#- and you seem to be doing pretty well in CBT right now so continue doing what youre doing -

[osmiabee]

Girl did u sit on a McDonald's because it sure looks like u got a phat case of the Ass Burgers

#Diagnosed ''almost certainly autistic but we only have one person capable of diagnosing female autism and her waiting list is 2-3 years- #-and the outcome isn't necessarily treatment focused it's more self acceptance and adaption based - #- and you seem to be doing pretty well in CBT right now so continue doing what youre doing - #and I've written you a letter in case you want to fast track your diagnosis in a couple of years time and I'm happy to pass your details on- #-but overall there isn't much we can offer but I hope this makes you feel better about accessing the resources you might need'' #we do not stan an underfunded and overworked NHS but also im glad that i can exist in the space of Schrödingers autistic #its like okay outside reason and permission to Not Really Know (good for ocd) but also permission to access resources 👌👌👌 #anyway this is how im coping with that rebelation lmao

[all-about-seggs]

Taming of the Lion-

Pairing: Timeskip! (Model) Lev Haiba x femme! Reader

Warnings- CBT, dom Reader, a bit of power play, handjob.

A/n- This is my delayed contribution to the Hard at work Collab that I was really looking forward to until college say no😞. I'm sorry for the disappointing work.

"Miss y/n is ready to see you now", the sharp looking secretary politely gestured towards the classy mahogany door that opened to show the office of the current CEO of a high end fashion brand that was ruling all the gigantic billboards of Russia these days.

Today was the first interview, the first meeting infact that you allowed to get an over-all idea how this investment would go should you decide to work with him. The post as its brand ambassador was not yet given to Lev but his puffed chest and confident smirk would suggest otherwise.

He entered with the same unreasonable confidence that he carried since highschool, bright green eyes that seemed to sparkle when catching light and a haughty smirk.

Lev didn't missed a beat when he saw your table stacked with the magazines he was doing the front cover for.

" Amazing aren't they?!", His bubbly excitement surface in a second and it took a few moments for you to register his child like response.

Even though you didn't judged him based on how he looked on the photos you still didn't expected him to be a himbo with no sense of self restraint. But he appeared to be oblivious to your shock and went on.

" This one was just a gig my sister got me when I was just starting out but I bet you can't tell me apart from a professional huh, oh and this one is-," he giddly pointed to one picture after another telling you all of their history and after a few minutes your patience ran out.

Shoving those magazines aside you got to the point.

" How far are you willing to go for this job?", A little suggestive based on the interpretation but you tested him anyway, eyebrows raising as if to urge him to respond.

" I'm not sure I understand.....", Seeing him genuinely perplexed you put your elbows on the huge glass table and rested you chin in your palms before speaking.

" One thing is clear to me and it's that you, Mr. Lev, are still an ameture who lacks experience. So how much are you willing to give to this job?"

" Well it should go without saying that I'm always ready to learn new things and tricks! And just because I'm young doesn't mean I'll do a sloppy job", his pout and way of speaking was crude but it had a certain charm. The kind of pureness that doesn't come by all that often and a sudden need to whip him into a shape you saw fit was already making its way into your head.

" Then let's start you lessons right away, shall we?", Leaning back on your chair you pointed at his clothes before speaking.

"Strip.", You thought he'd atleast argue a little first but at soon as you lifted your eyes he was already halfway naked. Your lips quirked in a natural smile, watching his sculpted body in the bright top floor of the office buliding. Not a shy boy atleast, you thought.

Living in the glamorous world of fashion you encounter more than a few people wanting to please you to get in your good side but this was one of the few instances where you felt like indulging in for yourself. And you had the power to get what you wanted and the person in front of you was just waiting for you to devour him at any given moment.

"You have pretty knees, all unblemished and unrealistically perfect. I'll try not to ruin them too much", with that you casually stood up from your leather chair and walked towards the last shelf of your office's mini library.

Without looking back you continued, " You see, Lev, if you want to really understand the inspiration behind my brand then you have to experience first hand submission. Afterall, it's made for women of the highest class and positions. The kind of women", Turning around you see him awkwardly covering his thick member,

" that doesn't bend for anyone". Lev atleast got the gist of your innuendo by now, but his habit of diving headfirst into an unknown situation was proving to be rather scary as soon as he saw you pull out a few metal and plastic items that appeared to be sex toys from the middle of the shelf lined with magazines and books.

"Hmmmmm, not bad", words of appraisal fell from your lips as Lev's toned body was displayed out in front of you to admire from an even more closer space, shamelessly so. From his pretty pink nipples to his equally pretty cock you drank in all his details before whipping out your gear.

"Well now, it's bigger than I thought..... This Ball stretcher might not fit afterall," eyeing his cock you quickly look over to the toy in your hand before deciding to givi it a try after all. As Lev saw you approach him with a frighteningly slow pace he backed up a little.

"Do- Do I really have to do this? I doesn't look like it'll fit!", His hesitant voice now contrasted with the self assured tone that he carried before and the helpless look in his emerald green eyes only made you want to play with him further, afterall, it wasn't everyday a mere model piqued your interest like he did and you didn't mind having a pet for entertainment purposes.

"Ofcourse. If you can't even handle this much then how do you intend to please the millions of women out there who like and endorse my brand?", Finally cornering him in a place you nonchalantly grab his balls to fit the toy in hand and soon his soft balls were under the metallic ring that stretched them nicely. He kept jolting at the slightest brush of your hands against his bare skin and you lightly slap his hardened shaft.

His moans were like little squeeks and it was starting to arouse you, the submissive nature of which encouraged your sadistic streak. Caressing his balls a little more you lead him towards the low coffee table.

"On your knees", on the plush carpet underneath, you asked Lev to show his cute ass.

Down on the floor, Lev bend forward until his face and chest touched the ground. His ass up in the air, like a piece of art his every muscle glistened in the morning light, illuminating his porcelain skin. You kneel down behind him to give his ass cheek a firm slap, making him jolt a little from the stinging pleasure, the metal rings wrapped around his balls adding to the impact.

It was adorable, how someone of his gigantic size and stature was now below you mewling like a kitten. You gently touch the sensitive tip of his cock, already hard and ready to be used as you wished. Grazing a thumb over his leaking precum you lubed your fingers enough to strok him without causing friction burns.

"How would you like it if I took a photo of you right now. Face down and ass up like a slut who just wants to cum?" Your authorative voice bommed in his ears and he was blushing all the way to his neck by now.

You disregarded the few incoherent sounds he made and grabbed his shaft and started stroking him roughly. In circular motion, your hands that barely wrapped around his thick cock moved up and down in a vigorous speed. You could feel him tremble beneath your hands, his member throbbing in your hand and the constant pleas to let him cum was a brilliant sight to behold.

His balls felt heavy due to the toy and Lev's orgasm equally intense left his entire body shaking violently. If the office walls weren't as expensively thick as they were his high pitched screams would've probably knocked out a few unsuspecting workers off of their seats.

The place below his softening cock was wet with his cum, the thick white fluid soaking through the fabric of the carpet and you could already imagine ordering him to lick it clean while you watched. The things you wanted to do to him. The things you wanted him to do to you but the train of you fantasies was soon cut short when you suddenly hear a knock on your door.

Your assistant called to remind you of your next appointment and a frown quickly made its way onto your face and you begrudgingly lift head, only to see his eyes still dazed from your previous session. He seemed like he was still alert enough to process the situation so you tried to push his limits a bit more.

Tugging him by his hair, you tilt his head back to look at his spent face, "Now let's get you dolled up for round two shall we?", His beautiful swollen lips formed a soft smile before speaking

" So I got the job right?".

#Haikyuu!! #haikyuu!! smut #hq!! #hq!! x reader #Haikyuu x reader #haikyuu smut #lev haiba #Haikyuu lev #Haikyuu lev x reader #lev x Reader #lev smut #my writing #hard at work collab #haikyuu scenario

[samtheflamingomain]

25.21%

I've been sober for 3 months today. 92 days. 25.21% of 2021.

I could've posted more updates, more milestones (it took a LOT not to post on Day 69) but I wanted to kind of save it up for a Big Day. It was also a decent way to continue to incentivize my continued sobriety: a full pass to do a shameless, hardcore bragging sesh.

Anyway, this post comes in 2 parts: the TL;DR for those who only want the gist, then more in depth on my ability to stay sober, the lasting effects of rehab, etc.

I tried my damnedest to pare this absolute novel down, but it's long, so feel free to dip out if you just get bored. Onward!

TL;DR: I went to rehab the beginning of July for 3 weeks and haven't had a drop of alcohol since. I've lost weight, I'm more healthy, my daily anxiety level went from 8 to 2, I haven't had an anxiety attack in 3 months, and everything generally just seems... easier. My memory and concentration have improved. I've been productive and I've been meditating every day. I'm saving money, and while I sometimes fantasize about getting drunk, that's usually all it is.

Honestly, it's been much easier than I expected, but I think a lot of that is because for the first 3 weeks, the time in which I would usually break down and start drinking again when trying to get sober myself, was spent behind a locked door. So far I haven't had any days where I was close to giving in. I haven't had many days where I've been depressed about it, missing it or really tempted. Maybe 3-4. I've basically just gotten on with my life as if alcohol doesn't exist.

To wrap up the short version for those ready to peace out, I'll leave it with a bit of advice.

I don't feel qualified to give any specific advice, because my story feels very unique to me, and I honestly don't think what worked for me will work for MOST people. Sometimes people spend a year in rehab and still drive straight to the liquor store on their way home.

That said, there's one thing that I've found pretty universally true: you have to really want it. For a while, I floated about without much of a "reason" to stay sober. I don't have a spouse, kids or a job I've been fired from, so I didn't see the point.

It's taken me a while, but after not being "convinced" by a few superficial "reasons" like weight loss and saving money, I thought I needed something more... permanent? Consequential? I now realize that my "reason" for getting sober at a young age after only a few years of alcoholism is that I don't want it to get to a point where I'm hurting other people, drinking myself into multiple lasting health problems... I don't want it to become permanent or consequential.

Anyway, that's my two cents. If you do have something like kids or trouble keeping a job, definitely use that as your reason. But for anyone who's a pretty "functional" alcoholic like I was, "not letting it go on long enough to become disfunctional" is a good enough reason.

This is going to get stupid long, so feel free to walk away now, just glad you read this much and it really does mean the world when people listen to what I have to say.

Now some more things in depth. I'll go in chronological order: what made me get sober, what I took from rehab (and what I left), and how it's been the past few months.

I started drinking when I got kicked out, manic out of my mind and homeless unable to sleep. It took a while until I was able to sleep without alcohol, but by then the addict brain had taken over. I'd tried a few times to get sober myself, but I never made it more than a week without, and always got back to daily drinking after a few months maximum.

Some people need a "wake up call", a "last straw" or a "rock bottom". Something external to make them realize they can't go on as they are. For me, the catalyst was my health, which is more of an internal reason I suppose. I didn't have a heart attack or liver failure, but my anxiety was getting uncontrollable and I knew it was directly tied to my drinking.

My life had been starting to feel tolerable, and I was more financially secure than ever before. Things were looking up... except for the alcoholism. This is a weird analogy but the only one that makes sense to express why, if I was doing so well on paper, I decided to go to rehab: you have to sweep before you mop. If I hadn't been in the place I was, I don't think I would've been successful at rehab. I had to sweep up the cat turds from the floor of my life before I was able to mop up the shit stains with sobriety. I know, I'm a true wordsmith.

When I finally called the hotline that hooked me up with a bunch of different rehabs, I knew I was in for a wait. It was about 5 months from that call to checking in, which isn't too bad considering I've been on the waitlist for a neuropsychiatrist in ALL OF CANADA for 4 years.

That brings us to July 12th, Rehab Day One. I've gone in depth in multiple other posts but to touch on it briefly, if I had to describe my experience in a sentence I'd say "the place I went to got very lucky with me".

What this means is that, of the 5 people in my group, I think this exact program was only ever going to help me. At the same time, I didn't even know what I would need, but this exact program was 90% of it. I didn't think 3 weeks would be long enough, but for me it was. The hours-long, repetitive, basic-ass CBT groups held 5 times a day 7 days a week was absolute torture for everyone but myself. While it was a drag to spend an hour on defining what a cognitive distortion is, the routine and repetition, something I've never gotten out of any outpatient program, helped me to really absorb the information and let it rewire my brain.

I've always said that I'm someone who should be spending an hour a day with a therapist for the rest of my life, and while that's not even remotely feasible, this was as close as it's ever gotten, and it proved me right, because it worked. I've done biweekly therapy for a short time but even that didn't come close to the way my brain changed in those 3 short weeks.

