#this just amplified my already big fat crush on this guy

[chubbology]

Inertia

prompt: a man gains weight trying to get his ex-girlfriend back, but goes way too far and gets addicted to gaining

He hadn’t gone to the gym even once in ages.

After a year of singlehood, he wasn’t ashamed to admit anymore that he’d only really gone in the first place to impress women. Ironic, of course, since his ex had never been more than vaguely dissatisfied about his gym habit.

When they first started dating, he had love handles he hated and his thighs had been too thick. He assumed she dated him despite these flaws. Only after he lost weight to please her did he find out that it was his chub that caught her eye. It was bigger guys she was into. It was a lot of miscommunication. A lot of insecurity on his part, since what her preferences meant was that she wanted him to be a little heavy, and he couldn’t possibly accept that with his society-ingrained doctrines about attractiveness.

But those doctrines meant fuck-all now; he was eating a double cheeseburger in his car, helping it down with an orange soda, thinking about dessert. He was wondering if she’d be proud of him now that he’d gained thirty pounds. He wondered if she’d look at him with half-lidded eyes like she used to, if he put on another thirty. Fifty. Whatever.

His phone buzzes. He sits up straighter, belly swelling a little into his lap. It’s her.

Hey. My friend needs to sell her two tickets. I know it’s your favorite band. Interested?

The next text was a link to an information page about an upcoming concert. He’d been so disconnected lately, he hadn’t even heard about it.

Even though he wasn’t actually all that interested, he replied that he was, and they set a date to meet up the next week. Shit. He looked down at himself. If she were someone else, she might be repelled. But she wasn’t someone else…

He was hit with a brilliant, maybe brilliantly stupid, idea. It’s execution began with going right back through the drive thru.

In the days leading up to seeing his ex again, he ate almost constantly. Since he was only doing freelance online at the moment, his work didn’t get in the way of this. He let himself eat whatever he wanted, in amounts three times what his body craved. He pushed himself to a state of being constantly past full. She liked fat guys? Fine. Even if she still didn’t want anything to do with him, he wanted her to see what he could have been, if he hadn’t been such a gym-rat douchebag. If he’d let himself become a lazy, docile boyfriend like she wanted instead, weak and overweight.

It was hard, gaining a lot of weight in a week. The number on the scale didn’t go up as much as he expected, even though he’d eaten enough calories to gain twenty pounds at least. He compensated by showing up to their meeting spot wearing clothes that tightly hugged his body, which now had a good forty-ish pounds of fat clinging to it. Looking in the mirror before he left, he’d almost seen what she was into. His ass had gotten kind of wide and dumpy, but in a sexy way?

He was all nerves when she showed up looking healthy and cute and indifferent about him, holding the tickets in her hands. Almost indifferent. She definitely gave him a once-over, when she thought he wasn’t looking. He could tell she bit the inside of her lip.

“Well,” she said, meeting his eyes fearlessly. Were her cheeks a little red, or was that wishful thinking? “I’ll see you.”

“Really?” he blurted. “Kinda miss hanging out.”

She smiled and turned to leave. “Maybe.”

He went home and binged hard.

*

In contrast to how he grew too slowly in the week before meeting up with her, in the weeks afterward, he gained weight doubletime. Fat rounded him out as easy as if he were a swiftly filling water balloon, engorging his thighs and belly and ass and hips wide and heavy. He ate compulsively as his appetite skyrocketed, as cravings crushed his will to restrain himself. His budget was thrown out of whack as he spent his savings on pantry loads of unhealthy food. His clothes stretched and seams snapped as he struggled to fit in his largest clothes. He shopped in the plus sized section first for comfort, then by necessity.

All the while he could only think: I wished she was watching.

He started imagining her with him. In the car as he ate fast food. At the store as he bought new clothes. Walking beside him as he forced himself to get exercise.

“Slow down, big guy.” “No, I think you need one size bigger.” “Sweating already? You’re so out of shape.”

Why did he like it? Imagining her mocking him? Teasing him? Eyeing his body, fleshy and overfed.

The next time she texted, it was late at night, and his eyes were glazed watching television, eating huge spoonfuls of that miracle drug called Nutella. His belly swelled out of his shirt. His breasts and face were puffy. According to the numbers he punched into Google, he had long crossed the threshold of obesity.

How was the concert?

He stared at the words. This was it. Maybe his only chance. He replied: Didn’t go after all. Been feeling off lately.

To his (very manly) delight, this prompted more questions, and it became clear she wanted a real conversation. Was she thinking of him? Missing him like he missed her? He thought out every response with the careful focus of a rocket scientist. He wasn’t going to mess this up.

He didn’t seem to, and they texted into the early hours of the morning, catching up. Finally, finally she asked to meet up with him again, and - feeling more eager, a little reckless - he tapped out a disclaimer. Or to her, hopefully: motivation.

Just so you aren’t shocked when you see me, I’ve put on weight since I bought those tickets from you. I’m not sensitive about it or anything, but it’s a lot. So here’s a fair warning.

He held his breath as he waited for her reply. Held his breath. Held it…

Oh. Really?

Like before, they set a time the following week. This time, to get coffee. No big deal.

He knew he had more than fulfilled his little scheme of putting on weight to catch her attention, and he could push the breaks now, but he felt helpless against his inertia. At this point, he’d cultivated half a dozen habits that had his weight steadily rising, and he couldn’t just turn them off. If he so much as thought of eating less, his whole body seized up in fearful anticipation and unhappiness, and he found himself cramming a couple moonpies into his mouth just to calm down.

He gained another six pounds between their text conversation and their coffee date. He felt so out of control, so out of shape, so out of line with the standards of popular society that he felt oddly…free. In a way, he felt free of anxious self-consciousness as he heaved himself out of his car and waved at her through the coffee shop window. She was sitting in a corner at a table for two. Despite his warning, she looked a little shocked.

When he sat down across from her, his huge ass hanging off the ends of the seat, she appeared to inhale deeply. Her expression was inscrutable.

“You weren’t kidding,” she said.

Blushing, he supposed he deserved a bit of tactlessness, for the tactless way he broke up with her. “What? Oh. Yeah, no. I wasn’t.”

She sipped her coffee, eyes flicking between his flabby chest and his flabby face. In a low tone that no one else would hear, she said, “What happened? For you to get fat as fuck.”

He opened his mouth and closed it. This wasn’t how he was expecting this to go. “Well. I’ve been working from home, stressed out. I let myself go and…” He trailed off when he realized her eyes were cold. No - so hot they seemed cold, like his shower water when turned to the highest setting.

“Is this because of me?” she asked, cutting to the chase. She crossed her legs, now openly surveying him. “Did you decide it was okay to gain a hundred pounds because you thought I’d be into it?”

He was speechless. He swallowed.

“Well? Do you want me back that badly? Ever since I saw you last time, all chubbed out, I’ve been thinking maybe I should give you a second chance.”

“Um.”

“But I don’t know…” She shrugged, but a smirk was hiding just behind that indifferent frown, and he wanted. He wanted her forgiveness, whatever that meant. “How about you gain a hundred more and we’ll go on a real date? Sound good? You’re not the only fat guy out there.”

She was full-on grinning now, and he missed her little games like this. He could play them, too.

“Maybe, but I bet I’m the only guy who’s gotten this fat for you,” he said. She was immediately affected by this, and he licked his lips. “You really want to wait to see me a hundred pounds bigger than this, or do you want to stick around to watch?”

Even quieter, she said, “You saying you like gaining weight? How convenient.”

So she still doubted him. He put out his hands for her to see. “Just look. Look at how fat my hands are. I can’t…” And finally his composure cracked a little. “I can’t stop. I couldn’t stop if I wanted. Even if you never talk to me again, I’m gonna gain weight.”

Any playfulness was gone now from her. She looked like she wanted him, too. “Hmm. Maybe we should go before you break that poor chair, huh?”

He blushed again. God, he was getting docile. “I’m not that bad,” he muttered. But she gave him a cruel grin. She hadn’t entirely forgiven him. “You will be.”

And he knew then: he was doomed. He was already a little bit into his own heaviness, and she was going to take that feeling and amplify it tenfold. She was going to enable every bad habit he had, watch him flounder under his increasing size and become weaker under layers and layers of fat until he could barely lift a two pound dumbbell.

He knew she wanted this to happen, and maybe he’d broken up with her before because he’d been afraid.

But he wasn’t anymore.

“Let’s go then,” he said.

*

Thank you to the reader who commissioned this work!

I'd love to write more. Check me out <3 etsy.com/shop/Chubbology

#weight gain #fic #male gainer

[puckyeahobx]

jj maybank blurb #1

a/n: sooooo this is the first ever obx related thing i ever wrote!! it’s a blrub (obviously) and i was slightly drunk as i wrote it so i am very sorry about the errors! it started out as a joke but then i got really into it....enjoy!! 

ps this is nsfw 

Summer time was always your favorite time of year. Not only was it the best weather at the cut, you got to spend as much time as possible with the pogues

You and Kie were reformed kooks, it wasn’t until high school that you realized the pogue life was more both of your guys’ speeds. You guys soon found John B, Pope, and JJ to spend all your time with. 

JJ. You’re convinced you’ve been in love with him since the moment your delusional 14 year old ass madde eye contact with him the first day of freshman year. It wasn’t until Kie forced you to become friends with him, though, that you actually thought it might be true.

He was loyal and kind but still not someone who could be messed with which you found incredibly hot. It’s been four years since then, and you’re just as delusionally in love with him as ever

The school year was freshly over and you the pogues were already inseparable which meant a lot of time at John B’s house no matter the state it was in

Hanging with the pogues consisted of the following: smoking weed, talking shit, eating hot chip, and telling the truth. Because you never lied to a fellow pogue. There was also the commonplace kegger, which is where you guys found yourselves tonight

You usually kept to yourself at keggers since drugs and alcohol weren’t usually your thing, but it was the end of your senior year and you were ready to party

The night dragged on and you were a couple of PBR’s deep and definitely starting to feel it, but not nearly as much as JJ

Keggers at the boneyard always brought out the best in JJ, besides the time he nearly killed Topper

He was singing, dancing with strangers, all the while laughing with you in a way that you made you feel like you were the only other person on the beach

You thought that it was just typical, flirty JJ, just amplified with alcohol, but then he kept getting closer and closer to you until the point that instead of dancing with strangers, he was dancing with you 

It wasn’t grinding per say but it definitely would not have been allowed at your private catholic middle school, that’s for sure

You ignored the whoops and hollers from Kie and Pope and just tried to bask in the glory that you were finally the sole object of JJ’s attention. No one and nothing else mattered at this point. The only thing that you could focus on was the barely-there feeling of him behind you, his hands ghosting your hips as if he was scared to break you

Boys are so stupid, how could he not realize that this was everything you had ever wanted?

“I’m not going to break, you know” you whisper to him over the back of your shoulder, trying not to feel embarrassed by how breathy your voice sounded

“Just trying to be respectful, Y/N. No pogue on pogue macking, you know” he didn’t sound like the confident JJ you knew from all of his previous conquests. If this wasn’t JJ you were talking about, you might even go as far to say that he sounded nervous.

The alcohol gave you the confidence boost you needed as you grabbed his ring covered hands and situated them on your hips, inviting his hips to finally make contact with you. “Who said anything about macking?”

You heard him clear his throat behind you, but it almost sounded like he was trying to cover up a cough or, daresay, a moan 

You two continued to dance for a couple of more songs, hsi hands getting more confident as time went on. He never crossed any lines, but he made sure to trace the outlines of the hips and where they connected to your thighs and where your torso started to turn into your chest. You guys were outside in front of all of your friends and complete strangers, afterall, so you were glad he was keeping it pg-13 but now that you have had a taste of his wandering hands, you were getting impatient.

You spun around to face him, his hands still firmly planted at your sides, your hands resting on his shoulders. He looked flushed and his hair was slightly messed up from where you had been tugging on it haphazardly from behind your back. But the part that struck you the most were his eyes: you knew him always as this ball of energy, of passion, but now he was looking at you with something just short of passion. It was tender and calm, but you could tell he was holding back. His eyes followed your every breath. You had never seen him look so beautiful in your life. 

“Where’d you learn to move like that Y/L/N?” it was barely above a whisper. You could tell he was trying to laugh it off but he just sounded breathless.

You couldn’t help but return the same nervous laughter, not having drank enough to completely forget the fact that you had just been dancing on, not with, but on, your long time crush on the beach you had known and loved since you could barely walk

“I guess it’s just natural, raw talent. No one has ever asked me to dance like this before. I’m just as surprised as you are.”

He smiled down at you, “Well, everyone else is missing out.”

“I’m sure you’ve had plenty of pretty girls dancing on you on this very beach”

“None like this. And none of them were you, so” he trailed off and looked down at where his hands joined with your hips, looking back up at you ever so slightly. 

“Well now you’re just lying but it’s ok, I’ll allow it. I gave up on truth seeking a drink and a half ago” You turned back around, hoping he didn’t see you blush before you did. 

But before you could get back to dancing, he spun you back around, holding you closer than ever, his breath hot on in your ear “I’m being serious. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted you just like this, with me”

Your breath caught in your throat, you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. After all this time...no, no. It was just because he was drunk, right? “JJ...you’re drunk. You don’t mean it”

“I’m three beers behind you, baby. I know exactly what I’m saying. I know exactly how I feel and I’m sick of pretending like I don’t.” You looked up at him and despite the definitive nature of what he was saying, his eyes weren’t meeting yours and the redness was creeping from the high points of his cheeks to where his clavicles disappeared under his Marina T Shirt. “If anything, you’re the drunk one and I should shut my big fat mouth before I get myself in trou-”

You cut him off by grabbing his face in both of your hands and bringing his lips down to yours. It took him all of three seconds to catch on, his strong arms somehow pulling you closer than you already were, wrapping around the small of your back. Your hands found his way into his hair, his gorgeous hair that you had admired for so long, finally in your grasp as God had intended. 

It was the best thirty seconds of your life, and then it was over. With his forehead resting against yours and his breath heavy on your lips, he paused “Wait but you’re….you’re wasted...this isn’t how I wanted this to happen”

“I may not be able to walk in a straight line toe to toe right now but I know that I’ve wanted you for years and I’m not going to let you be a hero and ruin this. For once, I want to be stupid and not have to worry about the consequences.”

He let out another breathy laugh against your lips before he was on yours again. His hands found either side of your face, holding on for dear life. 

“How about that no pogue on pogue macking rule now, huh?” You whispered in between kisses

“Fuck that fucking rule,” he all but growled as he lifted you and your wrapped your legs around his waist, laughing wildly

“Get a fucking room!” You heard Pope yell from a few yards down, his arm draped over some girl you didn’t recognize. 

So, you did. You both stumbled up shore to John B’s house, barely being able to keep your hands off each other in the process. John B was somewhere off with Sarah and neither Kie or Pope had left the boneyard yet, so the house was empty and, most importantly, the guest room was vacant.

If you ever got there, of course. 

As soon as you got in the door, you wedged between it and JJ. You didn’t realize his kisses could have been any better but now that there weren’t any wandering eyes he was no longer holding back. His hands were resting between your jaw and neck, then they were on your chest, and then all of a sudden he was lifting you up once more, trying to stumble his way to the doorway of his unofficial bedroom.

If a couple of picture frames fell off the wall as you both drunkenly tried to kiss and walk, that was simply going to have to be an issue for the morning.

“We have to be quiet!” You halfheartedly reminded him as he bumped into the wall especially hard, unceremoniously nudging a vase off its shelf

(He caught it with one hand with his scarily fast reflexes. No comment.)

“We’re the only ones here!” He laughed back as he shut the door behind him with his foot, walking you towards the unmade bed. The back of your knees hit the side of the mattress, causing you to fall onto your ass with him standing above you. The way he looked at you made your entire body feel positively on fire with anticipation. Still though, even though he was just assaulting you with some of the most passionate kisses you had ever experienced, his eyes weren’t especially hungry or crazed or predatory as you had imagined. They were still that tender, unsure blue you saw on the beach. You reached out to him, pulling him down beside and close to you, but not kissing him again just yet.

His eyes traced your features as you both tried to catch your breath, his hands once again on your hips and yours on his face, rubbing your thumb against the soft terrain of his cheeks

You almost didn’t hear him say “You are so beautiful” as his eyes went back and forth from your lips to your eyes “I meant it when I said no one was you” he said louder this time “But we really don’t have to do anything. We could go to sleep and pretend like this never happened”

“I kissed you back, remember? I put your hands on me. I want this just as much as you do. If not more”

“There’s no fucking way you want this more than I do, Y/N. You have no fucking clue.”

You rolled your eyes, “I beg to differ. It’s been four years-”

“Try six”

You barely had time to process what he had said before he continued, rolling over to his back so he was no longer looking in your eyes. 

“Well that’s impossible because we didn’t meet until-”

“Freshman year, I know. That was when you talked to me for the first time. Doesn’t mean I hadn’t been seeing you around the island. You’ve been hanging around Kie forever and I was always hanging out around her folk’s restaurant. My dad was a cook there for a while before… well…” He trailed off, “What always happens. When I first saw you you had a purple streak in your hair and you were in this bright blue swimsuit and my 12 year old brain didn’t know how to process it. I think you and Kie were helping baby sea turtles get to sea.”

“That sounds like something we’d do,” you said, completely shocked with what you were hearing. You couldn’t take your eyes off his profile, completely mesmerized by the way his jaw muscles waxed and waned as he smiled, remembering details from a life you didn’t know he had known about.

“I felt like a total creep watching you guys like that. I wanted to go up to you so many times that summer, and the summer after that, but even at twelve John B was reminding me that kooks were just kooks, and we were just pogues. He would have never let me hear the end of it if I had gotten rejected by a Kook princess...but I seriously didn’t think I had seen anyone more beautiful in my life. You had braces and purple rimmed glasses then, but you still had that same smile. I was a goner. ”

“I wouldn’t have rejected you.”

He turned to look at you again, one of his hands finding yours in the space between your bodies

“I was 98 pounds and had buck teeth. I would have rejected me.”

