grandma and my dad called, I knew. We were online to pay for something and he told me to call him back in the car. I waited till my grandma was seated, and that's when he told me. We went to her and I cried on her shoulder. She was so cold and I saw the death in her eyes. I covered her in blankets. I know, in reality, that wouldn't change anything, but it mattered to me. She was so cold, she hated being cold. Her funeral was arduous. I gave a speech. I didn't even get to see her in the casket before she was buried. My dad told me that she looked beautiful.

Life is going to throw things at you and try to tear you up. But to find the little things that make life worth living, whether that's a sunny day or making someone laugh, those are the things that keep me going. I'm still struggling with my mental illness and so much more. But I want to be here, she would want me to be here, happy. I only had my mom, my true mom, for about 7 years, but she loved me and my brother with everything she had. So I'm going to live. For her, for my family and friends, and most importantly, I'm going to live for myself.

#I'm sorry for how long this is #my story #it gets better #life story #life sucks #mental health #positive mental attitude #depresjon #depresion #mental disorder #mental ill health #mental ill #alzheimer's foundation #alzheimer&039;s #sucidial #tw suicude #seek help

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thepersephonecabin · 4 years

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Legacy and Bullshit Mindfuckery (fic)

Summary: Luvander has two things for the Adamo’s first child: a gift and a wish.

Please see full tags and warnings AO3

Note: So... How did we get here? Well, basically, when I was writing A Very Adamo Christmas for @foxesonstilts for the @festivebastion exchange I meant to put in a short bit about a Luvander giving Laure and Adamo’s first child a very special gift, but forgot until after finishing FestiveBastion. So I told myself I was gonna write a small addition, and then my latent need to see the airmen recover after the war took over and suddenly I had a 4k+ luvander character study on my hands. And also about halfway through my if-i-dont-write-this-right-now-i-will-never-sleep craze a tiny part of my brain was like “you should make luvander a trans man for absolutely no reason” and I did and actually really liked the way it fit into the story.

So anyway, I hope you enjoy!

A day and a half following the birth of Rory Adamo, Luvander found himself on the doorstep of the Greylace Estate once again. Wrapped in one arm, he cradles a soft drawstring bag, cream in color with a light pink ribbon around the top.

He didn’t bother knocking as he shouldered his way through the doorway. Even though he still primarily lived out of the apartment above the hat shop, this place was dragon territory, and therefore as far as he was concerned, it was his home as well.

“Hello?” he called out, slipping his shoes off at the door. Maybe if he was really lucky, Rook would come in and pitch a fit about like he would in the good old days.

Balfour emerged from the lounge with a book cracked open in his hands and questioning eyes. “Oh, Luvander. It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Luvander confirmed. “Where’s the chief and his young lady love? I had something I wanted to bring to them.”

“They’re in their bedroom, I think,” Balfour said before quickly amending, “Oh, no, not like that! I think it was just time to change her.”

“Ah,” Luvander said. “How is the not-so-little tyke anyway?”

Balfour smiled and began leading him up the stairs to Laure and Owen’s room as if Luvander hadn’t been there not two days ago. “Oh, you know. She sleeps and eats and poops and cries. Lucky the three of us don’t room up in the same area of the house as Chief Sergeant and Airlady Adamo or I’m sure we’d all be knackered already.

The three of us. Luvander knew he meant the three Second Wavers outside of Laure of course. Luvander felt a sick little spark of jealousy flare up in his stomach and not for the first time at their mention before he stamped it out with the guilt of it all.

Balfour continued, “Mom and Dad are still smitten with her though. I wager that by the sixth week in they might be out of the honeymoon stage.”

“Sixth? I don’t know if I could make it to the second,” Luvander said. Of course, he was happy to have a little niece to dote on, but Luvander had never seen much draw in the idea of having a baby you couldn’t return to its rightful owners when it began to shit itself.

Balfour laughed good-naturedly, “I think Adamo’s a bit more levelheaded than you, however.”

Luvander shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’ll stick to my instinct and take you up on that bet.”

They’d reached the Adamo bedroom now, and throught the door Luvander thought he could hear the baby’s wordless vocalization (Did most newborns make this much noise when they weren’t crying or was this one just especially talkative, he wondered) paired with Laure’s laugh and the low tenor of Adamo’s voice.

Balfour turned to him, touching Luvander’s elbow softly through his coat. Balfour wasn’t wearing his gloves today, Luvander observed. Good, he thought, he shouldn’t feel like he needed to hide them, especially not here, not with family.

“Before you go in…” Balfour began, “I wanted to ask how you were doing. I know Ghislain sailed out.”

Luvander resisted the urge to grimace. He liked to tell himself he did an okay job of deflecting everyone else’s attention away from his persistent problems with loneliness. On the good days he cracked enough jokes and sarcastic witticisms to keep the people around him too entertained to notice. On the bad days he threw himself into overworking, holed up in his workroom with little sleep and becoming overly perfectionistic about whatever he was working on until he felt like tearing it all apart again. But on the best days Ghislain was home, in this place Ghislain didn’t even think of as his home, but the place Luvander was, which in Luvander’s mind designated it as Ghislain’s home nonetheless.

Balfour, however had always been the one he couldn’t fool, and it was a fact that needled at him constantly. He didn’t enjoy it when others looked past the mask he’d so carefully crafted for himself like one of his custom hats.

Not that Luvander had anyone but himself to blame for that. Balfour always suspected Luvander’s yearning for affection and attention and approval had been more than the average loneliness, but then Luvander just had to go and fuck it up even further.

It had been at least a year and a half or maybe even two when it happened. He, Raphael, Balfour, and Rook had been drinking (because of course they had) in Balfour’s room at the Greylace Estate. These rooms were a damn sight bigger and nicer than the ones in the Old Airman, a fact that Luvander could never parse out about whether he appreciated or was annoyed by. As such, Balfour had set up a couch and a few chairs to fill the space between his bed and the opposite wall. Ever since Raphael turned up again, they’d started having little get togethers one or twice a month, alternating whose place hosted.

Then Thom’d been offered a job as a professor (a real one this time) at the ‘Versity and Rook had come back to Thremedon bitching and complaining the whole way back from whatever adventure they’d been on when they received the letter. Apparently Thom had already begun writing a letter back declining the offer when Rook found out and through some well-intentioned bullying and ripping of half-finished correspondence got Thom to accept. From Luvander’s understanding, Thom had decided immediately to pass on the job in order to continue looking after his older brother, knowing that Rook had very important reasons for staying away from Thremedon. He couldn’t ask Rook to go back there, and he didn’t feel comfortable letting Rook travel alone without eventually winding up dead in a ditch from asphyxiating from his own vomit either. According to him, Rook’s mental health had markedly approved once the Dragonsoul was destroyed and th’Esar’s plans thwarted. He’d finally been able to properly grieve, Thom said, but that didn’t mean he was ready to part ways and risk Rook relapsing without him to drag him out of it.

Rook found all this out and stubbornly refused to go along with that “bullshit mindfuckery” Thom was always practicing on account of the fact that teaching at the University had always been Thom’s dream job, and he would be damned if his little brother threw it away for his sorry ass. After all, while the ‘Versity had improved in regards to letting in more students from poorer walks of life since Thom had been awarded for his work with the Airmen, the same improvement hadn’t come in regards to hiring choices. For all any of them knew, this might be the last time a mollyrat was offered a job at the Empire’s highest learning institution in a long, long time. So, back to Thremedon they came, and Luvander, Balfour and Raphael’s little survivor’s club had expanded from three to four members. (There had always been an open invitation to Adamo as well, but he only rarely took them up on it.)

So, anyway, they’d been drinking thoroughly and Luvander more thoroughly than the rest. It’d been months since Ghislain had come to port- not his fault, some jobs simply took longer than expected- and Luvander was in the pits. That said, he’d been holding it together pretty admirably that night, and it had all been fine until Rook and Raphael left. Raphael said he had Royal Guard duty the next day- it was a job offer Luvander, Ghislain and Raphael had all received from the Esarina herself after she’d almost died by her own guards that night when they’d had to rescue the Adamos. Raphael had been the only one to accept.

But so when Raphael stood up to leave and appropriate one of the Estate’s carriages Rook also decided to leave “before the Professor starts hyperventilating over me” and figured it would just be easier to go back in one carriage. It was, in sober retrospect, a suspiciously sensical thing to come out of Rook Molly’s mouth, but who knew anymore. Luvander didn’t know what kind of bullshit mindfuckery Thom had exposed that man too while they were travelling, but Rook’d been all kinds of weird since they’d come back and by “weird” Luvander meant “vaguely decent.”