This program required absolute commitment and open-mindedness. This isn't because it was hard work or difficult concepts, but quite the opposite. While I hate the entire concept of art therapy being used as a cure-all for mental illness, I willingly got out of my bed, went downstairs and tried doing a dot mandala for an hour because I'm willing to try anything to get better. A lot of people might think they are, but really aren't. To use the mandala as an example, one guy was really into it, I wasn't, but we both finished. The other 3 tried, messed up a few times, and then scrolled through their phones. When I say this program necessitates complete engagement, that's not a compliment. It shouldn't be a chore to engage with the program. It shouldn't take me actively saying "I know I've known this basic concept since 4th grade, but maybe hearing it again will help" to get something out of a rehab program. So again, in every way, I got lucky, and so did they.

Before I finish with the rehab section, having had a few months to reflect on the whole thing, I now have an endless list of things wrong with it. I arrived, greeted by the most jaded and disillusioned of staff, and quickly became disturbed and at points concerned with just how negligent the staff are.

Maybe it's because I've been on the psych ward where they won't even let you have shoelaces and shine a flashlight on your face every half hour through the night, but it could've been so incredibly easy to sneak in alcohol. I brought 2 full water bottles, fully expecting to have to dump them out upon arrival, but they said "nah it's fine". Is it though?

Then there were actual counsellors there who were... okay. I recall one, the one I thought was the smartest, reading a handout aloud and coming across the word "delve" as in "let's delve into..." and stumbled, then said she doesn't know that word. The room was silent. As she pulled up Google on the screen I said, "it means to dive into it". She Googled it anyway. Synonyms include "dive in". If that was the only example I wouldn't mention it, but this was the first of at least 10 words she had do Google, none past a 10th grade level, from HER OWN MATERIAL. From that point on it became clear that they had no fucking idea what they were doing.

We had one last one-on-one counselling session before we left and the counsellor just filled in boxes to questions on her computer, rephrasing everything I said to fit into the buzzwords and "lessons" we'd "learned". Example. Me: I do think I'm better able to catch myself thinking 'oh I can just have one drink' and say 'no I can't'." Her: "Okay, so would you say that you can recognize negative cognitive distortions like permission-giving thoughts and counter them with a more rational and less emotional mind?" Like girl, blink twice if your boss is holding your family hostage. She gave me some papers, detailing all the online courses they were signing me up for and options for more treatment they'd be sending me, a phone number to call and a phone appointment for the next Monday. I never got that call, the phone number is a hotline, I never got a single email from them, and given how shitty they really are at their jobs, I didn't feel the inclination to try and get those resources. If they even exist in the first place.

In summation, it was a place where it was physically impossible to get alcohol. That's really all I can say in its favor. Oh, and they let you have your cell phone.

Now on our timeline I'm back home. I want to kind of analyze why it's been easy for me.

I often said that my main goal of going to rehab was to lock me away from alcohol long enough for it to reset my brain. Most people thought that was naïve, but that's exactly what happened. But I'm well aware that my experience of "instantly became sober and literally hasn't had a single hard day in 3 months" is absurdly unusual.

I put this down to a few things. Firstly, I'm on seven different meds for my mental health. Almost all of them have their effects dulled or even eliminated when you drink. So when I noticed my mood, fatigue, memory, concentration etc all getting better at once - right about as I left rehab, I don't think it would be a stretch to say that all those meds started working properly.

Secondly, I've been keeping myself busy, but that's something I've always been good at. Now I specifically choose to undertake projects that will eat up a lot my time and put me in a state of flow. I recently made an entire card game from scratch, and let me tell you, I didn't think of alcohol for a week.

Thirdly, my other goals now get in the way of alcohol. I'm getting old and my body is deteriorating. But I've always wanted to do just one last season of gymnastics. Well, I need to lose weight for that to happen. I've already lost 35 pounds, and after another 20 I'll be ready to go. Also, I used to spend more on alcohol per month than rent. Even though I've done a few shopping sprees lately, I haven't come remotely close to how much I was spending before.

I want it more than anything. I want to be sober more than I want one night of "fun" that will more likely than not lead me back to where I was a year ago. I never want to need anything as much as I needed alcohol.

Lastly, just a few more random thoughts.

A lot of people, myself included, worried about the fact that I work at a bar as a cook, but honestly the entire time I'm there I'm thinking about food, not alcohol. If I'm hanging out with some regulars before/after, I can watch them drink and be perfectly fine with my coffee, because the coffee is $2, and I used to spend $20 after every work shift.

I also decided in rehab to start taking better care of myself as best I could. This started with getting my second vax which I'd been putting off, then an eye appointment, then new glasses, then a dentist appointment where I was informed I need to do $3000 worth of work on my implant that's erroding my bone matter, so that sucks, but I caught it early. I've also been meditating every day. In just 3 months, I've made pretty big improvements to my self-care and my daily routine.

One of my fears about sobriety was "missing out" on "having fun". A few days ago, all my housemates got together to play Mario Party, and it was kind of my first night doing something social while sober. It was a breath of fresh air - I wasn't constantly running to piss, I didn't worry about running out of alcohol, I didn't get sloppy and obnoxious as I can sometimes do. I even came very very close to winning my first game of MP. When I reflected on the night, I realized that, if I'd been getting drunk the whole time, I would've sucked at the minigames, been a hindrance to anyone unfortunate enough to be teamed with me, and likely would've stopped caring about the game itself after the first few turns.

Yesterday I was making my 4th pot of coffee of the day when I realized there was a full glass of wine just sitting on the counter. I had absolutely no idea where the hell it came from - nobody in my house drinks wine. I shrugged and poured that sweet sweet bean juice. It was only when I sat down and took a sip of coffee did I find myself thinking automatically, "this tastes so much better than wine". I only realized then that it had been rose wine, the only kind I've ever been able to tolerate. It was the ultimate moment of possible temptation, and the thought of just chugging that glass - as I may've done in the past - didn't even cross my mind.

I'm so glad to be where I am. I'm about to undergo some serious financial changes - i.e. going absolutely broke - but drinking isn't gonna help that, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Stay Greater, Flamingos.

#rehab #alcoholism #alcohol tw #sam #recovery #sobriety

[didntwanderstillgotlost]

Winchesters and Angels (and God)

I’m gonna apologize in advance for the absolute trainwreck that is this fic. @malvenue and I spent 3 hours yesterday morning texting each other this mess and I decided I had to turn it into a fic and inflict it on the rest of you. So, here’s some Destiel and Sabriel crack. Enjoy!

Gabriel popped into the bunker and found Sam sitting at one of the tables in the library. He sat down in the chair across from him.

“Hey, Sammy. Did you know I have PTSD?” He couldn’t hide the shit eating grin on his face, but it didn’t matter because, without looking up from the book he was reading, Sam said,

“Don’t we all.” Gabriel’s face fell.

“Oh. Are you okay? Do you wanna talk about it? Do you need a hug?” He grinned again. “I could probably cure it with some CBT.” That got Sam to look up.

“Cognitive behavioral therapy?”

“Cock and ball torture.” Sam coughed.

“I’M NOT EVEN INTO THAT, GABE!”

“I’m just saying things until you say yes to something.”

“JUST GIVE ME A HUG YOU FREAK!”

“Oh. Okay, sure, we can do that.” Gabriel stood up and wrapped himself around Sam. “So, you want me to suck you off now or--.”

“GABE, I SWEAR TO GOD!”

“You called?” Jack asked, causing both of them to jump. Gabriel was grinning again.

“Yeah, I was just telling Sammy that--.”

“GABRIEL, HE IS THREE!” Across the room, Dean leaned closer to Cas and said,

“How come you know exactly what I want, but Gabe can’t figure Sammy out?”

“He didn’t get to fondle Sam’s soul like I did with yours,” Cas responded matter of factly. Dean choked.

“YOU WHAT!?”

“I just hugged your soul with my whole true form to protect it from Hell’s flames and demons. I did try to just grip your shoulder but I was afraid I’d drop you.”

“CAN EVERYONE PLEASE LEAVE!?” Sam shouted. Dean stood up and took Cas’s hand, leading him out of the room.

“Did you really scream that loudly when you saved me that you woke Anna up from her angel coma?”

“I was very happy. You were so pretty. You still are butIi never got to cuddle a human soul before and the first one was the most beautiful one.” Dean felt a blush creeping up his cheeks.

“Yeah, okay, buddy.”

“I can still hear you!” Sam complained. “Go away! Gabe, stop touching me!”

“Sammy, you make it sound bad. I was just gently caressing your cheek.”

“MY ASSCHEEK!”

“Still a cheek!”

“How did this become my life?” Jack tilted his head, much like Cas.

“Is that something norm--.” Cas pulled away from Dean’s grip and stormed back into the library.

“No, son, cover your eyes.”

“GABE, I TOLD YOU, HE’S THREE!” Sam cried.

“Sammy, just give the guy a chance,” Dean said. “Also, he was two when he wanted to fuck that crazy chick on that one case.”

“Yeah, you still didn’t tell me about se--.”

“THIS HOUSE IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!” Sam was sounding more and more distressed by the second. Gabriel grinned.

“I can teach you about sex! Come on, Jack!”

“Gabriel, I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Cas said.

“Babe, relax, it can’t be that bad.”

“Dean, I’ve seen Gabriel do some very disturbing things involving various plastic objects and--.”

“ENOUGH!” Sam snapped. “Jack, I’ll tell you, okay? Just please stop guys.” Gabriel smirked.

“Come on Sam! I thought you liked when I--.”

“STOP!” Dean grinned.

“Wow, Sammy, you really--.”

“NO!” Jack looked between all of them, utter confusion written all over his face.

“You totally do!” Dean crowed. San narrowed his eyes.

“Oh yeah? Well have you told Cas about that time in the backseat of the Impala?” Dean stopped laughing immediately.

“Do. Not.”

“I am a celestial being, Sam, and I used to watch over Dean almost all the time,” Cas said and Dean’s eyes widened. “Which time are you referring to?” Sam mirrored Dean’s expression.

“I WAS MORE THAN ONCE?”

“Well, it was--.”

“CAS, NO!” Dean interrupted. “Don’t. And what do you mean almost all the time?” Cas shrugged.

“I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“What could happen to me during sex, Cas?”

“Heart failure? Muscle cramps?” Dean had to admit, that was a point.

“Okay, but you didn’t have to watch.”

“I didn’t want you with Anna.”

“CAS!” Cas looked at him and Dean’s heart almost broke at the pain in his eyes.

“That was very painful for me.” Dean swallowed.

“Fuck, Cas, I--. You know I love you, right? I didn't realize back then. I'm so sorry. I'm a complete asshole. I promise I love you.” Cas smiled softly.

“It’s okay, Dean, I know.”

“I am GOING TO BE SICK!” Sam said. Gabriel pretended to wipe his eyes with a tissue from a box he pulled out of nowhere.

“My little brother has grown up so much.” Jack spoke up, clearly still confused.

“Dean and Cas weren’t always together?” Everyone turned to look at him. Dean frowned slightly.

“Why would you think we were?”

“BECAUSE WE ALL HAVE EYES!” Sam yelled. “Oh, here we go again. YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SO SNEAKY DIDN’T YOU DEAN? With all the longing looks and careful touches and mixtapes and--.”

“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean muttered.

“AND THE PRAYERS, OH MY GOD!”

“Yes, Sam?” Jack said. “I’m right here. Anyway I could always see Cas’s wings around Dean when they were in the same room.”

“WHAT?” Dean turned to Cas, who only shrugged.

“It’s not my fault you can’t see my true form. I had to make sure you were comfortable and safe.”

“Even now?” Jack asked. Sam turned to Gabriel.

“Keep your wings away from me, Gabe.”

“Actually, he--,” Jack started.

“OF COURSE, SAMMY!” Gabriel interrupted loudly.

“Someone please just kill me,” Sam said. “Just end this.”

“Sammy, come on a little wing petting never killed anyone,” Dean said.

“I WISH IT DID!”

“If you died, you’d go to Heaven,” Jack stated.

“No one really dies in this family anyway,” Dean pointed out.

“Fuck you,” Sam grumbled.

“Me?” Gabriel asked.

“You know what?” Sam snapped. “If it shuts you up, YES!” Gabriel grinned.

“FUCK YEAH, I WIN!”

“Sound proof your damn room, Sammy,” Dean said.

“Gabriel can do that for him like I did for--.”

“CAS!” Cas frowned.

“What? You said “Don’t break the walls with your angel voice and don’t let Sam hear me wh--.”

“CAS, DAMMIT!” Sam smirked

“You whimper? Awe, Dean, that’s kinda sweet.”

“That’s NOT what he was going to say. Right, Cas?” Dean shot Cas a desperate look.

“No. Of course not. He, uh, whines?” Dean hung his head.

“On second thought, kill me, too.”

“Sorry, Dean, no one really dies in this family,” Sam said with a grin. “Come on, Gabe.” Gabriel’s eyes glowed a little as he followed Sam down the hall. Jack looked at Dean and Cas.

“So…it’s all okay here?”

“Of course, Jack, why do you ask?” Cas asked.

“You all call me at least 56 times every day,” Jack said. Cas chuckled.

“Abuse of human language.”