You laughed at this, the image of a much smaller, much more innocent JJ bringing you close to tears. He joined in too after a few seconds. He’d tell you later that it was because he just couldn’t believe he was there with you; he’d never been happier.

“Good thing you finally tricked me into being your friend then, I guess. And then, after a whole four years, you plucked up the courage to gett me drunk so you could finally make your move,” You let out one last laugh as you brought a hand back up to his face, unable to keep your hands off for so long.

“I seem to remember you being the one making the moves out there on that beach, but I don’t know, I might need a refresher…” 

“Yeah I think I might remember something like this,” You put his hands back on your waist and he pulls you in close, there not being room for anything to be left to the imagination between the two of you.

His eyes were back to flickering between your lips and your eyes, “Yeah this sounds about right,” 

Suddenly his lips were back on you, pushing and pulling with the frantic rhythm you set as you grabbed at shis cut off, desperate to finally get your hands on that body you had been (not so subtly) ogling over the past four years. 

Getting the message, he rolled you onto your back and sat up, pulling the shirt over his shoulders with one hand, the other braced on the other side of your head. 

His lucky shark tooth necklace dangled in front of your face as he yanked his shirt off and got resituated between your legs, pressing against you hot and hard through the thin material of his swim trunks.

Your jaw must have been slacked because he just smirked down at you and chuckled out a, “Enjoying the view?” before he started trailing kisses down your neck to your collar bones to the part of your skin where your bikini top met the soft flesh of your chest. 

He looked up at you with hooded eyes before you nodded, giving him the green light to literally do whatever the fuck he wanted

Once you were both topless he looked as though he had never seen another woman naked before, which you knew was a lie, and wasted no time making sure you felt that way too. You couldn't have helped but thought of all the girls he had been in this exact same position with before in a beat of jealousy, but then you remembered that  you were the one with the purple streak in her hair six years ago and settled on being grateful that someone, somewhere taught him how to use his tongue like that. 

You all but demanded his bottoms to come off to which he met you with a “fair is fair” where yours came off in the same thirty second stretch. 

Never before having been exposed like this before, the ever present insecurities and fears started to crawl up your skin and all over you, your arms reflexively flying to cover yourself up

He stopped you immediately, grabbing your arms and putting them above your head as he kissed you behind your ear and then whispering, “Nuh uh. You’re perfect. And not only are you perfect, your days of hiding from me are over, sweetheart.”

He scooted you both up the bed so he could get even more situated between your legs. His arm was still holding your hands above your head as you struggled, desperate to touch him as he started to trail his mouth down your body, past your chest, down your stomach, until he finally couldn’t reach anymore and had to let you go

Your hands instantly combed through his hair as he teased your inner thighs with kisses and the faintest of bites

Now, you had heard rumors of JJ’s prowess in bed, but nothing could have prepared you for what you experienced next. A master of all things oral and, apparently, finger-involving, within minutes you were on a whole other planet, the only things on your mind being the skills his tongue possessed and the faintest echoes of his encouragements as his fingers drove themselves into you: “There you go, good girl.” “You’re so gorgeous like this baby” “Cum for me”

When you finally recovered, you opened your eyes to find him above you, on his knees, smiling down at you with the most shit eating grin you’d ever seen “That good, huh?”

You didn’t give him much more time to gloat as you had already pulled him down to you by the back of his neck, capturing him in another searing kiss as your hips met his desperate for any sort of rush like you had just felt. 

You moved down to kiss his neck and you felt him swallow from above you, “Are you sure? Like really sure? I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself if you ended up regretting this in the morning.”

You sighed against his neck and took his face in his hands, making him look you in the eyes one more time, “JJ Maybank. I am laying here, in a post orgasm bliss, begging you to fuck me. So please, take my word for it when I tell you I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”

And suddenly, something in him broke as his hands were all over you once again. He grabbed your thighs, raising them up high on his hips, he grabbed your chest and your ass, the part where your neck met your jaw, all of it. He was a starving man.

It didn’t feel awesome when he first started thrusting, but, quite frankly, he was huge and you were a virgin so, that’s to be expected. But nothing short of two minutes later, after some time for adjustment and encouraging whispers in your ear, you had decided that nothing besides being with him would ever interest you ever again

He kept his hands all over you the whole time, running his fingers up and down your thighs until finally lifting your calves above his shoulders, changing the angle completely as he continued to pound into you

It didn’t hurt though and it wasn’t mean spirited or rough beyond measure, he was kissing anywhere he could reach, whether it be the side of your legs or the fingers he had entertwined with his. He just knew that this was the way he was going to get you to finish, and nothing in the world had ever interested him more

Before long you felt that not in your stomach tighten as his fingers working their magic started to lose their rhythm, right along with the rest of his body. You finished first, his name and “fuck” being the only words left in your vocabulary as you found yourself being thrown off that cliff of desire.

He was still pounding into you, being louder now, letting loose the most extraordinary sounds you had ever heard in your life mingled with the strangled sound of your name and what you could have sworn was “I love you” 

After he finally stopped and wiped some of the sweat of his forehead with the back of his hand, he let your jellified legs fall back to your sides, plopping down on the bed next to you.

You both stared at the ceiling before turning to look at each other, both laughing at nothing, before he pulled you into his arms where he kissed your forehead and your nose and your cheeks and your eyelids and finally your lips as you laughed in a way that would have made you gag if you weren’t drunk and if he wasn’t JJ

“That was amazing,” he said finally, his head resting on top of yours and holding you close. “Same time tomorrow?”

“Yeah I think I can make that work in my schedule…” you trailed off as you turned your head to look up at him, “Except...there is this one thing…”

“Anything m’lady, anything,” he said in his horribly charming british accent

This time, you were the one breaking the eye contact as you rested your cheek back against his chest, his heart jumping out of his rib cage against your ear. “I promised myself a while ago I’d only ever have sex with guys that really, truly loved me...I guess drunk Y/N forgot about that.”

At this, he brought the hand that had been drawing lazy patterns in your side up to your face, his fingers nudging your chin up to look at him, “I don’t think drunk, or sober, Y/N has anything to worry about on that front. I mean, you heard the six years story, right?”

“I want you to say it.”

He bit his lip slightly, trying to keep his face from breaking out into the goofiest grin imaginable, “Y/N, I am hopelessly, completely, disgustingly in love with you.”

A grin rivaling the one staring back at you, you rested your head back into place on your chest and said “That’ll do”

He scoffed and jabbed you in the sides, causing you to let out the laugh you’d been holding in. “Say it back you jerk! You set me up!”

When he had stopped jabbing you and your laughter died down so you could speak again you looked at him and said breathlessly, “JJ Maybank, I am hopelessly, completely, disgustingly in love with you.”

He smiled back at you and pulled you closer, “Yeah that’s what I thought you ungrateful little brat. A confession of young love AND two orgasms later and all I got was ‘That’ll do’...bull fucking shit.”

“Oh quit your whining, I was only joking...I promise I’ll make it up to you”

You heard his heart skip a beat, “When, right now? Now sounds good to me does it sound good to you?”

“Shhhhhh I’m sleeping”

You heard him let out one last chuckle, you felt him place one last kiss on the crown of your head, and finally you were out, feeling happier than ever before. 

Fin.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #outer banks #obx #jj maybank fanfiction #outerbanks fanfiction #jj x reader #rafemaybank wrote this

[peacefulwriter88]

One Man Show

A Gemini Flanagan One Shot 

Nick “Gemini” Flangan x Reader 

Warnings: Angst (fun banter), sexual innuedos, stripping, nothing crazy

Banner made by @peacefulwriter88​

_______________

You didn’t want to be here. 

The townhome that you and your roommate had decided to crash for what you thought was going to be drinks with a few close friends had turned into a full blown house party and it was burning up. You automatically regret wearing the leather clad leggings you had squirmed your ass into, the low and loose v-neck white lace and silk tank top that you had paired with heels. It was hot as hell with all the extra body heat and it causes sweat beads to build up across your arm and roll down into the intimate crevices of your body. 

Your best friend Gen was pushing her way through the crowded room, two red solo cups she had picked up the minute you had both walked in still full and balanced as you both elbowed your way out to the balcony. 

There are less people out here, practically abandoned and it allows you both to drink in the scenery of your small college town. Chris and his roommate lived on the third floor of the townhome complex, which provided a great view of the busy street below them, of the night stars and other shenanigans that happened on a college campus. 

“Geezus I thought Beck was throwing a ‘small, intimate affair’” you breathe out, grabbing your cup of ale and taking a large sip out of it. Gen shakes her head as she takes a large gulp of her beer. 

“You know Beck. He tells one person, who tells another, who tells another ....” 

You roll your eyes. Gen and your childhood best friend Chris Beck had discovered their male and female attraction towards each other and the whole exchange had become them ickily defending the other. 

“Right. Despite his annoying sense of inviting everyone to everything all the got damn time.” 

“You’re just jealous.” Gen teases, taking a sip of her drink and you roll your eyes. 

“Puhlease. Of you and Beck? I’d sooner get blasted into space then be the envy of his affections.” 

Gen starts to say something before she pauses and she turns out towards College Ave, taking one last sip before letting out, “Speaking of affections- you’re little fuck friend spotted you.” 

Your eyes snap out through the glass balcony doors, surveying the group of co-eds who were dancing in the jammed space of the apartment. It doesn’t take long for you to find the lean frame of Nick Flanigan. 

Nick was the kind of guy who felt like an enigma because of his boy next door personality that mingled deeply with a bro like deposition. It couldn’t be helped - not with his genetics. He had a tall frame that was lean and muscular that you knew up close and personal - ocean blue eyes that were kind and playful and paired with dark, sandy hair it was easy to pick him out from the crowded room. 

He was also one of the kindest people you knew. Despite being known for his playboy tendencies (he was hyper focused on his education but was a notorious flirt) he was kind to every girl he hooked up with; the kind of guy who listened to girls cry to him drunkenly at 3 am and gave nothing but comfort & apologies. 

Which is why you didn’t believe Gen or Chris that Nick had a big, fat crush on you that was amplified after hooking up drunk three weeks ago. 

It was also the same reason why you had avoided him during that time.

Except you couldn’t avoid his eyes as they duplicated yours in surveying the room and drinking in the crowd, half bored - half amused. 

When they land on yours he pauses, a small smile forming on his plump lips as he raises his drink and waves. 

You try to fight the urge to wave back but you feel your stupid fucking hand lifting, giving a semi similar awkward wave back. 

“You talk to him since you randomly hooked up a few weeks back.” Gen has turned around, taking another large sip of her beer and smirking as she watches the exchange and you shake your head as you turn away, moving to the balcony rails and looking out into the distance. It was a warm spring night, the kind where young college shenanigans brewed deep in the night. 

“Nooooooppppppeee.” you pop the p, loud and clear and Gen giggles into her cup as she murmurs, 

“Well pony up because your dude is coming our way.” 

You snap your head around, drinking in the way Nick awkwardly dances through the crowd with two large solo cups in hand. Chris, his roommate and good friend notices the shift in Nick’s deposition as he tries to quickly cross the room and he smiles to himself, shaking his head.  

To be a prisoner to love was to be a prisoner to self. 

He had been stuck hearing his roommate bitch and moan about you for three weeks - how could one guy who had literally been voted the hottest guy on campus who had every girl falling at his feet be such a pussy willow when it came to one of his closest childhood friends? 

He’d never know and he blamed it all on the imputable equation that was the heart. 

Nick makes its there in expert time, a smug smile on his face as he crosses the threshold, slightly out of breath, 

“Hey Y/N. When did you get here?” 

You shrug, tipping back the rest of your drink and shrugging, 

“Just a few minutes ago.” 

“Ah. Glad you could make it…..and sorry it's turned into this huge thing. Chris really wanted it to be small but you know how it goes when your the party guy on campus - one person finds out and it all goes up in flames.” he hands over the extra red solo cup to you and you take it graciously, surprised to find that instead of the cheap ale that you had just been sipping on its filled with Corona. 

“It's from my special stash.” he winks at you and Gen punches his arm, shaking her head, 

“What am I - chopped liver? Hello Nicholas.”

Nick rolls his eyes but still smiles down at Gen as he leans over and gives her a quick squeeze, eyes flitting back to you, 

“Hey Gen. How are you?” 

“Great. Wish you’d bought me a beer like you did my roomie.” 

You roll your eyes, Gen was always fishing for attention if it wasn’t given to her and you lift the red solo cup, 

“Thanks for this. Might’ve ditched if I would've been forced to drink more keystone.” 

“You are such a debbie downer.” 

You all shift your eyes to the door that Chris is leaning and smiling ruefully against. 

“You invite the whole damn campus Beck?” Gen walks toward him, not ashamed to place a kiss on his lips. Despite knowing their attraction to each other you still couldn’t move past it…...you still didn’t understand how one idiot could handle being with another idiot. 

Love - the quadratic equation that had no founding answer. 

“Nooooooo I invited twenty people and they invited people  who invited people.  I can’t help it that I’m popular.” 

You roll your eyes as you lean on the balcony and Chris moves past Gen, bringing out the blunt that he had been working on inside and lifting it, the same rue smile on his lips,  

“Want to share?” 

“Gawd Beck really? Already?” Nick chuckles lowly, shifting next to you. 

Nick wasn’t necessarily against puffing up, but when he was trying to impress the girl he had a crush on getting high and making a fool of himself was at the bottom of his list. 

“C’mon don’t be a downer.” Chris says, pulling out a lighter and moving towards where you stand, Gen hot on his heels. 

“We would love to get high Beck. You always have the best weed.” Gen is eager, falls easily into his side as he wraps an arm around her hips, dragging her closer as he takes a deep drag of the joint. He releases it in the air, falling easily into Gen’s side.

“Agreed. It's been a helluva week.” you snatch the weed from Chris hands, taking a deep puff and allowing the smoke to fill your lungs. 

“How come?” you had forgotten about Nick, about how close he had been standing next to you as he laces his hand through yours as he takes the joint from your fingers. 

“Lots of fucking quizzes and fucking biochemistry.” you mutter and Chris laughs, his eyes averting to the loud yelling coming from inside. 

“Aww shit, someone found the beer pong table.” He mutters and Gens eyes light up. 

“Oooo, lets gooo.” Gen pulls away from Chris, attention already averted and Chris sighs because he already foresees the night he is going to have. 

“Guess we’re going in. You kids care to join?” 

You roll your eyes - Chris could be so fucking annoying sometimes - and you shake your head as you flicker your eyes over at Nick. 

“No, that's a hard pass for me.” 

Chris looks over at Nick, already knowing the answer. 

“Yeah - me too.” 

“All right…” Chris says, shutting the balcony doors and leaving the two of you alone. 

You both drink in the silence of the night; of cars driving by and the other patrons on the street laughing as they allow the semi early night to set in for themselves. It was darker out here, minus the small balcony light and it made you feel safe standing alongside nick. 

“.....you wanna get away from all of this?” 

The thought comes from Nick as he leans on the rail like you had earlier, his eyes focused ahead. You watch him thoughtfully, how his trained eyes glimmer a dark indigo in this light, half hooded from the cannabis and you bite your lip, looking back at the party. 

The only real reason you had come was for him - he was sure to know that as much as you did even though parts of you kept denying it and you nod as you take one last drag of the joint. 

Chris Beck could be annoying as fuck but he did roll the best joints. 

“Yeah,” you huff out into the cool spring air. “Yeah I do.” 

_____________________

The escape comes in the form of Nick’s room. You hadn’t ever been inside the four walls - he had hooked up at your place and done the walk of shame the next morning so you’re both equal parts intrigued and anxious to be caged in a room with him. 

Nick locks the door behind him - he had really hoped that he could get you to go somewhere else alone but he also knew that it was a miracle you had showed up at the party in the first place. You had done an effective three weeks of avoiding him - he had to give you that - and he wanted to bank on any time he could get with you one on one. 

He watches as you walk around the room, drinking in the space. The walls were framed with professional photos of space engines and ships - you knew he wanted to become an engineer for NASA but you didn’t take him seriously, not with his jock like demeanor - a poster of a British theatrical production of Othello, another one of Apollo 13. 

He has pictures of his family - there is one in particular with him and what looks like another brother and sister all smiling goofily into the camera from Disneyworld that makes you smile to yourself. There are more pictures of him with family, friends and you smile as you turn to him as he looks at you from the safety of his bed. 

“You’re room…..isn’t what I was expecting.” 

“What were you expecting? He asks and you shrug as you turn back at his desk, neat and organized - a tall bookshelf full of both school books and those of pleasure. You capture a few fantasy books and make a mental note to ask him about that as you answer, 

“I don't know. Pictures of hot girls and a bong and just a big mess I guess.” 

You move over toward his stereo - correction record player and start shifting through his vinyl. Yeah - definitely not what you were expecting. Between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and 2Pac albums he also had Phantogram and Lana del Rey and a fresh vinyl of Ginune’s Pony was currently in the player.

Did you ever know who Nick was? 

“I hate messes. Makes me anxious.” he says, moving off his bed to open a window. He still has the joint, finds a lighter off his desk and lights it - takes a deep drag. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous - perhaps because he wanted more than just a one night stand. Perhaps because he couldn’t get you out of his head for weeks - wanted to get to know more of you - and he didn't know what to make of that. 

Nick was known for not settling. 

With you, though, he felt butterflies. 

“Oh. my. God.” your voice is low and incredulous - its sexy - and he turns around in time to see you pulling out the 4x6 he had sworn to himself was hidden under piles of books. 

Instead, a nice thick stack was staring at him. On the card was him, in boxers dragged real low, an exposed torso as he looks seductively into the camera lens. At the bottom of the card read “Gemini Flanigan”. 

You pick up the card, eyebrows raised as you ask, 

“Gemini Flanigan?” 

Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck - this was the last thing he wanted to explain tonight. But here he was in a pickle because he couldn’t deny that it was him - couldn’t deny that it was his eyes staring back at him and he shakes his head. 

What does one say when the girl they like finds their deepest secret - that only their roommate knew about. 