The two of them took their leave and after that the details grew fuzzy, but he did remember drunkenly confessing his depression about missing Ghislain to Balfour and Balfour being nothing but supportive as understanding.

“You’re so sweet,” Luvander had told him, slurring his words and cupping the other man’s cheek. “You know that? You’ve always been so sweet, Balfour. Sometimes I wonder how someone as sweet as you got mixed up with all of us selfish ingrates. You always deserved so much better than us. Hell, if you’d never met us assholes, you’d still have your hands.”

Balfour blushed and looked away. “My hands weren’t your guys fault, and even if I don’t have them, I have my girl and all of you. Besides, I’m not so inno-“

And that had been as far as he’d gotten before Luvander launched himself into Balfour’s lap and shoved their mouths together.

Now, it’s important to note that Luvander had always been a touchy drunk. He’s sure he’d made passes at all thirteen of the other airmen more times than he could count while trashed out of his mind. He even had one absolutely disastrous incident with Adamo that had gotten a very stern talking to about appropriate relationships between a superior officer and his subordinates the next morning. Luvander had deeply respected the things Adamo said to him at the time despite the massive hangover he was fighting his way through as he said it and the urge he had to hang himself rather than have this conversation at all. That didn’t mean he hadn’t brought up the irony of it in his speech at Laure and Adamo’s wedding, though.

Which was all to say that Luvander was no stranger to make-out sessions with his friends after a few too many drinks. In fact, drunken fooling around had been the bedrock upon which his entire relationship with Ghislain was founded. Even after Luvander and Ghislain were “official” they’d kept the relationship fairly open because Luvander wasn’t the sort to abstain from sex for months at a time while his lover was at sea. It had simply come with the condition that if anything that strayed from the “casual sex” territory and into the “feelings” territory had be to discussed- Ghislain wasn’t jealous about Luvander being with other people physically, but he was jealous about having to share Luvander’s heart and overprotective at times about the idea of someone taking advantage of Luvander’s emotions.

This had been different though. This kiss with Balfour hadn’t been borne of happy delirium or playfulness like most of his less-than-sober escapades were. This had been borne of deep, deep sorrow. A desperate effort to patch a leak in a dam ready to burst. The other reason it was different was because Balfour had only had had two drinks that night, and Luvander had had at least five times that.

On the bright side, if one had to have such a mortifying experience in their lives, Luvander could think of very few people better to have it with than Balfour Vallet.

The epitome of gentlemanly behavior, Balfour had gently broken off the kiss and softly and without malice told him that they couldn’t do this, not when Luvander was so intoxicated. Luvander had nodded and understood, but then broken into wracking sobs as he blubbered about how fucking alone he felt all the time. Balfour let him cling to him like a security blanket even though Luvander was still straddling him and repeatedly assured him that he didn’t care if Luvander covered his shirt with snot and tears.

Then Luvander woke up the next morning on Balfour’s couch with a blanket draped over him. His clothes were all intact with the exception of his shoes and his binder which he had a bad habit of sleeping in and Balfour knew it. Balfour must have peeled it off once Luvander had passed out along with the boots and then buttoned Luvander’s shirt back up and even replaced his signature scarf. Both binder and boots were now neatly laid out on the coffee table with care.

There were still a few bottles of alcohol too, and ordinarily he might have been tempted to drink them. This time though, he reckoned he’d done enough damage under the influence for one day.

That was about when Balfour appeared, already dressed for the day and carrying a tray of water and coffee. “Oh, you’re awake,” he’d said, kicking the door shut behind him. He sat next to Luvander on the couch and set the tray on the table. “I hope you don’t mind that I took off your…” he said awkwardly, wringing his hands like he always did.

It took Luvander a moment to understand he was talking about the binder. “Oh. Oh no, it’s- Balfour, I know you’d never do anything to me or go further than protecting my ribs from some rather tragic pain in the morning. And it’s not anything you haven’t seen in the showers before. If anything I think when it comes to invasions of peoples’ personal boundaries, I should be the one apologizing to you right now. What happened last night… the way I just went after like that was unconscionable and I promise it will never happen again. In fact, I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest if you never wanted to see me again.”

Balfour looked shocked. “Of course, I don’t want that. What happened last night wasn’t ideal, obviously, but you were plastered and having a rough day. I get it.”

Luvander could’ve both laughed and cry at that. “But it wasn’t just a bad day. It was… Bal, I think I have a problem.” He could practically feel the bile coming up just from saying those words out loud, but he told himself that if there was ever the time to admit it to anyone, this was it so he continued: “I think maybe I always had. Even before Xi’an it was like this, just not as intense or constant. I don’t know how to be alone. I don’t know how to feel unimportant or like I’m not the center of attention without letting it control me. When there were fourteen of us I could ignore it, right? Because there was always someone around, but now…” He wiped away tears with his scarf and adjusted it anxiously. “And, like, the way this place just fucking tossed all of us out like yesterday’s trash the second they didn’t need us anymore and that blasted medal ceremony was over didn’t exactly help.”

Balfour nodded slowly. “I think I know the feeling or at least a fraction of it. I felt so isolated and broken at the end of the war, but even before that I… well, I suppose I always felt like I was second to Amery.”

Luvander felt another pang of guilt. None of them had been sure how to react when Balfour replaced his brother in the Corps, but Rook more than anyone. Before Amery died he’d been the one of them that Rook was closest to, so Balfour’s presence was anything but welcome to him. So, whenever Rook had a problem, Balfour was usually who he took it out on. And Luvander had always just let him. Because sometimes crossing Rook was like crossing god in that house, but it didn’t excuse how cowardly he’d been.

“Got feminine parts between his legs, airman’s honor.”

That’s what Rook had said about Balfour when he’d tried to be kind to Thom that first day when the Professor had them do introductions. Even then, Luvander, the real one with “feminine parts” among them was sitting right there, and he hadn’t said shit to stop Rook.

(Luvander had always felt Rook didn’t mind trans men as much as he minded trans women. Something about the way trying to be more masculine was seen as noble, while trying to be more feminine made you a Mary in a world where women were always seen as lesser. But he also felt like Rook’s somewhat backwards and begrudging acceptance of Luvander’s presence was conditional, like it was something that he was able to revoke at the barest hint of insubordination. Luvander was tolerated as long as he fought well and shut up and was cruel like him, but that didn’t mean it was real. At least Thom had seemed to have trained some of that out of Rook over the years, but it was still a nagging fear for Luvander.)

Luvander didn’t say any of that. He just said, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix it.” I don’t know how to fix me.

Balfour escorted him to the ‘Versity after that and made him talk to Thom about it. Thom being Thom, of course, looked at it as the academic he was. He talked about all kinds of fancy words like ‘schizoid’ and ‘histrionic’ and ‘dependent personality’. Basically, Thom said he couldn’t be sure exactly what the problem was without examining further. But he assured Luvander that there were coping mechanism they could try and that he had colleagues from the ‘Versity that he could ask for more medically focused advice as compared to Thom’s social theory perspectives.

Bullshit mindfuckery, Luvander remembered. As much as he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of Thom “examining” his psyche, he was significantly less thrilled about a perfect stranger doing it. At least he could trust Thom. At least Thom knew jackshit about how the airmen worked beyond the court gossip and bards’ song and those fucking statues that made them war heroes and not real people anymore. At least Thom was there when he woke up on an infirmary bed unable to talk for how deep his throat had been slit only to find out that four out of fourteen of them had come back. Even if Thom had been beside himself with grief, unaware that number five, Rook, was still breathing somewhere out there, at least Thom had borne witness for himself what they’d gone through, and Luvander wasn’t about to have to hash all of that to someone new.

But he couldn’t sit on his hands and not accept help when it was offered. Because he’d made Balfour a promise. He’d promised that he would never kiss Balfour again without fair and honest consent, plastered or not, and he’d meant it. He had so few friends left in this world. He wasn’t about to lose another due to his own selfishness and stupidity.

And so, he gave himself into the bullshit mindfuckery. He’d been meeting with Thom once every one or two weeks (or more than that if something set him off and crisis called for it). It was helping, Luvander thought. Slowly but surely.

