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bookofmirth · 3 years

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I haven't read ACOSF yet, and tbh I'm rather rusty with the characters but it was really interesting to read your opinion on Elain! I feel there's a lot of complexity to her. And how she presents herself as well because as you said we literally have no chapters from hers or Lucien's POV and I think that's the important point to note because right now we're all just guessing and assuming her to be like Feyre, but she's not. People deal/show their traumas in different way and l think people expect Elain to deal with it as Feyre did. But, Feyres trauma and Elains are very different!

I don't really know what I'm saying. But I read your answer and it made me go 'oh... Huh!' in a good way, it sparked my curiosity! So thank you! But I think Elain perhaps is the most complex person with their trauma. I know people say 'oh Nesta is so different' but (I specialised in drama therapy so I love psycho analysis) and what Nesta did is self destructive to prevent relationships to avoid hurt or more emotions that she doesn't want to acknowledge (in my opinion!)

Elain just shuts down. She doesn't drink, she doesn't screw, she just remains in her garden which in itself says a lot! That's a very grounding way to handle trauma and not a lot of people are aware of that side!

So yeah I don't know what I'm saying but I think it's a really interesting discussion!

I have so many thoughts about Elain! This took me a few days to get to because i knew I had a crapton of thoughts. So this is basically me using this ask to explain the way I see Elain post-acosf!

There are three important scenes in acosf off the top of my head: when Elain talks with Nesta and they fight, and then with Nesta and Feyre and she gets mad and leaves, and then Feyre and Rhys talk about her in their chapter. We’re getting a lot more information about her, and for me, it wasn’t so much about who she is, but why we don’t know who she is.

So far, what we’ve had is Feyre’s and Nesta’s POV. Even when Feyre and Lucien tried to help her in acowar, they were unable. So we’ve never had anything about Elain from someone who didn’t grow up with her and experience the same trauma (such as becoming destitute, their mother’s death, their father being beaten, the Cauldron, etc.)

The sisters do handle it very, very differently. And I think that at this point the fandom consensus is that Elain runs away from her problems, but I actually disagree, and partly because of what you mentioned - that she isn’t using those self-harming, destructive coping mechanisms. Nesta was avoiding her problems, hardcore. It’s absolutely possible that Elain avoids things, but I don’t think that she just runs from all of her problems because:

Elain grieves her father. Openly. She tries to accept the fact that it wasn’t her fault and that she couldn’t do anything about it. (See: her going to his grave in acofas, her first talk with Nesta in acosf.) Elain does not run from her grief, she doesn’t pretend it doesn’t exist, and she doesn’t hide it from others. As one of the most defining events we’ve seen her go through in the series, that’s a pretty big deal.

Elain does not cling to unhealthy coping mechanisms. There could be ways that she does this that we are unaware of. She does seem like the type who would be really, really good at making people think she’s okay, all while she’s silently imploding. But we don’t know that yet?

Elain does not isolate herself.

However, Elain definitely needs to deal with some stuff! She definitely needs to deal with Lucien, and she needs to have an actual talk with Nesta because I don’t remember a single satisfying resolution between those two in acosf. Not like Nesta had with Feyre.

I have this idea that is purely based on Elain’s line in acosf:

“I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow, all you think of is what my trauma did to you.” (pg. 233)

And then Feyre tells Nesta that yes, Elain was right.

This is so so so sossosososos important. I cannot emphasize it enough. Elain is used to putting on a fake, smiling face because she doesn’t want the weight of her sisters’ concern. She has been pretending to cope for so long - and tbf, she seems to have been doing better than Nesta - that people not only forget that she has suffered, but she doesn’t feel like she can even express that suffering.

Emotional labor often means negating one’s own feelings in order to acknowledge or tend to someone else’s. And that is Elain’s major role, in the series. Feyre has been caring for everyone’s physical wellbeing (hunting), while Elain’s role has been to care for everyone’s emotional wellbeing. But, like with most emotional labor, it has gone unnoticed.

I’ve made posts about emotional labor in the past (four years ago!!!!) but I’m gonna spare you the link because a lot of it was about a ship that’s no longer a ship, so here is the relevant content:

What I am talking about is the regulation of emotion - any time that you give comfort, are especially attentive to someone’s needs, stop thinking about how you feel in order to focus on how someone else feels, try to cheer someone up, make sure that they are taking care of themselves, try to allay their insecurities, etc. Basically, helping them with any sort of emotional distress.

You know those posts you’ve seen, about women protecting men’s egos constantly? Or about making time for self-care? Or about recognizing toxic relationships? That tell you “if X is being demanded of you in a relationship, get out”? Those are ALL about emotional labor, broadly speaking. They are warning you not to do more than you can handle, more than you need to do, because it can be harmful to you.

If you have ever been expected to make a person or people feel better any time you are around each other (including when they are angry, upset, anxious, ill, frustrated, insecure, etc.), you have performed emotional labor. Pretty much everyone has done this at some point, unless you are a completely insensitive jerk.

Notice, though, that I said expected to and any time you are around them – this is where the problem comes in for YOU. This is not about just being there for a friend.

Making loved ones feel better is fantastic. Seeing people be polite and kind to one another makes my heart shine. That is not a problem in and of itself. That can be seen as emotional labor, but there are no requirements on you in those circumstances. This is something you are doing of your own free will.

The problem, again, is when this is expected, constantly, over time. Now, in my experience, the expectation is not necessarily coming from the other person. One of the problems with this type of labor is that not only do others expect women to perform these tasks, but women expect it of themselves.

It’s super easy to see this – who is expected to take care of a child when they fall? Who is expected to baby-sit? Who did you want when you were sick as a child, mom or dad? Who is expected to be sensitive and pay attention to others’ emotions?

For more info on this idea specifically, read Of Woman Born by Adrienne Rich. As a woman, I realized how much work I had been performing and how much it was harming me and I just… got real upset. She comes at this mostly from what a woman’s role is expected to be within the family, and might actually be a bit outdated in that respect because I feel like family structures and dynamics are shifting (that is a totally un-academic evaluation of the situation, don’t quote me on that), but still, it’s really informative.

While I was doing some research for this post I came across a peer-reviewed article about nursing and basically, high amounts of emotional labor led to anxiety and burn-out in those performing it. It literally will cost your mental health – not to mention your time, energy, attention, and it often requires you to ignore your own needs (this last part came from me, not the article). On the other hand, high levels of emotional intelligence (being able to recognize your own and others’ emotional states) meant less emotional labor (and therefore less anxiety & burn-out). One of the most important things to realize is that while you are taking care of someone else’s emotional needs, your own are frequently unmet. That is why it’s important to recognize this in yourself, not just in these characters.

So where does Elain fit in? Elain is the #1 emotional labor provider of the family, and she is about to freaking SNAP. I know, because once I realized how my trauma was hidden in order to spare someone else its consequences, I fucking SNAPPEd. I’ll also spare you the personal details, but Elain hasn’t been “okay”. She hasn’t been “boring”, or “nice”, or “chosen” Feyre over Nesta. She has literally been unable to express herself because (and I am NOT blaming Nesta or Feyre or her father one bit) her family’s emotional state has been so fragile, there hasn’t been room for Elain to feel or express her emotions in years.

In the feysand short, Rhys says:

I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elain is sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she’d disappoint you all.

And that completely tracks. Everyone has gotten used to Elain being not just “nice”, but being the emotionally predictable one. The one they know they can go to for a smile. The one they can count on for never, ever making them realize that she has been through Some Shit Too. And being that person is exhausting.

When Feyre thinks about Elain not using Lucien’s gloves, 1) she still has them, otherwise she couldn’t think about Elain not using them, and 2) I like to see the gloves as something that she will come to use, once she realizes that she can feel and express those emotions without it causing a breakdown in the family. Right now, she just wants to feel. And she can’t do that emotionally, so she’s doing it physically. Once she heals and finds a better balance, she won’t need to resort to physical pain. (Which, lowkey has me thinking some other thoughts, but.... maybe later.) But anyway, once Elain does go through her very own special journey, I fully expect her to welcome those gloves. She won’t need physical pain to feel anymore.

Not to mention my completely unacademic and non-professional opinion that people will judge a nice women harshly for being rude once, but accept a woman with a history of rudeness for just “being that way”. It’s another way that Elain may feel trapped in her “nice girl” persona. I think she started out that way - kindness and light and generosity is 100% in Elain’s character in the first place. It’s not as if she went into the Court of Nightmares and suddenly Cassian thought, “wait, she fits right in to this shithole of depravity”. No, he still thought the literal opposite. It’s just that once people get used to you doing all their emotional labor, they will continue to take advantage of it, even if they don’t realize its cost.

#elain #acosf #acosf spoilers #spoilers #ask #PHEW I needed to get that off my chest too #midnight-wonder

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bsd-elle · 3 years

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Thoughts on the SK8 The Infinity Episode 12

So the final episode just aired. And I’m having majoorrr mixed feelings.

This show was truly something that kept me going, with it’s story, animation and the whole found family thing. I have loved this show from the beginning and I will till the end.

But as a lot of people in the fandom I do have some strong opinions on the finale

First off, I just want to say that everyone is allowed to have their own opinion but please do not send hate or any negative energy to studio Bones and Hiroko Utsumi. They have worked incredibly hard on this series. In fact I put them on a pedestal for giving us something so poignant and wonderful during such trying times. I looked forward every Saturday to watch the new episode and that feeling, that rush while watching it, never changed throughout the show’s run!!

Now on to my thoughts on the finale.

1. Shipping

I saw many people in the fandom criticizing the studio for queerbaiting. Now I can definitely not give an accurate perspective on this, as I am not part of the LGBTQIA community, though I am a strong ally.

Let’s talk about the main ships: Renga and Matchablossom

Renga: In my opinion they’re pretty much canon. All the hints, the loving looks, Langa jumping to hug Reki, Langa basically saying Reki is his happiness, Reki wanting to skate beside Langa (Infinitely). In my eyes, they’re canon.

Of course it would’ve been amazing to have a canon queer relationship, but we have no idea what happens behind closed doors. The rules in Japan, unfortunately are totally different from other progressive countries. As someone who lives in a country where they just decriminalized gay marriage, seeing canon queer relationships is honestly rare.

I think they did whatever they could to show that Renga is canon.

I mean come on, Langa basically said he liked Reki in episode 8

I think it would be very very cool and progressive to have a them outwardly admit to it, but we know both these dumbasses never finish their sentences. lol

I’m happy with the way their relationship evolved.

Matchablossom: I honestly can’t give a clear reasoning to this, because personally I don’t ship them. But the thing is, they could be canon, who knows?

I mean everyone was talking about how Joe went out with 2 girls in the end sequence and because of that they aren’t canon. But by that logic we couldn’t ship them from the beginning, since Joe kissed girls in the first episode.

I mean I totally headcanon that Joe is a bisexual king, so that means he could be hanging out them girls while still majorly crushing on Cherry.

Who knows, maybe Joe brought the girls to Cherry’s signing on purpose to make him jealous. Lol

Let your imagination run wild, people. It’s up to your own perspective. I personally don’t ship them, but I don’t think it’s queerbaiting when you pretty much have several hints to them caring deeply (love) about each other.

2. Story

This is where the critiquing comes.

One of the main reasons why I loved and still love Sk8 was one, obviously because of Renga and two because I absolutely loved the story.

From eps 1-11 the story was so compelling and written in such a fantastic way. Every week I’d have some assumptions and every time it would completely blow my mind.

In particular ep 10. When I originally saw the title “Dap not needing words” I was so worried.

They need to talk, they have to communicate. But wow, that episode was just phenomenal, if you guys want me to make a review on each episode I would be happy to, I have so much to say.

Sure, ep 10,11 was wayyy too rushed, but I just know it’s because they had to fit a lot of story in such a little time period. If they had maybe 24 episodes, they would’ve knocked it out of the park.

Either way I had no complaints.

My issue with ep 12 is the beef: Adam Vs Snow

I thought animation wise and as a beef it was really impactful (similar to Reki Vs Adam)

But why God, why did they give Adam a redemption

I’m sorry but he doesn’t deserve it.

I knew for a fact that as much as I wanted Adam to go to jail (so badly), I knew it wouldn’t happen. That was just not possible (in my eyes). I thought they would take a page from Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited, where his family (those evil ass aunts) and send them to jail (for clear mental, physical abuse and who knows what else), and Adam would go in isolation somewhere.