“Geminin Flanigan to join our Magic Hour lineup, exclusively this Saturday ……” your voice fades as you clear your throat. He knows what you’re going to ask next so he blurts it out, 

“I’m a male dancer. It's my job….you know…..helps pay for things.” 

“You’re a male dancer?” you repeat and he nods, grabbing the cards - and stacks - and ditching them into a drawer in his desk. 

“Yeah. I…...well like I dance for ladies. Usually old cougars who tip well on the weekends. It's a good gig - I make good money and it helps to pay off my tuition, other bills. Helps my parents out you know - they couldn't afford to send me to college. I have three other siblings…..” he’s rambling, he knows, but he can’t help it - he’s so fucking embarassed. 

How, how did he mistake where those fucking cards were. 

He’s so distracted he misses the way that you walk up to him, placing a tender hand on his lips as you whisper, 

“Hey, it's okay. I get it. We all are trying to make it.” 

He looks down at you, looks down at the way your hand has softly rested on his left pectoral, the other still lightly pressing on his lips and you clear your throat, pull away as you walk toward the bed. You bite your lip, dip your head to the side as you whisper, 

“But I require a small fee if you expect me not to share your dirty little secret.” 

Nick takes a deep breath swallowing as he watches you cross your legs, right eyebrow raised in expectancy. 

Somehow he knew this small fee would be nothing but. 

______________________

You don’t know how you get yourself into these messes. You don’t even understand why you boldly whispered out the words but they had slipped out

‘I won’t tell your dirty little secret if you give me a show. Tell me - what does Geminin Flanigan have in store for his 40 year old ladies.’

 Perhaps it was because you didn’t know when to shut up. Or perhaps the universe hated you. 

Yeah that was it. The universe was getting back to you. 

You didn’t care. In fact, you were grateful for the universe. And for Chris Beck. Stupid Chris Beck has finally come through to make up for all of the bullshit he’s put you through.

Nick “Gemini” Flanagan, your best friends roommate and the keeper of your heart had two pairs of jean clad thighs on each side of your body, his six packed torso disguised by a wife beater he had right in your face as his hands planted themselves on each side of your body. 

You try to focus on your senses - on the way the smell of his cologne tickled your nostrils - ignited with the crisp smell of bergamot and musk, basil and something clean that caused your skin to outbreak in goosebumps. 

He’s watching you with the same intense look he had weeks ago - ocean blue eyes blown now to a dangerous shade of indigo just on the precipice of black in the small light as his legs widen, his hands gripping your sides. He slides lower until his face is between your legs and he widens them, causing you to gasp suddenly before he takes a large sniff before pulling away from you. 

He’s moving faster now, controlled and rhythmic and you’re bought into the spell - when did Nick know how to dance? - before he’s doing an acrobatic black flip in the tight space perfectly falling on top of your crotch, causing your laughter to mingle with the sounds of R&B from the 90’s vinyl record he had put on, a sharp contrast to the house music that was playing right outside your door. 

He grinds into your center, you try not to focus on how his erection bites into - the taut muscles of his ass that was dancing before your eyes before he moves up onto your lap with a final two grinds. 

He kicks off you easily, turning and giving you dark, sultry eyes as he takes off the remains of his shirt, throwing it over his head walking to you slowly. 

Sleuthly. 

Panther like. 

Before you can blink he’s grabbed your hips and you fall forward as he falls backwards perfectly, your hips falling perfectly on top of his manhood and he grinds hard into you before he's rolling you onto your stomach, his hands coming around your neck as he moves his hips rhythmically into your ass and you can’t help the groan that escapes on a particular thrust. 

He smacks your ass as he pulls you back - at this point you’ve just embraced the knowledge that you are going to be a ragdoll in this man’s arms. 

Never too old to experience firsts. 

He's pulled you both into his lap where he takes slow thrusts, his hands finding your breast and kneading them slowly, causing your head to fall back onto his shoulder, an unabashed groan escaping as his hips continue to slowly thrust into your back side. Your leather clad legs are soaked, the silk white shirt sweated through at this point as his lips find your pulse point and whisper, 

“That's premium material I just gave you…..how do you expect to pay me back?” 

Nick Flanagan - the guy who was built like a Hollywood model being dominate was not what you were used to. You were used to shy, humble Nick who could barely look in your eye despite his playboy reputation, a small blush always hitting his cheeks and you moan as you grind into him, turning your head. 

“I can think of some ways.” 

_________

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[hearteyes-for-killmonger]

Part 17: Interruption

Ahead, there's the tall engraved wall standing alone with the words Reunion Tower as big as your head. The words are also large on the building which has metallic accents, glass windows, glass walls, and glass doors. It's somewhat reminiscent of Erik's hidden house back in Cali now that you think of it.. if it were dropped in the middle of the city and a tower were placed on top. Take away the fields of green grass and the towering trees. Maybe that's why you seemed so much more excited than he did. He was aready used to it.

Inside, the lights pop even brighter than before. There's the fat, round silver-colored column with diamond cutouts and it glows neon blue on one side, purple on another, and orange on the other. The pink neon light flowing from the ceiling bleeds into the purple lights while the adjacent white ceiling lights bleed into the blue. On top of that, there's lime green to your right. It's a panorama of color.

"Look at you, easily impressed. Smile big my nigga." When you turn, he's got his phone in the air. Again. "Stand by that column over there. That light on your skin finna look cool as shit... Aight tilt your chin down and turn three centimeters to the left. That's four, come back one. Perfect."

"Stupid. Let me see." Looking over his shoulder, you watch as he flips through the photos. "Send me the ones from before too, I wanna send them to Ava and Toni. They said show them how the dresses look."

"Sending them now."

Group by group the pictures arrive in your text thread and you save them making a note to self to send them when you reach the hotel. You'd do it now, but you're ready to go. Now that you got the photos from him, you can send them whenever you want. For now, it's time to go eat because the last thing you ate was a snack and before that you'd only eaten once. Erik's inner fatboy has reared his head a couple times since then.. though in this moment, he's calm.

"Feed me Seymour," you yell beating him to it. You pull on the arms of his slim fitting navy pinstripe suit. He's dressed smartly with his black shirt, silver jewelry, and black oxfords. Of course he had to be like you with the black to match, you hadn't missed the gesture either time.

"I'm trying." He pulls you in the direction of the hot pink lights and you take your hand back to store the phone away in your clutch before following free from his hold. The elevator this time takes you to a floor with a red, tan, and black theme. There're red flower arrangements conveniently placed and even a red lit fountain with coins at the bottom of the shallow clear water representing the wishes of passersby. Digging in your clutch, you have a few coins from the change you got on the first day in Houston when you'd bought the both of you that food. Tossing the penny, you close your eyes and wish for a raise on your job. You already have a list of upgrades to your apartment you'd make. The showerhead. A new comforter. A security camera perhaps. Maybe another lock for the door.

Erik leads you into Five Sixty, a restaurant by Wolfgang Puck, and you look around briefly at the other people sitting and eating primly at their tables, the clang of silverware mingling with the chatter. A waiter in black and white passes in front of you drawing your attention to the magnificent view through the floor to ceiling glass windows lining the walls ahead. There's the cityscape and bright lights against a dark sky. It's the same view as before but it's even better because everything is amplified against the night.

"Wait, we sitting back here?" You look between Erik and the concealed booth he stands beside in a way that communicates your discontent. You didn't get all dressed up and fine to haul your cookies to this tower and hide in the back! "This is a new dress," you lean forward to whisper with a threat in your tone. You don't care that the waiter is there averting his eyes uncomfortably. "I didn't put this on to not be seen... They gone see me.. THIS.. tonight!" You smooth the thigh-length black lace dress with sheer lace sleeves and lace cutouts in the bodice that's hugging you just right. It's the same dress that made him go gaga and now he wants to deprive others of the vision? Oh no. On your feet are the strappy black heels and you use them to turn around looking for another empty table.

"Ay, come here! You are beautiful, that's true... You fine. Still, this is more private than sitting in the middle of the restaurant. I just wanted us to have some space.. to talk." Right, 'talk'.. that's code for hanky panky. You literally just did that. Aren't you tired? "Thanks," he eyes the waiter slapping his hand and you wonder how much money he slipped into it as the guy walks away. Erik gestures to the booth for you to slide in. It's concealed by a little wall and faces the window while he sits across from you facing the restaurant that's hidden from you. It's like being in a private room. There's even a fresh red floral arrangement on the table along with lit white candles, none of which were on the other tables. This.. This was thought out ahead of time. When did he call?

"I.. guess.. it's not.. so bad," you shrug watching the subtle tension in his shoulders drop. He's relieved and you can tell by the ghost of a smirk on his lips.. light dancing in his eyes. "Plus these flowers are beautiful," you add watching him tilt his face away modestly. Watching him shift his attention to the menu, you do the same.

"Get what you want. Whatever you don't eat, just take it out."

"I know the drill." He doesn't have to tell you, you already know the routine at this point. He won't be happy until you spend a couple hundred. He's got so much money it's burning a hole in his pocket. You could think of better ways to spend it.

Still. Being pampered is not a bad thing every once in a while. It's not like you get this type of sugar daddy treatment often.

"What are we having," the waiter asks on his return looking to Erik and then you. He reveals a bottle of wine with Gaja Ca Marcanda written on the label, pouring two glasses.

"Thank God it's not Hennessy," you think aloud watching Erik's brows knit in humor.

"I should've got you some Hennessy. That's right.... Y'all niggas got Hennessy?" The waiter shakes his head and you cringe.

"Erik, stop. Don't nobody like the taste of gasoline but you." You decide to just start pointing to whatever you think is good. "Tamarind glazed baby back ribs, pork belly pot stickers, szechuan Beef Filet Au Poivre, and the tempura shrimp and crab roll."

"I'll take the roasted free range half chicken and pot stickers sound good. I'll take those too." Erik hands over his menu and you glare at him as you fork your menu over but he's not looking. He would order less than you. Doesn't matter anyway.. you'll still crush that food when it comes. "You up for another round of tame that anxiety? If so, I have something I want you to do."

"Boy I'm drinking my wine, I'm not messing with you." You take a sip and set your glass back down ignoring him as he leans forward trying to catch your eye. "Mm-mm, nope.... Move," you swipe deterring his hand from trying to touch yours. None of that smooth shit.

"I'm right here what's gone happen? Besides, you know I know how to calm you down."

Heads Will Roll plays loudly over the theme park speakers as you speedwalk away hoping no one will recognize you or point you out to their friends and family as the running joke while you search for a ride that's BBW friendly and NOT the Skycoaster.

"Erik, move... Come on stop," you push at him when he stands in your way like it's a joke.

"Why you running? Ain't like you getting shot at. Ain't no one after you, look." He kisses his teeth as you pass him. "You so embarrassed.. You won't see any of these people again."

"Yeah well anxiety doesn't necessarily run on common sense." You grab your flip flops from his hand and slip them on. He'd had you walking around barefoot like a Flinstone because he'd been too slow to catch up. He didn't get it.

"Obviously.... Come this way," he nods walking left. He turns walking backwards as you peek around him to see the bathrooms in that direction. That's an idea you can get behind, a quick bathroom break to escape the faces of the crowd until you could return to rational thinking. Too bad it smells like eight tons of gorilla ass.

"This is the women's restroom," you freeze, blocking Erik's path inside. Man it stinks. You can't stay in there. His face twists getting a whiff and he backs off quickly holding the back of his hand to his nose, pulling you with him. So much for escaping into the bathroom. Suddenly he pulls you into a cut and you speedily look around for anyone who could be seeing the two of you. It doesn't seem that anyone's paying attention. You could've sworn someone would've been looking. There's a small space behind the bathrooms just wide enough for one and a half of one of you to fit through at a time. You're pushed in first and Erik towers behind you. It seems private like no one would or should be back here, a theme park blind spot. Suddenly you have the urge to bring this to the park owners' attention. They need security cameras too.

"I feel like someone's gotten molested back here.. or something dark and unsavory," you whisper.

"Anyway." His thick arm snakes around your waist while the other cradles your head against his solid chest, his fingers massaging your scalp through your afro. Clinging to his body, you let your shoulders drop. "Relax and when I say breathe I want you to inhale deeply through your nose for a count of four then exhale slowly through through your mouth for a count of five. The goal is to breathe deeply to your abdomen. Okay?

Now breathe.

In, 2, 3, 4... Out, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Again. In, 2, 3, 4... and out, 2, 3, 4, 5.

How do you feel," he whispers and you close your eyes, your ear against his chest listening to his even heartbeat and naturally husky voice.

"I understand anxiety, Y/N... the navy will definitely do it to you. But it's unhealthy stress that takes a toll on your mind and body and that means.. health is relaxing both."

Your eyes pop open looking at the wall beside you when the hand on the back of your head lowers drops moving to your thigh and crawling under your red kimono and up into your panties. He's got a surprise coming. His finger slides slowly along your outer lips slipping between.

"Always wet," he whispers before his thick finger sinks into you and on your sharp intake of air he tells you to breathe.

"In.. 2, 3, 4," he counts as your chest continues to rise. The slick feeling of his finger rotating and pressing inside of you is all you want to focus on. "Out, 2, 3, 4, 5," he directs and you feel a second finger push in, stretching slowly and gently finding its place.

"Did I say moan?" The arm around your waist goes ghost and you feel a firm smack on your butt.

"Did I SAY moan," he repeats, his fingers still working skillfully.

"No," you moan, your voice unexpectedly meek. Another firm smack comes and then another. And another, his low chuckle so subtle it's like you've imagined it.

"You still moaning. And you breathing hard. Did I tell you to do that?" Another smack comes and you're close.

"No, Daddy," you whine. His grip comes on your asscheek tightly.

"Then why I still hear you? We controlling our breathing right now.. Aht," he brushes your hand from his half-mast bulge. You had a theory he wouldn't be so calm and quiet if the tables were flipped. "I remember when you were scared to moan now I can't stop you," he muses.

"I wasn't scared."

"Yeah you were but I made you feel good didn't I? You still came. Breathe in, 2, 3, 4.. Out, 2, nope start over. You still breathing hard."

It's his motions. His thick curled fingers plus the addition of his thumb rubbing your clit is making your breathing ragged.

"Control it this time. In, 2, 3, 4.. Out.."

You gasp. The feeling is building in your stomach and you keep inhaling in the middle of the exhale.

"I'm coming," you whisper seconds away from erupting on his fingers.

"Not if you don't breathe. Do it right and you can cum."

You whine quietly unsure if you can control it.

"You can do it, angel. Breath deeply in, 2, 3, 4. Steady through your mouth, 2, 3, 4. Good girl, cum on my fingers. Go 'head cum."

You already have and for a second you get chills, trembling, but it subsides. He releases you and your dress falls back down as you look up at him, relaxed.

"You ready to go back out?"

Erik smirks across the table having successfully triggered your memory and you send him a glare that this time he can clearly see.

"Aight so what you gotta do is go to the middle of the floor next to that table with the bl--"

Bl--? Blonde? Blowfish? Black? What is he staring at? You start to look back too but he grabs your hand shaking his head in a way that shushes you and brings more questions.

"Get down," he mouths soundlessly scooting closer to the wall and lowering his head and then you hear it. A loud bang followed by a scream, the slam of dishes, and the scoot of chairs. Frantically, you search Erik's face for clues of what's happening and his dark eyes are trained on the scene behind you as he holds his head in a particular way so not to be seen. He points to you and the table and you don't waste time getting under it. There's only enough room for one person, but now you're at an angle to see him pull a small gun from inside of his blazer. There was a pocket for it in the lining. You see him cock the gun and then it rests in his hand in wait, pointed away from you. How did he get that through airport security though?! What the hell is going on? It doesn't make sense and a thousand thoughts rush you at once.

The screaming continues but you only counted three shots through all of the chaos and noise as people scurry to escape and evacuate.

Should the two of you be running? Aren't you sitting ducks? How did Erik even bring that gun? Or did he pick it up when he got to Houston? Was that why he left you at the hotel alone? Why did he think he'd it? Does he always have a gun just on him for no reason? Was he anticipating something like this? Is he just paranoid and then something actually happened to cement the paranoia like with you in college? Should you be concerned? Who the hell is shooting in a restaurant?! Guess it wouldn't be Texas without guns. Will you really be safe here? Will Erik? It feels like forever under the table as you're cramped and folded and you have severe goosebumps, your heart pumping fast, every sound an alert. You're suddenly reminded of your phone and you pray no one calls it. The crowd seems to be gone but there's still noise. Small sounds. Shuffling, footsteps, low grunts, and zips. It's only after you don't hear anything for about five seconds that you notice Erik's foot move.

Instantly, you grab it bending your head and putting a crook in your neck to look up at him through the gap between him and the table. You shake your head when you catch his eye.

"Don't you dare," you mouth. You can feel he's about to dash off to play hero and get himself killed so you hold his leg more tightly. Just because he has military experience doesn't make it his job to confront a shooter. You refuse to let him go even when he mouths the words 'let go'. With a grip on his leg, you listen as the low sounds of footsteps retreating finally stop. Erik who has the visual doesn't look away from where his eyes have been fixed until almost a minute has passed. This time when he moves, you let him go and he walks away toward the main dining area, looking around you assume before bursting into the kitchen. "They gone," he says. You have to strain to hear but then there're two more voices. When you peak out, there's Erik with two employees who look nervous. You grab your clutch and climb from under the table on your way to stand behind Erik.

"Are you guys okay," the southern woman asks looking around as if the shooters might return. The guy with her seems too shaken to speak outside of echoing the woman here and there. "I-I called the police they should be here any minute if you all wanna wait. There's coffee back here.. tea.." She looks past Erik to the floor and when you look and see the blood smeared there, you both look away from it simultaneously. "I just don't understand," she sighs looking genuinely perplexed. "Why bring that street beef or whatever it is in here? There are families that come here." She looks disgusted and Erik looks like he's really trying to get out of here.