“Cas, I cannot BELIEVE--,” Dean started.

“Sounds like conflict,” Jack said. “Bye, Dad!” He waved at Cas and disappeared.

“Dean, why are you upset?

“YOU DON’T TELL PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY NOT SAM, WHAT I DO DURING SEX! Unless it’s something absolutely awesome.”

“But you sound beautiful to me so that must mean that it’s awesome too.”

“Buddy…” Dean could feel himself blushing again. “Just don’t talk about that with anyone else, okay?” Cas paused a little too long.

“Okay.”

“WHO ELSE DID YOU TELL?”

“No one, I just…” Cas faltered.

“WHAT?” Dean watched a few tears slip down Cas’s cheeks.

“You’re just so loving that you sometimes can’t speak so you whimper and it’s just…it’s so beautiful, Dean.” Before Dean could even begin to process how to respond to that, Sam shouted from across the bunker,

“GABE, DON’T DO THAT!” Dean paled.

“Cas, please soundproof their room.”

“GABE, HOLY FUCK!” That was followed by some incomprehensible yelling.

“CAS, NOW!” Cas frowned slightly.

“They’re not in a room.”

“WHAT?”

“They’re…in the hallway.”

“SAMMY, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS IF YOU DON’T GO THE FUCK TO YOUR DAMN ROOM!” Dean yelled. Across the bunker, Sam looked at Gabriel.

“Does he think we're having sex?”

“I mean, I could make you sound like that if you let me,” Gabriel said with a wink.

“GABE NO!”

“SAMMY, I SWEAR TO GOD!” Dean shouted and Sam dragged Gabriel back to the library. Jack popped up in the middle of the room.

“I just left, what now?

“Abuse of language, it’s okay,” Cas said. “We’ll say Jack if we need you, okay?”

“Oh, okay.” Jack disappeared again.

“Your kid takes things too literally doesn’t he?” Gabriel said.

“He did say Cas is his dad first thing,” Sam agreed. Dean studied his brother.

“Sammy, the FUCK were you yelling about? Are you hurt or something?”

“I can’t seem to find any injury,” Cas said. “I just get the sense that--.” Sam cleared his throat loudly.

“No, Cas, please continue,” Dean said.

“No, actually, I should go to my--,” Sam tried to deflect.

“Sam seems to be extremely aroused,” Cas said.

“I’m an angel, Sammy, I told you I can tell,” Gabriel said. Dean smirked.

“Awe, Sammy, that’s kinda sweet.”

“GABE, CAN YOU WAIT TILL WE GET TO MY ROOM THEN?”

“I didn’t do anything, Sam,” Gabriel said with a wink

“Gabriel did you just use your grace to--.”

“Shut UP, DEAN!” Sam yelled as Dean started laughing.

“Gabriel, it’s actually very nice of Sam to let you do that because Dean doe--.” Dean stopped laughing abruptly.

“CAS!”

“What?”

“What did we just talk about?”

“This wasn’t related to your s-.”

“NO TALK ABOUT ANYTHING WE DO ALONE, OKAY!”

“Come on, Dean, a little grace never killed anyone,” Sam teased.

“Sam, I will kick your ass.”

“Don’t bruise it,” Gabriel said. “He has a nice ass.”

“Gabe, I swear to--,” Sam started

“Stop calling Jack,” Cas said.

“You know, Gabe, I think Sammy here would love you to bruise him a little.”

“DEAN!” Dean grinned.

“And I’m sure he would absolutely melt if you bite him a bit too.”

“DEAN, I WILL MURDER YOU!”

“I don’t hear you denying it,” Gabriel pointed out.

“No you won’t, Sam,” Cas said.

“Dean, continue, I’m memorizing,” Gabriel said.

“If I remember correctly, he also really loves when people lick his-.”

“DEAN WEARS PANTIES!” Sam yelled. Dean rolled his eyes. That wasn’t much of a secret anymore. So, of course, Cas had to open his mouth.

“Well, actually--.”

“CAS!”

“What now?”

“No talk about my underwe--.”

“No, no, Cas, please continue,” Sam interrupted.

“Since you didn’t let Dean finish I’ll just lick all of Sam till I figure out what he wanted to say,” Gabriel said.

“NO ONE IS LICKING ME!”

“Sam is aroused again,” Cas commented.

“CAS!” Sam whined.

“Why is everyone yelling at me?”

“Not me little bro. Not me,” Gabriel said.

“Yeah, but you never yell,” Dean pointed out.

“Yes, I do,” Cas said.

“NOT YOU, CAS!”

“I bet Sammy could make me scream,” Gabriel said with a wink.

“Just make sure to protect the room,” Cas said. “You will break everything if you--.”

“If you break ANYTHING with you weird angel shit I SWEAR TO--.”

“Don’t call Jack. Please,” Cas begged. “He doesn’t like conflicts.”

“I wonder where he gets it from,” Dean teased. Cas tilted his head.

“Me, of course.” Dean just shook his head with a fond smile. They stared at each other and Dean could feel himself getting lost in the endless sea of blue.

“Here we go again,” Sam muttered, rolling his eyes.

“I thought they’d stop doing that once they--.”

“Well, no such luck apparently.” Gabriel shrugged.

“Guess eye fucking is easier.”

“GABE!”

“I am not having any kind of intercourse with my eyes,” Cas said, breaking eye contact. “I just stare deep into Dean’s soul and--.”

“Cas, please, not now,” Dean said, blushing furiously. Cas squinted at him.

“You know what, Dean? Why don’t you just tell me when I’m allowed to speak.”

“Wow, Dean, I knew you were an asshole but really?” Sam said. Dean ignored his brother.

“Wait, no, Cas I’m sorry.” Cas just stared at him, looking like a kicked puppy.

“Damn, bro, you really fucked up,” Sam said.

“Sam, shut up! Cas, look, let’s just go to our room and--.”

“‘Our room’. Wow, congrats guys!”

“Sam, SHUT UP!”

“Sammy, does that mean your room is our room now?” Gabriel asked.

“No, Gabe! We are not a couple!” Gabriel mirrored Cas’s expression.

“Damn, bro, you really fucked up,” Dean smirked. Sam rolled his eyes.

“That won’t work on me, Gabe. We are not a couple.” Gabriel shed a single tear. “Not gonna work. You’re not my type.” Gabriel turned to his brother.

“Cassie, come on! How do you do it?”

“Well, you’re at the beginning, so you could try showing the shadow of your wings and breaking some glass. Maybe let him stab you.”

“THAT WAS NOT FLIRTING!” Dean insisted

“Of course it was,” Cas said.

“I was trying to kill you!

“Well, I was trying to prove I was strong because I know you want to be protec--.”

“CAS!”

“Right. I forgot I’m not allowed to talk unless you tell me to.”

“Awe, Dean, are you a little spoon?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” Cas answered.

“CAS!”

“So, you don’t want to be anymore?” Cas asked. Dean closed his eyes for a moment.

“Cas, please stop.”

“Sammy, you can be whatever spoon you want,” Gabriel said.

“Still not into you.”

“I bet Sammy’s a big spoon because he’s a control freak,” Dean said.

“Also, even Cas said you’re aroused when I talk to you so you’re lying, Sammy,” Gabriel pointed out. He turned to Dean. “Also, Dean, that’s sizest. I can be a big spoon!”

“Gabriel’s true form is quite large indeed,” Cas said.

“It’s not sizest! Cas is shorter than me!”

“SO YOU ADMIT IT!” Sam yelled.

“YEAH, I ADMIT THAT YOU’RE A LITTLE BITCH!” Dean shot back.

“Sam is not a female dog,” Cas said. Dean sighed.

“Cas, don’t do that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to shut up.”

“The only one who should shut up is SAM!”

“Now listen here you jerk--.”

“Oh, Sammy, you’re so cute when you’re angry,” Gabriel said.

“Gabriel, I swear I will fucking gag you.”

“Oh, PLEASE DO!” Sam groaned

“Sam, I don’t think you’re gonna win here,” Dean said.

“Sam is aroused again,” Cas stated. Dean grinned.

“Cas, did I tell you how much I love to hear you speak?” He turned to Gabe. “I told you Sam is a control freak.”

“I have no problem with that.”

“You can all go straight to hell,” Sam muttered.

“We’ve all been there, Sam,” everyone else said at once.

“Hey, Sammy, what were you planning on gagging me with?” Gabriel asked.

“Keep talking and you’ll find out,” Sam threatened.

“If I can choose, please gag me with your--.”

“Gross, Gabe!” Dean complained.

“But, Dean--,” Cas started.

“CAS, NO!”

“One moment I’m not allowed to talk, then you love it when I speak. Make up your mind please.” Dean pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You know what? I'm done with this. I'm going to bed.” He turned to leave. Cas, you’re coming with.”

“It’s 4:30 in the afternoon,” Sam said.

“Never said we were gonna sleep, Sammy,” Dean said with a grin and a wink. Cas’s eyes started glowing a little. Dean grabbed his arm. “Come on, buddy.” They left the room and Gabriel looked at Sam.

“So, big guy, how much do I have to talk to get to choke on your--.” Sam grabbed Gabriel’s arm.

“COME ON THEN!” Gabriel grinned.

“Yay, I win!”

#Destiel #Sabriel #crack fic #Jack is God

[chubbyooo]

Blurred Lines: Cursed Past Chapter 63 - Unnatural Power

hey guys I’m back with another chapter sorry for the wait OCD has been kicking my ass, once I’m in CBT we should be back to a more regular schedule

Kyradia and the crew race to catch up to Zash

Kyradia tapped her foot impatiently waiting for the ship to drop out of hyperspace, the second it did she would try to sense Zash’s presence it would be far quicker than scanning. She knew she had to be careful, Zash could very easily get inside her head if she tried to sense her but they were close. Jagomir seemed desolate as far as she could tell why would Zash go there but Zash said she had an ‘arrangement’ with the nightsisters, this only confused Kyradia because she was under the impression the Dathomirian clan was more or less extinct. Zoyin had brought it up more than once during one of their many fights and she had always enjoyed twisting that knife, still Zash wasn’t lying had she missed something or someone? 

Either way the idea of the two working together was a scary thought, she looked to Andronikos in the pilots chair, he seemed focussed Andronikos had never been a fan of Zash especially when he found out how Zash had manipulated Kyradia. The feeling was definitely mutual with most of her crew, as worrying as the situation was it was nice to have some of them together again. Ashara sat the opposite side of Kyradia tapping her fingers against the arm of her chair, Kyradia would never understand why Ashara gave her another chance but she seemed driven to stop this threat and she wasn’t gonna complain. Kyradia smiled it was certainly a far cry from the timid jedi she’d once manipulated into her crew, maybe some of her teaching had paid off. 

A few seconds later the ship dropped out of hyperspace and the brown murky planet of Jagomir came into view, instantly Kyradia began to reach out with the force trying to sense Zash’s presence.

Ashara spoke up “scan for nearby vessels they could be in orbit” Andronikos nodded as Kyradia closed her eyes, she felt her mind shift over to ship coming out of orbit.

Kyradia quickly spoke up “they’re coming out of orbit be ready to stop their jump to hyperspace” she pointed towards where she sensed the presence and Andronikos began to shift the ship towards the vessel. As they got close Kyradia could see a rather beat up looking 578-R transport ship she almost chuckled wow that wasn’t exactly the highest class of ship. Andronikos brought the ship in close but as he did the transport ship pulled away quickly and began speeding up.

“follow them!” Kyradia shouted but as she looked over to Andronikos she could see him trying but to no avail

Andronikos frowned “I’m trying to but I can’t seem to move the ship” Kyradia scowled Zash was holding their ship back.

Kyradia stood up “two can play at that came Zash” she stormed off and found a place to concentrate, she reached out towards the transport focussing on the rage of Zash getting into her head earlier and using all the power began to pull the ship back towards her. She focussed all of her power and it seemed to be working the gap was slowly being closed between the ships but then suddenly the grip on the Fury was released causing them to lurch forward past the transport ship and Kyradia to fall over. Kyradia gritted her teeth getting back up Zash was gonna play it like that huh? she reached out again this time focussing her attention on the engine, she was now already adequately angry and summoned the anger to extinguish one of the engines.  

Their ship began spinning, that could hold them briefly Kyradia began to walk back to the cockpit but before she could get there the Fury also began to spin as if pushed by the force causing her to slam against the wall. She cursed how could Zash have enough power to overcome both their engines and their internal gravity? Kyradia sighed it seemed that way, she had to neutralise Zash if she was every going to catch them. 

Kyradia focussed reaching out to Zash’s mind, she was met with a cackle “well it’s about time Kyradia I think we’ve had enough foreplay too” Kyradia felt herself pulled into her mind once again. 

She landed with a crash and quickly stumbled up to see the familiar form of Zash smiling at her, she was dressed differently though she was wearing red robes made mainly of wrappings like a... nightsister. Kyradia felt a flash of spite enter her mind as she looked at Zash adorned in the robes she knew all too well.