There he could properly heal from his trauma and abuse, work through it, heal his relationship with Tadashi and just work to be better.

There was a part of me that expected the show to end with a typical “oh we’re all friends and everything is forgiven” bullshit and I prayyedd that wouldn’t happen

But boy was I wrong

Why did they try to sympathize with him?!?

I get it, he’s clearly had severe trauma and abuse, and he uses skateboarding and entering the “zone” to get away from his terrible reality.

But why did they have Langa say this to him??

“Skating is fun because you can do it with your friends!”

It’s sweet that he’s trying to teach Adam what Reki taught him, but this implies that Adam is his friend. Or atleast that’s what he wants

“hey, you’re a crazy monster and you assaulted my friends (boyfriend), but I still wanna skate with you, cause it’s fun with friends”

I’m sorry, in what universe is this.. your friend?

Your actual friend, Langa, who taught you everything you know, who’s been with you from the start, he has been attacked and traumatized multiple times by Adam. Not to mention several other people.

I could’ve accepted it if they used the line

“Don’t ever end up on your own”

That makes more sense in this context, it’s like saying “hey you evil monster, you’re crazy but don’t end up alone, treasure the people in your life”

I think that implies more on the sense that Adam has to figure shit out on his own, by himself. Not with Langa and the people he’s assaulted.

Then it would make atleast a bit more sense to heal Tadashi and Adam’s relationship.

You just cannot build up a character like Adam, for 12 episodes and then completely forgo that for the sake of “friendship”, that just makes no sense

Not to mention, Kirako the detective, the fact that she worked so hard and got absolutely nothing, is preposterous.

That whole thing put a really bad taste in my mouth.

Also, during the beef, like I mentioned, Langa basically implies that they should have fun because they’re skating with friends.

This basically just throws out Langa’s friendship with Reki.

I mean Reki was so badly hurt and injured after their beef, both the times.

Yes, he did have a lot of fun and that was the point of ep 10, 11 to show Reki that he didn’t have to skate to be the best (like no one ever wass.. dun dun dun. If you know that reference, here’s a chocolate) he skated to have fun(even though in my eyes, he’s the best)

Ep 12 was that arc for Langa, for him to realize he also skated to have fun.

But when you’re condoning and encouraging Adam, idkk.. it just rubbed me the wrong way.

I didn’t like it at all. They made him into a gag character in the end scene, which is literally the opposite of what he’s been pictured for the past 11 episodes.

3. Side characters

Shadow did not deserve that in any way whatsover.

He was completely glossed over. I thought his injury would be a pivotal plot point for improving his relationship with the manager, but they just used it as a way to remove him from the tournament

Tadashi, babyy, that’s Stockholm syndrome

When I saw that dog comment:

Godd... he deserves so muchhh moree..

So, overall the finale, honestly disappointed me. But my love for sk8 is everlasting and the finale will never change that

4. Future

Hopefully, and I pray for this

A season 2, movie, OVA or anything tbh.

There’s so much potential

Reki and Langa go to Canada, they visit Oliver’s grave, Langa teaches Reki snowboarding

Kirako finally arresting Adam

Tadashi becoming true friends with Langa, Reki and the gang

Shadow getting the love he deserves

Matchablossom canon

Renga canon

Miya getting the apology he deserves

But whatever it is, Sk8 the Infinity owns my heart and I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life.

Other than reading Renga fanfiction

#sk8 the infinity #sk8 #renga #hasegawa langa #kyan reki #sk8 langa #sk8 reki #adam #matchblossom #cherry blossom #joe #sk8 cherry x joe #sk8 cherry blossom #what is my life now #its incomplete

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antiloreolympus · 3 years

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A Bunch of Anti LO Asks

1. I have a lot to say about lo’s writing so here we go:

1) there is so little foreshadowing. I can’t even name one instance other then Kronos being reawakened but that was a literal direct shot of it instead of it being hinted at. There’s very little to none at all ( correct me if I’m wrong.) 2) The pacing??? This all happens in 2 weeks but so much has happened and it’s all happened so slow it feels like it’s been at least a year ( in universe time.) 3) I feel like this has been said enough but using trauma as a way to move the plot along is literally the laziest thing I’ve ever seen.

I’m sorry if this is like hella stupid or something like that

2. i dont get why the writing in LO refuses to let persephone be dark and accepting of death/punishment, because isn't that what you need to show she's going to be a good queen? she seems terrified of the concept and keeps trying to find ways to reverse them, which goes against the whole point of ruling over the dead and even something in myth hades DID NOT like, so its weird to keep making her the opposite of what she's supposed to be? shes just making the case she's not right for the role?

3. apollo/hyacinthus is having such a big resurgence right now that i dont get why rachel didnt include them as friends/a couple persephone cares about and, when hyacinthus dies, have persephone resurrect him. not only would it show her kind nature and sway over hades, but it would also be some actual positive canon gay representation that has legit myth backing. RS obviously got most of her takes from tumblr, yet couldnt take the pro apollo/hyacintus take too? is her heterosexuality that strong :/

4. the whole r*pe plotline was BY RACHEL HERSELF said to not be included, she promised as much, and readers were excited they were finally able to see a depiction of HxP without sexual assault, only for it to turn out she was lying with only a measly "this might be bad uwu" warning on the ep, triggering many people in the process. then she tried to backtrack and claim it was a #MeToo moment, and that irl victims were haters for calling it out. That speaks to who she really is, and it's not pretty.

5. lo hades isnt even cute tbh. what exactly makes him so desirable to make all these women fight over him for? his design is basic (and kinda antisemitic, a guy with a gigantic nose controlling the media and all the banks/money? rachel please), hes not charming or funny, he talks over all the women in his life, never listens to being rightfully called out, he never apologizes or does any self reflection, etc. hes just awful??? like even by an uwu hes misunderstood POV hes just a boring jerk?

6. I think the reason Punderworld or HXP Ficlets doesn't get the amount of scrutiny LO does (and PW is def LO's rival, WT has begged to Feature it several times) is because they had the good sense to never get high and mighty about their depictions, something RS absolutely does all the time. In fact the PW creator constantly promotes over myth comics and loves other takes on the mythos, while RS flips out unless its exactly how she sees it. How she survived school w/ that attitude we'll never know

7. also if demeter was as evil in LO as they want her to be then why would she ever let her emotionally unstable child out into the city with no supervision and no way to contact her? Why would she be going through all this trouble including putting her own welfare into question like trying to keep persephone out of harms' way via the cruelty of thee olympian men and out of jail (WHERE SHE BELONGS) if she's the big bad? Why even make her abusive and evil to begin with? Can't Persephone love both?

8. even if lo needs a villain (which it doesnt but w/e) must it be apollo? or leto? or minthe? or anyone for that matter? if you need some ~drama~ just use eris? she doesn't need some tragic backstory, she's an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. you could so easily have her basically be like TMZ causing discord through her popular blog and causing shit because she can. LO shoots itself in the foot by trying too hard to be deep and thought provoking when its as deep as a puddle.

9. less persephone/hades and more dionysos/ariadne: whats more romantic? a man kidnapping his underage niece and her friends crying themselves to death over it (cyane) or ariadne being dumped by her first boyfriend only to come back with some serious bling and a hot divine partner that is at least the physical equiv of her own age? (dionysos is usually depicted as mentally/physically quite young, so the godly age gap is less creepy/statutory-y)

10. vis a vis the sexual assault anon: it is also something that happens with horrific frequency to trans people as well. the number of trans reports of sexual assault that get thrown out per year by sample size is almost 5x the amount of cis female ones. LO already has some weird terfy undertones with the fertility thing, but just because it happens less (or rather, is reported less) by cisgender men doesnt mean it happens the most to cis women.

#anti lo #anti lore olympus #lo critical #lore olympus critical

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jooniely · 3 years

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i really want to know wth mxtx was smoking when she wrote svsss ,the premise was cool the first chapters were adorable and funny so how come it became soooooooo horrible, bingqiu is one of the worst toxic relationships ever, like it makes no fucking sense, one instance SQQ call LB a child the next they're in true love uwu ,The power inbalance is soo jarring ,LB literary never listens to a word SQQ says, hurts him,balantly disrespects SQQ friends ,coherce SQQ and guilt trip him into loving him, and leaving everyone he knows for him, what Binghe needs is a restraining order, and life long therapy and fix his daddy issues, but it seems that the majority of danmeis idea of love is toxic abusive relationships ,i am not against the ship , from the way the fans talked about Bingqiu i was looking forward to see their love blossom and them making up in a healthy way, but god was i dissapointed , like at least make it believable ,give them time to talk about their feelings ,clear the misunderstandings ,heal the wounds ,not whatever the hell that rape scene was about ,so is mxtx trying to tell us that raping the man you love with their consent "whatever the fuck this is supposed to mean " tormenting hurting and making them bleed ,is more important than them having a heart to heart conversation about the fuck ups they commited ,and showing how much they cherish each other , the fans will tell you that NO it's a deconstruction of the papapa to save the world trope ,like wtf is that even supposed to mean ,she deconstruct it by using the same awful shit

Anyway svsss was good at first and then it spiraled to complete nonsense ,it felt like mxtx just wanted to get it over with and move on, sooo much lost potentiel ,i recommend reading well written fix it fanfictions to get over the atrocity of canon, there are plenty of good liushen and qijiu fics out there

And sorry that i rambled a lot and for my bad english, i am just super dissapointed ,this wasn't what i signed up for when i read the many positive reviews

Hey anon let's be friends lol. I agree with everything here. You can clearly tell this was mxtx's first novel. Someone said they wrote it when they were in high school? So maybe it was also cuz they were young that it had some not so great things.

I finished the novel this morning and I was still NOT a fan. That scene was written in a way to make it seem like it was not sexjal assault but it clearly was. Binghe wasn't even mentally present and was not able to give consent and was terrified of what he did. This is the first time I saw the old binghe from the past come out. Shizun didn't give consent either. He basically just accepted his fate. You're right, how is it deconstructing a trope if you're gonna write the trope? And I think a lot of readers don't realize that this entire scene didn't need to happen. It was some bullshit reason that the author fully knew was bullshit. You have to wait for the special item to load? That's never happened, if it loaded right when shizun asked for it, then there would have not been that assault scene.

A lot of ppl use in universe reasons to explain why some things needed to be done but I'm here wondering why the author needed to add these things. At least let your characters suffer the consequences? Consequences for actions don't always mean getting hurt physically after making a wrong decision. It means after so much trauma, both binghe and shizun would barely be mentally functioning. Shizun's thoughts should have been a mess because this is his student but he also raised him and now that student is obsessed with him. One dream he meets old binghe and literally gets his limbs ripped then the next second sees baby binghe and he's okay after it. Even when he sees older binghe there's no residual fear.

With binghe being a psycho, and it being his sword that was poisoning his mind, why didn't someone immediately try to destroy the sword? Then when binghe is getting his therapy we could have explored the love between them.

As it stands I still don't see the love. I don't wanna read the extras to see whatever love that will develop there because those are extras. That shit should have been in the main book. But whatever I gave it a skim and literally already we got another assault scene. And old binghe wants shizun all of a sudden? The same one you repeatedly tortured?? Why???

Tbh old binghe and old shizun would probably get along well if shizun hadn't been abusive towards him cuz they were both psychos.

Shen yuan essentially looked like he just accepted whatever fate he had. Not once did I feel like he realized this world was his life now and not still some book, he's no longer and outsider. And also to just leave everything? It doesn't seem like to us but he spent years with his sect and qingge and qi ge. Oh my god the connection between old qingqiu and his child hood "friend" that should have been focused on more because in those few scenes we got so much material. So much emotional and complex scenes. I really hope there's a fic that explores this thread.

Anyways I still think their relationship is toxic. I know a lot of ppl still enjoy it and I'm okay with that as long as they know it's fictional. Some ppl are okay with toxic things as long as it's fictional but no matter what some say, it's scientifically proven that fiction affects reality. So as long as things stay fictional and ppl aren't looking at them and thinking this is okay or healthy then I have no issue. Not everyone will agree and understand each other so each side should stay on their own with one hating and the other loving, on their own.

I also ended up ranting lol. If u wanna talk more u can send another ask or just message me I don't mind! If u have read mxtx other works I would love to talk about them as well! Also you're English is perfect!