"We're gonna take off. We were just hiding out waiting for the shooters to leave. Safe to say the night's been ruined," Erik replies grabbing your hand and guiding you to the door. The two of you decide to take the steps, that way you have more control in case anything happens. Luckily, you don't run into anyone. "Order the car to take us back to the hotel," he says before you leave the staircase. "Let's be safe and wait here just in case."

As the uber pulls off, you see the police rolling up but you guys are already on the road.

"You aight," he asks looking to you and when you think about it, you're safe and nothing happened to you thankfully. However... he made you worry! What was going through his mind to want to confront murderers?

"Erik, what were you thinking? You were really gonna play hero? Do you realize if I hadn't stopped you from jumping out there, you could be dead? Have you even considered what that would do to me?"

"I know I must've scared you. I'm sorry for that. You absolutely right, you saved me from making a big mistake tonight and I appreciate you for that."

---

He'd seen the entire scene play out from beginning to end and was gauging the ideal time to step in and shoot the colonizing muhfukas who'd ruined the goddamn evening. He knew this hadn't been a regular shooting. Nah, this was a hit and going by the appearance of the body they'd taken.. young black man, short locs, muscular build.. He had a feeling they'd taken out the wrong guy. It was only a matter of time before they realized and he had to act before then. If only he could've followed them, he'd be lit but he couldn't abandon Y/N.

Still, she was right. If she hadn't stopped him from stepping out, he'd have killed both colonizers and there would've been three bodies. She'd have then viewed him as a killer and outside of being scarred for life, she'd have left his lying ass forever and rightfully so. If she hadn't been there at all, he'd of popped the two employees as well leaving five bodies since they'd of seen him shoot the other two. Her presence was saving lives and ain't nobody know it.

Now that he had the element of surprise and a lead, it was the perfect time to strike but he couldn't fuck it up this time. Again, his pride was on the line and now that Y/N had almost gotten involved in the bullshit, it was definitely time to get her outta there asap.

"Whoever on security tonight, they ass definitely getting fired," he deadpanned in an attempt to lighten the mood. She wasn't having it.

"Don't ever scare me like that again. You're not the police and you're not the terminator," she stated so firmly he knew not to fuck with it. He just nodded.

"You absolutely right." The rest of the ride to the hotel was relatively quiet with her laying on his chest, his fingers in her hair, massaging her scalp to calm her down. Walking through the lobby to the elevator was just as quiet until he broke the silence with a thought that'd been running though his mind since she'd scolded him. "You'd think you'd be the one to lose your composure, but it was me," he mused. "I ain't see that coming."

"I think I'm rubbing off on you," she chuckled wryly. He wanted to combat that thought, but when he really thought about it... she was. Ever since he'd gotten involved with her, he'd been crazier than usual, more prone to rookie mistakes, more emotion-driven instead of logic-driven. He barely recognized himself. This wasn't something that should happen at this juncture of his career or mission. He was fuckin up and if he continued to fuck up he wouldn't be the only one paying the price.

When they arrived in the room, he asked her to head back downstairs and buy them both food handing her a one hundred dollar bill and packing her bags in her absence. He figured take-out would be a bit of a wait time since it was dinner hours and he was right. By the time she got back, her return flight time had been changed and her bags were against the wall near the closet. She sat the plastic bag of plastic containers on the table and unpacked the items, dividing them up by which item belonged to who. She'd even brought bottled drinks. Pulling the utensils from the bag, she placed them on top of a container that held a bigass steak. He took it gently from her hand setting it on the bed next to him.

"I just got what I thought you might want," she shrugged unwrapping a straw to put in one of the drinks, handing it to him. That was when she happened to look left and see her bags packed on the wall. He stared at the bags, looking for his and not finding it before looking back to him, realization dawning on her. "We're going back tomorrow?" She was trying to keep the emotion from her voice but it had already flashed in her eyes.

"You're going back tomorrow," he clarified knowing full well she got it the first time. "But I'll follow you in a few days or so don't worry." Instant relief in her eyes, but then they got suspicious and he had to brace himself to dodge any verbal traps she'd try to set.

"I thought you were done with the responsibilities you came here for with your job. What did they even want you to do? You've been with me almost the whole time."

"It's been two days... I didn't have to report anywhere today so I dedicated it to us, but there are a couple of events I want to attend before I leave and it would be a waste if I didn't. You, however, have no more reason to be here and it seems to be getting dangerous in these streets. I want you back home for now."

"Dangerous? That was one coincident that had nothing to do with us. It's just as dangerous in Cali."

Somehow I doubt that.

"Naaah... Baby, I'd feel much better if you weren't in Houston after what I saw today. That's final. Flight's changed to 2 AM so after you eat you got a few hours to sleep and change.. bags are already packed. Go straight to my place when you get back and just wait for me. Use the car, pool, I don't give a fuck, but don't go to your apartment. I still need to check it out before you do."

"Okay, I know I'm paranoid... But you are PARANOID. Seriously? You're not coming?" She wasn't satisfied. She wanted her way, but he couldn't give it to her. "If Houston is as dangerous as you say it is then your well being is more important than some little event wouldn't you say so? So change your ticket too or we both staying here because I'm calling bullshit! What else is here? You already told me about your subs, what you got to hide?! What could possibly be keeping you here that you don't want me to see?! It gotta be wild since I've already seen you FUCK ANOTHER GIRL. WHAT IS IT ERIK?! WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?"

He stared at her like she'd lost her damn mind and he was trying to figure out when she'd find it. She stared back before returning to the food on the table. When she turned back, she was calm.

"My bad. I just don't get why I gotta go," she shrugged. He blinked a few times at her quick change in demeanor and she sighed heavily.

"It's okay... You've been through a lot of emotions today..."

"Yeah but I shouldn't blow up on you. That's a YOU move. It's not like it's your fault, you just want me to be safe... I get it. I just think you should worry about yourself too."

"...I feel you," he nodded. He had to borrow a page from handling Shay and Jaliyah. "And I appreciate your concern, but Y/N you getting ya ass on that plane and that's an order."

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered grabbing her container and plasticware. She sat in the chair at the table to eat and he stood to plant a kiss on her cheek before returning to the bed. He opened his own container and used the tall plastic straw sticking from the bottled lemonade to take a drink. She was too sweet for him to keep being so damn selfish. She definitely had to go.. for now.

---

A night flight alone to Cali. All there is to do, is sleep on the plane.

Erik had carried your things to the point where the two of you had to split, then he'd handed them over to you and nodded you on. It was all very quick and you were sleepy having gotten to the airport early just in case.

The sight through the window is black and there are lights on the ground but you don't really feel like looking, you're ready to close your eyes.

The little vacation with Erik was fun and so was seeing a completely different side of him, but now it was time to get back home. Well, his home...

Wait, he'd said. For the time being, you'll have to. The question to you now however, is for who? Who knows which Erik he'll be by the time he gets back. You can never tell with him. It's because he has more moods than a mood ring. More faces than Mr. Potato Head. For all you know, he could come back with a whole other woman expecting you to be cool with it. You just don't know what you'll get with him. Wait..

"Damn." You forgot to send the pictures of you and Erik to Ava and Toni. You didn't even get to see them again before you left. Kissing your teeth, you sigh and close your eyes again. You'll do it when you get to Erik's. Suddenly your eyes pop open and a smile spreads across your lips. You have his giant beautiful home all to yourself. You can use his things, smoke his weed, jump on his bed, wear his clothes, spray his cologne, eat his food, and explore as much as you want and he can't say a thing... Yes!

This might actually be the true vacation.

@muse-of-mbaku @imaginewhoever @goddessofthundathighs @panthergoddessbast @thadelightfulone @misspooh @marvelmaree @youreadthatright @forbeautyandlife @theunsweetenedtruth @bidibidibombaclaat @myboyfriendgiriboy @dameshaemonique @blackpantherimagine   @vikkidc @hidden-treasures21 @mysidefanting @hold-me-like-a-heart-beat @syndrlla97 @winteroflife @thotyana-in-this-hoe   @texasbama @gingerylimonte @princessstevens   @magic-madness-heavensin @wawakanda-btch @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @wakanda-inspired @blackgirloneshots @thegucciwaffle @thiccdaddy-mbaku @drsunshine97 @purplehairgawdess @trevantesbrat @indigoxsummers @cccccx1   @dynastylnoire @iamrheaspeaks @blowmymbackout @fonville-designs @they-call-me-le @theblulife @raysunshine78 @sheisexcellent @blackpinup22

#will add tag list #house rules #original #erik killmonger #erik stevens #killmonger #erik killmonger fanfiction #erik stevens au #erik killmonger imagine #erik killmonger x reader #erik x reader #erik killmonger smut #erik stevens x reader #erik stevens x you #killmonger smut #killmonger fanfiction

[noonmutter]

Final Acts

(( Fair warning: This got really long at about 3600 words. ))

Deliverance Point was abuzz, more so than it had been in a while. Everyone was feeling that mix of excitement and bone-chilling terror that preceded a major change on the battlefield. The Tomb would crack open any day now, and everyone was ready, and no one was ready. Most of the time, this problem was addressed by drinking, going to a brothel, gambling, and in some cases, deserting.

He’d gone with option three, and had come out actually profiting a little bit, but it didn’t really help all that much. Of course he’d cheated, but so had everyone else at the makeshift table; winning wasn’t the point, the actual game was whether you could keep the other guys from guessing your trick. Fair games were dull and people who took offense at basic loaded dice rarely had enough money to be worth the hassle anyway.

Option one came afterward, once he had the coin for it. His tolerance was far too high for going to bars unless he was willing to go broke until next pay day, especially bars catering to soldiers. He needed a lot of drink to get a buzz, but at least the mixed nature of the forces on the Shore made price gouging dangerous territory. You could get away with that sometimes, but not when a too-sober Tauren paladin was standing in front of you with six friends and a mug half full of water.

Option two... he wanted option two very much. He was lonesome, and there was an abundance of company to be found on the floating city, one short flight away. But he was spoken for, and he wasn’t a dishonorable man where it mattered. Even if he’d been willing to entertain the idea for more than a few minutes, he knew Shedwyn would be crushed. And then castrate him. And then Leon would probably show up and kick his head in...

Terry didn’t respect the deserters, but he understood them.

His reverie was broken by a poke in the side, and it took him a moment before he thought to look down. The goblin courier scoffed at him, then held up a clipboard and a package of simple brown paper and twine. “Sign here, mac.”

“Sign?” Terry couldn’t recall the last time he’d had to sign for mail.

“Yeah, sign. Y’know, pen to paper, scribble somethin’? Usually yer name. I ain’t picky, whatever’s fastest.”

Already tired of listening, Terry took the clipboard and scrawled something that might have been his name, but had even odds of being a bunch of swear words. To judge by the goblin’s expression, he interpreted it as the latter. He hung around a few seconds, looking expectant, but Terry had already started walking away. With an irritated sigh of “Cheap friggin’ Gilneans,” he took his leave.

Rather than returning to the hustle and noise of the Point proper, Terry walked out past the edges of the More-or-Less-Safe Zone. His personal campsite wasn’t too far from the point, but far enough that he could avoid most of his night terrors. Some of the dreams were stubborn and came to him regardless, but he chalked that up to general fatigue.

Sitting down in front of his tent with a soft grunt, he took a proper look at the package and clucked his tongue in disapproval when he found the address was printed, rather than handwritten. The sender’s address wasn’t one he recognized, and he hated not knowing where things came from. It didn’t stop him from opening the thing, but it made him somewhat wary. Turning it over to find the knot in the twine, his nerves settled when he found a letter held flush against the box, addressed “Terry - Read First” in Vember’s tidy hand. He didn’t recognize the wax seal holding the envelope shut, though.

Dutifully, he set the box down without unwrapping it and broke the seal on the letter. Although some of the phrasing sounded like Vember, the handwriting was not hers. It was even cleaner, almost like a printed script, and clearly painstakingly pored over to minimize spatter from the quill and avoid mistakes. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the writer had been using a ruler.

“Terry,

I hope this letter finds you at an opportune time. If you are not already, I would suggest that you be seated and, knowing you, alone. Following the events of our initial raid on the lab in Gilneas, a large number of notes and materials were recovered and sent to the Kirin Tor for further study. Among them were a series of objects revealed to be data storage devices, the functionality of which is best left unwritten.

The Kirin Tor were recently able to translate the information on these devices to a less primitive medium, and upon review, deemed it nonviable for research purposes and returned it to us. 

Enclosed, you will find a Draenic crystal recording device, in which one sequence has already been stored. Upon realizing what it was, Vember and I determined its fate would be best left to you to decide. Please be assured that we did not play the recording in its entirety, out of decency and respect.

You are free to keep this device and the data on it, and I have included instructions on how to operate it. It is also possible to delete the data, or to record over it if you deem it necessary.

Respectfully, Lady Neun Shadhemir Vember Marlon Shedwyn Mair Lias” Just below that, in Vember’s own handwriting, was a single line:

“You have my word that I will not breathe a word of this to your brother. But you should. - V”

His hands were trembling once he’d gotten through the second paragraph. By the time he’d finished reading it, he nearly lost the slip that explained how the device worked in his rush to open the box.

The device itself was...underwhelming, a pleasant but bland quartzlike rectangle about eight inches across with a faint bluish sheen to it. Arcane energy arced between it and his fingertips for a moment before settling to an almost imperceptible warmth in his hands. It took him a few minutes to figure out he was holding it upside down, but once that was sorted, getting it working was a matter of seconds.

On activation, the device glowed bright blue, and most of the flat surface shimmered before turning a deep, pure black. The display was wobbly and unclear at the beginning, but clarified after a few seconds, until he was able to discern a set of hands--his hands--opening a door...

“Wha’ d’you mean you shot ‘im?!”

“Only in th’ leg, mate!”

“WHY DID YOU SHOOT ‘IM?!”

Diggs’ face was white as the hunter, barely out of his teens, pushed back his antlered hood and rubbed frantically at his scarred mouth. “I-I-it were a--there was a bloody--’e was a madbeast, Terry! Y’din’t say nuffin’ bout ‘im bein’ one o’ those!”

[Eyes wide, Terry mumbled “Oh god” to himself, but did not stop watching.]

Terry swore for the hundredth time in the last minute and a half, picking up his own rifle and moving his rucksack next to the doorway. He was glad he was already dressed. “You bloody nit, why were y’even carryin’? Y’were just sposed t’ watch ‘im!”

“Don’t put this on me, bruv! Yer th’one din’t fink t’mention I might be starin’ atta ‘ell’ound!”

The impact of Diggs’ back on the wall was loud, and he let out an undignified yelp when he felt something pop. Terry’s grip on his shoulders was like steel--angry steel--as he got in close and snarled, “Leon could be dead right now, you fuckin’--”

“What th’ bloody ‘ell is goin’ on in ‘ere?!”

Terry’s blood ran cold all over again as dad’s voice rattled both their brains. The man could really boom when he wanted to, and the tiny Duskhaven cabin they’d been given already amplified every footstep. He wasn’t the least bit surprised that Diggs bolted into the night the instant he could, leaving Terry standing alone, rifle in one hand, pack by the door, as his parents came inside. Bettany reached out to stop the fleeing man, but missed by a wide margin when he actually juked around her.

[A weak, mournful laugh. ”You cowardly prick.”]

They’d been away at their own party, but it was the old-folks’ party, so they were dressed a bit nicer. Mum’s hair was still done up the fancy way she liked, and she’d managed to keep her one good dress pristine for another day. Dad’s suit was already trying to split at every seam again, after a dozen trips to a dozen tailors. He already dwarfed his wife, but that suit made it even more obvious just how big he really was.

[Terry wished, as he watched the scene unfold all over again, that the suit didn’t fit because his dad was fat. It would’ve been easier to deal with him if he was fat.]

Graeme set one huge hand on his wife’s shoulder and stepped around her, not letting her get between him and Terry, though she’d already started to try. Bettany knew what was coming and her expression had shifted from confusion to determination almost immediately. The younger Ambroce stared up into his dad’s face [Terry noticed the way the image seemed to pinch at the edges; he’d been trying to look stern, and ended up scowling instead] as he came close enough to make out every stray whisker around the bush of a beard he wore.

I can still do this. It’ll still work. Just please, please, let it work fast.

“We’re leavin’. T’night. I already sent Leon a’ead.” The focus shifted for just a second to Mum’s worried frown, then back to Dad, just in time to catch his mouth twitch at one corner. When Graeme didn’t say anything beyond a low harrumph, Terry continued, voice audibly quivering this time. “I’m takin’ mum with me. It ain’t safe ‘ere.”

“What was tha’ rat bastard friend o’ yours screamin’ about b’fore ‘e ran like ‘e stole somethin’?” 

“I--’e was--sposed t’ be... guidin’ Leon through th’--”

Graeme wasn’t having it, scoffing and beginning to pace back and forth across the narrow hallway while keeping his eyes solidly on Terry’s face. “That slag was Leon’s guide outta town? Th’same dipshit ‘o wanted t’ fight Kormac stone sober an’ couldn’t tell th’ dif’rence between moss ‘n’ poison ivy?”

Rather than trying to defend one of the weakest lies he’d told in his life, Terry bulled ahead, raising his voice to be heard over his dad’s. “We’re already packed in too tight, there’s more people filt’rin’ in ev’ry day, an’ there’s things in th’ woods out ‘ere! We ‘ave t’go b’fore there’s no way t’get gone!”

“I am not leavin’ my ‘ome be’ind just so you kin feel like th’ big man in th’ouse, boyo!”

Again, Terry’s eyes shifted to mum, looking to her for help. She just barely nodded her head to him before stepping forward, reaching for Graeme’s arm. “Love, it’s not safe ‘ere. ‘E’s not wrong about th’woods. You know tha’ better’n anybody ‘ere.” She was trying to force him to look at her, but he wouldn’t stop pacing, and eventually swatted her hand off of him.

Terry growled under his breath, moving closer to the door and holding out his hand. “I’m not doin’ this all over again. I’m--we’re leavin’, with or without you.” He held out his hand toward mum, but her eyes narrowed and then went wide. “Is that blood?”