Zash cackled “bringing back familiar memories I bet Kyradia” Kyradia snarled at Zash not saying a word she just had to distract her long enough for them to catch up and she knew Zash loved to talk. “nothing to say? well that’s ok your face tells it all you really hate this group don’t you like they did something to you” she raised her eyebrow at Kyradia putting up her hood

Kyradia gritted her teeth “you don’t know what you’re talking about Zash” Zash stepped back as the blackness changed into a cave strewn with bodies of Rattataki in similar nightsister robes but sporting a different colour.

Kyradia frowned she had never seen robes like it, Zash smiled sitting down on a makeshift throne “oh I think I know a lot more than you apprentice” she looked around at the bodies “unfortunately these nightsisters lacked the ability to help so I had to resort to other methods” Kyradia winced at the sight she had imagined this sort of scene in her mind countless times but now it just felt wrong.

Kyradia scowled at Zash “so what you just killed them” Kyradia wasn’t so outraged but she knew it would keep Zash talking

Zash smiled deviously “yes” she cackled “I mean you and I both know they can’t be trusted just look at what they did to you” Kyradia felt herself shake with anger Zash thought she understood

“you really think you can outsmart them” Kyradia tried her best to avoid the implication but keep Zash’s arrogance in mind

Zash’s expression dropped “Kyradia don’t try and deflect” green energy began to appear around Zash “are you familiar with nightsister Magick?” Kyradia shuddered at the sight of the ichor “of course this isn’t really Ichor but your power is unnatural and potent, it seems I’ve found the source even if I don’t know how so tell me did little Kyradia make a deal” Kyradia felt her blood boil Zash could never understand what happened and she certainly could not be given control of the spirit ichor

Kyradia sneered “they will outsmart you Zash I wasn’t deflecting, everyone who faces you do I did it twice in-fact you really think you’re ahead of the witches they’re already ten steps ahead of you and I guarantee you could never understand their magick” Kyradia saw Zash’s scowl deepen as she spoke perfect now she had her 

Zash’s rage was palapble but suddenly it dropped as she let out a chuckle “I’m still here Kyradia and I know what you’re doing, trying to distract me it’s cute” Kyradia’s eyes widened then why was she indulging it? Zash suddenly disappeared and appeared behind her “I’ll let you in on a secret, the hyperdrive has been powered up for a while” Kyradia stumbled back no no no she’d just given her free information “I’ll talk to you soon honey but you keep at it thwarting you is a nice distraction” Zash faded away and Kyradia suddenly found herself back in the ship. She looked out the viewport to see the transport jump to hyperspace, Kyradia felt all the rage from the conversation build up inside her throwing a number of boxes across the room. She slammed her fist into the wall leaving multiple dents, she slumped her head breathing heavily still palpably furious. She’d not only let Zash inside her head but had given her more information on her past, she was close but just far enough off Kyradia couldn’t let it slip like that again. She clenched her fists feeling the thunderous energy licking around them as Ashara came into the room.

Ashara rushed up to her “I’m sorry Kyradia she got-” Kyradia interrupted her before she could finish

She continued to stare at the wall “away... yeah I know!” Kyradia didn’t make eye contact with Ashara still twitching angrily

Ashara put a hand on her shoulder “Kyradia it’s perfectly understandable to be angry right now but I need you to calm down” Kyradia gritted her teeth

She hated Zash so much “you know I’m just gonna stay angry that sounds better to me” she’d lost Zash again and that meant either another torturous force connection where she could be manipulated further or waiting for a sighting.

Ashara kept her hand on Kyradia’s shoulder “come on Ky this is what she wants you wouldn’t want to let her win now would you” Kyradia conceded letting out a long breath

she brushed the hair out of her eyes “yeah uh sorry you’re right we’ll uh head back to Odessen and I guess I can try and sense her again” Kyradia felt completely defeated, Ashara shook her head bringing her over to the table

she sat her down “no what you are going to do is get some rest while I see if I can find anything on where they could have gone, if i haven’t found anything after your rest and only then we may consider putting you through that again” Kyradia was surprised to see Ashara so assertive

Kyradia nodded “yeah ok sure a rest does sound pretty good right now, thanks Ashara it’s just I feel responsible for her” Ashara frowned at Kyradia

she held Kyradia’s hand “well don’t she manipulated you and take it from the person you manipulated it is not your fault it is theirs” Kyradia nodded that was comforting in a very morbid way “now I’m gonna get Xalek to get you some blankets you stay right there ok” Kyradia nodded nestling back into the chair, she guessed things weren’t so bad when you had your friends around. Ugh Kyradia scoffed that sounded so corny Kavaraa had been having a bad effect on her...

#swtor #my swtor #oc #ocs #swtor ocs #swtor oc #kyradia #kyradia zandar #Sith Inquisitor #ashara zavros #Andronikos Revel #zoyin #Sith warrior #Nightsister #Dathomir #lord zash #darth zash #zash #kavaraa #Jedi Consular #kavaraa bysh #swtor fanfiction #swtor fiction #swtor fanfic #SWTOR Fic #oc fanfiction #OC Fiction #oc fanfic #OC fic #fanfiction

[dxmedstudent]

On Thyroids and life plans...

In response to this ask post in which I talked about my health; specifically the potential for thyroid issues and their potential effects on fertility: garra-of-da-funk said:  Hope your health is okay! Don’t worry, you’ll find someone who loves you exactly the way you are!  

Aww Thank you! That’s very sweet of you to say.  I feel lucky; my health could be a lot worse, and the health issues I have currently are manageable if occasionally a nuisance. For the most part, I can live life as I want to, and that’s something I’m grateful for.  

This is rather a personal post, so it’s behind a cut because I’d rather the full post wasn’t reblogged (replies are fine).

My thyroid and its potential effect on my fertility  is really an issue for Future DX somepoint further down the line (and hopefully never!), and I don’t know what will happen with that; it’s the uncertainty sometimes that makes things difficult. Knowing something is definite means you can mourn it and then plan for it. Knowing something might screw up further down the line? Completely out of your control? I feel that’s harder for you to get your head around.

My family, rather sensibly, advise me to take one step at a time; there’s a good chance it may never even be an issue. They think I just need to focus on what I’m doing right now and see what happens when it happens; because after all, it’s not certain that my thyroid will mess up, or that my fertility will be affected; there’s a good chance that nothing might happen. But I’m a medic who overthinks things, and I always end up mourning things early. I think for me, acknowledging the possibility now was necessary for me to deal with it and make peace with the uncertainty, so that I don’t stress over this for the next 10 years. I’m feeling much better about it now that I’ve had some time to process things, and though it made me really sad at the time, it doesn’t preoccupy me at present. Thank you for your encouragement. It’s early days, but I’m seeing someone nice who so far is taking the whole dating-a-busy-scatterbrained-medic thing in their stride. He knows about the thyroid situation, and would probably give similarly sensible advice and be supportive if I talked about the potential ramifications on fertility (I touched on it, but haven’t discussed it in detail), because we’ve been supportive through each other’s ups and downs so far and he’s a kind person who cares about my feelings. But I just don’t feel that’s a topic to dwell on together, yet. It’s too theoretical and too far down the line to dwell on it this early on, given that we’re nowhere near a stage where having kids is even on the horizon. I wouldn’t want anyone dating me to feel pressured into having kids really early, and I myself don’t feel that I’d be ready for kids in the immediate future, anyway; I’d need to feel more settled at work, and I’d need to feel that I was with the right person and it was the right time. I’ve spent the past 17 or so years confounding my relatives by not rushing things, and I have no plans to make any panic-stricken decisions on the baby front. My implant buddy is staying firmly embedded in my arm until it’s the right time for everyone.

So the only thing I can really do right now is keep dating at a pace we both feel comfortable with, have fun and see what happens. I just have to make peace with the fact that taking my time to get to know people, and making sure I’m with the right person and have kids at the right time might mean that it doesn���t happen for me biologically. Life comes with no guarantees, for me or for anyone else; and that hurts and is scary to admit, but you just have to take things one step at a time. Right now, I’m enjoying where things are going, and I’m happy.

I touched on this in a conversation with a close friend today. But I think inherently part of the problem is that as medics, we see the worst. The rare cases where things go really bad. The cases where young people face things they shouldn’t have to face. We see bad things happen to good people, all the time. And it skews our perception of reality. I am inherently an optimist who wants to see the best in things. But my world is dark and full of scary things, and that means that sometimes life itself looks pretty scary.  So it’s not that I think I don’t deserve happiness, or that good things can’t come to me; I don’t think I’m undeserving or repulsive or unloveable. Logically I’m a perfectly average person with an average chance at being happy and there’s probably someone out there who could enjoy being with me. I don’t find that inherently hard to believe. I have friends who are happily married and lots of people out there seem to be happy. But though I’ve seen friends luck out in relationships, but I’ve also seen others struggle with problem relationship afte problem relationship, so I know that there’s no guarantee that just because things start off well, that things will continue nicely. I don’t relish the potental for getting my heart broken, but you can’t achieve meaningful relationships without that risk. To paraphrase a well-known quote, my heart may be safe as a ship in harbour whilst I’m single, but that’s not what ships (or hearts) are for. I’m surrounded by constant reminders that bad things happen, and therefore I can find it hard to believe good things will come my way, or bad things won’t happen, because so much of what I see is personal tragedy and hardship. I realise that I’m perfectly ordinary. And bad things can happen to perfectly ordinary people. Even if they work hard. Even if they are optimistic. Even if they try their best. I’ve had two cancer scares in the space of a year (both negative, thankfully), which is probably what’s set this off, because it only brought into relief that health is fragile, and none of us are guaranteed a disease-free life. So although it’s perfectly possible I stay relatively well, end up happy with someone nice and have kids and live a decent life in a specialty I love, it’s also possible that I come down with something dreadful, can’t find a relationship that works, or end up infertile before 40 in a specialty I hate. Logically, both aren’t equally likely, but because I see bad things happen to perfectly nice people a lot, I find it hard to put it into perspective because my experience is skewed. And although most of the time I’m good at grounding myself (the benefits of overthinking things your entire life) lately, with the health scares, it just got harder to think optimistically about my future.

I think I’ll need to work on a bit of CBT to put those thoughts into perspective and to focus on the positive things that might happen.

#dxdates #dx dates #personal #my life #thyroid

[ramenrains]

please help me get back on my feet after moving?

hi. i’m roxie.

if you don’t know much about me, i’m 25 & an aquarius. i use they/them pronouns and consider myself bisexual (this is relevant to my situation, i promise).

i am also autistic and have been in cbt for anxiety and talk therapy for depression for the past two years. i used to write a lot of fanfiction, namely for kpop fandoms, the walking dead, wwe, and night at the museum (don’t ask). i had a couple of really popular fanfics for the until dawn fandom, and even though i haven’t completed a fanfic in a while, i do enjoy writing them in my free time.

i’m currently a part time librarian assistant and get inconsistent work at the local arena doing security/guest engagement stuff. i am currently in a place where i don’t feel like my jobs are demanding too much of me, but unfortunately they don’t pay super well and i’m considering getting a second part time job or going back to school, but right now i’m still in the process of weighing the options.

the past year was very rocky for me in terms of income and mental stability.

here’s what happened

i was at least living in a place i thought was relatively safe.

it started slowly, as my roommates, at first, were an older couple, their son, and sometimes his girlfriend. then the boy invited his girlfriend to live there, the husband invited a coworker and his daughter to move in, and the wife moved one of her cousins in after that cousin’s boyfriend was imprisoned and she was evicted. pretty soon there were 8 people living in a three bedroom house, 6 of us sharing one bathroom. it was cramped, but tolerable.

then, a few months ago, my newer roommates started making homophobic comments towards me after seeing a pride flag in my room, making me feel unwelcome and vaguely threatened. they started using my things, breaking my things, stealing my things (like literally constantly using them and then claiming they were never mine when i confronted them about it), and telling complete strangers to me visiting about my sexuality derisively.

they later 'apologized' and the more aggressive behavior stopped when i sat them down and confronted them about it, but this was almost immediately followed by one of them in particular (the elder husband of the couple who had originally been living there) making uncomfortably sexual comments towards me in regards to me dating women. among other things, he began joking that he should be involved if i brought any women home, or that i should at least film it and provide him with a copy. he also started coming into my room without warning, and flirting with me when his wife wasn't home. this behavior got worse when he drank, and i began to fear a line might be crossed.

one night, he and i were the only ones home and i was locked in my room, playing video games. he began banging on my door, begging me to let him in and talk to him, audibly intoxicated. when i stayed quiet, hoping he would get bored and leave, he instead went around to the other side of the house and started banging on the window, removed the screen, and tried to pry it open, demanding to know why i was ignoring him and implying he was going to force me to ‘spend time with him’ once he got in. around that time his elder son got back to the house and started yelling at him to stop, which he did.

i decided i was really no longer safe there and started exploring other options, even though his son and wife apologized to me. it seemed like his wife kinda resented the attention he was directing at me? i mentioned to her i was planning on moving out, and she told me i would have to be out by the first of august or i would owe her another month of rent. and she just generally began being very short with me when she had always been very kind before.

luckily, i was able to move in with a great friend who is charging me a completely doable monthly rent. however, i had to be out of work on two weekdays i was scheduled in order to make the move happen before the first. i effectively lost out on 12 hours of pay.

another thing is, i have no furniture. i am sleeping on a borrowed mattress on the floor, which i am grateful for (it's a comfy mattress) but i would also just... really like a bedframe, and maybe a dresser so that storing my things can be a bit easier.

the last thing is, i am behind on a couple bills (car insurance and phone bill) and will probably continue to be so for a while because of the hours i will be short on my next paycheck.

as a result, i am just asking for help to balance everything out after the move. if i can recoup the cost of rent and maybe make up on the pay i missed out on in order to move, i can use that to catch up on bills, save next month's rent from my next paycheck and then start to save for some furniture and get back on track to where i can save to move out and get my own place. i'm pretty optimistic that everything will turn out okay, if i can get back on the right track. at the high end, i'm estimating that 400$ would get me exactly where i need to be.

to be upfront, this is not a crisis situation. i will scramble to catch up on things without help, and this might give me trouble when my time here is up and i need to get back out on my own. but i am safe here. i am not at risk of losing my housing here, or being abused, or sexually harassed. i am so grateful for all the help that has been given to me so i could find this safe place. if you feel any assistance would be better geared towards people in crisis situations, i totally understand and respect that.

but if you have the means to help me out a little, i would be immensely grateful!

here's how you can help me, if you want:

-signal boost! the more people see this, the more likely i will meet my goal, and the fewer people would have to donate to reach it.