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werevulvi · 3 years

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Hi, could you tell me more about your autism and diagnosis and how you deal with it, how old you were diagnosed

I don't know a lot about my autism, tbh, as I never bothered to read up on it and I was never properly informed on it. But what I do know is that I learned slowly as a kid, learned to walk at age 3, was very clumsy (like medically abnormally clumsy physically, could barely run at all and couldn't climb, etc) required special treatment to learn how to eat as a toddler because I hated the sensory experience of solid food and chewing, I was incapable of understanding sarcasm, interpreted everything literally, I was stimming a lot, had monotone body language and speech, etc. I was very obviously "different" according to my parents already from around age 1 or 2, and required literally constant attention for the first 4 years of my life. Started daycare at age 4, in small groups.

Then as I started school at age 6, apparently the school nurse had told my parents that I'm probably autistic, so I consider that my "inofficial diagnosis" but they decided to ignore that and didn't tell me (until 10 years later.) I was bullied in school for being "the weird kid" by both classmates and teachers who thought I was a retard and annoying, basically, I guess. I was called a freak and weirdo a lot. But like I was proudly a weirdo, and resented normativity.

As I got up into ages 10-12 my depression and DID symptoms (alter) kinda took over and became more prominent than my autism symptoms, as I wasn't as physically clumsy anymore and started learning social cues. My mental health continued to decline over the next few years, until I sought out therapy on my own at age 16. It led me to doing my first few suicide attempts, which led me to ending up at a closed psychiatric ward.

While staying there for a few weeks, I got evaluated for autism (without knowing that's what I was tested for) as well as a few physical things, such as my hearing impairment and chronic headache. And those tests led to an official Asperger Syndrome diagnosis, when I was 16, by the very end of year 2005. I also got diagnosed with borderline psychosis and mild depression, and got pumped full of anti-depressants and anti-psychotic (neuroleptic) drugs. Then my mom finally told me that she basically always knew about my autism, and I was really pissed at her for not having told me before. I resented my autism diagnosis right from the start, and the older I got, the more I resented it. Never identified with it, only ever saw it as a huge burden.

Then throughout the rest of my teens, I went to a school for neurodivergent people (basically upper high school) but still flunked it. I was a complete and utter mess, and got little to no actual therapy. They just kept shoving me around from one psychiatric department to another, due to my comorbid issues, no one could help me, it seemed. Every once in a while I'd make another half assed suicide attempt to make them take me seriously, which only worked for a few months at a time. In total, I've made 19 suicide attemps over 12 years. Oh lord, psychiatry was so bad!

Adulthood came along and I got benefitted with sickness compensation, and got my first apartment at age 20. It didn't go great. I accidentally flooded it and had to move out, and didn't manage to keep it clean or anything while I lived there. I was barely functional and alcoholic, constantly self-harming, just to try to manage attending school. Despite getting help from caretakers offered by the state (?) weekly, I was really dysfunctional. I switched apartments several times, and kept flunking school while trying to live my miserable life, always hanging by a thread. Until I moved back to my parents at age 23. They had moved to a miserable island far away from all my friends. Got an apartment on that island close to my parents, but my issues continued being the same level of awful, up until about age 27.

What this has to do with my autism is that... uh, I basically understand it as that it impedes on my executive function really dramatically, and like although I can physically do pretty much anything, mentally I just somehow can't. Especially repeatedly, and often enough. Like I can't keep any routine for the life of me, not even simple shit like sleep cycle, eating habits, brushing my teeth, etc. Let alone school or a job, or even hobbies. Everything is infrequent and too seldom, if at all. So everything in my life keeps falling apart as I basically have no foundation to stand on, and I get sensory overload suuuuper easily. So like just going shopping/cleaning/laundry/hobbies/school/anything for half an hour can drain me significantly and make me incapable of managing doing anything else for the rest of that entire day. It's very hard for me to explain, but it's like I only ever have 3 spoons per day, but most things requitre 10+ spoons, so I go backwards on my energy resources a lot and end up having to rest for DAYS after just one hour's activity.

At age 27 I ditched the social service caretakers, as they were seriously depriving me of my privacy while being largely unhelpful, and I began to finally try to pull myself together. I still get a lot of help from my mom, with anything from paying my bills and grocery shopping, to driving me places and dealing with soul-sucking authorities for me. This takes off a lot of the burden and allows me to manage doing at least a few things on my own, like working out, cleaning (yay I manage keeping my apartment clean nowadays!), laundry, occasional shopping, art projects, online socialising, etc. I still go to therapy biweekly but it's still largely unhelpful. At least I managed to make them stop tossing me around between departments like a football though, and I'm still gonna try to get some proper trauma therapy, and maybe also look into that adhd group I was promised last year, if it'll ever resume again post-corona...

I've still never had a job in my life and still have incomplete grades. But I got permanent sickness compensation now, so that's neat. At least I don't have to worry financially. I'm also trying to get started with some "work training" stuff which is basically "pretend work" for people who can't work, just to have something to do. I'll most likely be granted acces to that. However, it seems irony is that most of those are located out in the middle of nowhere where no buses go, and I can't afford a fucking car or driver's licence because I can't work. Mom probably won't drive me several times a week for that. Fucking fantastic. Makes me almost wanna kill someone... argh! Those little things really piss me off.

Life is absolutely not going the way I want and I blame my autism for it, mostly. I am drowning in frustration, and my anger issues making me scream my lungs out in pure despair, shows that. I'm considered offically disabled due to my autism, and it just fucking sucks ass. How lonely, under-stimulated yet easily over-stimulated, bored, meaningless and unfulfilled my life is. There are far more severely autistic people out there who somehow manage to live far more functional lives, and I'm jealous of that. I dunno how to break free from this misery. It feels like the only thing I've ever managed to accomplish in life is transitioning genders, and making art that I don't wanna sell. I wanna have a "normal" job, a car and driver's licence, I wanna have cats and a social life, I want parties at night clubs again, I want hobbies outside of my home; hookups, friends and lovers; I want to be able to have a functional romantic life with someone I can marry and start a family with.

But is any of that ever gonna happen? I hope so, but it feels bleak. Because my autism feels like such a huge burden on my life, and a huge hindrence to my dreams and goals... like I'm over 30 already and still a disabled and having my mom living half my life for me, miserable mess and not given any useful therapy, I'm left to my own vices to figure out how to adult... Because of all that, I hate my autism and I wish there was a cure, I swear to fuck. So for your question, how I deal with it: not fantastically. Not sure if you wanted a relay of my entire life, but I hope that’s okay! Didn’t know how else to answer your questions.

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dismas-dumbass · 4 years

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Mom says that a house is like a body. And every house has eyes and bones and skin. A face. This room is like the heart of the house. No, not a heart, a stomach.

-The Haunting of Hill House

Hackett Siblings wanted for some absolutely chaotic drama!

CW: suicide, ptsd, mental trauma, death, substance abuse

henlo, welcome to the ad where i lose my shit cause i’ve lost control of my life. anyway! i have the idea for a rather messed up group of siblings slightly based off the Haunting of Hill House show. The basics are that there’s a large house, there’s a large family, something reaaaallyy rreeaally bad happens to the family when the kids are young that have fucked them up for the rest of their lives, fun stuff like that! obviously the situation is more subtle/personal rather than what goes on in the show [i’ll try to be vague due to spoilers] but i think it’s still something that can be rather creepy~ pretty much 95% of the info presented in this version of the ad is rather flexible and flimsy and i definitely don’t mind working with y’all to make it something amazing!! also, no knowledge of the show is needed whatsoever but just be a tiny bit careful if you do wanna see it/don’t like being spoiled mostly just due to the fact that with the themes that will be in the ad the show will probably be discussed as well!

a loooootttt of the details aren’t set in stone btw! i’m pretty much outlining my thoughts and the general concept but things may/will change and things will be added/subtracted as more people contribute to the idea!

if you have any questions or even if this strikes your fancy you can contact me on discord [mine’s dismas#9766]! if there’s more than one of ya then we can get a group chat going so that way we can see what ideas we all have for this! i can’t wait to write with y’all! <3

Backstory

alright, so the gist is that the Hackett family used to live in a rather big and fancy house. why they were there is up in the air so here’s a few suggestions: A. like the show, their parents were fixing it up. now, whether that means they’re going to sell it right after or live in it is open since both angles are rather interesting! B. they inherited it. from who? who knows! could be a relative that one of the parents knew, could have been random. it’s just a harmless house right? it might be good for the family! C. they just moved there. weird house for a good price? why not! it might be fun!

whatever the reason, the siblings were in the house for some time. whether they’re natives to Dyrne or outsiders is open since all of the concepts can cover those possibilities easily! there’s no strict timeline yet as to how old they were when they were in that house but more than likely the youngest [twin] siblings were no younger than 6 so make of that what you will with the age ranges~ i would say that they were in that house for about a year or so? technically not too long in their lives but enough to cause lifelong damage?

their parents were good people. they had their flaws obviously and raising literally seven kids was an undertaking but they managed fine enough. mostly through the power of having the older siblings taking care of the younger. but even then they were loving parents. their father was a bit of a mess but well-meaning [think: one of the little siblings learned a swear word from an older one and their father tries to track them down, shouting throughout the house ‘get your ass in here now or else you’re grounded!’] and their mother was more organized yet didn’t hesitate to create a tiny bit of harmless chaos every once in a while. they loved each other, they loved their kids.

now, obviously, there’s the subject of the house itself. what’s the history behind it? that’s definitely left open due to the very reason why they’re there. but there’s probably something wrong with the house. physically? spiritually? mentally? whoever walks those halls won’t exactly be coming back out the same, that’s for sure. And that’s sort of what happened. the official story was that the Hackett family lived in the house for year, doing whatever, and then a fire broke out which caused the death of their mother. the rest of the family was able to escape and the father gave the testimony that it was an electrical fire -when investigated, he was proven innocent of any wrongdoing.

so what’s the actual story? It’s a bit of a mish mash of weird memories, mostly. it’s not really known whether the house is actually alive alive or if its history is just a horrible set of coincidences of bad stuff happening to people. the actual night was a blur to the siblings, all of them being ushered out of the house by their frantic father and herded into the car. when they asked where their mother was their father didn’t answer so they were just left crying after their missing mother. they didn’t even know that there was a fire even though maybe one of them said that they smelled smoke. they didn’t find out until one of the officers at the scene talked about it. for whatever reason, each and every one of them were silent on why they were brought out of the house by their father.

it’s still something they don’t know about.

to be fair, it was almost a partial relief to be out of the house. as i mentioned with the family they were held together well enough and were loving but things started to change when they moved to that house. slowly, surely, they started to encounter strange happenings, feel strange things, and started to view each other differently. what exactly happened to each family member is left open since they mostly don’t speak of their experiences except for the youngest. even their father, who may have experienced quite a lot, was tight-lipped about what happened to him, especially on the night of the fire. the experiences changed them, messed with them, and caused them to splinter and falter and break. after the death of their mother there was obviously quite a few years before everyone split up but they eventually did, going off to do their own things with their own scars hidden beneath their lies. some moved away, some stayed, but they still stayed in touch in some fashion. just not enough to be considered personal anymore.

what brought them all back together was the death of their father not too long ago. The poor man must have been consumed by guilt of some sort and took his own life, leaving his children behind to deal with the aftermath. they still never got any secrets from him nor any answers so all that’s there are feelings of confusion and loss. where the story begins is the revealed news that all the siblings are going to be living under one roof -in that house. the youngest daughter, for whatever reason, decided to purchase their childhood home back and has been in the process of restoring it. the reason why each sibling decides to go along with this is up in the air but the end result is the same: all seven siblings, plus any other family they may have, are now living in that house again.

Siblings

all the siblings except the one i’ll be playing are not set in stone! i’m going for a redheaded family sort of feel so the face claims i’ve put for each of them are something that i prefer but! tbh i’m super flexible and and at the end of the day it’s not a dealbreaker to choose someone else~ since i don’t wanna restrict folk’s fun over a fc choice! overall the sibling's interactions between each other are not that amicable -some may try to cooperate but old wounds come up and oftentimes a fight arises. they still have their weird traditions such as drawing straws if they need to do something and nobody wants to or they all fall silent at the same time [not often, obv., since they're mostly shouting over each other] that cause people on the outside to look at them strangely. at the end of the day, they can't escape the fact that they are siblings and are from the same disturbed family.

beliefs as well are varied and open! none say that they believe their youngest brother whenever he tries to convince them of what happened at the house though whether or not they believe that inside their heads is another matter entirely~

also! don’t feel as though you have to base your characters off any from the show! it’s just a nice start-off point and if you’re inspired but it’s definitely not a requirement whatsoever!

tbh a lot of the siblings aren’t fleshed out a lot & what happened to them in the house is also open so feel free to go wild!! i mean it; you can add as much as you want so that you can create a character that you’ll love to write for!