Terry looked down and saw the dark red smear across his palm. It must’ve gotten on him when he’d shoved Diggs around. Saying nothing right away, he pulled a handkerchief from his shirt and began wiping it clean. 

“Terry, what ‘appened?” Now mum was rushing forward, grabbing for his hand and intent on inspecting him for damage. He managed to dodge her once and once only before she whapped him over the back of the head and took his hand anyway. “It is blood!”

[”Don’t say it!” Cringing in almost physical pain, he knew what was coming.]

“Nothin’ t’worry over, it’s not mine.”

That, of course, was not the right thing to say, causing both of his parents to stop moving and look straight at his face. He knew what he’d done as soon as it’d left his mouth, but there was no taking it back. Bettany didn’t have a chance to say anything else before Graeme had crossed the room to shove Terry back a few feet.

“Whose blood is it then, boy? What’ve you done?”

“Dammit there’s no time fer this shit! Leon’s waitin’ fer--”

[Now, of course, Terry knew why he hadn’t seen it coming; he’d been talking, angry, panicked over his brother bleeding out somewhere in the woods. But it was plain as day on the screen.] As soon as the word ‘Leon’ reached his ears, Graeme’s eyes flicked down to focus on the rifle Terry still held. The stubbly parts of his beard began growing, and his eyes shone yellow for just a second.

Terry was still talking when Graeme picked him up and threw him across the room, and Bettany was shouting at her husband to stop by the time he’d gotten back to his feet. Face already becoming distorted and dark, Graeme paid her no heed. He was a walking cacophony of cracking bones and fleshy squishing as he stalked toward his fallen son, and growling--actually growling, bestial, impossible--from somewhere in the depths of his enormous chest.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

[He nearly dropped the crystal when Graeme lunged forward, a monstrous wall of black hair and yellow teeth. This part, he still remembered very clearly. He remembered thinking he was going to die, and that if he didn’t, he was going to turn into the same thing. He remembered thinking that mum was right there. That Leon was still outside, probably dying.]

The first few seconds were brutal and bloody, as a man pinned by a raging worgen always was. When he raised a hand to shield his face, one of Graeme’s claws went straight through his palm, nearly gouging his eye anyway. At one point, he’d managed to draw a bowie knife, but all that did was give the beast something to chew on and scrape up his muzzle with.

[Terry was confused. This wasn’t right. He’d had his rifle. He’d had his rifle, and they’d grappled over it, and he’d used it to block the worst of the damage--]

BLAM.

Graeme toppled sideways with an unmistakably canine yelp of pain. Terry turned his head to see Bettany holding his smoking rifle in shaking hands, eyes streaming, expression hard. She was clearly holding herself together as tightly as she could, and just as clearly, it wasn’t quite enough. “Graeme. Get up. Please.” When no response came, she cocked the rifle and took a single step forward, half-shrieking, “Give me back my ‘usband, you devil-dog bastard!”

He turned again, stunned, to look back at the thing that had been his father. As he took in the sight of the hulking brute laying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood with a gaping hole blown out of his side, everything shook for a few seconds. There was a distant rumble like thunder, but not quite the same, and the wolf finally stirred. Terry started to sit up, but fell down almost immediately with an agonized gasp. The sound shook Bettany out of her momentary lapse in control and she started toward him, only to stumble and drop the rifle when the world shook again.

This time, there was a shrieking sound, like trying to twist a wet branch until it snapped, amplified by ten million times and only growing louder. [Even muted by the playback from the crystal as it was, the sound was an assault on the ears. Still he watched, transfixed.] 

He could barely see straight for how wildly the world around him shook, but he was able to see the black wolf rise. They both looked up when they heard splintering wood above them, and both saw the hole forming in the roof. Graeme looked at Terry for a moment--barely a quarter of a second--and bellowed something [he could almost make it out over the din] as he ran forward to shove Bettany out of the way. The beam fell scant seconds before the rest of the roof, and then the entire world tumbled into roaring darkness around him.

It suddenly went silent, not even white noise, and stayed that way for a few seconds before the display flickered again. Grey text, numbers, and alchemical symbols began scrolling across a solid blue pane, too numerous and rapid to read. The variations began to dwindle until it was just repeating two words: “ERROR” and “SOURCE.” At the very last moment--the last frame--of the feed, another single line flashed and then disappeared. It took a few attempts to freeze it long enough to read.

“SRCMEMDUMPT101 COMPLETE. EDIT MODE? Y/N”

Terry spent almost an hour rolling the recording back, playing it again, listening as hard as he could, rolling it back, playing it again... It was too damned loud and the controls on the bloody thing weren’t fine enough to isolate the voices from the noise. In spite of himself, Terry had picked up and run all the way back up to the Point, bothering every Draenei he passed in hopes that one of them would know how to manipulate the recorder.

Once he’d nearly gotten his ass kicked for bothering the same guy a third time, he forced himself to go back to his campsite. Nearly willing to admit defeat, he caught a glimpse of his commstone sticking out of his bag.

First step: Call Darlain.

...That was the only step he had, really. He was just kind of banking on her knowing somebody who could do it, or knowing somebody who knew somebody. Thankfully, one step was all he needed; the dwarfmum pointed him to Nirahsa, a name he didn’t recognize until Darlain finally fell back on ‘Draenei woman who says ‘yes yes’ a lot.’ Driven by an almost mad need to know, Terry shelled out for a portal jump to Stormwind, rather than using the mail or, gods forbid, waiting till later. He figured nobody would miss him for a few hours.

Nirahsa didn’t have a lot of reason to want to do him a favor, and he knew that, but he was desperate, sincere, and willing to pay her every coin he had to his name if she’d do it. He assumed it reminded her of Leon (actually, she just also didn’t have a lot of reason not to do him a favor). Whatever the reason, she finally relented and told him to come back in an hour. It was a diversion from her actual work, but she needed to take a break anyway, and easy work like that counted, right?

He still insisted on paying her for the work, especially once she handed him written instructions on how to use the little remote she’d put together for him. Had he been in his standard state of mind, he would’ve asked how much she had watched, but his concern was firmly on finding privacy to pore over the recording again. Terry did have enough sense to make sure he sent a message to Shedwyn, telling her he was back in town and to find him at the barracks.

Once he got there, he settled in to get to work.

[With Nirahsa’s tweaks, he was able to mute the background noise almost completely in a matter of minutes. It was with some trepidation that he pressed ‘play’ once again. He wasn’t quite expecting the voice amplification to work as well as it did; it was picking up things that weren’t even shouted. The sound was distorted from the effects applied to it, but functional.]

Graeme rose and grunted in pain. As the wolf’s head lifted to take in the sight of the building in the beginning stages of collapse, he growled “No” to himself. Then, he looked at Terry, and began to run. 

[Yelling with almost no sound around to muddy it up, his voice made the crystal vibrate noticeably in Terry’s hands, almost startling him enough to drop it.]

“I’m sorry, Terry! I’m sorry! I love you! Find--”

Whatever else Graeme had hoped to say was cut off by another yelp and a scream as a beam almost as big around as he was slammed into his back, and the feed ended shortly after.

Terry didn’t watch it again, dropping the crystal on his cot and staring at nothing. At some point, his eyes began to water, but he didn’t move save to blink and breathe. When it finally progressed to tears, he didn’t make any attempt to wipe his face. In the next hour, he only moved once: to pick up his pillow, bury his face in it, and scream until he couldn’t anymore.

Just after dusk, Terry’s boots made soft squeaking sounds as he walked slowly through the damp grass. He came to a stop at the foot of the lilac-strewn graves, took one breath, read his father’s headstone, and froze. All the preparation he’d made in his head--things he’d rehearsed a dozen times over, words he wanted to say--dropped away in an instant, bringing him to the ground with his head hung so low his chin nearly touched his chest. His hands rested limply in the grass by his knees, and he wept unrestrained.

All he could bring himself to say were three tiny words, tearing themselves free of his painfully tight throat, filling the little clearing with ache and regret inbetween wracking sobs.

“Me too, dad.”

( @darbiebot @nirahsa @shedwyn @vembermarlon @neun-deserrat )

#and so arrives terry #fathers' day #mum #dad #mum and dad #HEY WHO WANTED TO BE SAD TODAY #I SURE DID #tw: blood #I GAVE MYSELF FEELS #AGAIN #my writing

[brentrogers]

Podcast: Panicked Over Finances? Why Money Influences our Mental Health

 

The rent is due tomorrow; but then you’ll be left with only $10 for the week’s groceries. What do you do? Many people panic over money (or the lack of it), but for those of us with mental illness, it can feel like a life or death situation: It can trigger an even greater anxiety attack and/or depression. Or it may mean not being able to afford the medication that keeps you well enough to work. What can be done?

In this Not Crazy episode, Gabe and Jackie discuss how you can gain a sense of control in these situations, and Jackie shares her own big money scare.

(Transcript Available Below)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building. She lives with multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and depression.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Panicked Over Money” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. I would like to introduce my co-host, Jackie Zimmerman, who lives with major depression and anxiety disorders.

Jackie: And you know this guy, Gabe Howard, who lives with bipolar disorder.

Gabe: Jackie, we’ve been friends for a while now, we’ve been doing this show for several months and I decided that I want to risk all of that by talking about the one subject that causes more fights than any other subject known to man.

Jackie: And what would that be?

Gabe: Money. I want to talk about money.

Jackie: Money, money, money.

Gabe: So in a recent poll, the three things that married couples fight about more than anything else are family, religion and money. And I would argue that money is at the top because nobody is taking people like onto the People’s Court or Judge Judy to sue over political and religious differences. Money is everywhere. If you talk to anybody, literally just go grab a stranger on the street. Be like, hey, you ever lost a friend over $10? Almost everybody will have a story of a friendship that just imploded over what we would consider a small amount of money. Money just creates an intense amount of anxiety in our society.

Jackie: And the thing that I think is unique about money and anxiety is that it’s something that I would assume everybody experiences, not just people who are prone to anxiety, not just people who live with mental illness, but everyone has had some kind of issue with money that has given them anxiety.

Gabe: When I was younger, I used to watch golf with my grandfather and, you know, they always do these expose on the multi-millionaire golfers, and they were interviewing one of them and they said, hey, when you have a putt and if you make the putt, you win $100,000 and if you don’t make it, you lose $100,000, does that cause you anxiety? Does that make you nervous? And the guy said, you know, the most nervous I’ve ever been playing golf is when I bet another golfer a hundred dollars that I could make this putt and I didn’t have the hundred dollars in my pocket. That really spoke to me because it wasn’t the amount of money anymore. It was the awkwardness of discussing the money, finding the money, figuring out the money like this is what gave this guy anxiety. And again, he’s famous. I don’t know, maybe it was just a cute story he was telling, but that makes sense to me. You ever been in line and been a dollar short? Like, how embarrassing is that when you thinking that everybody in the store is like over on register five, there’s a tall, fat redhead that does not have one dollar to pay for his groceries.

Jackie: I can feel that because if you’ve ever had your credit card declined for any reason, your debit card and you want to justify it. I know there’s money on there. That’s so weird. I just used it like I just got paid. I swear I’m not a poor person. There’s this like panic where you just want to justify why it didn’t work. And my assumption is all of this comes from the scarcity model, right? We’re all afraid of not having enough. What happens when we don’t have enough? So how hard do we have to work to get enough? What if we’re working really hard and we still don’t have enough? And the anxiety around all of that of how much do you have? What happens when it’s gone? I think is something that is underlying in our society and in everybody but amplified for those who live with any kind of illness. Because for me specifically, when I worked at a big, fat corporate job and I made all kinds of money, all I thought to myself was, I’m staying here forever. So that way I make so much money that I never have to worry about what happens if I actually can’t work again because I will just bank so much money. I’ll have so much. I’ll always pay my health insurance. I’ll always have all of this stuff. And spoiler alert, I don’t work there anymore. I didn’t bank any money when I did work there. But when you have an illness, whatever kind it is, you’re worried about money not just because of normal reasons, but you’re worried about like, what if I can’t work forever? What if I can’t pay my health insurance? What if I can’t afford to be healthy?

Gabe: There’s a meme that works its way around the Internet that always says that we’re all three bad months away from being homeless. I don’t know if that’s true for all of us, but that really spoke to me because it took about three bad months to really put me in a bad way where I started to need help. On an interesting side note, none of us are three months away from being millionaires. So I think that we need to take that into account when we’re determining how to like maybe, you know, structure our health insurance and things like that. But but wrong. Wrong show. We’ll just put that aside for a moment. But think about this. The whole world is discussing being three bad months away from homelessness. Whether or not that holds up is really irrelevant. I think that does speak to the majority of people. Now, let’s apply that to people living with mental illness, people managing a life long and chronic disorder, because I know that if I couldn’t afford my medication, if I couldn’t afford therapy, if I couldn’t have afforded hospitalizations and on and on and on. Gabe Howard would not be sitting here. That’s just a hard fact. Yes, I worked hard. Yes, I have a loving family. But you know what really saved me? Resources and that resource all boiled down to hundred dollar bills. And that’s sad.

Jackie: The catalyst for this specific episode was from about a week ago, I sent Gabe a text and basically I had a full blown anxiety meltdown because my husband had called me and said, oh my God, our health insurance doubled on my last paycheck. And I said, wait, what do you mean it doubled? They didn’t tell us that. Like, they obviously would communicate that because that’s what normal people think happens in the world. But they didn’t. They just took it out of his check and it was doubled. And I panicked. And I have not had an actual panic attack in, I can’t tell you how long, but I felt it. It was the heart racing, soul crushing. Can’t breathe like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? Because we are people right now who are living pretty paycheck to paycheck. And that is even questionable because I don’t know when my paychecks are coming in, because I work for myself and I don’t have regular paychecks. And my husband took a pay cut a year ago to take the job he’s at now. So all of this is spiraling around my head and I’m like, how are we gonna do this? This is $400 we didn’t know we needed and I could just work harder. But where am I going to find the clients? Just, you know, anxiety spiral talk in your head. And I reached out to Gabe because we were already talking. I said, hey, I know you’re telling me something important right now, but I’m not really listening honestly, because I’m worried about this health insurance thing. And I realized in that moment how money is something that can cause high anxiety. And within a split second, like he sent me that text about our health insurance doubling. And almost immediately I was in a full blown panic about it.

Gabe: There’s so many directions that we can take this, and that makes me excited. I love it when Jackie, says, oh my God, X, and I’m like, Oh my God, we can do y z bat symbol. So we might have to create multiple timelines. And let me ask you multiple questions about this, because the first question that I’m going to ask you is if your health insurance would have doubled and you had a million dollars in the bank, would it have bothered you at all?

Jackie: Me today thinks no, but I also think that people who have a million dollars in the bank are really good about money and any sort of unexpected expense that comes up, they’re upset about it also.

Gabe: I understand what you’re saying because paying attention to our resources is a vital part of money management. But a year ago I was sitting on my couch at like 2:00 in the morning and it was storming and I felt a drop of water on my head. And I looked up and the roof was leaking like leaking a lot. And I saw all of this damage. And I thought, oh, well, that’s a bummer. And I went to bed. I just went to bed. That’s it. There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t stop the rain. I don’t know how to fix a roof. I don’t know how to fix a ceiling. But the reason that I didn’t freak out and panic is because I had the money. I flat out had the money. I knew that I could afford to fix it. There was nothing I could do. And I slept well. And I think about this because I think about Gabe when he was in the little six hundred square foot apartment living paycheck to paycheck with a thirty five hundred dollar deductible. And anytime my car made a noise, I just white knuckled because I couldn’t afford it. When oil change time came around, I thought, shoot. Where am I gonna get 30 bucks? Because it was hard. It was so hard. And I want to point out and this is where I want to go back to the timeline again. You were perfectly healthy. You weren’t having a medical problem. This was just an expense that rose in price. Right?

Jackie: Correct.

Gabe: So now imagine if the text message you got was from your doctor that you needed to go on a different medication that wasn’t on generic and therefore cost five hundred dollars a month versus the $10 co-pay. Or imagine if you were just diagnosed with bipolar disorder, major depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, and they were recommending an outpatient treatment program where the deductible was thirty five hundred dollars. And I can’t help but notice in all of these scenarios where we get diagnosed with all of these awful things, we all have health insurance. Some of the health insurance are better than others, but health insurance is always present. Now, imagine that you get diagnosed with a serious mental illness or I don’t know, is there such a thing as not a serious mental illness? And you have no health insurance? Because I know that my inpatient hospitalization. What, 17 years ago cost like $80,000. It didn’t cost me because I had health insurance. And I thought that was normal.

Jackie: I think this is a good time to point out, Gabe and I, we both understand our privilege in this conversation. You know, like I can make my bills and I do have health insurance. Gabe, same for him. And I can only imagine what it’s like in this moment where you’re choosing between paying for health insurance and feeding your kids or one of those other really intensely awful choices you have to make in terms of what to do with this small amount of money that you make. Granted, if our health insurance. Rewinding for a minute, our health insurance didn’t double. They just had an error on his paycheck, which is like makes me want to write them a heavily-worded note about how rude and anxiety-causing that was. However, if it did double, we would have to make some really, really difficult changes. Not difficult in which kid to feed? Kind of difficult. But where do we rearrange money? The reality is we probably could have found it, but it would have changed the way we live our lives. It would have changed what we do with our time and our energy. And I would have honestly had to work a lot harder to make up for that money. I would’ve had to find more clients. But it’s not lost on me that that is an option that I have is to go find more work. So I want to be cognizant of that in this conversation that Gabe and I both have the ability to figure it out pretty flawlessly in these situations for the people who don’t have the ability to figure it out or they can’t or they’re already working their ass off so hard that making more money is just not an option right now. Like I see you, I have no advice for you. None whatsoever. But I recognize that money and anxiety is significantly more prominent when you don’t have the ability to just get more money.