Back in the present, Luvander shrugged at Balfour noncommittally. “It sucks, but I’m seeing the Professor tomorrow. And I guess now if I need someone to keep me company I could come and let the baby keep me busy so Mom and Dad can have some alone time.”

Balfour smiled at him. “You could have come over anyway. Well, I won’t push for specifics, but if you want to talk later…”

“I know where to find you,” Luvander confirmed.

Balfour gave him a bigger smile now. “Okay. I’ll let you talk to them then,” he said, and began descending the stairs, leaving Luvander at the at the door to the Adamo’s room.

He knocked briskly on the door and heard the Chief say, “Come in,” from the other side.

When Luvander opened the door, he found Laure on the bed over the covers cradling not-so-little Rory and making faces at her. Adamo was over by the radiator holding a bottle over the heat.

“Ah, I thought I heard someone out there talking to Balfour,” Laure said. “I didn’t know you were coming over today, but then again, I don’t think the pregnancy brain is totally out of my system yet.”

Laved waved moved to sit on the bed at her feet and waved her off with a hand. “It was unannounced. I had a gift for the baby and thought I’d bring it over.”

“Oh, that was thoughtful of you,” Adamo remarked walking over. To his credit, he only let a sliver of the wariness of a man who put up with thirteen uncontrollable ever-pranking monsters with dubious respect for authority for Regina even knows how long it’s been slip into his voice.

Luvander took the drawstring bag from the crook of his elbow and held it in his lap. “Well, I started working on this once you announced she was on her way. I guess I could have given it to you earlier, but it just felt like I should wait to give it to Rory in person. And of course, I didn’t exactly know you would choose to go into labor in a blizzard, so I didn’t have it on me the other night.”

He had a million things to say, a million possible preambles he could make, but he figured it was best to just show them. So, he pulled open the drawstrings, reached in, and pulled the carefully constructed figure of silver-grey fabric and held it up for inspection.

Adamo looked too shocked to say anything. Laure’s mouth had dropped into a soft “o” shape. But Rory had caught sight of her new toy and vocalized with one hand in her mouth and the other reaching out toward him with demanding hands. Bossy, he thought, Like her dad.

“I’m not sure I got all the details right since I was working off memory, plus she never really let me get that close to her anyway, but… Here she is,” Luvander said, because in his hands was a very small plush dragon.

“Is that…” Laure began.

“Proudmouth,” Adamo breathed. “Can I see her?”

“Of course,” Luvander said.

Adamo took it from him as if squeezing too hard would make it turn to nothing in his hands, turning it from side to side to see all the craftsmanship Luvander had put into it. Embroidered patterns where Proudmouth’s metal had been engraved, carefully cut and stabilized fabric made to take the shape of gears, a brass-colored ribbon where brass-colored brass reigns would’ve been. Every detail down to the shape of her claws had taken hours to craft and even more hours of meditating and sifting through bittersweet memories to recover. And here were the fruits of his labor all pieced together. Finally, Adamo let out a breath and said, “Looks just like her.”

“Well when you two starting talking about having kids, I wanted think of something special I could pass down to them, and eventually thought, well, every Adamo needs a dragon, right?” Luvander said. “So, I settled myself of making a different for each of your kids, if you have more that is. And it felt important that Rory got Proudmouth as your firstborn. I think… I think if things had turned out differently than they did Proudmouth could have been her birthright what with the way Anastasia picked two Vallets in a row to ride her.”

Adamo’s face as always was had to read, but somehow with a dragon in his hands, he looked years younger, and Luvander could tell whatever he was feeling he was feeling a lot of it.

Then Adamo smiled and said, “Thank you. It’s perfect, Luvander, really. I guess we should give Rory her girl and see if they choose each other.”

He passed the dragon to his daughter’s grasping hands, and they all watched as Rory immediately pulled Proudmouth to her chest.

“I think that’s your answer,” Laure laughed, dabbing at her eyes.

And in that moment, it seemed to Luvander that the world shone brighter. Welcoming a new generation was always hard, especially when the old one had lost so much, but it felt nice to be able to give the Airmen a proper legacy- one that wasn’t bronzed in statues, written in theses, or whispered behind hands at palace balls. But one that was simple- from father to daughter. And wrapped up in that gifted legacy was a wish, the most powerful wish Luvander had ever made, sewn into every stitch and seam: I wish that the ones who come after us won’t need our bullshit mindfuckery in the first place.

And then, Rook ruined the moment when they all heard a loud bang of the front door opened way too forcefully, followed by “BASTION FUCKING DAMNIT, WHO LEFT THEIR BOOTS IN THE DAMNED DOORWAY, I THOUGHT I DIDN’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT ANYMORE!”

Laure, Owen, and Luvander all looked at each other, and all at once they burst into laughter.

#volstovic cycle #havemercy #the oc's #rebloggable #my fic #screams into the void im actually so proud of this fic and i dont know why #also i know janie isn't on tumblr anymore but i just think of her every time i write about luvander so im wondering if it would be weird to #hey remember me? probably not we talked like 2 times but i wrote a fic about luvander and i miss seeing you in the fandom because i dont ha #ve a pillowfort

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matamisin · 6 years

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Consider: Mina is a genuinely happy and positive person, but everyone has bad days (especially people who have been thru trauma, like seeing your loved ones regularly beaten to a bloody pulp). The thing is that Mina just. Refuses to show that trauma has actually been effecting her. She starts suppressing negative reactions to situations bc she wants to "stay strong." Beginning of the year? She cried when they got rescued from USJ. End of the year? "Lmao guess we survived another one! Ha! Ha! :)"

oh my god like millennial humor?? if yeah then lmao mina please

if not ahhh Mina baby you have feelings too that you gotta tend to!\

Alright- All (or at least all the angst headcanons I received) are answered below the cut! Please be careful, there are some, well angsty things in there!

TW: Eating Disorder, Gore/ Graphic Depictions, Homophobia, Depression, Suicidal Tendencies/ Self harm mention, Death, Possible spoilers to those not caught up with the BNHA manga- Please ask to tag if I missed any!

(looking at all these warnings made me realize omfg YALL DID NOT HOLD BACK IM CRYING ASK AND THOU SHALT RECEIVETH I SUPPOSE)

a-single-eyelash asked:

Denki accidentally hurt someone as a kid, say a sibling or good friend, with his quirk. It made him hate his work, until he saw a hero with a similar work to his. This is what made him think that not only is his quirk cool, but also that he can become a hero. Well until, he hurt Sero. His boyfriend, got electrocuted by him on the battlefield. (Sorry this is an idea I’ve had for a fic)

O H

BRUH THAT HIT ME LIKE A TRAIN COMING OUT FROM BEHIND THE BUSHES I THOUHGT THERE WAS GONNA BE A HAPPY ENDING THIS IS STILL GOOD THO

anonymous asked:

Bakugou is still sad, Sero is suicidal (Read to may fics about it man), Kami is legitimately afraid he’ll disappoint his parents, Tsu feels to normal, Kiri feeeeeelsss way to useless, and idk maybe Aoyama feels ignored. My own angsty headcanons.

Ah, yeah I can see how those can play into those characters!

anonymous asked:

Sero’s fight or flight response with a villains ice-like quirk (if your for that headcanon) OR Sero overwhelming his quirk trying to rescue a goddamn building of people

OH YA I AM FOR THAT

Also NO STOP HAVE I GOT SOMETHING IN STORE ABOUT COLLAPSING BUILIDINGS

anonymous asked:

Ashido + Bakugou bond over their quirks being destructive and not really knowing how to use them to actually *help* people

oh wow, I’ve never actually seen it that way.

But how about this: while they vent to each other about how their quirks can’t help people, the other is like, full on giving them descriptions of how their quirks actually CAN but they just never realized and they’re opening each other’s eyes while having their own insecurities knocked down

anonymous asked:

Omg your angst au is so angsty it’s beautiful

AH thank you haha!

anonymous asked:

Angsty headcannon boi- Sero was bullied in middle school for having wonky teeth and actually had braces. Which is why he has such a pearly white smile now. Sero was the last in his class to get his quirk and when he did he was laughed at because it was a ‘useless quirk’

n O ANON IM SOB

IM CRYING LEAVE HIM ALONE ILL SQUARE UP WITH THOSE BULLIES

anonymous asked:

Angst head cannon. Sero flinches whenever kirishima hardens. Sero’s parents are majorly homophobic and are actually quite strict. So whenever sero isn’t with bakusquad he tries to revise but it doesn’t work and he’s scared to ask for help.