Eldest Son- 51. Toby Stephens.

being the eldest, he was the one to usually look after the younger children if their parents needed to do something. he built up a sort of protector complex where he has to make sure that he knows where all the other siblings are at all times. he fails constantly, of course, since he can’t even manage to have one of them listen to him. still, he feels responsible for all of his other siblings and takes it personally when he can’t get something done for them. he has his flaws, obviously, in that he tries to say that his way is the right way and can be as stubborn as an ox so despite his best intentions he clashes with some of the other siblings. this may be why none of them tend to listen to him.

Second Son- 50. Tony Curran.

He is one of the quieter siblings, preferring to be by himself when not needed. It isn’t that he dislikes his siblings; he just likes to be alone rather than among them. he’s kind and thoughtful so whenever one of the others needs help he’ll try to be there but besides that don’t count on him being somewhere on his own. Actually, it may be difficult to count on him in general because he loses track of time often and before he knows it he’s two hours late to moving some furniture for someone. this is probably the reason why he tends to be by himself -he doesn’t seem to grasp the passage of time as others have.

Eldest Daughter- 47. Sarah Rafferty.

she’s cruel. not absolutely cruel but cruel enough. she likes to poke and prod her siblings and see what sets them off. she thinks it’s funny and likes to observe the aftermath of her machinations. she likes to claim that she’s just bored but in reality she’s absolutely insecure herself and wants to bring others down to feel better about herself. don’t tell this to her face because she will absolutely try to turn it back on you and make you out to be the bad guy while she is the victim. also, don’t try to get revenge -she’ll just be more inclined to do something worse to you.

Second Daughter- 46. Amy Adams.

she’s neutral towards, well, everything. she kind of just exists and she doesn’t like that. not a lot of passion, not a lot of purpose. maybe she tries something daring once in a while to feel something but comes up short. it’s difficult for her to emotionally connect with others in a deep way and oftentimes she finds herself alone. she doesn’t like being alone, though, since being alone means she’ll be alone with her thoughts and she hates that. If she can even feel that properly, anyway. she’s not emotionless in the sense that she is sociopathic but her difficulty feeling things has caused her to have a sarcastic and thorny exterior towards anyone she meets, fueling her involuntary self-isolation.

Third Daughter- 43. Jessica Chastain. Reserved for spooky spice

she's the face of the family. the most energetic. the most chaotic. the one to threaten to break someone's kneecaps if they dare harm her siblings. she'll give a show-stopping smile and then tell you to eat shit afterwards. due to the minimal age difference she always had to watch the twins and therefore she is close to them, especially Thomas. some joke that she's actually Thomas' twin -she can sort of just sense whenever the youngest Hackett is in trouble. she's not happy about anything seeming messy, of course, so she spares no second to chastise anyone [including Thomas] about what they have done wrong. her status among stardom cannot afford any blemishes so catch her changing the subject whenever an interviewer brings up the fact that her younger brother is a drug addict. trust her, she knows. she knows all too well. and maybe her motivation for buying up the Hackett siblings' childhood house was to try to get Thomas some actual help after he failed out of rehab for the umpteenth time. their father's suicide may have just reinforced her decision to go forward with this.

Twin One- 42. Michael Fassbender.

maybe he’s one of the most normal. maybe’s he’s the most normal. maybe he has to be -his twin is an absolute trainwreck of a human being and his family is an equal amount of mess. maybe he’s just good at saving face and hiding the damage caused by the house [and maybe by his siblings]. some days, he sort of forgets that he’s a twin and that said twin is a drug addict. when they were young they were close though he would often play kind of cruel tricks on his younger twin such as locking the door to the basement after daring Thomas to go down the stairs, leaving him in a room alone with the lights off, and things like that. he grew out of it, matured, and tries to ignore the fact that he may or may not have been part of the reason why Thomas is the way he is now. he's too focused on being a professor at the college to fully see the cries of help his younger twin is showing.

Twin Two Thomas Hackett- 42. Michael Fassbender. Taken by Dismas.

so you’re asking me if i have a problem. i probably do. the youngest of the Hackett family; he’s probably one of the most heavily affected by the events at the house. for those familiar with the show think a combination of inspiration between Luke and Eleanor Crain, but also with even more issues maybe as well as none of the siblings being on his side whatsoever on anything. he had quite a few strange encounters ranging anywhere from encountering something in the basement when he was locked in one time by his twin to being trapped in a room with so much noise that he passed out for hours. now, figure, he’s a young kid when all of this happened [probably around 6 or so, could be a tiny bit older] so he doesn’t know how to deal with any of this. this really fucks him up. on top of that, whenever he told his family, none of them ever believed, further fueling the feeling of being unwanted. he was probably the closest one to their mother, being the youngest and the most vulnerable of the children, so he was absolutely devastated when she perished in the fire that fateful night. he blamed his father, thinking that he did something to her and tried to hide it with said fire. he never stopped believing in that, nor in the experiences he had in the house, and it pretty much ate at his soul. not only that but nobody still believed him so he always felt useless. he developed a bitter and angry attitude to try to hide this but the wounds were never able to be covered for long and so he eventually turned to drugs to soothe his pain. obviously, it never fully did so he just fell deeper into the rabbit hole. he dropped out of high school and started to do all sorts of jobs and favors in order to get his next fix, oftentimes winding up being arrested for petty crimes. he earned a bad reputation around town and the only reason why he didn’t face too much jail time is due to one of his siblings always bailing him out. wash, rinse, and repeat.

nowadays he goes between being sort of okay and having his own place to being absolutely drugged out of his mind and having to crash at a sibling’s place if they’re local -mostly his twin or the youngest daughter of the family. he’s failed out of rehab recently which may have been one of the reasons why the youngest daughter decided to purchase and fix up their childhood home; so that he can have a stable over his head for once and maybe recover from his habits. little does she know, or maybe care, that the house was the reason for his down spiral in the first place so he is not thrilled whatsoever to be stuck in the same building with all the same people who did not believe him. he hates it here.

Other Ideas

this is pretty much going to be only the possible family of the siblings woops but with the house being rather large there’s a ton of room for more than just the siblings themselves and more than likely some of the other siblings are going to be in some sort of relationship unlike Thomas. now, of course, maybe not all of the spouses/partners/children live in the house after all but then again they might! i have a few small ideas:

the loyal partner- this partner is loyal to the sibling they’re married to/with, always making sure they’re alright and making sure the sibling is well taken care of. maybe even spoil/indulge a little too much the whims of the sibling. they may seem a little more oblivious to the chaotic dynamics of the siblings and the strangeness of the house. they just think that everyone needs to get along and everything will be okay! except it’s never that easy and they probably just look foolish for suggesting that.

the angry partner- they hate it in the house. all the fighting and the tension and the drama; they think it’s a bunch of bullshit. they especially think all the spooky~ stuff that apparently happened in the house is all bullshit too and won’t hesitate to call anyone out if the supernatural is even entertained. they just want to live their life in relative peace with the sibling they’re with

the mediator partner- they may not necessarily believe in the unbelievable -in fact, their career hinges on finding out why people process stuff the way they do [ex. a therapist or psychologist]- but they still try to see all angles. they’re typically the one trying to quell the arguments between siblings and trying to see why the siblings feel the way they do about things (and about each other). they’re curious, however, about the house itself and may start poking around in the wrong places to try to discover the truth.

[one tiny suggestion! perhaps the mediator partner is married to Thomas’ twin brother and they have a kid with the face claim of Reece King? ;^; he has slightly similar facial features to Michael Fassbender + i think it’d be sweet if the partner tries to see why Thomas is fucked up the way he is and maybe even begins to sympathize/believe him after they start to figure stuff out?]

Plots

alright! so the obvious plots are going to be the interactions between siblings~ their personalities may give a hint to who they do or don’t get along with but in all honesty they all have bad enough blood with each other to have issues one way or another. so! drama! one of those ‘if you leave them in a room for long enough they’ll find something to fight about’ type of things! they do love each other -really, they do- but their experiences in the house changed them forever and there’s no gaining that back. they can only move forward.

they’re already living in the house for a short period of time [maaaybbe a month? a few weeks?] so they’re all settled in and dealing with the presence of each other and it’s not going exactly swimmingly for obvious reasons. maybe some try to cooperate with each other? others not so much. there’s plenty of fighting and slamming doors and shouting and leaving the area/the house to cool off. on more than one occasion Thomas has already stated that he’s leaving for good and going out on his own. he never follows through with the threat -he can’t. he’s as tied to the house as everyone else is and now he can’t escape. but you get the gist. it’s going to take a while for them to see eye to eye with each other. if they ever do, anyway.

future plots to explore are, of course, up in the air but they can deal with the siblings learning more about each other, learning more about their parents, and learning more about the house. and, of course, learning more about their town as well! Whether things start to get better or if they down spiral even further is going to be rather interesting to see~

for initial threads it could be fun [in a morbid sense] to do a past one where they’re attending their father’s funeral since that was kind of actually a shitshow. imagine all the siblings, with their awful traits, having to deal with the death of their parent and just in terrible pain. so, what else to do than to cause issues with each other and create quite a few commotions? obv. when the sibling’s personalities are solidified we can discuss this further! overall the first types of posts will be their interactions with the site plots, the town itself, and between them when they’re at the house so there’s plenty of room for drama!

#thirdeyerp #wanted ad~#wanted to do this before the dev stuff woops #have an absolute disaster of a family #pls love them kthxbaaaiii

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mental-health-advice · 4 years

Text

Submissions from 🦚🌺

So took me a while to scroll through to my last tagged ask (for some reason searching didn’t work). So much about staying consistent and actually tagging my stuff from now on. Gosh uff. The one where sibling found possible drugs and the one about mom being xenophobic almost causing shut down as in passing out were me too. I usually either tend to forget to tag or I guess am kinda scared since I feel I send in A LOT? I really don’t know. It’s just a lot going on and I feel bad always (1🦚🌺)

I feel bad always throwing all my stuff at my friends. Especially as one friend a few years ago was diagnosed with depression. Idk what her current situation is tho except that she seems to do better. I won’t ask her since I feel weird about that stuff. Plus really unless she wants to tell me it’s none if my business. But yeah that’s that I guess. Now… I’ve been rejected from the art college/highschool unfortunately so that’s out the window. My therapist suggests volunteer year 2🦚🌺

Whivh we have a social and economic one of I think? Idk. I know social won’t work because of my likelyhood of social anxiety which kinda self explanatory I guess. Economic I’m just scared I wont be able to pull the whole tear through, scared to do stuff wrong etc. Hell I spent 2 low sleep nights crying after the rejection and mom forced the answer out of me when I clearly didn’t want to talk about it. Turned into an argument about how I got forced into abitur/regular highschool 3🦚🌺

And OBVIOUSLY she blames dad for it. Which like… great whatever he told her. My point is HE was more supportive in front of ME than she was. She just tore me down 2 years ago. Next week I dont have a therapist appointment since she will be moving. So I’m praying this week will go by smoothly. Well as smooth as it can go with all the arguments around here I guess. I’m still trying to process everything since March 4🦚🌺

1? 2? I’ve lost track of time … weeks ago she and her bf fought very badly and she essentially ran away for an hour, he claimed he is leaving but then stayed. My younger sisters were all crying, my brothers were just not surprised and I had to try call family members (which calling others is a physical challenge for me) trying to find a way to deal with what happened. My therapist knows about this incident. She now also knows moms bf smokes weed but not about what 5🦚🌺

else we found. I’ll see if I can bring it up soonish since it still worries me… my brother also later confirmed again he caught them snorting it so yeah most likely we are right about it being cocaine. I feel uncomfortable looking up the effects of it but my cousin said that could explain a lot of moms behavior. Shes always been this way I think.I right now dont even remember where I was going with this ask chain hhhh frick.I’m loosing track of myself once again please send help 6🦚🌺

(Have to switch to browser because app again refuses to let me send stuff wtf) My mom also is back onto “oh you just have split personality!” … I have informed myself on DID and OSDD, I have symptoms yes. But I doubt it’s that. In fact my therapist even talks about that stuff with me! I have different parts but mom doesn’t know they exist so idk. I tried to literally tell her how DID is made and she didn’t want to listen. She claims she did almost everything right and I’m making up 7🦚🌺