-donate! my paypal is [email protected], but i will also create a gofundme for the sake of complete transparency, which can be found here.

-check out my wishlist! right now, it’s just a couple of furniture items, but i will be adding on, especially as it gets colder since i don’t have a good winter coat.

-message me! if you wanna let me know you've signal boosted or donated, i would love to thank you personally. if you wanna vocalize your support, i would love to hear it. i'm not exactly in the throes of despair anymore, but it's nice to hear people cheering me on regardless. if you have questions, send them my way! i'm happy to explain as much as i can to ease your mind. tell me about your day! honestly, getting to talk to y'all will ease my mind for a bit. even if you have questions you need answered to clarify or understand, please hit me up. i don’t mind at all.

PAYPAL // GOFUNDME // WISHLIST

[anothergirlrecovering]

Dietician day four

The dietitian was super sweet as usual. I got there and was sitting down studying with my index cards and she came out and got me a few minutes early. She had me put my stuff down and was like perfect you brought your breakfast so she told me to put my stuff down and we would get a quick weight. So I went in the other room and she weighed me and asked how my week was and I said I was good and I asked how hers was and she said that she was good but she was having weird Texas stuff with emails where stripe which is what she uses for her notes and payment I guess was sending her things about not having the right tax ID so I said she should probably just check the IRS website and make sure they actually have it because she was like I don’t know if it’s legitimate or what so she said she was going to forward it to her husband and probably call the IRS like I suggested. I said yeah tax stuff is never fun I’m going to have to do that soon also. When we were done we had it back in the room and she asked me how I thought maybe eating and I said I think it had gone better than the last week and she agreed but she said that I lost weight again and we talked a little bit about the scale and if I’m weighing and she was like so you already know this and I said yeah and she asked about what my scale is reading or something and I said this morning it was 119 without clothes on and she said well then that makes sense because I had 120 and she said you’ve increased your food but you have continued to drop weight. I explained how seeing the 118 over the weekend was not exactly like scaring me and to get better but at the same time like a little sobering and thinking about how if I still feel fat at 1:18 then I am probably not seeing myself right because there’s just no way that at my height that would be a fat weight and so maybe I really do you have body dysmorphia like she had said last time. We talked about riding the wave Of the uncomfortable feelings around feeling too full and sick and avoiding purging when that happens. She asked me about the fall feeling and what about it makes it feel so uncomfortable and I said I just hate that feeling of being fat and she was like fat is not a feeling and I was like I mean sort of and she was like well what is the feeling underneath the fat and when I tried to think about it like honestly it was hard to do I really don’t know what that feeling would be and I was like he only thing I can think of is like maybe there’s a subconscious connection with all of my past memories in times where I saw kids get bullied for being fat or how my best friend Had come outside crying in fourth grade saying that her mom really wanted me and not her because I was good at school and sports and played the violin and really skinny and so I think there’s also that component of rejection that goes with it but then also there’s this sense of doing things the right way which I think it comes from my parents and I explained the memory with the milk in the pancake scenario and Peggy was super nice about it all explaining and saying how all these adults around he did things wrong and there was nothing wrong with me or my body or my hunger cues even though they made it seem that way. She said so you aren’t feeling fat you’re feeling bad about yourself. She asked me if I was hearing her and I was like yes I said I don’t always process things immediately but I often ruminate on them later and I said how do you know last week I really thought a lot about how she said it was a relapse and that honestly stressed me out a lot and she was like well part of my job is to be honest with you and I was like yeah and I mean I think that’s helpful because when Lynn says things like that I’m just like oh she doesn’t know eating disorder she has no reason to be worried because I feel like I’m close enough to a healthy weight which Peggy shook her head andI was like no definitely not and I was like but when you said I know that you know what you’re talking about and otherwise it’s just easy to minimize it and say that it’s just a lapse and she was like well it’s a very ongoing lapse which means it’s a relapse and I just Kinda didn’t say anything. She mentioned me sitting and eating disorder specialist is a part of my care and I was like basically now but I was like I just feel like they are going to just tell me to challenge the irrational thoughts which I know to do and I already know what CBT is it’s just a matter of applying and doing it anyway and she was like well sometimes they can help you understand a little bit more about where those feelings are coming from and addressing them and I didn’t say anything because I was thinking in my head that I already know where the stupid thoughts are coming from but it is what it is. She mentioned talking to Lynn about things and I was like I mean Lynne definitely asks if I’m eating and what not and she was like OK will that’s good but I explained that Lynne doesn’t really Know about eating disorders and where I was like you know how I said that you’re really nice and Peggy was like yeah and I was like well Lynn is caring but she’s definitely a bit more like a blunt kind of prove me wrong and eat something kind of person and she was like was that helpful and I was like no not at all because that just makes me want to shut down and not be motivated and not talk about it anymore and she was like oh OK yeah that works for some people but not others and I was like yeah so she’s helpful with other things but with food talk it just doesn’t really go over very well. She talked about how my believes around food or just messages from old memories that we can’t change but we can change our beliefs about those foods now and so for homework she wants me to write my mom a letter that I won’t actually give to her that will basically explore how she made me feel and how I would like her to treat me now and how I’m going to take care of myself despite what happened in the past and what steps I am taking to stay in recovery now. It sounds like a very challenging task but that is my homework. She wants me to continue following my meal plan and she talked about how I can’t just be increasing my fruits and vegetables I have to actually increase my carbohydrates to and that really I just need to be eating a lot more because I need to be gaining weight. She talked about Treatment and I was like yeah I know that’s not going to be an option and she was like well what do you mean that’s not an option and I was like like it’s not something that I’m going to do and she was like well I wouldn’t say never you know because if you don’t start putting on some weight it’s an option that we need to start discussing and she said that she believes that if I’m willing to do the work and sit through the uncomfortable feelings and increase my intake that I won’t have to go that route, but she was like it’s going to suck and it’s going to feel uncomfortable but it needs to happen and you know that and I know that and I was like yeah. She asked about times this week when I felt like I had done well and I said honestly with packing my lunch that one time because it was very much prepared and I had put in a lot of thought the night before to it. I told her about how I think that I realized just how difficult things have gone with flexibility around food and I explained how over the weekend I had prepared and I had to have those zucchini muffins with the perfect bar and strawberries but that after they didn’t have it at Walmart I freaked out and drove to Publix and they didn’t have it there and then I freaked out more and drove to food city and when I didn’t have it I started crying in the store and then had a huge meltdown and cried in the car. I told her a little bit about how my husband and my conversation went around food and what he asked about and what he knows. She asked about what I think I can do this week to help increase my meal intake and I asked her if I could actually have a blank copy of the meal plan exchanges so that the night before I could actually go through and plan when I’m eating and make sure that I’m meeting my exchanges and she was like well that’s actually a great idea and I was like thank you and she was like I can actually make you one for every day for this week and I said that would be great so that I don’t have to make copies at work. She said I need to be adding in those snacks and I was like oh my God but I already feel full from this breakfast that we just ate and she was like well you don’t have to eat it right this second but at 10 o’clock or 1030 and I was just thinking I will be with Lynn during that time so what the heck but I said that I would stop at Trader Joe’s And she said that was fine I could grab a bar or something which I ended up grabbing a stupid protein shake that wasn’t even good but it’s fine and she was like you know if you’re also struggling with actually eating you could also just add in some and sure or boost and I was like um no That actually stresses me out so much because I feel like it’s just filled with a bunch of chemicals and she was like that’s fine you can actually make your own if that feels better and I was like is it basically just almond milk remix and like protein powder then and she was like pretty much but you can add in nut butters and things like that and she said that I can Google how to make my own version and she was like I saw you made a smoothie the other day and I was like yeah but honestly it was just fruit and spinach and with ice cubes and water and she was like OK yeah I know that’s not the kind that I’m talking about because we need to be giving you a lot more than fruits and vegetables at this point. I said that I needed a very structured thing like the meal exchanges right now because I think if I’m just sort of left to figuring it out then I will just end up not really doing anything he said that was good that I was aware of that and willing to make that happen and she was like obviously that’s not our long-term goal but if for right now that’s what we need to do to get your way back up to healthy that’s fine. When I had mentioned about my husband being upset over me admitting that I having anxiety about eating and a lot of things are you and thinking about being above 132 she was like one day at a time let’s not be thinking about that because that’s a long way off from where you are right now and currently my goal is just to get you up to that 132 area because even that would be great we just need to see you get some nourishment back. I said OK. She said that she knows that I’m going to feel so much better when I’m actually eating again and wait restored and I was kind of just like ha ha maybe but I was like yeah honestly I know that I’m going to sleep a lot better because in recent weeks honestly it’s been harder to sleep and she was like how come and I was like I mean aside from food dreams just my knees I can’t sleep on my side anymore without putting a pillow between my knees because otherwise it hurts and then my hip bones hurt from laying on my side. She said she thinks in general as a whole everything’s gonna feel a lot better once I’m eating.She asked a series of questions about whether or not I was abusing laxatives diet pills chewing and spitting exercising all of the little things and then she asked about the scale and weighing myself in if that’s helpful or harmful and I said I think over the weekend it was helpful because it made me recognize that things are actually bad and honestly there when I think about gaining weight I’m not sure that it will be helpful to be weighing and seeing the number going up. She asked me to try to weigh once a week and I was like I mean I’m not going to commit to something that I know that I want to you and I know that I won’t just weigh myself once this week and she was like what about twice and I was like no and she was like three times and I was like I can try and she said OK andshe said something about eating as much as I need to because she was like if those hunger cues come up in your body wants more go for it and I was like so you me and then I can have more than 1 tablespoon of peanut butter in the morning and she was like are you kidding me absolutely and I was like OK good because honestly I was freaking out so bad about this breakfast and I only did the 1 tablespoon of peanut butter because the paper said one protein and two fat and she was like give me your paper back and she wrote th she asked a series of questions about whether or not I was abusing laxatives diet pills chewing and spitting exercising all of the little things and then she said something about eating as much as I need to because she was like if those hunger cues come up in your body wants more go for it and I was like so you me and then I can have more than 1 tablespoon of peanut butter in the morning and she was like are you kidding me absolutely and I was like OK good because honestly I was freaking out so bad about this breakfast and I only did the 1 tablespoon of peanut butter because the paper said one protein and two fat and she was like give me your paperback and she wrote 3 Proteins with breakfast and was like seriously eat as many proteins or as many starches or as much food as your body is wanting. She was like you’re going to be hungry and your body is going to want to eat a lot to make up for what it is missing and to repeat it self so you should be hungry. I think I just kind of awkwardly smiled and she was like OK I believe in you and you can do this and she was just super nice and pro recovery and I said OK and thanked her.

[not-poignant]

Hey Pia, recently I started therapy but my therapist brushed aside me being emotionally abused & gaslit by my sibling by saying sibling fights are normal & we should focus on how I continue 'letting' it happen. I left the session rlly upset & it sent me into a spiral of self-loathing & doubt all over again/had I made everything up after all? I'm in a better place now but it would be lovely if you could tell me how to deal with such situations better, but no pressure!

Oh boy, bad therapists. Have I had some experience with them.

tl;dr: bad therapists suck, don’t give up, etc. etc.