Aw, man that’s heart wrenching to have parents so unsupportive- I feel it :( He’s just in a constant worry state whenever they’re around

anonymous asked:

If you’re still accepting the angst hcs… i think kaminari gets like really overcharged whenever there’s a storm and since they moved to the dorms there’s nowhere for him to release all the excess energy. So he just kinda hides away in his room in pain.

Aw, that’s terrible!

I dunno.. I feel like that one day when someone finds out during a storm, they’ll like, ask the teachers about “where someone could discharge a lot of energy askingforafriend” and they immediately know who they’re talking about and they’ll ask Powerloader and Mei and others in their department to build something for him to discharge all the excess AND be able to utilize it somehow :0 just a thought!

anonymous asked:

My headcannons: Sero is anorexic Bakugou has PTSD Kaminari has depression Kirishima had self-esteem issues Ashido is perfect (canon)

Oh that last part- she is, she is *clap**clap*

Though.. I will say that just because the others are haunted by those- it doesn’t make them less perfect. It’s their struggles that they learn to cope with and grow from, and it makes them, well, them. Not a definition of perfect can define that :’)

(sorry just speaking from my thoughts cause these hit close to home ahhh)

anonymous asked:

Lmao i sent a lot sorry if their not the best but hopefully some heart strings will be pulled

NONSENSE ANON ALL MY HEART STRINGS WERE PLUCKED BY ALL THESE AND NOW ITS YALLS TURN

transcandydemon asked:

Todocanon; todoroki has constant nightmares of the boiling water incident and of his father hurting him or his mom which causes him to not get as much sleep ie his calm attitude and how he’s not quick to get into conversations because of exhaustion

oh ya, such a traumatic past is def something that could still be haunting him in his dreams :’( but when the others notice, they’ll make sure to check up on him and try to find ways to help reduce nightmares or at least comfort him whenever they’re in his dreams

anonymous asked:

Deku head canon : deku is super jealous of kirishimas and bakugoa relationship since hes been trying to get close to kacchan for years and kirishima managed to do it within days

D’: He probably would feel that- jealousy’s very strong! But ah, in my personal opinion, i think he’d feel that, but after time learns that maybe it was best that he stopped dwelling on it and moves on, and learns to accept and be happy that he and Bakugou could at least be acquaintances that could eventually work well :’)

anonymous asked:

Denki headcanon: where he wants to be as close to bakugo as kirishima is and he tries so damn hard but takes bakugos insults to heart and he really does get torn up and upset about it(ex: the sports festival scene )

Oh wait which scene? Dunce face or?? :0 but yeah, I feel like he’d take it to heart at times. (but my bakukami heart tells me to say that when Baku realizes he gives him a good ass pep talk and beings hold back on his insults, or reassures Denki)

anonymous asked:

Bakugou could have PTSD and nightmares

Oh same headcanon! :’D Ah, but poor Bakugou. I’m sure the others would take it into mind and be aware of it and help him subtly so as to not provoke him, :’(

violetsare-tblue asked:

Bakugo: because of his inferiority complex, feels like he needs to prove himself over and over or he’ll be just the victim again Iida: his left arm is completely numb. He isn’t paralyzed and he can move it. He just can’t feel anything in his hand or arm. Makes holding hands with someone feel empty and useless Sero: he is so scared of being worthless as a hero and a person. He doesn’t want to be left behind by his classmates so he overworks himself and comes to school with random bruises

Oh mmhmm, I definitely see the Bakugou one! Especially after what he said during his fight with Deku, it def shows :(

Aw, Iida probably still looks back at his actions back in the Stain arc and regrets the errors of his ways. Luckily, I’m sure he’ll find someone who helps him through it and reminds him that mistakes don’t define him :’)

:’( Serooo MAKING ME CRY

casua-aria asked:

I have this Sero headcanon where he was the disposable (like how when tape dispensers run out and become disposable) friend in groups throughout his childhood, but now that he goes to UA, he has true caring friends that would never do that to him.

D: !!

That’s so sad- he must have thought his quirk was just life taunting him for being “disposable” hence the tape quirk :( but heck yeah, once he meets the students of UA he definitely begins to see that he wasn’t the problem in the past, but rather those that he was “friends” with!

anonymous asked:

Sero remembering very clearly all the pain that happened when his arm got cut off, maybe being a little scared of Kirishima for a few days after he first wakes up? Idk

OH YEAH THAT ONE HURTS

Like maybe.. once he’s able to respond again, he flinches and has an anxiety attack when he sees Kirishima because the sight of him just sends a flood of the memory to play in his head OOF

anonymous asked:

A personal favorite that nobody’s really thought of: a villain cuts off one finger from each of Ochako’s hands so she can’t use her quirk

OH MAN THATS BRUTAL OMG

That’s so dark!! I feel like a villain would do that should they get a hold of her and, mm maybe wanna rile up someone close to her to lure them in

meptoonzart asked:

Kirishima traitor

b R U H ID CRY MY EYES OUT IF HORI MADE HIM THE TRAITOR

Anonymous said:

I have a lot of angsty headcanons about Kaminari specifically so I’ll just spam you with those. He attracts electricity, so he often gets struck by lightning and has almost died from it twice. Kaminari knows people think he’s the traitor and it eats him up inside every day. He’s been ‘propositioned’ by quite a few creeps because he’s pretty and his quirk is, well, what it is. He has nightmares a lot and it causes power outages, he’s terrified his classmates will hate him for it.(1/?(Idk2maybe)

Sero got into a fight with someone after the sports festival, because how the hell did he make it into UA’S hero course, and Kaminari happens to be with him and he actively threatens the dude who started the fight with his quirk. No one bullies his friends. His overuse of his quirk is slowly killing him, he hasn’t told anyone that it’s destroying his brain. Bakugo reminds him of living in an abusive household but he doesn’t know how to say it so he laughs it off.(2/?(Okaymaybe4wearegettingthere)

Kirishima and Sero are the first to find out about both the frying brain and the abusive household, and Sero asks Kaminari if he wants to go try something. Kaminari says sure and Sero reserves a training ground for them, and Sero swings around with Kaminari and he hopes it works for Kami the same way it does for him. Sero is smiling because he doesn’t know what else to do, but swinging through the air helps him feel better and free. It helps. But there’s always, always the anxiety (¾)

the anxiety of ‘Maybe today is the day I fall’, but he doesn’t realize that Kaminari is helping him stay grounded. He won’t fall. Not when he gets to see Kaminari fuller of life than he’s ever been. They land on one of the buildings in ground Beta, and laugh like idiots as it starts to rain. Kaminari’s dying, Sero is a mess, and they just sit there for hours, past the end of their reservation, talking through their anxieties. Kaminari is scared to die. Sero is scared to lose him. (Okay1more4/5)

Sero promises Kaminari he’ll be there, he’ll do everything he can to help keep him alive as long as possible, and he asks Kaminari how long he has from his last estimate. Kaminari laughs, starting to cry. Six years. Sero tells the Bakusquad, and they promise him that they’ll be there when the time comes. Not villains or Dadzawa could stop them, and finally it does. For only being a hero for three years, he’s made history for kids who have terminal illnesses (ranoutofspacedammit)

And the drawbacks of quirks come more into light. Kaminari may not be a great student or hero, but he brought hope to a lot of people, and everyone will miss him. They can’t hear thunder crack without thinking of him, can’t see the golden sunrise without thinking of his smile. Can’t even bear to look at the classic lit section in a bookstore. He saved people and raised awareness, but he wrecked their hearts as well. (Somehow this turned into a near-fic I’m so sorry Hope you’re doing well(Done))

ANON OMG THANK YOU FOR THIS BASICALLY FIC IM CRYING THERES SO MUCH I DONT EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START CRYING

iamnootthedabmast-r said:

Heard you want some angsty headcannons- so Kaminari tends to stay up due to his quirk and he likes to stay in the dormitory lobby, so he just sits on the couch on his phone or just sits there in the dark- but this leads to him finding some secretive angsty stuff about other people in the dormitory for ex; Bakugou comes downstairs and just starts cooking cause he has terrible night terrors and Kaminari just quietly witnesses as Bakugou cries silently while he eats. (Part 1)

(Part 2) the next morning Kaminari kind of wants to try ask or comfort him but feels rude and awkward so he also kind of struggles with the knowledge of knowing that everyone in his class is a little to a lot of broken. So yeah, sorry if it’s a little confusing- in awkward when it comes to writing what I want to write…

DUUDE THIS IS SUCH A SAD CONCEPT IF YOU WRITE IT I WILL LEGITERALLY PERISH ON SPOT

Anonymous said:

May we… suggest directly… angsty oneshots? Please feel free to ignore this if you preferred hcs

(lmao sorry, im not caught up with the manga or anime to know what the first part is referrring to :’D) but ah yeah I’ve seen that headcanon, not too sure how to feel, but it’s out there!