My trauma. So you would think that she would stay away from assuming such a trauma heavy diagnosis. Welp she actually doesn’t know anything about mental health either way and legit took my brother off his adhd meds years ago because “they changed him too much” and then refused to take him to appointments when we noticed signs of tourette in him because she felt like she fucked up as parent?? Wat?? I can’t make sense of this woman anymore tbh 8🦚🌺

Sorry that this is all over the place, it’s 1am for me rn, I cant sleep really, still am trying to process I won’t see my friend who I was looking forward to seeing this year for 2-3 years and who would have been a temporary escape from this hellhole until at least another year or 2 depending on the situation, being in the top 10 corona countries and in fact second most infected state in germany and really just switching between sliding down to a kid and /or almost passing out 9(?)🦚🌺

almost passing out when trauma responses shut me down and I just can not describe my emotions of the past months other than I just want someone to hug me and to feel safe and to feel like this mess at home and the world isn’t happening. My mind is all over the place and I feel like at this point I’m going insane and I’m not making any sense anymore. Again sorry for the probably stupid rant/,vent that probably made no damn sense idek anymore - final🦚🌺

So much about what I sent in yesterday hoping for the best. 3 hours ago I woke up to a message chain about how we (me and my siblings. We are 6 in total) apparently abuse her and use her. And basically just complaining about the tiniest things regarding chores. For example yesterday I completely cleaned the kitchen and she complained because some dishes stood around since people still ate AFTER I did the chores. Like tf. My friends say it seemed like from the screenshots that she is 1🦚🌺

using us as tools? Idek anymore. She also completely ignored me sending her and asking her stuff about the valounteer year last night since the school rejected me and I need that alternative. Apparently a clean flat is more important than my literal future. On the other hand I for once had a normal conversation with my almost 15yo brother (I’m almost 19, however not mentally and also not in the position to move still especially with the virus and all) and it turned out that he shares 2🦚🌺

Moms views on therapy whivh I’ve mentioned in the past aren’t really the best views on it. So yeah that’s just great. He basically just thinks it’s stupid. Either way. Currently my only way of possibly getting away would be a psychiatric /mental hospital stay. THING IS while I’m bety aware it isnt like in the movies I am deadly afraid of the thought. Not having my freedom to come and go when I please, not being able to meet up with friends or something etc. I would not feel safe and 3🦚🌺

it would just expose me to a lot of stress and anxiety which wouldn’t be any better than being yelled at constantly at home and having mom shit talk my friends. Everything is just kinda a mess with her rn and my siblings don’t see it from my perspective. Like YES we mess up and don’t do things right. She has a reason to be mad. But NO she doesn’t have the tight to essentially abuse us and no her behavior isnt parenting this is manipulation. 4🦚🌺

They only see the first half and think she’s in the right… I myself struggle to differentiate right and wrong and am unable to read situations well, which is why it took me 17-18 years and my friends calling it out to realise this is wrong. But I at least listen… they don’t. I sometimes just wish I grew up in a stable functioning family. Or honestly that she never even had me since she was VERY young when she had me so that’s probably why she never learned how to 5(?)🦚🌺

Act properly towards us. As she had me when she was just my age (18) and then the following 8 years had 4 more of my 5 siblings. I feel she never had time to grow up and learn herself especially considering she was abused herself…. final🦚🌺

Hi 🦚🌺,

It's good to hear from you again! There's absolutely nothing wrong with messaging us often, so feel free to tag all of your asks that you send in! I think that will actually make it easier on both of us, as you'll be able to find responses easier and I can look back on your previous asks easier to make sure I'm not missing anything or repeating myself :) Also, the search function on tumblr is quite picky, so unfortunately it can be hard to find posts. I've run into the same issue with locating old asks on the blog as well!

It's understandable that you don't want to bug your friends with your problems, especially if they have some mental health struggles of their own. However, it might help to think of it this way: mental illness is so common that chances are most people you meet will have some sort of struggle with their mental health, which means you wouldn't be able to talk to anyone about your struggles if you don't want to bother someone who struggles with their mental health. That doesn't seem fair to you! While everyone needs to have boundaries, especially to protect their health, I think it's reasonable to share things with your friends when you're struggling. You deserve that support, especially with everything else you have going on in your life!

It must have been devastating to not get into art school and I'm so sorry that happened! It does sound like volunteering could be a potential route for you to go down, even if it's just until you figure out what you want to do in the future. It makes sense that certain volunteer options can be rolled out based on the nature of the work and the things you struggle with. Perhaps there is something you could do from home that wouldn't trigger your anxiety. For instance, I volunteer for a text-based suicide hotline, which I do from home. I'm not saying you have to do something exactly like this, but it might spark an idea that you or your therapist maybe haven't thought of yet. It's just something to think about.

What's going on with the drugs in your house is definitely concerning and I think it would be a good idea to bring that up with your therapist. It's really dangerous to have these kinds of drugs around with younger kids being there. Not only is it possible for kids to accidentally get into it and harm themselves, but it's also dangerous for them to be around adults that are high because of their erratic behaviors. This is why I think it would be wise to talk to your therapist about this to see what input she has.

It's great that your therapist has talked to you about your diagnoses as well as what you don't have that your mom has tried to say you have. I'm sure it's frustrating to have your mom make those accusations, but I think it's good that you at least have your therapist there to reassure you that you don't in fact have those diagnoses.

It's so disappointing that your friend won't be able to visit as you guys had planned because I know you were really looking forward to that! Unfortunately, coronavirus seems to ne ruining plans for most people all over the world. Hopefully you guys will be able to come up with another plan for meeting up, though it likely won't be able to happen until the pandemic is more under control. Still, at least making tentative plans for meeting in the future may give you both something to look forward to once travel is finally safe again.

I'm so sorry that your mom treats you and your siblings this way. It does sound like she may use you guys as tools, as your friends put it. This is sometimes another sign of abuse/neglect, which honestly isn't surprising considering all of your mom's other behaviors.

What you mentioned about getting out of the house makes sense and I agree that an inpatient stay might not be the best way to go about it. Not only will that be more restrictive, as you mentioned, but most hospitals won't allow inpatient stays unless the person is incapable of keeping themselves or others safe while receiving outpatient care (though I obviously don't know whether this is the case for you). I still think it's a good idea to keep thinking about potential ways of getting out of your mom's house once you're ready for that. One option I'm wondering about is a group home (I think these may be called something else in other countries but it's basically a house where several adults with varying physical and/or mental illnesses live together and there are usually various types of staff who also stay there). These can sometimes be a bit restrictive, but much less so than a hospital would be. I believe they typically have a curfew, otherwise you're allowed to leave during the day. Although I'm not sure if this would be a viable option for you (and it probably wouldn't be anyway until after the pandemic is more controlled), it's just something that popped into my head when thinking about other ways of eventually getting you away from your mom's abuse.

What you said about your mom's parenting vs. manipulation is 100% accurate. It's very common for someone who was abused by parents to go on to abuse their own children unless they put in the effort to change, but know that you still don't deserve to be abused and manipulated. It's not your fault that your mom was abused and never unlearned the negative behaviors she saw experienced as a child. You and your siblings all deserve so much better than this!

-Samantha

#abuse #abusive parent #drugs #drug use #family #🦚🌺#advice #advice blog #mental health advice #mhasamantha

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thelittlestcheshire · 4 years

Text

Hello! I’m Katie, and this is my muse Ches. If any of you were in Luxor over the summer, you know this pain in the ass so I’m probably gonna do a quick “here’s where this brat was” recap at the bottom, along with anything I’ve changed between that Ches and this Ches! I’m really excited to be back, and I’m really looking forward to roleplaying with everyone.

I also have the habit of writing crazy long bios when I do bother to write them so there’s a tl;dr for that, also some wanted connections at the bottom. I love plotting so if you ever have any ideas, feel free to come excited scream with me here or on Discord! So without further ado ♥

TWs: Gun Violence / Murder / Death (not by Ches), Blood, Abuse (Relationship), Cheating, Mental Illnesses, Drugs/Alcohol, Overdoses (also not by Ches / did not result in death)

Is that HAILEY CHESHIRE “CHES” ELSWOOD? Wow, they do look a lot like KATHERINE MCNAMARA. I hear SHE is a SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN year old SENIOR who originally attended CARNIFEX Academy. Word is they are an ARISTOCRAT student. You should watch out because they can be IMPULSIVE and STUBBORN, but on the bright side they can also be ENERGENIC and LOYAL. Ultimately, you’ll get to see it all for yourself. [KATIE, 23, EST, SHE/HERS]

Last Edit: 8/26/2020

♥ basics; Full Name: Hailey Cheshire “Ches” Elswood Preferred Name: Ches Elswood Age: 18 Birthday: July 19th, 2002 at 03:22 am Sexual Orientation: Biromantic bisexual Relationship Status: It’s complicated ( @ Elliot ) Occupation: Student Nationality: American [with French dual citizenship] Ches’s Car

♥ classes;

Anthropology

Shakespearean Studies

Linguistics

Latin

Music

Advanced Sociology

Advanced Psychology

World History

♥ extracurriculars;

National Honor Society

Theater Club (Actor)

Concert Band (Piano)

♥ background; Place of Birth: Paris, France Hometown: Manhattan, New York, New York Health Issues: Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD, not that she likes to admit to it, however. She’s also highly allergic to the Perciformes family of fish (tuna, mackrel, perch , and bass). While she’s okay with the salmoniformes (Salmon and Trout), she really doesn’t touch fish outside of... literally salmon she makes herself since that’s all she trusts ok. ((Shellfish is fine though) Traumas: Watching her mother die (mugging gone wrong/shot to death)

♥ physical; Face Claim: Katherine McNamara Eye Color: Green Hair Color: Red Height: 5′3 ½” (not at fc height quick side note) Weight: 115 lbs Tattoos, Birthmarks, Scars, etc: Mole above her belly button, a few moles on her thighs, freckles and face moles. (Face Ref 1, Face Ref 2, Body Ref 1, Body Ref 2) . She also has a tattoo now.

♥ zodiac;

Tropical

Sun: Cancer Moon: Scorpio Mercury: Cancer Venus: Virgo Mars: Leo Jupiter: Cancer Saturn: Gemini Uranus: Aquarius Neptune: Aquarius Pluto: Sagittarius Lilith: Aries N Node: Gemini

Placidus Orb

I ASC: Gemini II: Cancer III: Cancer IV: Leo V: Virgo VI: Libra VII: Sagittarius VIII: Capricorn IX: Capricorn X MC: Aquarius XI: Pisces XII: Aries

♥ relatives;

Father’s Full Name: Edward Valentine Elswood Father’s Status: Alive Father’s Occupation: CEO/Owner of a multi-billion dollar luxury goods conglomerate (net worth of 50+ Billion in fact - in turn, Elswood kids do NOT bat an eyelash at prices) Mother’s Full Name: Julia Andrieux Elswood Mother’s Status: Deceased [shot by a mugger on the twin’s 8th birthday] Future Step-Mother: Rebekah Carroll (soon to be Elswood, watch this space lol) Step-Mother’s Occupation: Siblings: 6 brothers and sisters (family page here) Elswood-Carroll Children Oldest to Youngest:

Logan Elswood (24)

Jamie Elswood (22)

Emmett Elswood (19)

Cade Carroll (19)

Jonah / Ches Elswood (TWINS)

Flynn Carroll (16)

Effie Elswood (14)

Ella Elswood (10)

She also has a niece named Isabella (Belle) who’s now almost 8 months (DOB: 07/10/2019). Belle belongs to her oldest brother, Logan (and Belle’s mother isn’t in the picture).

This is a link to the Elswood family page if you’d like to know more about her family.

♥ relationships; Ex-Significant Other(s): Probably a handful of people tbh, hit me up if you want this as a WC Reason for Separation: Stuff not working out, Ches getting bored before she got attached, so on - she’s a flirt tbh, it takes her wanting to get invested for her to stay Current Significant Other: N/A

♥ misc;

Hobbies and Talents: Ches’s main hobbies are playing piano and archery (she forever misses her bow and arrow while she’s at school), as these are also the two things that are best at calming her down. She has an intense love for acting, so it’s not uncommon for her to be one of the first people to sign up for auditions, and she tends to sing a lot so musicals are truly her shit. It’s not uncommon to see her in the library, reading a book late a night.