Gabe: And this is the multiple time line that I want to reconnect back to the beginning. So Jackie, finds out that her bills go up and she freaks out and things. OK, how am I going to find more money? But ultimately, I can do it. If it happened to me and it went up, I’d be like, well, that sucks. I would rather spend the money on something else. But ultimately, I have excess income. I’m fortunate I have more budget, so I’ll just bitch about it to my friends that, ugh, the cost of health insurance is ridiculous and not lose an iota of sleep. Somebody else is like you have health insurance that can go up top. How lucky are you? I would kill to have health insurance at all, let alone have it doubled. And then other people are just so rich that they’re like, I don’t have health insurance. I just pay for everything in cash, because I’m Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos’ lovechild that gets one hundred and eighty five billion dollars allowance a day. And then there’s people that are I don’t even know what the right word is for it.

Gabe: They have a level of financial insecurity that I can’t even adequately explain. And any explanation that I gave would just make me an asshole. There’s really no other way that I can put it. They don’t have a six month wait for a psychiatrist. They’re not even they don’t even have enough money to make the list. And all of us. And this is the takeaway. We’re all fighting each other. We all have mental illness. We all have mental health problems. We’re all trying to figure out how to make it through. And instead of figuring out how to make resources more abundant and accessible for all of us, we’re all like Jackie, she got health insurance complaining about the price. Or, well, she’s so rich, it doesn’t matter. Oh, well, he said he doesn’t even care if his roof falls and he just goes to bed. And that becomes the talking point. I really think that we need to come together on this one and find out why it is not accessible regardless of your socioeconomic status.

Jackie: I don’t know that I totally agree with you. And that’s because I think that if you’re somebody listening to this podcast and you’re going, wow, that asshole is complaining that their health insurance went up and I don’t even have health insurance. Honestly, I don’t think they’re that worried about me and judging me. I think they’re going. I don’t have fucking health insurance and I don’t know how I’m going to make things happen. I agree that obviously we should find a way to like pool resources or ideas and make things happen together. But my assumption and if you are a if you’re that wealthy listener, please sponsor us. We really could use your help right now. But if you’re not that wealthy person and you’re everybody else listening, I don’t think people are necessarily holding grudges against other people in this space. I think everybody’s just trying to survive.

Gabe: That’s a really good point, Jackie. But what bothers me is that what we all have in common is that we’re all fighting really, really hard to survive. And I do think that we determine how much effort the person is putting into survival based on the resources at their disposal. And that’s what I would like to remove. I don’t know that I worked any harder to survive because I had a lot of resources. I just think I didn’t have to work as hard. And I think that society judges people on the lower end of the socio economic status very, very harshly. They say things like, well, why don’t you have savings? Why didn’t you save for a rainy day? Because that’s not an option. That’s really not an option. They say things like, why won’t you be med compliant or why won’t you go see your doctor? They are trying to see a doctor. They’re on a 12 month waiting list for the free clinic. They can’t afford their medications because medications can cost thousands of dollars a year. And they’re choosing between eating, being homeless. And this goes back to something that we really need to discuss. And I’d really like your opinion on it. Jackie, sincerely if you, Jackie Zimmerman, had a choice between paying for safe housing, a safe place to live and food or your mental health care, which would you choose?

Jackie: I would choose a safe place to live. Hands down.

Gabe: And I think that most people would. And I think that we need to understand that many people are in this position.

Jackie: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe: We’re back discussing money and anxiety.

Jackie: Gabe, you’re not wrong. Right? Like, these are all really good points that we need better access to health care. We need a better support system. We need all of these things. But if you’re somebody who doesn’t have any money right now, today, like, for example, I got a stat for you. We know that I love stats. There was a stat by the Royal College of Physicians, whoever the hell that is, that said that half of people with anxiety also have a problem with debt. So are you predisposed to one or the other? That’s not even talking about medical debt. That’s just talking about debt in general. So how do you get out of this kind of debt? How do you save if you’re not making any money? You can’t even pay your bills. How are you going to save these things?

Gabe: I’m not sure that there is an answer that doesn’t involve like high-level advocacy work and this is where I get stuck, Jackie. It really is where I get stuck. I you know, I don’t know. Marry well?

Jackie: That is one of the crux is of talking, is the plural of crux cruxes? I don’t know. That is a crux, we’ll say, of talking about money in general is that there is no one size fits. All right. Yes. Save more, make more done. Easy. But that is literally not an option for most people.

Gabe: Spend within your means, I love that one.

Jackie: Right? All that bullshit.

Gabe: Live within your means is the phrase that everybody uses, and depending on where you are on the socioeconomic ladder, that might mean to move down. You don’t need four Disney vacations a year. You don’t need a new car every year. Like that’s understandable, right? This could be really good advice for some people. We’re not saying that it’s not.

Jackie: I think it’s bullshit.

Gabe: We can all save a little more and clip another coupon. And we all don’t need to buy the biggest house that we can find. But like you said, it’s bullshit for a lot of people. It’s bullshit for a lot of people. They can’t. There’s no money to save. What do you have to say to those people? How are we going to relieve those folks’ anxiety, Jackie? I am afraid that somebody is going to listen to this and be like Gabe and Jackie said that I’m fucked. Their conclusion was I am fucked and I don’t know what to say to folks. And whenever we talk about money and anxiety and anxiety and money and driving it together, I think that people don’t want to dive deep into this. So they say platitudes like save for a rainy day. You don’t have to get dessert. Clip coupons. I use an app that tells me if Amazon has better prices. I’m not saying that any of these are bad ideas. But does it solve the big problem? For real, what is your coping mechanism for this, therapy guru Jackie.

Jackie: Well, for me personally, I use spreadsheets. I love a good spreadsheet one, because I am terrible with math and the spreadsheet will do math for me. So the way that I handle this is seeing all of the money and I won’t lie. Sometimes when you look at all of the money and all the way it’s being spent and how little money you actually have. It feels worse because you’re like, wow, I really have nothing. But then at least I know what I’m working with. I think in a lot of these situations, people don’t know actually what their overhead is in their life. Right? If you’re living outside your means, how do you know that if you don’t know what your actual means are? So I don’t have any great tips on how to get out of this situation, how to make more money, save more money. If I knew that, I’d be doing it myself. I don’t have that. But what I can say is for me, looking over it does help. Like pretending like it’s not there doesn’t help. Some people, I think, just go. I know that I can’t afford these things, so I just don’t think about it and then pretend it’s gonna go away. And I’m not going to say that’s a bad idea. If that helps you and you can get through your day by just not thinking about it. Maybe that’s the right choice for you.

Gabe: I am going to hardcore disagree with that. I see that as a short term solution.

Jackie: Oh, for sure.

Gabe: It sort of reminds me of, don’t open your bills on the weekends. I dig that. I dig that advice. It was it was advice that my grandmother had. She’s like, look, I don’t bank on the weekends. Weekends are for my family. I don’t open my credit card bills on the weekends. I didn’t want to tell her that, you know, now credit card bills or text messages where they send you every second of every day and maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe there’s a token of good advice in the advice that I just called bad. Which is that you need to have a time and place. Now is the time to manage money and now is the time to be present in other areas.

Jackie: Well, yes, obviously, I didn’t mean ignore it forever. That doesn’t solve anything, but like compartmentalizing what you’re doing with your money.

Gabe: I think that that is really, really good advice. I can get on board with that. Some other hints and tips that I want to give to people are self-advocacy is real advocacy. So often we have this desire to help other people that we don’t help ourselves. And you’re probably thinking, well, how can I help myself? And here’s how. Ask your doctor if they have a sliding scale. Ask your doctor if they have a zero interest payment plan. Google the medicines that you’re being prescribed and see if they have a prescription card that offers a discount. Many of the newer medications do, and it will reduce your co-pay in some cases from $300 all the way down to $10, but almost always by at least 50 percent. And this can make medications more affordable. Google free clinics. You may have to wait longer in the waiting room. In fact, you probably will have to wait longer in the waiting room. And that makes it not available to everybody. But if it is available to you, use it. There are ways that you can lower health care costs or get a payment plan that’s not at 29% interest or 22% interest. Like if you put it on a credit card, you do have to ask. They’re not offering it to people. I believe like Jackie, that taking control lowers anxiety because even if the thing around the corner is bad. I myself am less anxious if I know that it’s around the corner. It’s the things that pop out of the shadow at the last minute and go Boo! Those are the things that scare me the most. And finally, I don’t mean to steal Jackie’s thunder, but I kind of want to. Talk about your money anxiety in therapy. People don’t want to talk about money. Tell the people in your life that you’re anxious about money. Tell your therapist that you’re anxious about money. There is nothing wrong with being anxious about money.

Jackie: Thunder stolen 100%. I did talk about money in therapy last Friday, but I agree wholeheartedly. The idea of asking for help. Nobody is going to help you if you don’t ask for it in terms of reduced rates. I once got a $8,000 MRI for $10 because I asked for help. And then telling people, like Gabe said. I mean Gabe and I got together a couple of weeks ago and had a pretty in-depth conversation about money and he gave me some cool ideas I hadn’t thought about. I probably gave him zero ideas. But it was one of those things where just having a dialogue about money made it less scary to talk about money.

Gabe: We’re taught in our society not to discuss money. I don’t believe in this at all. I discuss money constantly. I discuss money with my family. I discuss money with my friends. And I believe this is why I have a different, and I’m going to say healthier relationship, with my finances. It’s also why I never pay too much for a car, because I know what all of my friends and family paid for their cars. I know the horror. But listen, your family may work differently, but your friends might not. And the Internet absolutely does not. Google the average cost of things. Google places that offer discount cards or lower end solutions. I am as shocked as anybody that I have gotten medical care at Wal-Mart, but I’m not going to lie. I’ve gotten medical care at Wal-Mart. The clinic there is fantastic. And it’s set up for people who need to pay less. And it helped me a lot when I needed help. There are lots and lots of those options. You just have to look around for them because they’re not the popular ones. They’re not the hospitals. They’re not the doctors. They’re not the ones that people commonly think about. All of these things can give you more control. Remember, having more control does not mean that negative consequences aren’t coming your way. It just means that you’re out in front of them. I believe that that’s empowering. I believe that matters. I believe that that will put you in a better position to deal with it. But most importantly, I believe that you’ll feel better when it’s all over. At least the negative thing didn’t get the satisfaction of yelling boo and scaring the shit out of you. And I think I really believe that from a personal empowerment perspective that has just a tremendous amount of value. Yes, the bad thing happened, but at least it didn’t trick you.

Jackie: And I believe circling back to the beginning that this is not going to be the last panic attack I have about money. But to Gabe’s point, I do try to get in front of it. I know what’s happening, which is why the unexpected cost made me lose my shit. But there is something to be said about being in control of it. And much like we’ve said about being a patient in general, nobody is going to advocate for you except for you. So this stands for how you handle your money, how you ask for help when you can’t cover your bills and how you move forward if you’re somebody who is in a position who literally cannot make any more money than they are currently making.

Gabe: Jackie, I couldn’t agree more, did discussing money with me make you anxious?

Jackie: I do not find discussing money with you to be anxiety-causing. And maybe it’s because we’ve developed a rapport based on brutal honesty. But I think this is one of those simple ways to take away the power that money has over us is just to talk about it.

Gabe: Listen up, everybody, we have some favors to ask of you, and don’t worry, it won’t cost you a dime. Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please subscribe, rank and review. Share us on social media. And when you do, tell people why they should listen. And if you have buddies and friends, email it to them. Tell them what to do. You know what? You should make it a full time career promoting the Not Crazy podcast. Jackie and I would love that. Stay tuned after the credits because hey, there’s outtakes and Jackie and I, we mess up a lot and we’ll see everybody next Monday.

Jackie: Have a great week.

Podcast: Panicked Over Finances? Why Money Influences our Mental Health syndicated from

[positivepsychologyinterventions]

Podcast: Panicked Over Finances? Why Money Influences our Mental Health



  The rent is due tomorrow; but then you’ll be left with only $10 for the week’s groceries. What do you do? Many people panic over money (or the lack of it), but for those of us with mental illness, it can feel like a life or death situation: It can trigger an even greater anxiety attack and/or depression. Or it may mean not being able to afford the medication that keeps you well enough to work. What can be done?

In this Not Crazy episode, Gabe and Jackie discuss how you can gain a sense of control in these situations, and Jackie shares her own big money scare.

(Transcript Available Below)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building. She lives with multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and depression.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Panicked Over Money” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. I would like to introduce my co-host, Jackie Zimmerman, who lives with major depression and anxiety disorders.

Jackie: And you know this guy, Gabe Howard, who lives with bipolar disorder.

Gabe: Jackie, we’ve been friends for a while now, we’ve been doing this show for several months and I decided that I want to risk all of that by talking about the one subject that causes more fights than any other subject known to man.

Jackie: And what would that be?

Gabe: Money. I want to talk about money.

Jackie: Money, money, money.

Gabe: So in a recent poll, the three things that married couples fight about more than anything else are family, religion and money. And I would argue that money is at the top because nobody is taking people like onto the People’s Court or Judge Judy to sue over political and religious differences. Money is everywhere. If you talk to anybody, literally just go grab a stranger on the street. Be like, hey, you ever lost a friend over $10? Almost everybody will have a story of a friendship that just imploded over what we would consider a small amount of money. Money just creates an intense amount of anxiety in our society.

Jackie: And the thing that I think is unique about money and anxiety is that it’s something that I would assume everybody experiences, not just people who are prone to anxiety, not just people who live with mental illness, but everyone has had some kind of issue with money that has given them anxiety.

Gabe: When I was younger, I used to watch golf with my grandfather and, you know, they always do these expose on the multi-millionaire golfers, and they were interviewing one of them and they said, hey, when you have a putt and if you make the putt, you win $100,000 and if you don’t make it, you lose $100,000, does that cause you anxiety? Does that make you nervous? And the guy said, you know, the most nervous I’ve ever been playing golf is when I bet another golfer a hundred dollars that I could make this putt and I didn’t have the hundred dollars in my pocket. That really spoke to me because it wasn’t the amount of money anymore. It was the awkwardness of discussing the money, finding the money, figuring out the money like this is what gave this guy anxiety. And again, he’s famous. I don’t know, maybe it was just a cute story he was telling, but that makes sense to me. You ever been in line and been a dollar short? Like, how embarrassing is that when you thinking that everybody in the store is like over on register five, there’s a tall, fat redhead that does not have one dollar to pay for his groceries.

Jackie: I can feel that because if you’ve ever had your credit card declined for any reason, your debit card and you want to justify it. I know there’s money on there. That’s so weird. I just used it like I just got paid. I swear I’m not a poor person. There’s this like panic where you just want to justify why it didn’t work. And my assumption is all of this comes from the scarcity model, right? We’re all afraid of not having enough. What happens when we don’t have enough? So how hard do we have to work to get enough? What if we’re working really hard and we still don’t have enough? And the anxiety around all of that of how much do you have? What happens when it’s gone? I think is something that is underlying in our society and in everybody but amplified for those who live with any kind of illness. Because for me specifically, when I worked at a big, fat corporate job and I made all kinds of money, all I thought to myself was, I’m staying here forever. So that way I make so much money that I never have to worry about what happens if I actually can’t work again because I will just bank so much money. I’ll have so much. I’ll always pay my health insurance. I’ll always have all of this stuff. And spoiler alert, I don’t work there anymore. I didn’t bank any money when I did work there. But when you have an illness, whatever kind it is, you’re worried about money not just because of normal reasons, but you’re worried about like, what if I can’t work forever? What if I can’t pay my health insurance? What if I can’t afford to be healthy?

Gabe: There’s a meme that works its way around the Internet that always says that we’re all three bad months away from being homeless. I don’t know if that’s true for all of us, but that really spoke to me because it took about three bad months to really put me in a bad way where I started to need help. On an interesting side note, none of us are three months away from being millionaires. So I think that we need to take that into account when we’re determining how to like maybe, you know, structure our health insurance and things like that. But but wrong. Wrong show. We’ll just put that aside for a moment. But think about this. The whole world is discussing being three bad months away from homelessness. Whether or not that holds up is really irrelevant. I think that does speak to the majority of people. Now, let’s apply that to people living with mental illness, people managing a life long and chronic disorder, because I know that if I couldn’t afford my medication, if I couldn’t afford therapy, if I couldn’t have afforded hospitalizations and on and on and on. Gabe Howard would not be sitting here. That’s just a hard fact. Yes, I worked hard. Yes, I have a loving family. But you know what really saved me? Resources and that resource all boiled down to hundred dollar bills. And that’s sad.

Jackie: The catalyst for this specific episode was from about a week ago, I sent Gabe a text and basically I had a full blown anxiety meltdown because my husband had called me and said, oh my God, our health insurance doubled on my last paycheck. And I said, wait, what do you mean it doubled? They didn’t tell us that. Like, they obviously would communicate that because that’s what normal people think happens in the world. But they didn’t. They just took it out of his check and it was doubled. And I panicked. And I have not had an actual panic attack in, I can’t tell you how long, but I felt it. It was the heart racing, soul crushing. Can’t breathe like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? Because we are people right now who are living pretty paycheck to paycheck. And that is even questionable because I don’t know when my paychecks are coming in, because I work for myself and I don’t have regular paychecks. And my husband took a pay cut a year ago to take the job he’s at now. So all of this is spiraling around my head and I’m like, how are we gonna do this? This is $400 we didn’t know we needed and I could just work harder. But where am I going to find the clients? Just, you know, anxiety spiral talk in your head. And I reached out to Gabe because we were already talking. I said, hey, I know you’re telling me something important right now, but I’m not really listening honestly, because I’m worried about this health insurance thing. And I realized in that moment how money is something that can cause high anxiety. And within a split second, like he sent me that text about our health insurance doubling. And almost immediately I was in a full blown panic about it.

Gabe: There’s so many directions that we can take this, and that makes me excited. I love it when Jackie, says, oh my God, X, and I’m like, Oh my God, we can do y z bat symbol. So we might have to create multiple timelines. And let me ask you multiple questions about this, because the first question that I’m going to ask you is if your health insurance would have doubled and you had a million dollars in the bank, would it have bothered you at all?

Jackie: Me today thinks no, but I also think that people who have a million dollars in the bank are really good about money and any sort of unexpected expense that comes up, they’re upset about it also.