#tw eating disorder #tw gore #tw graphic depictions #tw homophobia #tw depression #tw suicidal tendencies #tw self harm #tw death mention #bnha spoilers #long post #ask to tag #ahh i wont tag much else of bn/ha so it doesnt gloom up the tags!#all i want for christmas is queue

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nade2308 · 6 years

Text

Just something I need to get off my chest...

Do you know that feeling when you finally think things are looking up, but instead they are tumbling town the abyss you came up from just recently? Yeah, well things have been like that for a very long time and I don't think that I gave myself enough time to go through them and get over them so to speak (no matter how hard you wish you forget some things, they just fade away as you slowly force them on the last shelf, but they are there, ready to pounce on you and remind you that you are never going to forget).

Maybe you are asking why am I writing this? I am not doing it to drag attention (I'm not attention seeker, nor I'll ever be, I'm okay in the place I've created for myself with the people I love and that love me and that's all the attention that I'd ever want and get. And it's okay) nor to make anyone feel like they need to do something they usually wouldn't do. Debated to just pour my soul over on other social media, but the fact that there are people from real life that I have there (including family and friends and other peoplw I know) that's not an option (I'm sure they haven't noticed anything is wrong and if they did, they haven't mentioned it. Maybe they are afraid how I'll react, or I just got better at hiding how I feel). This reminded me of that one time one of my closer friends made a remark on my character: there was this situation where another student at the Uni I'm at started jabbing me and I was this close to flipping off, and he said that I made the right choice for solving the thing with words, or else we would've witnessed an explosive "fight" o to speak. I'm not sure that's relevant to what I have to say, but at times I've been wondering how it would've turned out if I got it out of my chest every time something touched me so hard I couldn't think of anything else but that? I think with the years it just became a practice to not show what I truly feel inside, because if I do, I give all the others the ammo to keep stepping on me (which thankfully hasn't happened in years. Not literal stepping, but you'd get my point), and that's not something I wanted. I've always wondered what other people saw in mw that made them envy me, maybe even hate me, but envy me for sure. Sometimes I felt like I had target painted ojln my back that said 'hey, let's have fun with her and insult her'. I've taken jabs about being a nerd, being poor (well their definition of poor anyway), being the teacher's pet (although the very same people that were saying those things were the things they claimed I was). I was ridiculed for never skipping class, for thw clothes I wore, for every word that got out of my mouth, but it was okay. It is okay. They didn't win, because I still am the same person and they never got over their envy and jealousy and whatnot but after a while they lost my attention, the attention I gave to them. That llst time won't get back, but it serves as a lesson (I still make some of the same mistakes, but with less frequency). So, the thing is, I learned how to bury things deep inside, so deep that sometimes when they come back to me, they hurt more than they are actually important.

The worst period of my life so far was when my mom became sick. It was almost 10 years ago (in October). There were multiple things that were wrong, but for years the doctors couldn't find what it was exactly that caused all the problems: and the person that gave me life, that still watches over me when I get sick, even if she is sick herself, I watched her wilt like a flower and waste away like nothing. She was a rock, she was so strong and whenever I think of that period of my life, tears come to my eyes and I can't stop them (only thing I can't chalk up and play it up, because it hurts too much. My mom is definitely better now. Still not at 100%, but not at the level she was then. And I never got to experience puberty or typical things that come with teenage years. I was too busy taking care of my mom and praying to God to not take her away from me.

The downside of that was that at the time I didn't have the friends I have today. Except my family and a few people that I can call acquaintances (not sure if friends applies to them tbh) I didn't have anyone. I was in a dark place, having no one to talk, no one to have as my crying shoulder. Just: no one. But I want to think that my friend's' words are right: I became stronger because of it.

There are lots of things that I can talk over, and mention like the constant battle with finances, my school and the expenses, the stress of studying and exams, lots of things. I got better at dealing with those things, I wanted to be happy, but also I wanted to be healthy and with all the stress and thought I gave to things, I was on a good way on getting myself overworked and overwhelmed and I could've gotten easily doing something I'd regret.

Was I depressed? I dunno, I'm not sure how to label what I went through, what I'm going through atm. Some people have it worse than me. And I know, some may think I am exaggerating, but believe me I'm not. Fought this demon long enough to do that.

So, things were going their way, I was going my way. Writer's block happened, then it went away, I found new TV shows I liked, found different fandoms, met my online friends, my online family that's always here to support me, but mainly I met this person that I can call my best friend (never had one before, but she knows me really well, better than I even know myself, you know who you are, I'm not mentioning any names) and this is actually a post that I realized I wanted to write that came out of one of our conversations.

I remember a comment I read on Instagram once that said that whatever bothers you, you let it bother you for 5 minutes a day and then not think about it for the rest of the day. In the last few days I realized how bad I had it and how I really needed to practice this thing.

Mainly, I think things started when my grandpa died in November last year. I'm not really sure I ever dealt with the loss very well, not sure any of us has done that, but believe me when I say it, to see someone every day and then that someone being gone: nothing helps you with that. You learn to cope, you learn to move on, to smile and be happy again, but there's always going to be a chunk from you that would never be the same and won't ever learn how to deal with it. You just supress it, push it away, want it to hurt less, when in reality all you do is just hurt yourself more, drive the knife through your heart deeper and expect for the wound to heal itself and for you to be normal again. I came to realize: it doesn't. It only hurts less, but never goes away. A constant reminder with each passing day.

A few other things happened before and after this event that contributed to me getting into this depressive mood. I doubt myself for everything, but I had learned how to deal with it. In the last 9 months, that self-doubt just got stronger, and I lost myself somewhere along where even I couldn't find my way back to what I was, who I was so far. If you see me, I haven't changed a lot physically (I mean my expressions, the way I talk or do things etc.) but inside, inside there's a war.

I'm an emotional person. Always was and probably always will be. In the last few months I got emotional just a handful of times, and I know that whenever I have a good cry, the weight lifts off my shoulders and I could breathe more easily afterwards. Dunno why, but for a long time I didn't let myself cry. I'm not sure I even let myself grieve properly for the loss of a loved one. One thing after another, and I find myself in this situation where I can hardly get out of bed some days because I don't wanna face the world. I am never the type of person that wants to hide. Alone time? Sure. But, hiding? Never. Well the last few months I really wanted to hide. To crawl in on myself and not let anyone find me. I have this rule of never breaking contact with my friends, and I never did. I kept silent sometimes for a couple of hours or so, but always came back to them, because I knew if I let myself to do that, then I may as well be on my way to really losing touch to who I am.

And as with everything else in my life, I thought I had that under control. I have had happy moments, but the sad moments outweigh the happy ones, and recently I found myself being even more moody than I was before, easily snapping at people, be more emotional and see and think of things that they never were like that.

I'm sure you've all experienced this at some point, just when you are relaxed, your brain brings every bad thing, every decision you made, every thing you didn't do but you should've done it. Happened a lot to me in the last few months. And to think that I was vulnerable ro those oppressing thoughts that told me things were in a certain way (and they weren't) I came to snap and be a shit to my best friend, my anchor, and came to question myself of many things she said and did and I said and did, and even though I knew they weren't like that, my thoughts made me think they indeed were. It took me a while to get over that part (let's say it was a bend in the road that's fixed now, and I'm working on being permanently gone so I never ever repeat this horrible mistake) and it gets better with every day (because I give myself a reminder and practice the 5 minutes rule every day). There are setbacks of course, and I think there will be more times than not when I'll go through that thought process again, but now I know for sure that I will be able to resist that and not let it get on my way to happiness.

What I realized is that sometimes even when you consciously know that things are not like your brain tells you they are, you sometimes just give in to that and let all caution to the wind. I think that I need some time off myself from time to time. Time where I won't think of anything but what I do at the moment, time where I won't write or read, maybe just let myself have a nap or two, or maybe watch a TV show or a movie and not think at all. I need a break from my mind, and I need to work on it. And I will. Gave that promise to myself couple of weeks ago and I plan on keeping myself to it as much as I can.