However, a talent she doesn’t exactly own up to often is her talent for forgeries and lockpicking. While she doesn’t use these skills as they’re intended for often, she does tend to practice them a lot, so she’s not rusty for when they are actually useful.

Pinterest Section // Musings Tag // Playlist (it’s an in general Ches playlist tho)

Ches speaks English and French fluently, her mother was born and raised in Paris so she learnt them both at the same time

DO NOT CALL HER HAILEY unless you really want to end up on her shit list, it’s her biggest pet peeve, she will glare at you for hours.

She’s the mom friend if your mom friend also goes “I HAVE THE BEST IDEA” and drags you into trouble. Literally, the one who frets over you and proceeds to get you into trouble.

This muse does what she wants, I just write it down I apologize always for her

Doesn’t really... seriously date too much because of past situations (Her older brother slept with the first person she truly loved) and she tries to avoid falling in love

That being said platonic I love yous are her shit, she loves her friends a LOT

Ches is very serious about her studying (and wanting to be among the best of the best because - this girl has Ivy league college dreams and she has no intents on fucking those up), so like expect her to do shit like read an entire textbook at the start of school and study at midnight when her insomnia is kicking her ass.

She’s a bit of a closet nerd - if you look under her bed she has a chest of comic books, she’ll just lie if you ask her about them

Ches left Luxor due to a family emergency in October, it was a really hard decision (and it was a really hard decision to come back). She is just now coming back to school.

She got her tattoo while she was away from school, using a forged note of parental consent in New Jersey.

♥ bio;

TWs: Gun Violence, Murder, Death, Blood, Abuse (Relationship), Cheating, Mental Illnesses

Growing up as an Elswood means two things, you have a lot of siblings and a lot of money. Her parents had decided to raise their children in Manhattan, New York, where they could keep a close eye on their multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Her mother, Julia, would take them on trips constantly too - when she wanted to get the children away from the hustle and bustle of the city they’d go to their vacation home upstate, or their private island, or even to visit their family in Paris. At that point in life, Ches was happy. She had a solid group of friends, she had the best friend she could ever imagine having in the form of her twin brother, she had a loving and warm family, and she had a parent who would tell her no.

When she thinks back to her life before the incident, it feels like a completely different story. A fairytale even, perfect and happy in every way compared to her life now. However, it wouldn’t last, after all, fairy tales didn’t exist and reality was a much crueler mistress. One could say Lin-Manuel Miranda described it best; “life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes.”

Everything changed on her eighth birthday when her mother took her out shopping to get a present for twin brother Jonah at Palisades Mall. A man came up with a gun while they were in the parking lot and asked for all of their money. Julia Elswood compiled but she made one mistake, the simple utterance of “Cours, Ches” as she gave the man her purse.

Ches might have gotten out of the event alive, but not she was not unscathed. Julia Elswood was pronounced dead when medics finally arrived on the scene, her blood coating her daughter’s hands and clothing from Ches’s attempts to stop the bleeding. She might have survived the event without physical harm but she was never the same child she was before after that.

One day she had an intact family, the next day the Elswoods were in ruin. Her father completely shut himself out from the family, only coming out for birthdays and holidays. Her oldest brother stepped up as their parental figure, first starting out with homeschooling before he eventually dropped out to ensure his siblings were getting as much of his time as they possibly could. He tried his hardest to make the loss of their mother easier on the younger girls especially, given how young they were at the time. She helped him with the girls as much as she could (and overtime she slowly started filling the role as their second parent). Because of how busy the younger Elswood children kept him, sometimes Logan didn’t have the time to comfort Ches when she woke up in the middle of the night, haunted by their mother.

That was when Emmett stepped in. It wasn’t uncommon for him to sleep on her floor so he’d be there when she woke up terrified out of her mind, and he was there when she just eventually stopped sleeping like people tended to. Over time she realized that Jonah and her weren’t truly two peas in a pod the way they used to be, that Emmett was the only Elswood who truly got her. He wasn’t perfectly normal either, his thoughts and feelings were flawed like hers.

In a family that made her feel so broken at times, Emmett was a saving grace - a reminder she wasn’t alone.

Going to school in Carnifex was an easy decision when you felt so alone at home, at school she found a close group of people she loved and cared about - she felt less alone and less like her family were judging her, and when the feeling came up - she could always toss herself back into her schoolwork and pretend that maybe, just maybe, she was just a normal kid living a normal boring life. Family issues easily bred vulnerability though, and it was that vulnerability that was exploited not long before she was set to start Carnifex.

Long-distance relationships weren't’ supposed to be easy, but when she fell in love for the first time. At the time, she had thought she was as fucked up as she could ever be, that at this point she was just focused on healing the wounds her mother’s death had left in therapy and after that, everything would be fine. James Ruth quickly showed her how mistaken she had been, even now she doesn’t like thinking about everything he had done to her. She doesn’t discuss everything he had put her through in the time they were together nor does she have any intentions on truly discussing the worst of the abuse she endured while dating him and she was home - even in therapy. It did, however, have an effect on her, it made her terrified of truly falling in love with somebody again. (Note: James is also a massive reason why she doesn't get along with her brother Jamie, the two Elswood siblings never recovered from Jamie sleeping with Ches’s boyfriend. It causes a good deal of tension in the Elswood home but Ches can’t just forgive him, her brother never even apologized for his actions, she wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t hurt her because her father wanted them to get along for his own sake. They were on the rocks before this and afterward, the tension just got a whole lot worse.)

Going back to Carnifex her sophomore year was a key factor in helping Ches get away from her relationship, and it became as much of a home for her than her actual home was the longer she attended. Sure, she still misses her younger sisters, she misses Emmett and Camellia, and she misses her friends in the city. She also dislikes just how restricted she truly is when it comes to Instagram and trying to grow her influence while she attends Carnifex. Networking had to wait until she was home and sometimes she questions why she decided boarding school was a good idea. And then Ches looks at her friends, at the education she’s receiving, and all the fond memories she’s developing. Carnifex, and now Luxor, was well worth the fear of missing out she feels.

If you had asked her at the start of this school year, she would have told you nothing could have gotten her to leave school for any amount of time her senior year, she had spent the whole summer at Luxor (even after hearing about her baby niece, that meant a lot) - she finally settled in, she couldn’t imagine anything happening that would cause her to leave the academy. And then, on October 16th at two am in the morning, she got a phone call from Ella. Their oldest brother, Logan, had overdosed. While his drug addiction had never been a secret to the family, his relapse had been a surprise to Ches. Her brother had sworn up and down he was fine, that everything at home was okay. Going back to New York was a no brainer, her family needed her - and she needed them.

Logan, who’d been the closest thing to a parent she had since her mother died, almost died - she almost lost all the parental figures she ever knew. It was hard, getting adjusted back to New York City, she threw herself into her school work and did her best to fill the shoes Logan left open as he went through rehab, and then, adjusted back to being home. While she stayed in touch with the people she had at Luxor, she wouldn’t come back until her brother way okay - until she felt safe about leaving him with his daughter and their siblings without her as a backup. Coming back to school this time was really hard on her, the homesickness is worse than ever and she’s constantly trying to check in on her siblings (because mom!Ches is truly in full force and she’s trying to get it back down) but she’s glad to be back. She’s missed being at Luxor, a lot, so she’s glad to be back.

TLDR / quick important notes bio recap for rereads:

Ches’s mother was murdered on her 8th birthday in front of her

She was raised by her oldest brother, Logan, and is NOT close to her father really. She also helped raise her younger sisters and is very protective of them.

The Elswood she is closest to is Emmett, Jonah and her grew apart after her mother’s death.

Ches’s first real love was James (an NPC), they dated (entire)Freshman-(mid)Sophomore years, it was abusive (much more than Ches will ever discuss unless she gets majorly close to someone and they HAVE to know (cough still hasn’t happened though cough)) and Ches is now terrified of falling in love again. Her messy as fuck relationships & exes all start after this point.

Ches’s history at Luxor is pretty much in-tact, changes will be below in another section!

Ches left Luxor because of her oldest brother, Logan, overdosing. He is alive but she stayed in NYC until he was out of rehab / stabilized in order to take care of her younger siblings and her niece, Belle.

Notable Luxor Notes:

Anything relating to Thomas (for those of you who know what I mean) really hasn’t occurred, so if you mention it she’ll just be like “who?” This seems like the easiest course of action given how things were left off

Other muses of note I’m not going to account for are: Asher (more will be added as needed).

Ches isn’t a member of the Churchill Circle (I’m leaning towards was never one either just because the reasons she joined are no longer a factor so... she probably wouldn’t have ever joined)

If anyone wants to change history and/or keep it intact, feel free to dm me to let me know and I’ll update this accordingly.

Wanted Connections:

Exes (when Ches dates it’s not for long, but she’s definitely the type to be like “I’ll go out with you” if asked and then... dump you if she thinks she’s getting too attached. So her exes are either on good terms, neutral terms, or they probably dislike her a lot)

Former friends with benefits - while Ches is no longer taking on new ones because of Elliot (and is starting to wean off her current ones), I’m always willing to headcanon past things!

FRIENDSHIPS (I am weak af for a good friendship plot, never be afraid to be like “hey can our muses be friends” the answer is legit always yes)

Enemies (Ches can... be a lot so it’s not unlikely she’s pissed people off ok)

#luxorintro #so yeah pretty much have a Ches and I am SO FREAKING EXCITED TO BE BACK OK #sorry this is so freaking long too ♥#also I was excited I revamped the bio and drafted it #it's about my bedtime right now though so not sure how far I'll get with replies I'm gonna try but it's legit the time I pass out right now

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sunsetsover · 5 years

Note

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on Ben having BPD

ok WHEW you just opened a fucking can of worms this about to be the longest post i’ve ever made i hope you have your seatbelt on

let me just preface this by saying nearly everything i talk abt in this post will be based off of my personal experiences w bpd. some people experience it differently, some people might not agree w some of the things i say, but i can only talk abt my own pov. therefore, this just my own personal opinions on ben having bpd. so yh lmao

and disclaimer!! i’m not a doctor!! don’t take anything i say in this post as diagnostic criteria! i’m not an expert or mental health professional!! when it comes to your own mental health or the mental health of ppl in your life, do not consider me a source to reference like ‘oh well lauren sunsetsover said xyz’ like pls just don’t do that. do your own research. and most importantly consult a doctor!!!!!! i am not one!!!!!!!!!

also there are very few sources in this post bc most of this is just shit i’ve absorbed over the years from doctors and doing my own research lmao

now that’s out of the way let’s go! (this became part character study, part informational masterpost on bpd. also it got really fuckin long, hence the read more, so be warned lmao)

warning for potentially triggering content (abuse/mentions of suicide and self harm - nothin too bad but i do touch on ben’s behaviour and history, and this is a p serious mental health issue we’re talking abt here so! take care of yourselves!!)

ok so! some things to keep in mind before we even get to ben:

i believe (at least in the uk) borderline personality disorder is considered to be an outdated name, and one that essentially isn’t appropriate or fit for purpose anymore, so in my experience, a lot of the time now it’s referred to as eupd (emotionally unstable personality disorder) in medical settings. which is way more apt name imo, and tells you more abt what bpd actually is (but i still call it bpd bc it’s easier and ppl know what that is lmao). so like. emotionally unstable personality disorder. i bet that conjures up a way more vivid idea in ur head than borderline personality disorder does.

no one 100% knows what causes bpd, though it’s thought to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors, like most things. but the general consensus is that bpd develops when something (usually traumatic, but not always in an extreme sense. ppl w bpd have often been victims of some type of abuse in their childhood, but that’s not necessarily always the case) happens in your childhood that impacts the development of your personality. kind of a bizarre metaphor but hopefully it will help u understand: u know how in finding nemo, the egg nemo was in got damaged by the shark? and even tho the damage looked minor, it actually meant that one of his fins was permanently damaged - it was malformed, it didn’t grow right, he couldn’t use it properly? well imagine the fin = the personality; that’s what happens to a person w bpd’s personality. smth happens to us in our childhood that permanently damages our personality, and so it doesn’t grow and develop properly as the rest of us does, making it less functional than an average person’s. u can imagine how that can lead to all sorts of problem (we’ll get to them later)

but bc it’s a mental disorder that affects the personality, you can’t be diagnosed w bpd until you’re 18, when your personality is basically developed fully (i believe it can be diagnosed slightly younger, but those are rare and extreme cases). however, symptoms can start to present themselves earlier, as ur personality begins to develop and mature. (mine started presenting in my early teens)

bpd doesn’t really go away, and treatment with medication generally isn’t effective for long periods of time. however symptoms can be treated with continued therapy, and symptoms sometimes can start to ease as you get older!!