Gabe: I understand what you’re saying because paying attention to our resources is a vital part of money management. But a year ago I was sitting on my couch at like 2:00 in the morning and it was storming and I felt a drop of water on my head. And I looked up and the roof was leaking like leaking a lot. And I saw all of this damage. And I thought, oh, well, that’s a bummer. And I went to bed. I just went to bed. That’s it. There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t stop the rain. I don’t know how to fix a roof. I don’t know how to fix a ceiling. But the reason that I didn’t freak out and panic is because I had the money. I flat out had the money. I knew that I could afford to fix it. There was nothing I could do. And I slept well. And I think about this because I think about Gabe when he was in the little six hundred square foot apartment living paycheck to paycheck with a thirty five hundred dollar deductible. And anytime my car made a noise, I just white knuckled because I couldn’t afford it. When oil change time came around, I thought, shoot. Where am I gonna get 30 bucks? Because it was hard. It was so hard. And I want to point out and this is where I want to go back to the timeline again. You were perfectly healthy. You weren’t having a medical problem. This was just an expense that rose in price. Right?

Jackie: Correct.

Gabe: So now imagine if the text message you got was from your doctor that you needed to go on a different medication that wasn’t on generic and therefore cost five hundred dollars a month versus the $10 co-pay. Or imagine if you were just diagnosed with bipolar disorder, major depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, and they were recommending an outpatient treatment program where the deductible was thirty five hundred dollars. And I can’t help but notice in all of these scenarios where we get diagnosed with all of these awful things, we all have health insurance. Some of the health insurance are better than others, but health insurance is always present. Now, imagine that you get diagnosed with a serious mental illness or I don’t know, is there such a thing as not a serious mental illness? And you have no health insurance? Because I know that my inpatient hospitalization. What, 17 years ago cost like $80,000. It didn’t cost me because I had health insurance. And I thought that was normal.

Jackie: I think this is a good time to point out, Gabe and I, we both understand our privilege in this conversation. You know, like I can make my bills and I do have health insurance. Gabe, same for him. And I can only imagine what it’s like in this moment where you’re choosing between paying for health insurance and feeding your kids or one of those other really intensely awful choices you have to make in terms of what to do with this small amount of money that you make. Granted, if our health insurance. Rewinding for a minute, our health insurance didn’t double. They just had an error on his paycheck, which is like makes me want to write them a heavily-worded note about how rude and anxiety-causing that was. However, if it did double, we would have to make some really, really difficult changes. Not difficult in which kid to feed? Kind of difficult. But where do we rearrange money? The reality is we probably could have found it, but it would have changed the way we live our lives. It would have changed what we do with our time and our energy. And I would have honestly had to work a lot harder to make up for that money. I would’ve had to find more clients. But it’s not lost on me that that is an option that I have is to go find more work. So I want to be cognizant of that in this conversation that Gabe and I both have the ability to figure it out pretty flawlessly in these situations for the people who don’t have the ability to figure it out or they can’t or they’re already working their ass off so hard that making more money is just not an option right now. Like I see you, I have no advice for you. None whatsoever. But I recognize that money and anxiety is significantly more prominent when you don’t have the ability to just get more money.

Gabe: And this is the multiple time line that I want to reconnect back to the beginning. So Jackie, finds out that her bills go up and she freaks out and things. OK, how am I going to find more money? But ultimately, I can do it. If it happened to me and it went up, I’d be like, well, that sucks. I would rather spend the money on something else. But ultimately, I have excess income. I’m fortunate I have more budget, so I’ll just bitch about it to my friends that, ugh, the cost of health insurance is ridiculous and not lose an iota of sleep. Somebody else is like you have health insurance that can go up top. How lucky are you? I would kill to have health insurance at all, let alone have it doubled. And then other people are just so rich that they’re like, I don’t have health insurance. I just pay for everything in cash, because I’m Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos’ lovechild that gets one hundred and eighty five billion dollars allowance a day. And then there’s people that are I don’t even know what the right word is for it.

Gabe: They have a level of financial insecurity that I can’t even adequately explain. And any explanation that I gave would just make me an asshole. There’s really no other way that I can put it. They don’t have a six month wait for a psychiatrist. They’re not even they don’t even have enough money to make the list. And all of us. And this is the takeaway. We’re all fighting each other. We all have mental illness. We all have mental health problems. We’re all trying to figure out how to make it through. And instead of figuring out how to make resources more abundant and accessible for all of us, we’re all like Jackie, she got health insurance complaining about the price. Or, well, she’s so rich, it doesn’t matter. Oh, well, he said he doesn’t even care if his roof falls and he just goes to bed. And that becomes the talking point. I really think that we need to come together on this one and find out why it is not accessible regardless of your socioeconomic status.

Jackie: I don’t know that I totally agree with you. And that’s because I think that if you’re somebody listening to this podcast and you’re going, wow, that asshole is complaining that their health insurance went up and I don’t even have health insurance. Honestly, I don’t think they’re that worried about me and judging me. I think they’re going. I don’t have fucking health insurance and I don’t know how I’m going to make things happen. I agree that obviously we should find a way to like pool resources or ideas and make things happen together. But my assumption and if you are a if you’re that wealthy listener, please sponsor us. We really could use your help right now. But if you’re not that wealthy person and you’re everybody else listening, I don’t think people are necessarily holding grudges against other people in this space. I think everybody’s just trying to survive.

Gabe: That’s a really good point, Jackie. But what bothers me is that what we all have in common is that we’re all fighting really, really hard to survive. And I do think that we determine how much effort the person is putting into survival based on the resources at their disposal. And that’s what I would like to remove. I don’t know that I worked any harder to survive because I had a lot of resources. I just think I didn’t have to work as hard. And I think that society judges people on the lower end of the socio economic status very, very harshly. They say things like, well, why don’t you have savings? Why didn’t you save for a rainy day? Because that’s not an option. That’s really not an option. They say things like, why won’t you be med compliant or why won’t you go see your doctor? They are trying to see a doctor. They’re on a 12 month waiting list for the free clinic. They can’t afford their medications because medications can cost thousands of dollars a year. And they’re choosing between eating, being homeless. And this goes back to something that we really need to discuss. And I’d really like your opinion on it. Jackie, sincerely if you, Jackie Zimmerman, had a choice between paying for safe housing, a safe place to live and food or your mental health care, which would you choose?

Jackie: I would choose a safe place to live. Hands down.

Gabe: And I think that most people would. And I think that we need to understand that many people are in this position.

Jackie: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe: We’re back discussing money and anxiety.

Jackie: Gabe, you’re not wrong. Right? Like, these are all really good points that we need better access to health care. We need a better support system. We need all of these things. But if you’re somebody who doesn’t have any money right now, today, like, for example, I got a stat for you. We know that I love stats. There was a stat by the Royal College of Physicians, whoever the hell that is, that said that half of people with anxiety also have a problem with debt. So are you predisposed to one or the other? That’s not even talking about medical debt. That’s just talking about debt in general. So how do you get out of this kind of debt? How do you save if you’re not making any money? You can’t even pay your bills. How are you going to save these things?

Gabe: I’m not sure that there is an answer that doesn’t involve like high-level advocacy work and this is where I get stuck, Jackie. It really is where I get stuck. I you know, I don’t know. Marry well?

Jackie: That is one of the crux is of talking, is the plural of crux cruxes? I don’t know. That is a crux, we’ll say, of talking about money in general is that there is no one size fits. All right. Yes. Save more, make more done. Easy. But that is literally not an option for most people.

Gabe: Spend within your means, I love that one.

Jackie: Right? All that bullshit.

Gabe: Live within your means is the phrase that everybody uses, and depending on where you are on the socioeconomic ladder, that might mean to move down. You don’t need four Disney vacations a year. You don’t need a new car every year. Like that’s understandable, right? This could be really good advice for some people. We’re not saying that it’s not.

Jackie: I think it’s bullshit.

Gabe: We can all save a little more and clip another coupon. And we all don’t need to buy the biggest house that we can find. But like you said, it’s bullshit for a lot of people. It’s bullshit for a lot of people. They can’t. There’s no money to save. What do you have to say to those people? How are we going to relieve those folks’ anxiety, Jackie? I am afraid that somebody is going to listen to this and be like Gabe and Jackie said that I’m fucked. Their conclusion was I am fucked and I don’t know what to say to folks. And whenever we talk about money and anxiety and anxiety and money and driving it together, I think that people don’t want to dive deep into this. So they say platitudes like save for a rainy day. You don’t have to get dessert. Clip coupons. I use an app that tells me if Amazon has better prices. I’m not saying that any of these are bad ideas. But does it solve the big problem? For real, what is your coping mechanism for this, therapy guru Jackie.

Jackie: Well, for me personally, I use spreadsheets. I love a good spreadsheet one, because I am terrible with math and the spreadsheet will do math for me. So the way that I handle this is seeing all of the money and I won’t lie. Sometimes when you look at all of the money and all the way it’s being spent and how little money you actually have. It feels worse because you’re like, wow, I really have nothing. But then at least I know what I’m working with. I think in a lot of these situations, people don’t know actually what their overhead is in their life. Right? If you’re living outside your means, how do you know that if you don’t know what your actual means are? So I don’t have any great tips on how to get out of this situation, how to make more money, save more money. If I knew that, I’d be doing it myself. I don’t have that. But what I can say is for me, looking over it does help. Like pretending like it’s not there doesn’t help. Some people, I think, just go. I know that I can’t afford these things, so I just don’t think about it and then pretend it’s gonna go away. And I’m not going to say that’s a bad idea. If that helps you and you can get through your day by just not thinking about it. Maybe that’s the right choice for you.

Gabe: I am going to hardcore disagree with that. I see that as a short term solution.

Jackie: Oh, for sure.

Gabe: It sort of reminds me of, don’t open your bills on the weekends. I dig that. I dig that advice. It was it was advice that my grandmother had. She’s like, look, I don’t bank on the weekends. Weekends are for my family. I don’t open my credit card bills on the weekends. I didn’t want to tell her that, you know, now credit card bills or text messages where they send you every second of every day and maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe there’s a token of good advice in the advice that I just called bad. Which is that you need to have a time and place. Now is the time to manage money and now is the time to be present in other areas.

Jackie: Well, yes, obviously, I didn’t mean ignore it forever. That doesn’t solve anything, but like compartmentalizing what you’re doing with your money.

Gabe: I think that that is really, really good advice. I can get on board with that. Some other hints and tips that I want to give to people are self-advocacy is real advocacy. So often we have this desire to help other people that we don’t help ourselves. And you’re probably thinking, well, how can I help myself? And here’s how. Ask your doctor if they have a sliding scale. Ask your doctor if they have a zero interest payment plan. Google the medicines that you’re being prescribed and see if they have a prescription card that offers a discount. Many of the newer medications do, and it will reduce your co-pay in some cases from $300 all the way down to $10, but almost always by at least 50 percent. And this can make medications more affordable. Google free clinics. You may have to wait longer in the waiting room. In fact, you probably will have to wait longer in the waiting room. And that makes it not available to everybody. But if it is available to you, use it. There are ways that you can lower health care costs or get a payment plan that’s not at 29% interest or 22% interest. Like if you put it on a credit card, you do have to ask. They’re not offering it to people. I believe like Jackie, that taking control lowers anxiety because even if the thing around the corner is bad. I myself am less anxious if I know that it’s around the corner. It’s the things that pop out of the shadow at the last minute and go Boo! Those are the things that scare me the most. And finally, I don’t mean to steal Jackie’s thunder, but I kind of want to. Talk about your money anxiety in therapy. People don’t want to talk about money. Tell the people in your life that you’re anxious about money. Tell your therapist that you’re anxious about money. There is nothing wrong with being anxious about money.

Jackie: Thunder stolen 100%. I did talk about money in therapy last Friday, but I agree wholeheartedly. The idea of asking for help. Nobody is going to help you if you don’t ask for it in terms of reduced rates. I once got a $8,000 MRI for $10 because I asked for help. And then telling people, like Gabe said. I mean Gabe and I got together a couple of weeks ago and had a pretty in-depth conversation about money and he gave me some cool ideas I hadn’t thought about. I probably gave him zero ideas. But it was one of those things where just having a dialogue about money made it less scary to talk about money.

Gabe: We’re taught in our society not to discuss money. I don’t believe in this at all. I discuss money constantly. I discuss money with my family. I discuss money with my friends. And I believe this is why I have a different, and I’m going to say healthier relationship, with my finances. It’s also why I never pay too much for a car, because I know what all of my friends and family paid for their cars. I know the horror. But listen, your family may work differently, but your friends might not. And the Internet absolutely does not. Google the average cost of things. Google places that offer discount cards or lower end solutions. I am as shocked as anybody that I have gotten medical care at Wal-Mart, but I’m not going to lie. I’ve gotten medical care at Wal-Mart. The clinic there is fantastic. And it’s set up for people who need to pay less. And it helped me a lot when I needed help. There are lots and lots of those options. You just have to look around for them because they’re not the popular ones. They’re not the hospitals. They’re not the doctors. They’re not the ones that people commonly think about. All of these things can give you more control. Remember, having more control does not mean that negative consequences aren’t coming your way. It just means that you’re out in front of them. I believe that that’s empowering. I believe that matters. I believe that that will put you in a better position to deal with it. But most importantly, I believe that you’ll feel better when it’s all over. At least the negative thing didn’t get the satisfaction of yelling boo and scaring the shit out of you. And I think I really believe that from a personal empowerment perspective that has just a tremendous amount of value. Yes, the bad thing happened, but at least it didn’t trick you.

Jackie: And I believe circling back to the beginning that this is not going to be the last panic attack I have about money. But to Gabe’s point, I do try to get in front of it. I know what’s happening, which is why the unexpected cost made me lose my shit. But there is something to be said about being in control of it. And much like we’ve said about being a patient in general, nobody is going to advocate for you except for you. So this stands for how you handle your money, how you ask for help when you can’t cover your bills and how you move forward if you’re somebody who is in a position who literally cannot make any more money than they are currently making.

Gabe: Jackie, I couldn’t agree more, did discussing money with me make you anxious?

Jackie: I do not find discussing money with you to be anxiety-causing. And maybe it’s because we’ve developed a rapport based on brutal honesty. But I think this is one of those simple ways to take away the power that money has over us is just to talk about it.

Gabe: Listen up, everybody, we have some favors to ask of you, and don’t worry, it won’t cost you a dime. Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please subscribe, rank and review. Share us on social media. And when you do, tell people why they should listen. And if you have buddies and friends, email it to them. Tell them what to do. You know what? You should make it a full time career promoting the Not Crazy podcast. Jackie and I would love that. Stay tuned after the credits because hey, there’s outtakes and Jackie and I, we mess up a lot and we’ll see everybody next Monday.

Jackie: Have a great week.

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Podcast: Panicked Over Finances? Why Money Influences our Mental Health



  The rent is due tomorrow; but then you’ll be left with only $10 for the week’s groceries. What do you do? Many people panic over money (or the lack of it), but for those of us with mental illness, it can feel like a life or death situation: It can trigger an even greater anxiety attack and/or depression. Or it may mean not being able to afford the medication that keeps you well enough to work. What can be done?

In this Not Crazy episode, Gabe and Jackie discuss how you can gain a sense of control in these situations, and Jackie shares her own big money scare.

(Transcript Available Below)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building. She lives with multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and depression.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Panicked Over Money” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. I would like to introduce my co-host, Jackie Zimmerman, who lives with major depression and anxiety disorders.

Jackie: And you know this guy, Gabe Howard, who lives with bipolar disorder.

Gabe: Jackie, we’ve been friends for a while now, we’ve been doing this show for several months and I decided that I want to risk all of that by talking about the one subject that causes more fights than any other subject known to man.

Jackie: And what would that be?

Gabe: Money. I want to talk about money.

Jackie: Money, money, money.

Gabe: So in a recent poll, the three things that married couples fight about more than anything else are family, religion and money. And I would argue that money is at the top because nobody is taking people like onto the People’s Court or Judge Judy to sue over political and religious differences. Money is everywhere. If you talk to anybody, literally just go grab a stranger on the street. Be like, hey, you ever lost a friend over $10? Almost everybody will have a story of a friendship that just imploded over what we would consider a small amount of money. Money just creates an intense amount of anxiety in our society.

Jackie: And the thing that I think is unique about money and anxiety is that it’s something that I would assume everybody experiences, not just people who are prone to anxiety, not just people who live with mental illness, but everyone has had some kind of issue with money that has given them anxiety.

Gabe: When I was younger, I used to watch golf with my grandfather and, you know, they always do these expose on the multi-millionaire golfers, and they were interviewing one of them and they said, hey, when you have a putt and if you make the putt, you win $100,000 and if you don’t make it, you lose $100,000, does that cause you anxiety? Does that make you nervous? And the guy said, you know, the most nervous I’ve ever been playing golf is when I bet another golfer a hundred dollars that I could make this putt and I didn’t have the hundred dollars in my pocket. That really spoke to me because it wasn’t the amount of money anymore. It was the awkwardness of discussing the money, finding the money, figuring out the money like this is what gave this guy anxiety. And again, he’s famous. I don’t know, maybe it was just a cute story he was telling, but that makes sense to me. You ever been in line and been a dollar short? Like, how embarrassing is that when you thinking that everybody in the store is like over on register five, there’s a tall, fat redhead that does not have one dollar to pay for his groceries.

Jackie: I can feel that because if you’ve ever had your credit card declined for any reason, your debit card and you want to justify it. I know there’s money on there. That’s so weird. I just used it like I just got paid. I swear I’m not a poor person. There’s this like panic where you just want to justify why it didn’t work. And my assumption is all of this comes from the scarcity model, right? We’re all afraid of not having enough. What happens when we don’t have enough? So how hard do we have to work to get enough? What if we’re working really hard and we still don’t have enough? And the anxiety around all of that of how much do you have? What happens when it’s gone? I think is something that is underlying in our society and in everybody but amplified for those who live with any kind of illness. Because for me specifically, when I worked at a big, fat corporate job and I made all kinds of money, all I thought to myself was, I’m staying here forever. So that way I make so much money that I never have to worry about what happens if I actually can’t work again because I will just bank so much money. I’ll have so much. I’ll always pay my health insurance. I’ll always have all of this stuff. And spoiler alert, I don’t work there anymore. I didn’t bank any money when I did work there. But when you have an illness, whatever kind it is, you’re worried about money not just because of normal reasons, but you’re worried about like, what if I can’t work forever? What if I can’t pay my health insurance? What if I can’t afford to be healthy?