THIS POST IS SO LONG I AM SO SORRY

Firstly, it is awesome you made the effort to go see a therapist. And please please don’t think all therapists (or even most therapists) will be like the one you saw.

Therapists are regular people, and unfortunately, sometimes regular people suck and a degree doesn’t change that.

Caveat: Not a therapist. Just a person who has seen a lot of therapists. YMMV.

I have seen a lot of therapists in my lifetime. And a lot of bad therapists. I won’t give you the exact number, but it’s well over 10. It’s actually pretty normal to sometimes meet therapists that are just a poor match. Even if the therapist had good reasons to think you were participating in a difficult situation, there’s a lot of ways to bring that up that aren’t straight up invalidating, and they should have tried to hear you, rather than put their opinions forward over yours.

Therapy should be a collaboration. Not just you listening to them. Not just them listening to you. They might disagree with you, they have to be able to do so tactfully and respectfully, and role model to you how to do this in a way that is respectful. And you have the right to disagree with them.

And I’m gonna be honest with you. Sometimes therapists will say things you’re not ready to hear, that hurt and make you doubt yourself. When I first heard: ‘Pia, do you think maybe you want to be sick?’ I about lost my shit internally, and went home and felt suicidal for two weeks. I didn’t think they were right, but I was terrified they were right, and I didn’t think I could tell them about it because how dare they ask me that question in the first place! What the hell?

But I went back and was like: okay, so after this session, and what you said, this is what happened. And I felt totally unsupported and certainly didn’t feel like I could tell you about this, because what, are you gonna tell me I want to be suicidal too? Here are all the ways I think I don’t want to be sick. I’m still deeply scared that deep down I might want to be, but I think you have to realise that what you’ve said is really hurtful to all the parts of me that fight every day - through lifestyle, coming here, eating well, reading self help books etc. - to not be sick. And I need you to acknowledge that.

And they did. And they apologised. Do I think maybe they wanted me to have a reaction? Yes. Do I think maybe they had no idea it would make me suicidal? I think also yes. They never would’ve done it otherwise. The aim isn’t to make your clients want to kill themselves. At all. Ever.

But anyway, the point is (...ignore how long I took to get here), part of therapy is actually telling the therapist when they’ve fucked up and seeing how receptive they are to that. That’s your responsibility as the client, and that’s something you take on when you hire them. Whether or not you feel you can do that is another thing. It’s totally okay to write down how you feel in a letter, and hand it to them, or email it to them. You can say ‘read this and I’m going to go wait in the waiting room and you can come get me after.’ I have written down a ton of things I wasn’t ready to say.

But it’s an important step in actually - weirdly - learning how to stand up for yourself in a working relationship that goes both ways.

Now, about therapy in general. They work for you. You hire them for your health. So if it’s really not working out, then you also have the right to fire them and find someone else.

Sometimes it can be worth explaining why you’re considering firing them in an email, so they know where they went wrong, but to also give them a chance to reconsider how they’re approaching you, i.e.: ‘I feel like you invalidated my experiences and my feelings, and therefore reduced all of my difficulties and issues around this to something you could sweep aside before telling me things about my own experiences, without ever really hearing me. That’s not fair, it’s inaccurate and it’s not helpful to me. I accept that I might have things to learn about my own behaviour here, but not through you invalidating my upset and hurt, and not through you minimising my real feelings. Because of what you did, these were the consequences (and tell them that you became more self-loathing and so on, that’s not how they’re supposed to leave you feeling after a session!) As a result, I’m not sure / don’t think this is a good fit / will look for another therapist / would be open to suggestions from you as to how to proceed.’ Etc.

That’s a mature way of handling it. (And honestly, even if the therapist doesn’t like getting the email, it is good for them to know why people are leaving early. So they know you’re not just a ‘non-compliant patient’ or whatever the fuck (which you’re not), but someone who has been genuinely distressed by a session that they directly contributed to - like you paid money for that shit! That’s crappy.)

But another mature way, if they really just seem gross, is to fire them and find someone else. You can take a break first, for sure. I always have taken a short break and sort of thought about what I really want too. Like, what do I want? These days it’s ‘to be more functional and to enjoy life more.’

It’s worth calling around and actually screening therapists if you can (depending on how the system works where you are). Screening therapists can be asking things like: what therapy modalities do you prefer? How do you deal with situations where someone is being verbally abused by their sibling? Do you take this seriously? etc. You can definitely pre-screen. I’ve always done this in emails which look like this:

“Dear (whoever they are)

I’m (such and such) from (place) and have been diagnosed with (disorders) due to (one sentence history). I am seeking therapy to help me with (specific things like - learning how to be less anxious, or learning how to be more functional in my life).

Are you taking new clients?

If you are, could you please let me know the following to see if we might be a good fit? 

(Here I ask about modality - CBT is contraindicated in my case so it rules out a lot of therapists automatically, and then I ask about their experience in extensive child abuse trauma and history, as well as medical and chronic illness, and pain and fatigue issues. Here is also where I ask if they offer a sliding scale to people with a low income and no insurance.)

Thanks so much for your time.

(Pia.)”

If they can’t take the time to answer a simple email, either with a call or by replying, then I don’t want to see them anyway, imho. I’m looking to hire them, not the other way around, they can at least communicate some actual credentials to me that mean more than a damn BA degree. But in Australia, therapists will often reply to emails like this. I’m not sure how that is in other places in the world.

Now as to the actual meaty part of like, you going home and feeling fucking awful afterwards. Here’s some stuff you may want to keep in mind in the future:

1. They work for you. And their job is not to make you feel like you are the worst ever. That is no therapist’s job on the planet. Challenging you is not making you decompensate and become non-functional. They fucked up. Sometimes therapy will be challenging and sometimes it will hurt and if you are prone to feeling self-doubt it is going to make you self-doubt. But there is a line between ‘this is stuff that would come up anyway’ and ‘this is something you directly made happen by invalidating my feelings.’ When that happens, it is not a sign that you are the worst ever (you are not even the worst), it is a sign that they made a mistake in their job, like any person who has a job can do.

Unfortunately when therapists make mistakes, they’re making mistakes with people’s psyches, instead of fucking up the icing on a cake, or the level on a brick wall.

But yeah, they are not some authority on high to tell you What is What about Your Life.

The only expert on your life is you. And you invite them into that space to treat you with respect in the process. Invalidating your feelings is not respect. (And I say that even as someone who has disproportionate reactions to things.)

2. Idk what your support situation is like, but it may be worth reaching out to people (or animals) who can make you smile or feel a bit better or get you outside of your head for a bit.

3. Sensory stimulation to also get you outside of your head for a bit. A warm/hot shower or bath. Running your hand over interesting textures like velvet or a nubby couch. Sipping a hot drink that you took the time to make for yourself.

4. Reflecting on what’s actually happening internally like. ‘I feel like they think i’m X and X’ or ‘they must think that I’m just X’ or whatever it is. And then write that down somewhere - both for yourself, and if you decide to share it with them later, so you have clarity on what’s occurring. Sometimes just naming what you’re going through can give you enough knowledge to be like ‘right, I’m afraid that a relative stranger thinks I’m terrible because they know almost nothing about my history and they made an assumption about me.’ - If you take a step back from that, it can help to remember they are a relative stranger who knows almost nothing about you.

*

It’s hard here because I’m not in that session and I don’t know why the therapist said what they said (though trust me, I do believe you that they fucked up - some of them suuuuck), and I know that you go to therapy to be challenged, because if your therapist is just ‘hey fam everything you’re doing and thinking is fine go home you’re just great’ - you’re gonna go home and nothing is going to change. But I think you and I both know that there’s ways of challenging people which don’t suuuuuuck, and that if you have a good trusting bond with your therapist, you can also tell them when they fuck up, and they will actually make steps to repair that with you, so you can be stronger going into the future.

That’s actually one of the best parts of a therapeutic bond, imho, especially as someone coming from an emotionally abusive background - learning how to repair mistakes and realising that you can both do that collaboratively together, and see things get stronger. (Since, in situations of abuse, ruptures can mean no opportunities for genuine forgiveness or growth ever).

But you can’t do it with all therapists. Because some therapists are just shitty at their jobs. Like a bad baker. Or like the dude that makes pizzas but you know he just doesn’t care about pizzas really. Or the doctor who fat-shames instead of doing their fucking job.

I don’t know if I said anything that helped. All I have is some sense of solidarity because I have done the whole bad therapists thing too. My life was helped a lot by realising I was hiring them, and that they work for me. Before that, I always felt like they were some kind of godly authority figure that could see into my inner mind in a way I couldn’t and blah blah blah could Judge Me Like A God (thanks childhood, for featuring an abusive figure who was a cop that fucked up my relationship with authority figures forever). It was really hard for me to understand that no, they’re just like every other damn person you’re gonna hire to work for you: they can be fired if they’re not good at their job or if their vision is totally different to yours.

You’d fire an interior decorator who wanted to fit out your house in something you hated. You definitely have to fire a therapist who wants to fit out your brain in something that makes you hate yourself.

#asks and answers #personal #hoooooly shit this post is looooong #pia on therapy #also i've seen some great therapists now #GREAT #and some of them have made me really distressed and upset #but i could tell them (a month later) #and they were really good about it #so like #yes #i am glad to hear you're in a better place now! #*passes you chocolate and tea* #Anonymous

[blackdogplaybook]

Pro or Antidepressants

I should start off by saying I am not a doctor so please don’t take any of what I am about to say as gospel. Always consult your GP before starting to take medication or changing your existing medication.

Disclaimer out of the way, I have been taking antidepressants on and off for about three years. There are various schools of thought on them and whether they are useful or not and I’ll give you the lowdown on what I have heard from the varied people I have discussed it with.

First up there are the people who think you shouldn’t take them or should get off them as soon as possible. The argument is that you can control your depression or anxiety with the power of your own brain, you just need to learn the right tools. Go and get therapy and power through on your own. Get off whatever drugs you are currently on and go natural. Power of the mind and all that.

I used to think like this if I am honest. I understand the logic behind it and have watched enough Derren Brown to believe in the power of the human brain. On the flip side, if you don’t have handy piles of cash lying around you could be waiting weeks and months to see a professional through the NHS and trying to read a self help book about depression to get you through is, to be quite honest, pretty depressing. Also very boring and hard to get through if you don’t like reading about lots of other peoples problems which aren’t the same as yours and how amazing they are now they have done loads of CBT.

After a particularly bad breakdown in the street I decided I might need to go on antidepressants for a little bit. Use them as a crutch until I could do all of the therapy I could get my hands on. After a year of therapy, finding a girlfriend and feeling happy I slowly came off them in the doctor prescribed way (although my GP was reluctant to believe I was cured). And I was perfectly fine. I felt great and unstoppable and that I had beat the black dog.

This lasted about 5 months. My girlfriend then got really ill and one of my close friends died of a brain tumour and the therapy I had went out of the window and I spiralled very quickly back down. I went back to the GP with my tail between my legs and asked for some more happy pills please. I felt like a failure for not being able to deal with these awful events by myself.

It was then that I moved onto a different school of thought about antidepressants. If they work and make you feel better, why not just stay on them? The NHS (which I love by the way) is massively underfunded in regards to mental health services so why put more strain on them when I have some pill I can take to make me feel better?

I did this for a while but after months and months I realised that I wasn’t actually feeling that much happier. I went up to a higher dosage which sorted it for a little bit but eventually I started up some group CBT therapy which also seemed to not help.

I realise now that I should try some different therapy. I don't want to stay on the drugs forever but I also don’t want to come off them just because I have had a good couple of months. You need both. Well I need both. For now at least.

My current plan is to continue getting therapy and see if they will offer me anything other than CBT. I will continue to take my antidepressants and see if I have the skills to handle any other awful events that life wants to throw at me. When I’m ready, and I will be asking some very close friends if they agree with me or not, then I will consider coming off them. 

But not too soon.

#mental health #antidepressants #black dog #mental heath support #therapy

[willowlark369]

Survival is Imperative

This post discusses a concept which is controversial and features a great deal of disturbing information. There is a great deal of torture and misused (abused) medical procedures/practices discussed. Yet what I feel may be most problematic for most people to digest is that the concept I will be laying out will challenge the idea that an individual’s agency is a hard set dichotomy where one either has it completely or they have been stripped of it entirely.

I’m not treating this as a proper essay or academic paper. I’ve taken several levels of courses in the fields of Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology along with specialty diversity courses. I’m pulling a lot of concepts from that academic work, and since I am not making a paper to present, I will not be citing the dual-minors-worth of knowledge that led me to the conclusions I am sharing. I apologize if this upsets you. I know that Tumblr is such a bastion of academic learning that this must be absolutely shocking. (Was that too sarcastic? OFW.)

Reader discretion is advised after the Read More break.

Let’s get the hard part out of the way:

Steve Rogers is wrong about Bucky Barnes, and he’s only showing disrespect by making his claims about Barnes’ innocence of the crimes of the Winter Soldier. Whenever Steve Rogers talks about the Winter Soldier as a separate entity from Bucky Barnes, he is ignoring the trauma of the man he claims as his friend.