bpd also gets misdiagnosed a lot bc a lot of the symptoms are similar to that of other mental health problems. the biggest one it gets misdiagnosed as seems to be bipolar disorder, which i get tbh. i’ve always considered bpd very similar to bipolar, just like… quicker cycles. there are even memes about it. also bpd has a tendency to coexist w other mental health issues, which makes it harder to recognise and diagnose.

so now lets look at this from a diagnostic perspective

in order to be diagnosed w bpd you basically have to deemed, by a medical professional, to be meet certain criteria, and to have been meeting these certain criteria for a significant amount of time. there are some variations to this criteria, and proposed subtypes and basically different flavours of borderlines but i’m not even gonna go there. i’m just gonna talk abt what i’m most familiar w and how i think that applies to ben.

i’m copying and pasting the diagnostic criteria part from here bc as far as i’m aware this is the criteria doctors use for diagnosis. there are 9 different ‘indicators’/’criteria’, and you have to display or meet at least 5 of them in order to be considered for a bpd diagnosis:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

this is one of, if not the biggest part of bpd. that trauma i mentioned earlier? often stems from or is related to abandonment, or perceived abandonment, in childhood, be it physical or emotional. for example, a child that’s being abused by one parent might feel abandoned by the other parent if they don’t do anything about it, even if the second parent has no idea the abuse is going on. sound familiar? a similar thing happened to ben, with stella. phil not doing anything about the abuse ben was facing at the hands of stella - even though he didn’t know it was happening, even though phil did do something once he found out - was an abandonment to ben. and that’s just the tip of the abandonment iceberg for ben - kathy faking her death and leaving him was an abandonment (even when he thought she was actually dead), phil’s own abuse was an abandonment, as was his reaction when ben came out, and so on. and abandonment like that skews your thinking so you believe that everyone is going to abandon you, sooner or later, that they must be abandoning you for a reason, you must be a terrible person, you must be unworthy of people’s effort/time/love etc etc.

even when paul died, that was an abandonment to ben! like logically we know - and ben probably knows too - that paul didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to leave ben, he didn’t deliberately leave ben. but that doesn’t matter. mental illness is illogical, bpd is illogical, esp when it comes to abandonment. e.g. my therapist had to cancel a few of our appointments once bc she was ill, and it felt like an abandonment. like it was personal somehow, like she wasn’t coming into work bc of me, bc i was too much work, too hard to handle. ofc that wasn’t true, but that’s how it felt. it’s illogical. so ofc my solution was to just not go to my appointments even when she came back, bc like what other response is there lmao. it’s just that everything a person does feels personal, like it’s because of/about you, even when it isn’t. even when it has nothing to do w you. that’s probably why ben can come across at selfish at times, like he’s making everything about him. because it is all about him, in his mind. everything is because of him, is his doing, his fault etc. his way of thinking is skewed into thinking like that, bc shit keeps happening to him and ppl keep leaving him, so it must be his fault.

and!! ‘frantic efforts’ isn’t necessarily what u think it is!! it can be desperate begging ‘i’ll do anything to keep you in my life’ type actions, but it just as equally can be lashing out and abandoning someone in order to prevent them from abandoning u first - a ‘get them before they get me’ mentality (the whole scene where phil was in the hospital comes to mind - the ‘why doesn’t he love me back?’ was the more desperate part of him, tho it wasn’t necessarily an ‘effort’ per se, but then him trying to kill his dad basically in order to have the abandonment be at least on his own terms? that’s lashing out, and def qualifies as a ‘frantic effort’ lmao). and how often do we see that in ben? lashing out at jay in the hospital because he knew he was mad at him, and he’d rather hurt jay physically before he could hurt him emotionally? ben trying to support callum and showing him kindness, only to turn around and threaten to out him when he finds out callum asked stuart to sort him out? everything that happened w his dad, trying to fuck him over before his dad can get there first, trying to get rid of keanu so he can’t be abandoned in favour of him (although that didn’t really work, but it rarely does work the way u want it to lmao). and the biggest one to me, though probably one that people have already forgotten, is him breaking up w that guy he was seeing in newcastle even tho they were into each other bc he ‘had to, otherwise [he] would have ruined his life’. even tho we don’t really get details, that says it all to me. it’s v much a pattern that’s present in ben.

2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation (also known as “splitting”)

i feel like this one doesn’t need much explaining lmao

here is a definition of splitting from here (which is a very good article on splitting imo if u wanna read more abt it): ‘Splitting is a term used in psychiatry to describe the inability to hold opposing thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. Some might say that a person who splits sees the world in terms of black or white, all or nothing. It’s a distorted way of thinking in which the positive or negative attributes of a person or event are neither weighed nor cohesive.’

a little explanation of it from me: ppl w bpd can sometimes have very simplistic, all or nothing views on things. and splitting is basically when ur opinion on something or someone changes very quickly (sometimes instantly), often to an extreme (e.g. going from loving and idolizing someone, to absolutely fucking hating them, or from having a neutral opinion on something to suddenly becoming extremely angry abt it) sometimes without even having an identifiable trigger. it links into black and white thinking, which u may have heard of before - u either love someone and they can do no wrong, or u hate them and they disgust you. either something is amazing or it’s terrible. there is no grey area, no in between. it goes back into the whole ‘not being able to regulate ur emotions properly’ thing lmao there’s rarely nuances to our emotions or feelings, we’re all or nothing a lot of the time. so splitting is when ur opinion rapidly changes to one of these extremes. sometimes u can even go back and forth, splitting over and over on the same person/thing which is super fun.

ben splits on his dad all the time. all the fucking time. he doesn’t care about phil at all and wants to ruin him, then he wants phil’s approval and to be welcomed back into the family fold and the business. then ben hates him and wants him dead, then 5 minutes later he wants his love, wants to be a good son again. that’s splitting. u can also see it w jay, too, but no where near as extreme as w his dad. and i’ve seen it a couple of times w callum too, but again, it’s way more subtle. u probably wouldn’t notice it if u weren’t looking for it, whereas w phil it’s obvious.

but like i don’t need to explain ‘unstable and intense interpersonal relationships’, do i? just look at the relationships w phil, w jay, w lola, w callum, even w paul - they were unstable back when they first got together, and were arguably kind of intense too. (he settled a bit w paul, but his death/perceived abandonment fucked him up a lot beyond the expected ways). he’s always arguing w the ppl he loves. he tried to get poor billy killed, and yet since then he’s had no problem w him!! none of his relationships - apart from maybe his mum and ian (i don’t include lexi bc she’s a child) - are stable. and i would definitely describe his relationships as intense lmao

3. Identity disturbance: Markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

u can see this most - as most things - in his relationship w his dad. he fluctuates between seeming to know his worth (and demanding other people know it too), knowing he deserves his dad’s love and approval (why else would he be so mad abt the fact hes not getting it, if not bc he knows he’s worthy of it? if he didn’t think so, he wouldn’t be so angry abt not getting it - he’d be accepting/understanding, wouldn’t he?) and being desperate to do anything to get his dad’s love/approval, even things that are below him, turning into a child, begging to know why his dad doesn’t love him, why he’s never been enough. that scene where phil had found out abt ben trying to frame keanu and leaving him for dead is the epitome of this. u can see ben fluctuate between a hurt, traumatized little boy, begging his dad for some answers, some explanation as to why he’s not enough, begging him not to start drinking again, and a man who is angry, angry at his dad, angry at himself for crumbling like this, bc he should be stronger than this. u see him change multiple times in that one single scene. go watch it again. you’ll see it too.

some more examples: his absolute certainty that he is better and more qualified than the likes of shirley and keanu for working with his dad, and then being like ‘my dad was right, i’m good for no one’ - they don’t line up. does he have self esteem and know his worth or not? also his entire relationship w callum is an example of this - all those changes in his attitude towards cal and their situation? he often treats callum like they’re equals who understand each other, yet sometimes it seems like he thinks he’s superior to callum (e.g. the scene outside the cafe), and others he behaves (keyword) as though he thinks he’s not good enough for callum (why else would he just take all that shit from whitney and not say anything in retaliation? why, if not because he deems it more important that callum has an easier time of it than he does; that he regards cal’s comfort more important than his own? and why would he do that, if he held himself in such high regards? i mean he certainly acts like it sometimes, so why not then?)

also like……. who is ben? is he the bastard who cares about no one but himself, who’s always causing trouble not only for himself but for the people he cares about? is he the guy who just completely folds when people he knows hurtle abuse at him, accepting it lying down, who thinks he’s no good for anyone? the guy who goes out all night and drinks himself silly and purposefully gets himself into fights? the guy who shows callum so much empathy even tho it brings him nothing but pain, who loves jay unconditionally, who tried so hard to help bobby when he came back from prison? which one is he? which one does he want to be? does he even know?

(and you could argue that people are just multi-dimensional, but there’s just such a vast gap between these different facets of ben’s character and he can flip through them so fast it’s jarring, which is why i think it’s more like he straight up doesn’t have a consistent sense of self. which is a big part of bpd)

4. Impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

again, does this need explaining?

doing illegal shit, excessively drinking, becoming unnecessarily violent, fucking up his relationships, just generally doing reckless things regardless of the consequences - this has always been a part of ben’s character.

(his constant hook ups could be another one, but the jury’s still out on that one. if anything it’s less the sex that worries me and more the flippant attitude he has when meeting up w ppl - they could be anyone and do all sorts, at the end of the day)

it became most obvious recently around the anniversary of paul’s death - drinking himself sick, gambling all his money away, deliberately starting fights. but even before that and since then it’s been there.

it’s basically just a way to self sabotage.

i feel like this one isn’t a consistent part of ben’s behaviour like the others are, but it is undeniably there, so.

5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-harming behavior

although ben (to my knowledge) hasn’t displayed any suicidal behaviour, he has at times spoken in ways that could kind of sway that way. (i’m no good for anyone, i’m not worth it, why do you care etc)

also self harming!!! just because he doesn’t hurt himself in a direct way doesn’t mean he doesn’t deliberately put himself in situations where he’ll get hurt, and that is self harm!! letting stuart beat him at pride was self harm!! picking that fight w those homophobes at e20 was self harm!!! drinking to excess is a form of self harm!!! putting himself in harm’s way, even if he doesn’t get hurt, is self harm!!!! just bc he might not be self harming in the traditional sense doesn’t mean he’s not hurting himself!!! this one has been on my mind for so long!!!! oh my god!!!!! he absolutely has a pattern of self harming/self destructive behaviours, and just a general disregard for his own safety and well being!!!! the fact that it doesn’t worry more ppl in his life is so upsetting to me!!!!!!

6. Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events (e.g., intense episodic sadness, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

aka the biggest part of bpd: pt 2

i feel like this definition doesn’t really do justice to this aspect of bpd. this is basically you literally having no control of your emotions. ‘day-to-day events’ have fuck all to do with it half the time. u could be sitting there minding ur business and all of a sudden you wanna smash up the entire room, for seemingly no reason. one time i was crying - like uncontrollably sobbing, a complete mess - and had been for maybe half an hour? and then all of a sudden, literally mid sob, it stopped. like it just stopped. i was done, i wasn’t sad anymore. i went from inconsolably crying to perfectly fine in a split second. can you even imagine that? it’s fucking crazy. that’s what having bpd is like. it’s like mood swings x1000 (that’s why i describe it like bipolar on a smaller scale - their mood swings last days/weeks/months, ours last minutes/hours, sometimes days but not often). you can be fine, then all of a sudden you’re not. or you can be not fine, and then all of a sudden you are. you can be ecstatic, then all of a sudden all the joy gets sucked out of ur body n u wanna die. then 5 mins later ur fine again. u can cycle thru every single human emotion in the space of a few hours with no warning whatsoever. u can go from feeling so many emotions u don’t know which one to focus on to feeling none at all. it’s exhausting. so yes ‘day-to-day events’ (this can be as minor as the way someone speaks to you, or not enjoying ur food as much as u thought u would, and it can make u terrifyingly sad or spark uncontrollable rage in u) can trigger it, but it’s like… at least that’s kind of justifiable. most of the time u just cannot regulate, control or predict ur emotions whatsoever. and often the emotions u do feel are not appropriate for the situation at hand lmao

on top of that, ppl w bpd have massive problems processing their emotions. while most ppl have the capacity to identify what they’re feeling and why, ppl w bpd often can’t. and bc they can’t identify it properly, they don’t know how to process it. that’s why emotions and feelings are so often black and white - we might develop the ability to recognise Big Emotions, like love and hate, happiness and sadness etc, but we can’t figure out the smaller, nuanced emotions. it becomes or, not and.

this is also why our emotions feel so big and all encompassing!! we can’t ignore our emotions!! they are our focus in a lot of ways. when ur sad, it feels like the world is ending, every single time. when ur happy, ur euphoric and nothing else matters, and so on. every emotion has the volume turned up to 100. that’s why our emotions sometimes come out in extreme or unhealthy ways - our emotions often feel so big we have such a hard time handling them. so we go to drastic lengths, whatever they may be, to cope.