Gabe: There’s a meme that works its way around the Internet that always says that we’re all three bad months away from being homeless. I don’t know if that’s true for all of us, but that really spoke to me because it took about three bad months to really put me in a bad way where I started to need help. On an interesting side note, none of us are three months away from being millionaires. So I think that we need to take that into account when we’re determining how to like maybe, you know, structure our health insurance and things like that. But but wrong. Wrong show. We’ll just put that aside for a moment. But think about this. The whole world is discussing being three bad months away from homelessness. Whether or not that holds up is really irrelevant. I think that does speak to the majority of people. Now, let’s apply that to people living with mental illness, people managing a life long and chronic disorder, because I know that if I couldn’t afford my medication, if I couldn’t afford therapy, if I couldn’t have afforded hospitalizations and on and on and on. Gabe Howard would not be sitting here. That’s just a hard fact. Yes, I worked hard. Yes, I have a loving family. But you know what really saved me? Resources and that resource all boiled down to hundred dollar bills. And that’s sad.

Jackie: The catalyst for this specific episode was from about a week ago, I sent Gabe a text and basically I had a full blown anxiety meltdown because my husband had called me and said, oh my God, our health insurance doubled on my last paycheck. And I said, wait, what do you mean it doubled? They didn’t tell us that. Like, they obviously would communicate that because that’s what normal people think happens in the world. But they didn’t. They just took it out of his check and it was doubled. And I panicked. And I have not had an actual panic attack in, I can’t tell you how long, but I felt it. It was the heart racing, soul crushing. Can’t breathe like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? Because we are people right now who are living pretty paycheck to paycheck. And that is even questionable because I don’t know when my paychecks are coming in, because I work for myself and I don’t have regular paychecks. And my husband took a pay cut a year ago to take the job he’s at now. So all of this is spiraling around my head and I’m like, how are we gonna do this? This is $400 we didn’t know we needed and I could just work harder. But where am I going to find the clients? Just, you know, anxiety spiral talk in your head. And I reached out to Gabe because we were already talking. I said, hey, I know you’re telling me something important right now, but I’m not really listening honestly, because I’m worried about this health insurance thing. And I realized in that moment how money is something that can cause high anxiety. And within a split second, like he sent me that text about our health insurance doubling. And almost immediately I was in a full blown panic about it.

Gabe: There’s so many directions that we can take this, and that makes me excited. I love it when Jackie, says, oh my God, X, and I’m like, Oh my God, we can do y z bat symbol. So we might have to create multiple timelines. And let me ask you multiple questions about this, because the first question that I’m going to ask you is if your health insurance would have doubled and you had a million dollars in the bank, would it have bothered you at all?

Jackie: Me today thinks no, but I also think that people who have a million dollars in the bank are really good about money and any sort of unexpected expense that comes up, they’re upset about it also.

Gabe: I understand what you’re saying because paying attention to our resources is a vital part of money management. But a year ago I was sitting on my couch at like 2:00 in the morning and it was storming and I felt a drop of water on my head. And I looked up and the roof was leaking like leaking a lot. And I saw all of this damage. And I thought, oh, well, that’s a bummer. And I went to bed. I just went to bed. That’s it. There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t stop the rain. I don’t know how to fix a roof. I don’t know how to fix a ceiling. But the reason that I didn’t freak out and panic is because I had the money. I flat out had the money. I knew that I could afford to fix it. There was nothing I could do. And I slept well. And I think about this because I think about Gabe when he was in the little six hundred square foot apartment living paycheck to paycheck with a thirty five hundred dollar deductible. And anytime my car made a noise, I just white knuckled because I couldn’t afford it. When oil change time came around, I thought, shoot. Where am I gonna get 30 bucks? Because it was hard. It was so hard. And I want to point out and this is where I want to go back to the timeline again. You were perfectly healthy. You weren’t having a medical problem. This was just an expense that rose in price. Right?

Jackie: Correct.

Gabe: So now imagine if the text message you got was from your doctor that you needed to go on a different medication that wasn’t on generic and therefore cost five hundred dollars a month versus the $10 co-pay. Or imagine if you were just diagnosed with bipolar disorder, major depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, and they were recommending an outpatient treatment program where the deductible was thirty five hundred dollars. And I can’t help but notice in all of these scenarios where we get diagnosed with all of these awful things, we all have health insurance. Some of the health insurance are better than others, but health insurance is always present. Now, imagine that you get diagnosed with a serious mental illness or I don’t know, is there such a thing as not a serious mental illness? And you have no health insurance? Because I know that my inpatient hospitalization. What, 17 years ago cost like $80,000. It didn’t cost me because I had health insurance. And I thought that was normal.

Jackie: I think this is a good time to point out, Gabe and I, we both understand our privilege in this conversation. You know, like I can make my bills and I do have health insurance. Gabe, same for him. And I can only imagine what it’s like in this moment where you’re choosing between paying for health insurance and feeding your kids or one of those other really intensely awful choices you have to make in terms of what to do with this small amount of money that you make. Granted, if our health insurance. Rewinding for a minute, our health insurance didn’t double. They just had an error on his paycheck, which is like makes me want to write them a heavily-worded note about how rude and anxiety-causing that was. However, if it did double, we would have to make some really, really difficult changes. Not difficult in which kid to feed? Kind of difficult. But where do we rearrange money? The reality is we probably could have found it, but it would have changed the way we live our lives. It would have changed what we do with our time and our energy. And I would have honestly had to work a lot harder to make up for that money. I would’ve had to find more clients. But it’s not lost on me that that is an option that I have is to go find more work. So I want to be cognizant of that in this conversation that Gabe and I both have the ability to figure it out pretty flawlessly in these situations for the people who don’t have the ability to figure it out or they can’t or they’re already working their ass off so hard that making more money is just not an option right now. Like I see you, I have no advice for you. None whatsoever. But I recognize that money and anxiety is significantly more prominent when you don’t have the ability to just get more money.

Gabe: And this is the multiple time line that I want to reconnect back to the beginning. So Jackie, finds out that her bills go up and she freaks out and things. OK, how am I going to find more money? But ultimately, I can do it. If it happened to me and it went up, I’d be like, well, that sucks. I would rather spend the money on something else. But ultimately, I have excess income. I’m fortunate I have more budget, so I’ll just bitch about it to my friends that, ugh, the cost of health insurance is ridiculous and not lose an iota of sleep. Somebody else is like you have health insurance that can go up top. How lucky are you? I would kill to have health insurance at all, let alone have it doubled. And then other people are just so rich that they’re like, I don’t have health insurance. I just pay for everything in cash, because I’m Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos’ lovechild that gets one hundred and eighty five billion dollars allowance a day. And then there’s people that are I don’t even know what the right word is for it.

Gabe: They have a level of financial insecurity that I can’t even adequately explain. And any explanation that I gave would just make me an asshole. There’s really no other way that I can put it. They don’t have a six month wait for a psychiatrist. They’re not even they don’t even have enough money to make the list. And all of us. And this is the takeaway. We’re all fighting each other. We all have mental illness. We all have mental health problems. We’re all trying to figure out how to make it through. And instead of figuring out how to make resources more abundant and accessible for all of us, we’re all like Jackie, she got health insurance complaining about the price. Or, well, she’s so rich, it doesn’t matter. Oh, well, he said he doesn’t even care if his roof falls and he just goes to bed. And that becomes the talking point. I really think that we need to come together on this one and find out why it is not accessible regardless of your socioeconomic status.

Jackie: I don’t know that I totally agree with you. And that’s because I think that if you’re somebody listening to this podcast and you’re going, wow, that asshole is complaining that their health insurance went up and I don’t even have health insurance. Honestly, I don’t think they’re that worried about me and judging me. I think they’re going. I don’t have fucking health insurance and I don’t know how I’m going to make things happen. I agree that obviously we should find a way to like pool resources or ideas and make things happen together. But my assumption and if you are a if you’re that wealthy listener, please sponsor us. We really could use your help right now. But if you’re not that wealthy person and you’re everybody else listening, I don’t think people are necessarily holding grudges against other people in this space. I think everybody’s just trying to survive.

Gabe: That’s a really good point, Jackie. But what bothers me is that what we all have in common is that we’re all fighting really, really hard to survive. And I do think that we determine how much effort the person is putting into survival based on the resources at their disposal. And that’s what I would like to remove. I don’t know that I worked any harder to survive because I had a lot of resources. I just think I didn’t have to work as hard. And I think that society judges people on the lower end of the socio economic status very, very harshly. They say things like, well, why don’t you have savings? Why didn’t you save for a rainy day? Because that’s not an option. That’s really not an option. They say things like, why won’t you be med compliant or why won’t you go see your doctor? They are trying to see a doctor. They’re on a 12 month waiting list for the free clinic. They can’t afford their medications because medications can cost thousands of dollars a year. And they’re choosing between eating, being homeless. And this goes back to something that we really need to discuss. And I’d really like your opinion on it. Jackie, sincerely if you, Jackie Zimmerman, had a choice between paying for safe housing, a safe place to live and food or your mental health care, which would you choose?

Jackie: I would choose a safe place to live. Hands down.

Gabe: And I think that most people would. And I think that we need to understand that many people are in this position.

Jackie: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe: We’re back discussing money and anxiety.

Jackie: Gabe, you’re not wrong. Right? Like, these are all really good points that we need better access to health care. We need a better support system. We need all of these things. But if you’re somebody who doesn’t have any money right now, today, like, for example, I got a stat for you. We know that I love stats. There was a stat by the Royal College of Physicians, whoever the hell that is, that said that half of people with anxiety also have a problem with debt. So are you predisposed to one or the other? That’s not even talking about medical debt. That’s just talking about debt in general. So how do you get out of this kind of debt? How do you save if you’re not making any money? You can’t even pay your bills. How are you going to save these things?

Gabe: I’m not sure that there is an answer that doesn’t involve like high-level advocacy work and this is where I get stuck, Jackie. It really is where I get stuck. I you know, I don’t know. Marry well?

Jackie: That is one of the crux is of talking, is the plural of crux cruxes? I don’t know. That is a crux, we’ll say, of talking about money in general is that there is no one size fits. All right. Yes. Save more, make more done. Easy. But that is literally not an option for most people.

Gabe: Spend within your means, I love that one.

Jackie: Right? All that bullshit.

Gabe: Live within your means is the phrase that everybody uses, and depending on where you are on the socioeconomic ladder, that might mean to move down. You don’t need four Disney vacations a year. You don’t need a new car every year. Like that’s understandable, right? This could be really good advice for some people. We’re not saying that it’s not.

Jackie: I think it’s bullshit.

Gabe: We can all save a little more and clip another coupon. And we all don’t need to buy the biggest house that we can find. But like you said, it’s bullshit for a lot of people. It’s bullshit for a lot of people. They can’t. There’s no money to save. What do you have to say to those people? How are we going to relieve those folks’ anxiety, Jackie? I am afraid that somebody is going to listen to this and be like Gabe and Jackie said that I’m fucked. Their conclusion was I am fucked and I don’t know what to say to folks. And whenever we talk about money and anxiety and anxiety and money and driving it together, I think that people don’t want to dive deep into this. So they say platitudes like save for a rainy day. You don’t have to get dessert. Clip coupons. I use an app that tells me if Amazon has better prices. I’m not saying that any of these are bad ideas. But does it solve the big problem? For real, what is your coping mechanism for this, therapy guru Jackie.

Jackie: Well, for me personally, I use spreadsheets. I love a good spreadsheet one, because I am terrible with math and the spreadsheet will do math for me. So the way that I handle this is seeing all of the money and I won’t lie. Sometimes when you look at all of the money and all the way it’s being spent and how little money you actually have. It feels worse because you’re like, wow, I really have nothing. But then at least I know what I’m working with. I think in a lot of these situations, people don’t know actually what their overhead is in their life. Right? If you’re living outside your means, how do you know that if you don’t know what your actual means are? So I don’t have any great tips on how to get out of this situation, how to make more money, save more money. If I knew that, I’d be doing it myself. I don’t have that. But what I can say is for me, looking over it does help. Like pretending like it’s not there doesn’t help. Some people, I think, just go. I know that I can’t afford these things, so I just don’t think about it and then pretend it’s gonna go away. And I’m not going to say that’s a bad idea. If that helps you and you can get through your day by just not thinking about it. Maybe that’s the right choice for you.

Gabe: I am going to hardcore disagree with that. I see that as a short term solution.

Jackie: Oh, for sure.

Gabe: It sort of reminds me of, don’t open your bills on the weekends. I dig that. I dig that advice. It was it was advice that my grandmother had. She’s like, look, I don’t bank on the weekends. Weekends are for my family. I don’t open my credit card bills on the weekends. I didn’t want to tell her that, you know, now credit card bills or text messages where they send you every second of every day and maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe there’s a token of good advice in the advice that I just called bad. Which is that you need to have a time and place. Now is the time to manage money and now is the time to be present in other areas.

Jackie: Well, yes, obviously, I didn’t mean ignore it forever. That doesn’t solve anything, but like compartmentalizing what you’re doing with your money.

Gabe: I think that that is really, really good advice. I can get on board with that. Some other hints and tips that I want to give to people are self-advocacy is real advocacy. So often we have this desire to help other people that we don’t help ourselves. And you’re probably thinking, well, how can I help myself? And here’s how. Ask your doctor if they have a sliding scale. Ask your doctor if they have a zero interest payment plan. Google the medicines that you’re being prescribed and see if they have a prescription card that offers a discount. Many of the newer medications do, and it will reduce your co-pay in some cases from $300 all the way down to $10, but almost always by at least 50 percent. And this can make medications more affordable. Google free clinics. You may have to wait longer in the waiting room. In fact, you probably will have to wait longer in the waiting room. And that makes it not available to everybody. But if it is available to you, use it. There are ways that you can lower health care costs or get a payment plan that’s not at 29% interest or 22% interest. Like if you put it on a credit card, you do have to ask. They’re not offering it to people. I believe like Jackie, that taking control lowers anxiety because even if the thing around the corner is bad. I myself am less anxious if I know that it’s around the corner. It’s the things that pop out of the shadow at the last minute and go Boo! Those are the things that scare me the most. And finally, I don’t mean to steal Jackie’s thunder, but I kind of want to. Talk about your money anxiety in therapy. People don’t want to talk about money. Tell the people in your life that you’re anxious about money. Tell your therapist that you’re anxious about money. There is nothing wrong with being anxious about money.

Jackie: Thunder stolen 100%. I did talk about money in therapy last Friday, but I agree wholeheartedly. The idea of asking for help. Nobody is going to help you if you don’t ask for it in terms of reduced rates. I once got a $8,000 MRI for $10 because I asked for help. And then telling people, like Gabe said. I mean Gabe and I got together a couple of weeks ago and had a pretty in-depth conversation about money and he gave me some cool ideas I hadn’t thought about. I probably gave him zero ideas. But it was one of those things where just having a dialogue about money made it less scary to talk about money.

Gabe: We’re taught in our society not to discuss money. I don’t believe in this at all. I discuss money constantly. I discuss money with my family. I discuss money with my friends. And I believe this is why I have a different, and I’m going to say healthier relationship, with my finances. It’s also why I never pay too much for a car, because I know what all of my friends and family paid for their cars. I know the horror. But listen, your family may work differently, but your friends might not. And the Internet absolutely does not. Google the average cost of things. Google places that offer discount cards or lower end solutions. I am as shocked as anybody that I have gotten medical care at Wal-Mart, but I’m not going to lie. I’ve gotten medical care at Wal-Mart. The clinic there is fantastic. And it’s set up for people who need to pay less. And it helped me a lot when I needed help. There are lots and lots of those options. You just have to look around for them because they’re not the popular ones. They’re not the hospitals. They’re not the doctors. They’re not the ones that people commonly think about. All of these things can give you more control. Remember, having more control does not mean that negative consequences aren’t coming your way. It just means that you’re out in front of them. I believe that that’s empowering. I believe that matters. I believe that that will put you in a better position to deal with it. But most importantly, I believe that you’ll feel better when it’s all over. At least the negative thing didn’t get the satisfaction of yelling boo and scaring the shit out of you. And I think I really believe that from a personal empowerment perspective that has just a tremendous amount of value. Yes, the bad thing happened, but at least it didn’t trick you.

Jackie: And I believe circling back to the beginning that this is not going to be the last panic attack I have about money. But to Gabe’s point, I do try to get in front of it. I know what’s happening, which is why the unexpected cost made me lose my shit. But there is something to be said about being in control of it. And much like we’ve said about being a patient in general, nobody is going to advocate for you except for you. So this stands for how you handle your money, how you ask for help when you can’t cover your bills and how you move forward if you’re somebody who is in a position who literally cannot make any more money than they are currently making.

Gabe: Jackie, I couldn’t agree more, did discussing money with me make you anxious?

Jackie: I do not find discussing money with you to be anxiety-causing. And maybe it’s because we’ve developed a rapport based on brutal honesty. But I think this is one of those simple ways to take away the power that money has over us is just to talk about it.

Gabe: Listen up, everybody, we have some favors to ask of you, and don’t worry, it won’t cost you a dime. Wherever you downloaded this podcast, please subscribe, rank and review. Share us on social media. And when you do, tell people why they should listen. And if you have buddies and friends, email it to them. Tell them what to do. You know what? You should make it a full time career promoting the Not Crazy podcast. Jackie and I would love that. Stay tuned after the credits because hey, there’s outtakes and Jackie and I, we mess up a lot and we’ll see everybody next Monday.

Jackie: Have a great week.

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