Still with me? Haven’t skipped down to the bottom to post nasty comments?

Good. Now I will lay out the why for you.

Everyone has heard of Ivan Pavlov or more likely, Pavlov’s experiments with conditioned responses in dogs. He rang a bell before giving his dogs a treat and eventually all he had to do to get the dogs to salivate was ring the bell, regardless of the presence of a treat. This basic concept is actually the idea behind Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) where a person works on identifying their own conditioned responses and work to disable them (and/or redirect them, depending on the goals set by the patient).

Yeah, that’s right, folks. Conditioning is something which can be done to humans. How do we know? Because Dr. John Watson--the less fun one, apparently--and his lovely graduate hostage assistant Rosalie Rayner figured out how to create phobias in an otherwise healthy child, and that was apparently really inspiring to a great many people including the Mother of Behavioral Therapy Mary Clover Jones. Dr. Watson’s paper on the experiment came out in the early part of 1920.

For those of you playing the home game, that’s almost a decade and a half before a certain sniper took his tumble off a train in the Alps. In terms of science, that’s a really long time.

It’s long enough for the science branch of a certain religious cult to start working on a device to make it easier. This device’s purpose was understood to be memory suppression. This effect was achievable through what could be loosely described as Electrical Shock Therapy (EST). Pass enough current through the synapses and they don’t connect so good, at least for a little while.

It also hurts like a motherfucker, which is also what makes EST so useful for the treatment of behavioral disorders. I’m using the term disorder here in its most antiquated definition. Some of the disorders treated with early versions of EST were ‘hysteria’, masturbation, book-reading (in women), and refusal to marry (again, in women). Treatment was given until the patient stopped showing the problematic behavior.

It also works as a deterrent for not showing desired behavior, where the patient is given treatment for not doing what the doctor wanted. Other behavior modifying treatments are isolation, withholding of food/drink, other pain delivery systems... really, there’s a lot of manipulation techniques out there, in the real world. A lot of them can be unquestionably considered torture, but some are just simply psychological. Repeat something in a calm, reasonable tone of voice enough times, and a person begins to believe it. Show kindness to someone whose world is narrowed into nothing more than bright spots of pain and they will want to believe you, even knowing that you are the source of the pain.

Eventually, inevitably, reward does not need to be kindness, does not need to be pleasurable or unquestionably positive. It just needs to be a cessation of pain, maybe even just a lessening if given enough time. Given enough time, a knowledgeable individual can create conditional responses for any number of things, especially once the subject begins to show willingness to adapt.

That’s what we humans are good at, you know. We adapt to our environments, even if doing so might compromise firmly held ideals and principles. Instinctively, we seek to survive and to that end, nothing becomes taboo. It’s easy to stand outside of a situation and say “I’ll never do that” but historically speaking, yeah, you probably would. If the situation called for it, if it were bad enough, if the options were laid out the right way and every other path was blocked--if you knew that everyone had to think you were dead and there was no hope of rescue.

See, Sgt. James “Bucky” Barnes fell from a train traveling through the Alps. They thought he was dead, even without recovering a body. There was no hope for the SSR to come to the rescue, no reason to believe the punk was going to show up once again to save him from the pain, the hunger, the cold. He was alone in enemy hands, undergoing torture as they sought to shape him into what they wanted him to become: a willing participant in their plans capable of taking care of any problem they needed cleaned up.

He was alone and without hope, but Bucky still fought them for over twenty years before they deemed him controlled enough, conditioned enough, to begin using. The problem with conditioning is that the associations need to be maintained routinely or else they fade. So, despite being usable, Barnes would still have been routinely and methodologically tortured in order to preserve that willingness to obey without hesitation or question.

Sgt. Barnes spent over seventy years as a prisoner of war. Sgt. Barnes managed to survive over seventy years in the control of a known terrorist organization by learning when to fight and when to acquiesce to the demands of his captors. Sgt. Barnes learned how to disassociate from emotional responses which only served to slow down action and become better at the behavior Hydra wanted from him.

Sgt. Barnes became the Fist of Hydra in order to survive an untenable situation. He is the Winter Soldier and he willingly completed all missions given to him. Because his entire existence relied upon pleasing his handlers and if there is one thing that humans are good at, it is survival.

Survival is imperative.

However, while there is no question about innocence in this case, the responsibility is also not in question. Sgt. Barnes is not innocent but he is also not responsible. The responsibility shift is two-fold: military chain of command and ability to consent without duress.

Military chain of command creates a buffer of sorts for military personnel who are following directives from those higher in their direct chain of command. There is bleed-over of this buffer into similarly martial organization such as the FBI, CIA, and police. Pretty much, if an organization is authorized to use force against others, then there’s a chain of command exemption to responsibility. Hesitation or refusal to follow the chain of command is actually considered a negative trait that can limit promotions and career duration. Entry programs (such as Basic for the Armed Forces) are specifically designed to create a mentality where the knee-jerk reaction is to follow the commands of a recognized superior. Of course, under normal circumstances, most individuals will not mindlessly follow orders if they go completely contrary to social mores such as harming traditional noncombatants (women, children, the sick, the elderly) or seem really questionable (blow up this bomb while standing beside it; poison this well; execute the ally standing next to you).

Which brings me to the second fold: ability to consent without duress.

In case y’all haven’t heard, no means no. (Yeah, I’m fucking going there. Buckle up, readers. This is a crash course in Consent 110.) Straight up, body autonomy is sacrosanct. The only person allowed to make your body do things is you. You are the only one who gets to choose what your body does, even if that choice is to let someone else make your body do things. Anything else is a violation of your body autonomy.

However, it must be recognized that there are times when saying no is not really an option, for whatever reason, and even saying yes is done due to circumstances which negate the expressed permission. Why? Because it’s not really consent when there’s a threat or manipulation involved, when the choice is between doing the thing or dying (or being harmed or someone else being harmed/killed). That creates duress, which negates consent even while willingness to participate continues.

Analogy time: think of any sex act you want. Maybe it’s your favorite; maybe you’ve done it hundreds of times and you’re damn good at it. The only difference is that you don’t want to do it this time with this partner. Now imagine that partner holding a gun to your head, telling you that they will shoot you if you don’t do it. You do that thing and manage to live. You did that thing, and nothing really changes that. However, it was not consensual.

You are not innocent but you are also not responsible.

Ultimately, what you are left with at end of the day is a PoW who did everything necessary to survive, including a lot of horrible things that affected others. I think this is really fucking important to note: Sgt. Barnes is a survivor. He did things, made choices, which clearly haunt him in order to ensure that survival.

He did those things because Sgt. Barnes became the Winter Soldier to survive.

Steve Rogers continuously invalidates that. Steve Rogers makes himself unavailable as a recovery support person because he refuses to acknowledge the trauma and guilt that would accompany such actions. I’m sure that his intentions are to be helpful and comforting. Steve Rogers once went on a suicide mission for Sgt. Barnes and later decided letting the guy beat him to a pulp was a good idea when the alternative was fighting him. Never doubt that Steve Rogers loves Bucky Barnes and that it is unconditional.

However, harm is not measured by intention. It is measured by effect.

Invalidating a survivor of violence? Not cool. Insisting that “it wasn’t really you” to someone who had essentially been raped? Also not cool.

And you know what effect that has? It makes the survivor unable to comfortably open up to you. Especially if disagreement with an authority figure was a past cause for corrective behavioral modification. Logic may say the punishment won’t happen but emotionally? Essentially, you are removed from the support team, and this is after you have created a situation in which the survivor is unable to remain in their previous safe place.

So, in summation, Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier due to being a PoW willing to do what it took to survive, but his blast-from-the-past best friend doesn’t acknowledge any of that which is hella hurtful and dismissive, regardless of said friend’s intentions. It interferes with the possibility of recovery which is inherently harmful to someone who has already been through so much and sets up the continuation of the conditioned behaviors, furthering the trauma in a way that is quite possibly worse than the outright violence of before.

Because Bucky Barnes will not stand up for himself. Resistance has been conditioned out of him. And now the person hurting him is a trusted individual declaring that he just wants to help.

Please respect the survival of Sgt. James Barnes by acknowledging his trauma, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Survivors do not have to make you comfortable with what it took to gain that status. Survivors do not owe you a picturesque view of their trauma.

Survival itself is the only imperative.

#MCU #Meta #Bucky Barnes #Winter Soldier #Steve Rogers #Trauma #Torture #Conditioning #PoW Survival #Trauma Recover #discussion of consent

[whitestonetherapy]

It’s not brain surgery..... is it? (6.6.17)

When driving in France recently our route took us by a huge engineering plant in the rust-belt that borders the beautiful city of Rouen. I have no idea what is produced there, but the structure is massive, a maze of piping, funnels and furnaces.  There are conveyor belts and walkways extending for what seems like acres in all directions.

I’m fascinated by the complex design and coordination that must have been required to construct a monster like this. Someone had to design it all and actually understand what each bit of the maze must do... then translate that understanding to paper in schematic plans. It’s easy to imagine there were lots of changes - disagreements on what pipe goes where and what walkway points this or that way.  All of this had to be settled and agreed, so presumably there was lots of paper.  Then the work would have begun, all built to a final set of specifications, all of them meeting industry regulations.  It must have involved thousands of people and maybe tens of thousands in the supply chain. The whole plant would have been built from the now-hidden foundations upwards, connecting all the different layers from bottom to top and side to side.  All the materials assembled at just the right points, all cut exactly to size and bound together by many teams working to the over-arching plan, all to the nearest millimetre.  Wow.

Now I’ve got no idea if this plant is, or ever has been, operational.  It looks old and defunct to me, but as I’ve never built a factory my opinion definitely doesn’t count for much. I find it enough to know that there are people out there who can make sense of things on such a scale, and that ultimately something will be produced that is useful - maybe electricity, medicines, or tyres, or…well…you get the point. 

For whatever reason, this plant always makes me think of a huge, rusty human brain whenever I see it.  It does look a bit like one in outline. I like to imagine someone may one day press the ‘on’ button and the whole thing will crank up and start thinking rusty thoughts. Ok, I admit a production plant is probably not the best analogy for a brain - it is far, far too ordered and simple - but there is something about the process of building such a plant, and connecting all bits of it to run properly, that is reasonably analogous to healthy neural and psychological development. 

As a practitioner I think it’s helpful to have at least a basic understanding of neural development throughout the lifespan. Work in this area increasingly allows therapists to ground their clinical work in ways that are measurably effective, and, I think vitally, if we work in an integrative way (as I do) it may help us choose the right therapeutic approaches to help our clients. This is pretty exciting stuff.

A few things have recently reminded me of the importance of this topic.  One was reading a good article in an industry mag Therapy Today by Sally Brown titled “The neuroscience of depression”. The other was someone telling me they had a relative that used to shout, it’s not brain surgery! as an admonishment when, as a child, this person could not make difficult decisions. Hmm. The third was someone else telling me how ineffective they happened to have found the short course of CBT favoured by the NHS (and this is something of a repeat theme).  

We know that experience shapes circuitry within the brain.  We know that what we call 'experience’ is, from a neural perspective, patterns of activating / firing brain cells. And we know that this pattern establishes synaptic connections within the brain that impact upon structure and functioning. 

A stimulus, let’s say a smile on the face of a mother, sets off neural activity in a baby’s brain.  Synaptic connections are created and the stimulus is associated with feelings of wellbeing in a neural network.  It is in this way that experience shapes the circuitry of the brain, especially so with repeated experience. This is the idea that ‘neurons that fire together wire together’ (Hebb).

So, the physical and psychological experience of our imaginary baby begins to manifest as newly established neural connections that in turn play a role in determining how this baby will react to future experiences.  Let’s say the mother in this story did not smile and turned away repeatedly (or worse), this would impede the development of those neural connections thus limiting the potential of the baby to feel emotions associated with wellbeing.  Over time, as the brain develops, these neural pathways form the basis of the young child making predictions about themselves and their environment.

Sticking with my slightly dodgy power plant analogy, let’s look at the brain itself.

Brainstem

Like the Rouen plant, the brain has a few levels that need to work together. Physiologically, the Brainstem is the ‘basement’ of the mind and the oldest part of the brain from an evolutionary perspective.  

A key structure within it is the Vagus nerve that regulates critical organs (heart and lungs etc) and the muscles in the face and head that allow social interactions. This nerve plays a key role in shaping our physiological responses to situations of all kinds, whether threatening or pleasurable.  It also plays a role in down-regulating the sympathetic nervous system too, without which we would spend much more time in fight/flight/freeze modes.  The regulating capacity can be knocked offline due to trauma or extreme stress, as sometimes seen in those with PTSD.