While writing this, I've cried for the first time in maybe a month or so and let me tell you, I feel better already, like this stone has been lifted off of my soul, what crushed it before, it's not there anymore. And if you have things going on in your life where it seems like you are running out in circles and there's no solution on the horizon? Believe me there's always a solution to everything. You just have to keep fighting and not keep it in yourself if you have family and friends that love you and support you through everything. If you come to them and tell them, they'd understand. Some of them won't but even if it's just one person, it's enough. Let yourselves heal and never stop yourselves from doing the things you love and make you happy. And when things like these happen, don't let them rule with you or overwhelm you.

Give yourselves time. Like I realized I should have given myself time, and long time ago. And be honest to yourselves about everything, first and foremost.

Also don't forget: it's never too late.

Thank you for reading this, if you have, and once again, this was just a way for me to pour all of this out and in an attempt to ease myself towards healing.

Don't want anyone to worry about me, the point of this talk wasn't to make you worry about me. I'm good. I'll be good. I'm already feeling better and it's just a matter of time before the smiles I hid myself behind will go back to being genuine. Just I will give myself time.

#talk #my talk #personal life experience #just something I should have done months ago

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youcancallmemaddie · 7 years

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Maybe it’s just a Monday.

I woke up today and I didn’t want to get out of bed. I’m a typical 21 year old overworked college student so I think it’s normal to experience some hesitancy about moving from the warm, comforting, covers into the harshness of the world. However, that’s not what I felt this morning, and if I am being totally honest it doesn’t accurately describe what I have felt EVERY morning since I can remember. Even some of the earliest memories I can summon from the depths of my brain, are memories of mornings filled with dread. It’s mornings filled with so much dread for the day that I have no motivation to move from a horizontal position.

Mom calls it laziness. Sometime she calls it sinful because I am not constantly filled with the unwavering joy of the Lord. Other times she hits a little closer on the dartboard and calls it sadness. I wish that it were that simple. I wish that I could do more and work harder to be happy. I wish that I could go to church or read my bible enough times to be happy. I wish I were just sad, so that the feeling of utter hopelessness would eventually pass instead of lingering around like a jet black rain cloud.

The thing is, it’s not as simple as any of those things. Because none of those things are a mental disorder. If I’m being entirely transparent, I had some hesitancy typing the word “disorder.” In my family, all behavior was a choice. There was no such thing as a disorder. Again, you just had to shove all those feelings deep down and if you prayed really hard they’d go away. That’s a tragedy because not only did that decrease my belief in the effectiveness of prayer, but it also made me deny the idea that anyone could be different because then there would be “something wrong with them.” It would make them less than perfect.

What blows my mind is that mental disorders are RAMPANT in my family, however, it is completely swept under the rug and practically ignored. My maternal grandmother displayed every symptom and behavior of someone with Bi-Polar disorder. She also struggled with depression. I can remember this woman eating herself into diabetes and sleeping almost days at a time. My paternal grandmother was depressed as well, but she numbed the pain with a daily cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol until it killed her at 57 years old. Another example that has always haunted me is the story of my great-aunt Katherine. Katherine was the youngest of four kids and from what I have been told, we are a lot alike. Katherine had a hard life, for much of it she struggled to fight the feelings of anxiety and worthlessness that most individuals with depression face. However, the tipping point came when she found out her husband had been unfaithful. The feeling of being not good enough was exasperated and she decided to find a way out. She took her life. She took her life at 32. A mother, a wife, a person, put a shotgun to her head at 32. I have always heard that story with sad tones and “she died too young” looks, but never did anyone talk to me about why she did it. I didn’t find out that she had even battled depression until I was almost 20 years old. The only thing I ever heard was that she was “selfish” for committing suicide. What a pity... because in so many ways I am each of them. In fact, I am all of them. I am a mixture of all their stories and of all their pain.

I thought today was just a Monday, but it turns out I’m depressed. I feel lonely, I feel hopeless, I feel worthless, I feel not good enough. And all of that, well it makes me feel anxious. So there it is. There I am.

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supere1113 · 4 years

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The Conflict Within Myself - Track 10: Polaroid

****TRIGGER WARNING****

This post contains some mental health stuff that may be triggering to some readers. Viewer discretion is advised.

The most unfortunate part about experiencing severe mental distress is perhaps the fact that all too often, it leads to someone taking their own life; it leads to suicide. This song is about that, but it moreso explores the in’s and outs of the mentality of suicidality.

Many of the lyrics are on the nose in terms of meaning, and some kinda trigger me still, so I’ll just explain the story behind the song mostly.

All the conflict on this album leads to this moment. In 2017, I had experienced a mental health crisis the likes of which neither my family nor myself had ever experienced before. The Anxiety I had been feeling since the late 2000s grew more severe, literally crippling. The depression that had been a part of my life significantly since 2013 (insignificantly since 2009) had contorted my mind to an unrecognizable mass. The mood swings I had been having since 2014 had intensified to an unimaginable degree. By the time 2017 started, they all had it out for me, so to speak lolz! (humor helps when you’re talking about this) I knew something was up by mid-January, I became even more overworked, even more depressed that by March, for the first time since 2013 when they first appeared, I bagan having suicidal ideations. But this time, they were more incessant and disturbing (listen closely to the bridge of Polaroid. You’ll hear some of the things I heard in my head). I didn’t have much of a will to act on them, but they were wearing me down more rapidly (It’s much like the Titanic disaster! I hit the iceberg in 2009 around the time MJ died, I was slowly sinking from then to 2016, then the flooding accelerated exponentially in 2017! I love Titanic! She’s always there for me, and always knows what I’m going through! (look at my history: there are only 5 Titanic references in my first album because I was holding back... a lot)). As I went further through the second semester of my freshman year, the anxiety often kept me in bed for longer and longer periods of time. The mood swings, homework and guilt from not knowing how to help myself kept me up for hours (longest I stood up for was about 42+ hours or so. I don’t remember for sure lolz!). I looked up self help videos, but I felt they were only addressing the tentacles of a greater octopus I knew nothing about. By early May, I was almost home free from the semester and Logic’s 3rd album Everybody came out the week before Finals. Anticipation for that album (along with others) helped keep me going, honestly, and that album made me a fan for multiple reasons: One, got my attention when he released the title track in like what, March? Then the Diversity of Black SpiderMan gave me hope for the future. Now, I wouldn’t call myself a 1-800 fan because I knew about him before it came out and he sold me with Everybody’s title track a couple months before. However, that song was very timely for me as you might imagine. The track that really honestly single-handedly changed the course of my life was his song, Anziety, right after 1-800-273-8255 on the album. He described his first major panic attack, and I felt like he was saying the words I couldn’t. After hearing Anziety, I finished the semester believing that what I was going through was anxiety. After I got home, I told my mom and she took me to the doctor and his assistant suspected not only severe anxiety, but also quite severe depression (this was the first time someone brought up depression and me in the same breath and I happened to be taking it seriously. It happened one other time in 2015 during an extensive, autistic-friendly IQ test. Neither my mom nor myself put much stock in it. I sometimes wonder what could’ve been had we acted on that advice). I was broken. I thought that I had damaged myself beyond apparent repair with college, and I was given an antidepressant that day. My parents say that it seemed to be making the situation worse, so they took me off of it. I still argued that I needed some sort of serious help, but the most unfortunate thing about this whole predicament is that my parents knew I was hurting, but they didn’t understand the gravity of my situation. Don’t blame them. They thought I was going through a really rough phase. They did the best they could with what little they knew. I try not to hold that against them. No one should. Them not understanding successfully snuffed out any hope I had of being rid of this feeling. My depression got even worse (I’m saying this a lot, aren’t I?), to the point where I was literally suicidal literally almost every day. I felt invalidated, further misunderstood as if being autistic doesn’t already lend itself to that, and I began to seriously question whether God had forsaken me (I’ll say this, even the most passionate christians are subject to doubt in their relationship with God) “Why else would this be happening?” I thought. “This must be where the end of the line is for me.” I even asked God to kill me once because my parents wouldn’t hear me out time and again. The summer of 2017 brought with it many unsuccessful suicide attempts, and countless moments of planning how I would do it. Family vacation to Los Angeles that year was the worst I will ever have. I had to pretend to be okay for a week. Torture. While Titanic was sinking, her older sister Olympic was at sea as well (she even got her sister’s distress call), but she was about 500 nautical miles away from her, and unable to help. My sister got my drift, but she was more than twice that length away from me in grad school when all of this was happening. I can only imagine how hopeless both of them felt about their dying siblings.