In short, the brainstem governs critical physiological functioning, and helps control over/under-arousal.  David J Wallin in his book Attachment in Psychotherapy suggests those suffering the effects of trauma may need help to ‘effectively modulate’ their levels of physiological arousal.  The work here would focus on body, nonverbal experience and the nuances found in the therapeutic relationship.  Note how this differs from the approach of short-term time-limited cognitive therapies offered, sometimes remotely, by the NHS (more on this below).

Limbic System

Next up we arrive at the limbic system - the ground floor of the power plant. This is the ‘emotional brain’ where we process feelings. There are two key structures:

Firstly, the Amygdala which acts as a sensory gateway and is well developed at birth.  Within fractions of a second the amygdala can appraise sensory input (a snarl, a gunshot, a shout etc) and signal to the brainstem to activate fight/flight physiological responses. The appraisal the amygdala makes depends on personal history, as the amygdala registers experience and holds ‘emotional memories’.

Secondly, the Hippocampus which provides the capacity to sequence and contextualise our experiences.  The amygdala cannot do this, and makes no distinction between, say, a Lion on the TV and Lion in your sitting room.  The Hippocampus therefore acts as an important brake that engages the parasympathetic nervous system ‘downstairs’ in the basement and allows physiological calming depending on whether the Lion is real.

Crucially, the hippocampus is not developed at birth. Full functioning only becomes available in the second or third year of life. It’s easy to see how early experience and learning processed by the amygdala can result in context-free equivalence between safe and threatening situations, and be powerful and overgeneralised.  Again, ‘what fires together wires together’. 

From a physiological standpoint, these key structures within the brain can and do change in size, depending on the psychological state a person is in (over some time).  Sally Brown cites studies that show in a sample of people with depression the Hippocampus was 19% smaller on average.  Whether this is the cause or effect of depression remains unclear, but Brown quotes Schmaal: “We think that the association between a smaller hippocampus, especially in people with recurrent depression, is a result of prolonged and / or recurrent stress.”

Further studies show that psychotherapy does help.  There is good evidence that different modes of therapy treat  ‘different areas of the brain’ (more on this below).    This can help practitioners ask important questions: What therapeutic approach is the right one for this person?  Will cognitive approaches, for example, be as effective as deeper relational therapeutic work exploring sensations, feelings and impulses that are a reflection in the body and mind of these early pre-verbal experiences? But then cognitive or behavioural approaches might help develop strategies which reduce over/under arousal of the amygdala etc.

So maybe both are necessary as both do different things.  Alan Schore (a leading light in this field) suggests as much.  Sally Brown quotes him and I paraphrase: “For me there are two forms of psychotherapy. There is symptom reducing, short-term psychotherapy, then there is a second form of longer terms psychotherapy, which is growth-promoting.”

Austerity notwithstanding, what a shame the NHS doesn’t take notice of this and offer a much greater range of longer term talking therapies where it is indicated this may be a more useful approach. 

Neocortex

Back to the brain.  Now we are on the top floor of the power plant. The cerebral cortex is the higher and upper floor of the brain and is also the last to emerge from an evolutionary standpoint and in the individual.  This part of the brain helps us make sense of experience and our interactions with others and the world and its function continues to mature throughout life. The areas towards the back of the brain govern our perception of the world through the senses.  The front areas are responsible for thought, raising mental representations to awareness, planning, memory, language, reasoning and much else.

The most advanced area is the prefrontal cortex which has two distinct regions.  The first (dorsolateral) has strong connections with the hippocampus and the reason-oriented ‘left brain’ hemisphere.  The second region (middle prefrontal cortex) houses the orbitofrontal cortex, which sits behind the eyes and plays a vital role in emotional regulation.  It is a convergence channel through which bodily, emotional and cognitive channels pass. 

Behind the orbitofrontal cortex is the anterior cingulate which may be the seat of maternal behaviours and for conscious experience of emotion.  Finally, there is the insula, a small area vital for ‘interoception’ - how we know how we feel.  It is also suggested that this is the area responsible for the ability to impute the mental state of others, and involved in the observed phenomenon of firing ‘mirror neurons’.  A key area for the quality of empathy then.

The neocortex is essentially where we find memory and our predictive power.  Through experience (body, emotions, thoughts) neural patterns are laid down that help us make associative predictions about situations unfolding and future, potential situations.

Joining it up

So, we can see how the brain is built from the ground up in layers.  But as with the Rouen plant, one side has also to work with the other side with all the funnels and walkways linked up.  

The right-hemisphere (right-brain) is specialised to respond emotionally and nonverbally and has dense neural connectivity to the limbic system. The left houses conscious thought and represents experience in a linear way through language (the voice in your head as you read this).

There are some powerful arguments (Damasio, Siegel) that the higher cortex/left-brain structures are often dominated by sub-cortex/right-brain processes.  This suggests that neural traffic tends to be directional, coming from the ‘basement upwards’ rather than the ‘rooftop downwards’, with the sub-cortex ‘amplifying’ and the neocortex ‘moderating’.  This seems to call for a ‘basement upwards’ approach to psychotherapy.  Again, Wallin suggests should be grounded in body-work and including focus on non-verbal aspects of the therapeutic relationship and Alan Schore points also in this direction.

Brain Physio?

I hope that the mental health services offered by the NHS keep pace with discoveries in the field of neuroscience.  This should involve a much greater investment in longer-term relational therapies (as well as continuing investment in time-limited cognitive therapy, for which waiting times are far too long).  In my mind this is in no way a choice between approaches, but an acknowledgement that there is a clear need for the former, a current lack, and, I hope, a serious commitment to redressing the imbalance.

As mentioned earlier, psychotherapy of all modes can be helpful and Sally Brown cited several studies; one showed that over-activity in the amygdala was reduced to ‘normal’ after 8 months of psychodynamic therapy, and another study showed over 14 weeks of CBT a reduced over-activity in the amygdala and increased activity in the prefrontal cortex.  She quotes Siegle: “Cognitive Therapy teaches you to step in and use your prefrontal cortex rather than letting your emotions run away with you.”  This work perhaps helps the higher cortex/left-brain to regulate the arousal of the sub-cortex/right-brain processes. Maybe this is partly what Schore had in mind when talking about ‘symptom reducing’.

In the future as technology advances further, perhaps the idea of working directly with the brain might become even more explicit.  Maybe there will be such a thing as ‘brain physio’ where certain therapeutic approaches are known to have greatest neurological effect in certain areas of the brain.  For example selecting certain approaches that best strengthen, say, the anterior cingulate or insula regions, and another approach to develop strategies which regulate the over-arousal of the amygdala.  I am actually not sure at all how I would feel about such a development like this for various reasons, but I do suspect that this is what already 'happens’ through the course of effective psychotherapy.  Would it be such a giant leap to introduce an element of intentionality to proceedings?

Here is Schore again: “The right hemisphere is really the core of the problem.  It’s selectively involved in processing negative emotions in depression, pessimistic thoughts and feelings and outlook on life, as well as sensitivity to pain. And if you have connectivity that is poor within the hierarchical apex (bottom up) of the limbic system into the amygdala there is a poor ability by the ‘higher’ aspects of the brain to regulate the lower aspects of the right brain.”

For me these factors come together to make a strong case for an integrative approach to therapy, ensuring psychological foundations are solid from the ‘bottom up’, and a ‘top-down’ approach to our work to help alleviate symptoms and develop more helpful patterns. These things are not in competition but seem to complement each other and likely work on different parts of the brain.  

The Personal Consultancy framework may help with this (Popovic & Jinks, 2014) allowing, as it does, the integration of both the reparative and generative modes of therapy & coaching into a clearly demarcated framework of practice.  This is a reasonable proxy for the type of division of labour that Schore and others are talking about. More on this on my website if interested.

#counselling #psychotherapy #whitestonetherapy #wellbeing #therapy #therapist

[sincerely-chaos]

To the psychodynamic anon (Chaos' own personal take on psychodynamic therapy)

(Tumblr ate two of my asks when I tried to save my answers as drafts. So I answer like this.)

First; Keep in mind that I have no official training in this particular therapy form - I have worked four years with a psychiatrist who’s also schooled as a psychodynamic therapist and who has inspired and taught me a few things, I use some techniques of this therapy at work (I do therapy, but officially it’s DBT - but having worked long enough with a psychodynamic colleague and also having a huge interest in the human psyche, as well as so far having spent almost a year in this kind of therapy as a client, I dare say that influences a lot of how I work with patients.). Some of the things I’ve observed but never before thought of as anything but merely observing a pattern and being curious enough to ask or question things when with a patients have later proven to be psychodynamic approaches, so I guess it’s fair to say that

You asked (if I remember correctly) about the difference between CBT and psychodynamic therapy, and what the focus was on in psychodynamic therapy.

One of the big differences between CBT and psychodynamic therapy is that psychodynamic therapy doesn’t use a manual/set structure for the sessions. In CBT you usually have one area that you and the therapist work on (anxiety, insomnia, depression and so on…) and the sessions are pretty much structured by a set manual beforehand. There’s often home assignments involved, and you work very much with dealing with a set behaviour or problem and the way it affects your life now by challenging thoughts, emotions and try different behaviours. In psychodynamic therapy, the goal might be similar (dealing with depression, anxiety and so on), but there’s no set manual. There’s no home assignments and the therapist is directing the session far less than in CBT. That’s not to say that the therapy is completely random or the therapist is passive, but that the methods and theory are very much different from that of CBT. There’s also the aspect of time - CBT often has a set number of sessions, while psychodynamic therapy often is evaluated (regarding if it should continue or not) something like bi-annually.

For me, one of the main things about psychodynamic therapy is patterns. Patterns of both behaviours and the sometimes unconscious reasons behind them. Patterns of relationships and of how you relate to others. Patters of reactions. The goal of the therapy is most often to allow the client to examine what’s beneath the surface of their own reactions, with the help of the therapist. What patterns formed earlier in life that affects how you react/relate/feel today? Upon becoming conscious about the existence of such pattern, and upon accepting that things that happened before - often in childhood - still affect you, you can actually begin to move towards a change. You can’t change what you are not aware of.

There’s a lot of focus on defence mechanisms and how they can obstruct you in your pursuit of things you want out of life (example: you minimise your emotions because others used to minimise your feelings, and now that you’re adult you might not even realise that you feel things that strongly, but automatically tell yourself that it’s ‘no biggie’ or that 'it’s nothing to get upset about’, which keeps you from consciously being aware of what upsets you, and not knowing that… well; it usually results in not knowing why you feel that strange feeling of unease or nameless anxiety or why you keep feeling so drained in certain situations, because you’re not in contact with the reactions or the feelings they create). So yeah; to me, it’s a lot about working with the client/therapist to unravel patterns. Very real and palpable patterns, but ones that you haven’t been able to observe on your own. The therapist’s job is a lot about observing patterns in things you say, the way you react to certain topics, to call you out on your defence mechanisms (that, I can say as a client, is really, really tough! Defence mechanisms are there for a reason. To protect us from things that hurt/used to hurt. And ripping that band-aid off is… a bit more terrifying than it sounds) and to question and ask further questions when what you say doesn’t make logical sense (a lot of 'but she’s right to treat me that way because I am -insert judgemental word here-’ gets questioned) or seems at odds with what you have said previously.

A summary that I quite like is this one: “The goals of psychodynamic therapy are a client’s self-awareness and understanding of the influence of the past on present behavior. In its brief form, a psychodynamic approach enables the client to examine unresolved conflicts and symptoms that arise from past dysfunctional relationships…” - it covers a lot of the things I like psychodynamic therapy.

The therapy in itself isn’t problem solving the way CBT often is. In psychodynamic therapy the focus is - as said - on enabling self-awareness and understanding, so that the client will have understand the reasons behind their maladaptive behaviours, and by being aware and also being allowed to work through these issues emotionally, many believe that the change has already started.

As someone working in psychiatry with personality disorders, this seems to me a very rational and empowering approach, and as a client myself, it’s… a very strange experience. I hadn’t expected to find myself still being sad about things that I thought I was over a decade ago. I wasn’t aware of how many feelings and reactions in repress. I couldn’t see how some of my behaviours that I thought was irrational wad actually somewhat understandable once the pattern was revealed. And I didn’t know that I was so incredibly rigid about things being logical. And my therapist told me none of those things. But she asked questions, and she questioned my truths at time. And she summarised things that I hadn’t connected before. The realisations were my own. And I was never rushed or pushed to make them. And that makes it so much more real to me. That it’s not someone else explaining me. It’s someone else examining things with me, letting me draw my own conclusions, but sometimes questioning them when needed.

This… became quite long. And perhaps not too coherent. I think it made me think a lot, since I’m not schooled in this, but actually had to look up a few things as I didn’t know/remember if those things were part of the theory behind it or just the personal style of the therapists I’ve met both professionally and as a client. I hope this make some sense at least. If not - feel free to send another ask - I promise not to lose the ask this time! :)

Also; anyone with knowledge about this - feel free to argue and correct me so anon gets a rational and good answer!

#therapy #my take on psychodynamic therapy #this is not as coherent as i would have liked it to be