The tide began to turn even less in my favor on the fateful day of Thursday, July 20th, 2017 when Chester, the lead singer of my favorite band of all time, Linkin Park, died by suicide (I say “died by suicide” because the word “commit” implies blame and passes unfair judgement on the person who died by suicide; making the assumption that they did that in selfishness, and should be blamed for hurting the ones they love. This is an astronomically misunderstood notion. I’m here to educate people, ya hear?). No single event had been more profound to me since the death of Michael Jackson in 2009. Chester’s death changed me. not only spiritually, but chemically as well. The mood swings I had been having earlier in the year came back with a vengeance. I was already kept awake by my anxiety/depression combo, but now I was barely sleeping at all! My highs were too high, my lows just as too low. I started hearing voices as well. I would even be happy at certain times, but I would be too happy, like inhumanly happy. And mostly, my happiness was fueled by my general acceptance of my despair. unhealthy at best. I went back to school against my will in August, and things only got worse. By October, I was pushed beyond my wit’s end, and I came the closest I had ever come to completing a suicide attempt (I reference the date, October 6th, 2017 in the song). I wrote what I’ll call an anti-suicide note after that attempt, begging my parents to get me a psychological evaluation that would logically lead to me getting the help I needed. ...And I’ll pick this story up later.

Polaroid was the hardest song to write of Conflict, and is also somewhat arguably the hardest song I ever had to write. I did it to give anyone who listens an exploration into the realm of suicidality because it is so misunderstood by so many people, even people who deal with it, and because no one was doing that to this degree (There’s been no shortage of songs on suicidality. However, very few of them peer into what’s going on inside the mind; moreso on the fact that it happened, and how it affected other people and things. The personal perspective is rarely heard from. I like what Evanescence did with Tourniquet, but I wanted to go further and barely reference actions as much as... thoughts. On 1-800-273-8255, Logic touches on the feelings and thoughts of the suicidal, but he provides a way out, thankfully. I wanted to give that very dark state of mind a voice without invalidating it with a happy ending). I wanted to put you, the listener, in a space where you could hear, where you could EXPERIENCE what so many suicidal people do feel/have felt in their heads. I didn’t want to give you an escape route of hope because that would distract from the vision and mission of the song (I could always make a 100% happy song later <3). Plus, I couldn’t write about it while it was happening, not while unaware of all the factors at play. It’s even hard to write about the song.

The title of Polaroid is special (I got into instant photography in early 2015 off the strength of the high I was on after Taylor Swift’s 1989 came out). Originally, I just wanted a song called polaroid on my album because Imagine Dragons had a song called Polaroid on Smoke and Mirrors and I thought it was such a great song name. But as “The Conflict Era” of my life reached its twilight months, another, deeper meaning came to mind. A Polaroid picture is made by light brought in from the camera interacting with chemicals in the Polaroids. Back in their (initial) prime, Polaroids, or Polaroid film, was made with various chemicals, some that are no longer considered safe for the workplace. We all know that, like vinyl records, Polaroids and instant photography as a whole began to almost disappear from the world as the 20th century came to a close. Then in the 2010s, Millennials and Gen Z picked them back up, and those industries followed suit. A key difference between the old polaroids and the new ones however, is that the new ones don’t have the chemicals that are considered unsafe now. When I wrote Polaroid, I found that the title actually is able to be connected with the song’s contents. An unused polaroid if you were to cut it open would be filled with a bunch of chemicals that many of you would find weird and gross if they got on your hands. They would become... undesirable to say the least. You’d almost certainly want to throw it away. When I was experiencing suicidal ideations,on top of everything else I was feeling that I mentioned before, I felt physically toxic, removed from my true autistic self by well-meaning people who encouraged/forced me to discourage my autistic traits and behaviors, and I felt undesirable to all around me, so I wanted to get rid of me, led by my conviction to make the world a better place. Thinking that I, along with all Autistic people and everyone else who felt misunderstood, discriminated against or forgotten, was/were what was wrong with the world, like the Jews were to Hitler. So... I guess Polaroid is also a commentary on the effects that taking someone out of who they are to naturally become can do to a person. Nasty stuff. I once said in a Facebook post something to the degree of, “Don’t remove people out of who they are, because they will remove themselves from here” as in this universe. Dang, that belongs on a shirt.

As with Paranoize is with my anxiety attacks, the story of Polaroid is really an amalgamation of all of my close calls with suicidality, expressed in one event, partly for dramatic effect, and even moreso in an effort to make the songs on this album more universal. The guitar riffs in the intro are like individual suicidal thoughts. It starts with one, then another, and another. Then, all those exponentially grow and become all too heavy for the soul and generally disturbing, like the instrumental gets once the 1st verse hits.

Along with being one of the hardest ever to write, I now think that Polaroid is also one of the best songs I’ve ever written. I think, in a very dark way, it has the whole package of a song of mine. It’s like Evan, but perfectly inverted. Because that’s what I was. Life-loving me, wanting to die. By my own hand. Literally.

The music speaks for itself. As does the rest of the song. Listen to it if you feel so inclined.

And please, stay alive for me. If not, for what you believe. Might wanna watch some Spongebob after reading this; cheer you up a little bit.

I love you. I really do.

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itsfinancethings · 5 years

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October 24, 2019 at 07:57AM

I lost my grandmother and my mother to breast cancer. I remember once holding my mother’s hand, as she was receiving chemotherapy, when she started to turn purple and I had to race to get the nurse. Now there are new ways to identify which chemotherapy medication is best for each patient, resulting in fewer of the horrible side effects. Fewer. It’s often still so hard on the body.

My mother fought cancer for nearly a decade. As I stood in the hallway of the hospital waiting for my mother’s body to be collected and taken to be cremated, her doctor told me she had promised my mother that she would make sure I was informed about my medical options. Years later, I was able to have a genetic test that revealed I carried a gene, the so-called BRCA1, that predisposes me to cancer. The test came too late for the other women in my family.

Women typically have a 13% risk of developing breast cancer over their lifetime. I had an estimated 87% risk of developing the disease and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer. Because of my high risk, experts recommended preventive surgeries. I had a double mastectomy and later removed my ovaries and fallopian tubes, significantly reducing, although not removing altogether, my risk of developing cancer.

In the years since my -surgeries, there has been further progress. Technology and science are converging in ways that will bring discoveries to clinics-—and into our homes—at the most rapid pace in human history. Genetic testing has become more accessible and less expensive, although still not for everyone. Immunotherapy advances mean there are now targeted treatments like checkpoint inhibitors, which help block the “cloak of invisibility” that cancer cells put up to avoid immune attack. PARP inhibitors, when used in combination with immunotherapy, can improve the chances of survival for breast and ovarian cancer patients. In a recent visit to the Institut Curie, France’s leading cancer hospital and research center, I met some of the doctors and scientists who are working to develop new treatments that will mean more people survive cancer in the future and are able to live better lives during their illness.

An artist friend of mine recently survived breast cancer. She had no family history of the disease but developed it in her 30s. She educated herself on all the latest advancements and procedures. She made the choice of a mastectomy, removing the breast and nipple. She froze her eggs before she had to go through chemo and then went to reconstruction. She documented her treatment through her art, finding a creative outlet to interpret her experience and share it with others.

But while stories like these should give us hope, we still have a long way to go. There’s currently no reliable screening test for ovarian or prostate cancer, for example, and no effective targeted treatment for the most aggressive forms of breast cancer, known as triple negative cancers.

What I’ve come to understand, as I’ve reflected on my own experiences and those of others I’ve met, is that while we should continue to push for advancement, care is not just about medical treatments. It’s also about the safety, dignity and support afforded to women, whether they’re battling cancer or trying to manage other stressful situations. And far too often they’re not given nearly enough.

I’m often asked how my medical choices, and being public about them, have affected me. I simply feel I made choices to improve my odds of being here to see my children grow into adults, and of meeting my grandchildren.

My hope is to give as many years as I can to their lives, and to be here for them. I have lived over a decade now without a mom. She met only a few of her grandchildren and was often too sick to play with them. It’s hard now for me to consider anything in this life divinely guided when I think of how much their lives would have benefited from time with her and the protection of her love and grace. My mother fought the disease for a decade and made it into her 50s. My grandmother died in her 40s. I’m hoping my choices allow me to live a bit longer.

I have a patch for hormones, and I need to get regular health checkups. I see and feel changes in my body, but I don’t mind. I’m alive, and for now I am managing all the different issues- I inherited-. I feel more connected to other women, and I often have deeply personal conversations with strangers about health and family.

People also ask how I feel about the physical scars I carry. I think our scars remind us of what we have overcome. They are part of what makes each of us unique. That diversity is one of the things that is most beautiful about human existence.

The hardest scars to bear are often invisible, the scars in the mind. All the patients I met at the Institut Curie said the care and support of their loved ones was the most important factor in their ability to cope with their illness. And here the picture is troubling globally, particularly for women.

Women are the largest group of people affected by post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Unipolar depression is twice as common in women as in men worldwide. More women than men are affected by anxiety, psychological distress, sexual violence and domestic -violence. And more than half of the women killed worldwide died at the hands of a partner or family member, according to the latest statistics. Factors that account for women’s poor mental health, according to the WHO, include discrimination, overwork, poverty, malnutrition, low social status and unremitting responsibility for the care of others.

So I have learned that when it comes to women’s health, medical advances are only one part of the picture. Mental and emotional health, and physical safety, are just as important. Without that there may be a false sense that a woman is being cared for, when in fact she is falling apart because of other pressures in her life that receive no attention at all. I understand now that we often focus on the specific cancer or illness affecting a particular woman, but miss the bigger diagnosis: her family situation, her safety and whether she is carrying stress that is undermining her health and making her days much more difficult.

No person should feel a level of worry and pressure that affects their health. But so many do. And it should not take someone getting sick to realize that caring for them and not harming them is necessary.

My mother seemed peaceful when she first knew she had cancer. I now see that in part it was because after many years of stress and struggle, people were forced to be gentle to her. During the highest years of stress in my own life, I developed high blood pressure and needed to be treated for hypertension.

When we speak of women’s equality, it is often in terms of rights withheld, that ought to be given to us collectively. Increasingly I see it in terms of behavior that needs to stop. Stop turning a blind eye to the abuse of women. Stop blocking the ability of girls to get an education or access health care. Stop forcing them to marry a person you have chosen for them, especially when they are still children. Help young girls know their value. Help keep women you know safe. And before a woman is in the hospital, dying, and that reality is written on a diagnosis sheet, look into her eyes and consider the life she is living and how it might be with less stress.

All medical discoveries that extend our lives are welcome. But the bodies we are hoping to heal also need to be respected and spared preventable harm. Only if we feel safe and cared for are any of us able to reach our full potential.

Jolie, a TIME contributing editor, is an Academy Award–winning actor and special envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

#IFTTT #Blogger

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meganespeon · 6 years

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Just something I’ve been working on.

In literature all across the world and all through time, Winter was always seen as a symbol for depression. It has been used as a metaphor of loss and a great time of sorrow. The change of season bringing the death of nature, the cold chilling winds leaving you breathless, the slow falling snow so quiet you can feel your own loneliness. For me, Winter became a time of joy. I have him to thank for that.

My name is Amelia. I turned twenty the year I met the most influential man of my life. He still doesn’t even know I have feelings for him. Today, I turned Twenty-Two. Today is also the anniversary of my parents death. It’s been a year since they died. I haven’t been the same since. I’m not sure I’ll ever heal. I just wish I could spend one more Christmas with them. To hear my Dad laughing as my mom scolds him over something trivial. To taste my mom’s pecan pie again. To even hug them again. I miss them so much. I feel so alone.

I’m tired of being alone though. I’m tired of crying. Instead of allowing my depression to overcome me, I decided to go out into the world and make some new memories. The college I attend had started it’s Christmas Break last week, so I knew campus would be dead. This town didn’t really have much to offer in the way of escaping one’s pain. But it sure did know how to throw a parade.

The main street of the little college town I lived in was decorated to the nines in christmas lights, wreaths, window art, anything they could get their hands on. I normally hate Christmas but the lights this year are so pretty. They danced off of my short bubblegum pink hair, and captivated my dark brown eyes. My mom used to say my eyes were the color of mahogany. I always hated them, so plain. Not like these lights. The red, green, and white orbs lining the streets actually made me smile a bit. I can’t remember the last time I smiled… Maybe it was when I met him.

I had just started college, I had to wait a year because my parents couldn’t afford it and the scholarships I was offered didn’t cover the dorm room I had to use along with all the classes I needed. After working so hard for two years, saving up for my dreams, I was eager to begin the path I had set myself on. I wanted to be a teacher. Have my own class of kids to prepare for this big wide world. To come into a classroom and all my favorite students would say, “Good morning Miss Renard.”

It never occured to me how difficult it might be to manage three classes a day all while working part time at two different jobs. It never really occured to me how exhausted your body can get from not having time to eat or sleep properly. Until one day, as I dragged myself to my Eight a.m class after a long shift the previous night on top of staying up all night to finish a project, I suddenly found the ground to be much too close to my face.

I don’t really know what happened but I was later told that I had collapsed due to hunger, stress, and exhaustion. I woke up in the nurse’s office on campus, a boy I hadn’t seen before sitting next to my bed. I tried to get a good look at him before alerting him of my awareness. He had short black hair that flipped over with a buzz cut around the rest of his head, a stunning face model features I dare say, the brightest shade of blue eyes I had ever seen. Like a turquoise that had been buffed in ocean water. His pushed his dark rimmed glasses further up on his sharp nose as he looked down at his phone. His black v-neck shirt hid his body but I could tell that he worked out. His left arm was covered in tattoos and his ear was full of earings and black tapers sticking out of them.

I guess he must have sensed me staring at him because he looked up to see me eyeing him. His plump rosy lips formed into what seemed like a natural grimace from his scowl lines.

“I see you’re awake.” His deep voice actually sounded relieved to see me alive. “When I saw you fall I kind of went into a bit of a panic.” I suppose if I saw someone just drop dead in front of me I would panic too. From the look of this guy though, he looks like he would only show a stoic face while he internally panicked.

“So I guess you’re the one that brought me here? Thank you… I appreciate it.” I gave him a weak smile and… Wait… Is that a little pink blush I see on his pale cheeks?

“Ah… Don’t mention it.” He looked away and rubbed the back of his buzz cut hair. “So.. What’s your name?” He asked me, turning his attention back to his phone for a moment. I stretched my head over as much as I could without looking too obvious, my curiosity getting the better of me. I watched him scroll through Tumblr for a moment before answering him.

“Amelia. Amelia Renard.” The words left my mouth but really between all the responsibilities that I now had, it didn’t feel like my name anymore. It felt like I was just this robot going through the motions of what was perceived as a “fulfilling life.” In reality I was happy that this small disruption had broken my routine of wake up, go to school, go to work, finish homework, go to work again, get two hours of sleep. I’ve lost at least ten pounds in the three months I’ve kept this up.

“You know, not eating is pretty unhealthy.” He raised an eyebrow at me as he looked up from his phone. His cold blue gaze sent chills down my spine. I suppose the nurse told him i was malnourished. That seems entirely illegal. It’s not like this college is Ivy League or anything though. “Why are you trying so hard?” His words brought me out of my thoughts.

“What do you mean?” I asked him, offended at the thought that he would even question why I would do everything I could to manage to live and stay in this school.

“You need to relax. You’re stressing yourself out too much.” I stared at him with jaw dropped. My eye twitched in anger and disbelief that he could even so much as try to understand the pressure I was under.

“Fuck you.” I couldn’t hold back the words that fell out of my mouth. He looked taken aback and slipped his phone into his pocket, giving me his full attention. “I can’t afford to relax. I wasn’t just handed this. I’ve had to work my ass off to get even just here. My parents aren’t rich, I’m not rich. I’m having to work two jobs just to manage to even stay here.” The intensity of my words were thrown at him like a punch. He narrowed his eyes at me and chose his words carefully before responding.

“I didn’t mean to offend you. I just recognize someone overworking themselves.” He stood up and shook his head before heading towards the door. “By the way, my name is Noah. Noah Mason. In case you were wondering who rescued you when you collapsed from overexertion.” He gave me a wave before exiting my room.

#Novel #Young Adult Romance #Free writing #Maybe I'll keep posting and going?

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