(also bc most ppl w bpd are victims of abuse, we’re often hyperaware of other people’s moods, which can impact ours. someone can be annoyed for some innocuous, innocent reason, and yet bc we can sense it, we become scared or defensive and may lash out.)

and ben… little old ben, have u ever seen him have a rational reaction to anything in his life? how often have we seen him have an appropriate response to smth? my dad is shit, so i have to destroy him. failing that, i have to kill him. oh, my brother isn’t gonna let kill him? time to punch him in the face. my daughter ate all my cereal? it’s Overreaction Time. (this one in particular is Very Me like yes lexi is a child and he was unfair but my 7 year old cousin once drank all my j2os and i almost had a breakdown so i Get It) i’m feeling like shit? time to antagonise these homophobes until they beat me in the middle of the street. i sleep with this man once? time to get overly involved. he shows me a little bit of love and kindness? time to develop feelings for him despite him insisting he’s straight, the fact that he’s with a woman and i have been harassed and beaten by his homophobic family multiple times. but it isn’t going the way i wanted it to? time to impulsively hit him for not knowing what he wants, then immediately regret it.

and like. he went from crying his eyes out in his dad’s kitchen to threatening kat slater within the span of what, 10 minutes? he went from trying to kill his dad, to falling tf apart w jay, to trying to manipulate his dad - who had just woken up from a coma - for his own gain again, in the span of maybe an hour. if that doesn’t say rapid cycling, inconsistent emotions idk what does.

like idk enough about the old bens to say if this is a consistent characteristic of his or not (although based on the fact he killed a woman bc he was angry w his dad, i’d say it’s fairly safe to assume lmao) but ever since he came back his reactions and emotions have been pretty much never once been rational, stable or consistent.

(and like i wanna say i am saying all of this from the perspective of the bad days. so if you’re thinking ‘well, ben isn’t like that all the time’ ur right. neither am i. some days i’m fine, some days it’s not that bad, sometimes i can cope. but i still have bpd, even on those days. and imo, so does ben.)

7. Chronic feelings of emptiness

this is one i don’t really see in ben. we maybe see moments of emptiness, but certainly not enough to call it ‘chronic’.

also a lot of the moments we do see emptiness in ben, i feel like it’s forced emptiness, more for his own benefit or for the benefit of others rather than actual genuine emptiness. it’s not that he’s not feeling anything, it’s that what he is feeling he’s not showing. that’s very different from actually feeling empty.

8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

this! is! such! a! massive! part! of! having! bpd! and it’s a part that no one ever fucking talks about either!!!

and again, does this one need explaining?

ben is anger. he’s a ball of it, and he has been for a very, very long time. he’s angry at his dad, at the world, at himself. for all sorts of reasons, both complex and simple. if i sat here and tried to get into all of it this post would be twice as long as it already is. and i don’t think i really need to, anyway. it’s not as if any of us need to dig very deep to see it, is it?

‘frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights’ like i really don’t need to elaborate do i? bc what does ben do when he’s angry? his temper flairs up, he gets physical, lashes out, makes threats.

and he’s so often angry in response to emotional pain, which is the saddest (and for me, most relatable) part. just look at paul’s anniversary, how angry he was just in general, to everyone - even his mum, who is like the only exception to his anger since he’s been back - when he was just hurting and sad. how angry he got when he found out keanu had replaced him in phil’s will, when really he was just hurt. he gets angry and violent so people don’t see him as weak bc he’s hurting. he has been conditioned to get angry instead of getting sad. it’s not healthy at all.

there is so much more but i feel like it’s unnecessary for me to get into it. bc u know. ben’s not exactly subtle in his anger is he lmao

9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

this is the only other one that i don’t see in ben at all, and it’s one that i don’t really experience myself either so i don’t even have any insight to offer lmao

so!! more or less 7/9!! that’s a passing grade for diagnosis!!! welcome to the club, mr mitchell!!!!

all of this, of course, has been purely from a medical, diagnostic standpoint (w some of my personal experiences sprinkled in lmao). there’s so much more to say from like a ‘living w bpd day to day’ standpoint but like, this post is already way too fuckin long so i’m just gonna hit on a few that i feel are important in regards to ben, and ones i have’t spoken abt yet

most ppl w bpd have a ‘fp’ or ‘favourite person’ (tho it can be multiple people), which sounds nice but it’s kind of a really complicated and difficult thing tbqh. here’s the best definition i could find: ‘When someone with BPD uses the term “favorite person” to describe someone else, they are typically insinuating that this is a person they cannot survive without. For BPD sufferers, the favorite person is the person who is a source of emotional support and dependence. This individual has the ability to truly impact the BPD sufferer’s day in either a positive or negative manner. The favorite person to someone with BPD holds a critical role in their lives by holding the power to ‘make or break’ the successful navigation of daily tasks and struggles.’ it’s a difficult thing to explain/understand (so please feel free to google ‘favourite person bpd’ to get a better understanding), and is not always as dramatic as it sounds, but it’s like… even if they aren’t a source of ‘emotion support’, ur mental wellbeing can hang on this person’s every move. (which is not healthy, i know, but it’s just a thing that happens w bpd!) and phil is absolutely ben’s fp. ben hates phil, and yet is still so desperate to be in his good graces, in his life no matter what that costs him… and ben’s self esteem, his actions, his moods are so dependant on phil. it just?? makes so much sense to me. i realize it may not make much sense to someone who doesn’t have any understanding of what a fp is, but like if u do, i’m sure u see what i see.

i think maybe jay was another fp of ben for a while in the past. i don’t think he is as much since ben has come back, but in the past?? maybe. like less in the ‘my happiness is dependant on u’ way and more in like a ‘i’m very very attached to u and need u in my life and would maybe go crazy if anything or anyone got in the way of that’ way.

and i think callum might be sneaking into territory now too tbqh. it would explain why callum’s actions and words have such an impact on ben’s moods despite not much really happening between them. and like i wanna say: someone becoming ur fp is not a choice. it just happens. it’s not like ben is going ‘oh im going to get overly attached to u just for a laugh’, no. this would be completely out of his control. and when it happens, it fucking SUCKS. so if that is what’s happening, it’s going to have a massive impact on ben - and it seems like it already is.

and like taking the whole fp thing out of it (bc i know it’s complicated and hard to grasp) bpd would explain why ben seems to be so attached to callum even tho very little has actually happened between them!!! like bpd will have u falling in love w someone who just shows you basic human kindness and decency, and i mean that very literally!!! bc like i said when you have bpd, you struggle to navigate and handle basic emotions, so all the nuances of romance and love? jesus christ. it goes back into black and white thinking - i either love this person or i hate this person, there is no in between. so callum, showing ben kindness? showing him support with what’s going on w louise and what happened w phil? not hating him and thinking he’s despicable and evil and all those things people say about him? and ben, having bpd? he probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend that maybe cal’s just being friendly, esp not after they slept together. so ofc he would latch tf on to that. i would latch tf on to that. his behaviour towards callum just seems very on brand for having bpd to me, genuinely.

and !! all those things whitney said the other night !! people complained about him not arguing back, but like… she’s almost saying what ben wants to hear, when it comes to callum. bc i touched on it before but like the thing is when, you have bpd ur thought process is like ‘i care about this person, they are good, i don’t deserve them, i am bad, i am going to ruin them, i’m probably manipulating them into spending time with me and caring about me, but i can’t let them go, i need them, i bet they don’t even like me, i don’t deserve them, i don’t want them to get hurt, i don’t want to hurt them, i am going to hurt them, in the end.’ (and eventually it spirals into ‘actually they’re probably going to hurt me first bc everyone always does so let me completely destroy this relationship so it’s unrecoverable and hurt them now so they can’t hurt me later’ but that’s another story) and whitney more or less confirms that for him!!! in essence, what she says to him is ‘you’re bad, he didn’t want anything to do with you but you manipulated him into it. you don’t deserve him, you’ve hurt him, you’ve hurt me, how could you do this?’ so like… ofc he’s not gonna argue w her. he’s already had a shit day, all of the fight is gone from him, and he agrees w her!! i’m sure he was thinking that he deserved what whit was throwing at him - not necessarily for what he’d done to her, but because he is Bad and callum is Good and he needs to stay away from him, otherwise he’ll ruin him. bc that’s just what bpd brain tells u, even when u’ve got no basis to believe it. (unless ur splitting or experiencing a big emotional high, but again, that’s a different story)

and that kind of makes sense as to why he’d go to the wedding. going back to the anger instead of sadness thing - he’s hurting, so he’s going to get angry and vengeful. he has been hurt, so now he is going to hurt in return. esp considering both callum and whitney have seen him in such a vulnerable state. it’s probably a pride thing, too.

also just to expand a little more on the ‘unstable sense of self’ thing - ppl w bpd (and also victims of abuse, but sometimes that particular venn diagram is a circle) tend to change the personality based on who they’re with. which is what most people do, yes, but i mean the Extreme version. it’s a trauma response thing - u’ll reflect parts of a person’s personality back at them, or even take bits from personalities of ppl u know they like in the hopes that they’ll like u more like that, as opposed to ur real personality (if u even know what that is). and sometimes those parts stick (esp when you idolize the person u stole them from/they’re your fp), and it’s like u all of a sudden realize ur entire personality is built of parts of other ppls personalities that you’ve stolen. so it makes sense to me that ben seems to have so many differing personalities/sides to his personality, bc he’s learned which parts to show to who, and in what situations - in response to his abuse as a kid, if nothing else.

(and before anyone can even go there: that is not an act of manipulation. it’s a trauma response. it’s something that happens without us consciously having any say in it, as a way of self-preservation. it’s like if i make myself likeable and appealing to u, you’re less likely to hurt me, physically or emotionally. and yes ben has a habit of manipulation, but this is not a part of it. none of ben’s manipulation is directly bc of his hypothetical bpd, it’s bc that’s just who he is. i don’t ever want to see the two equated, or see anyone say any shit like ‘ben must have bpd bc he’s manipulative’, ever.)

just for the hell of it, here are some spicy bpd memes, bc that’s how we communicate on the internet. (here are two in particular seem quite relevant to ben rn lmao + bonus one for phil!!)

so! there we are!!! i’m sure there’s some important stuff i overlooked and that this is not what u expected when u sent me this question, but there are so many misconceptions and stigmas out there surrounding bpd that i wouldn’t have felt right half assing it. and i hope, if nothing else, u learned something abt bpd that u didn’t know before :-)

if u read this far ur a trooper lmao but if anyone has any questions, be they abt ben having bpd or bpd in general please feel free to ask!! i’ll do my best to answer them to the best of my ability 💖💖

#ben mitchell #ballum #eastenders #petty as hell but it was really bugging me that this wasnt showing up in tags so i'm posting it again lmao #sorry if u already liked/replied to it :-(#bpd #anon #question

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anonymous-pretzel-3 · 4 years

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So much has happened in the past week, idk how to keep up mentally, emotionally, and all the other "-ally's" anymore (not that I knew how to be fore, but 🤷🏽‍♂️)

I don't have the spoons to go through a full rundown of everything that's happened, but here's a basic outline I may expand on later:

I had therapy last Tuesday and talked about my sudden spike in feelings of wanting to leave this God forsaken hell that is my parents' house again and how I figured out a way I might want to talk to them about it without actually burning any bridges if and when I was granted the opportunity

Literally only a couple of hours later, my mother decides it's ok to spank my brother again (over him cutting up some paper my baby sister drew on for our godsister because it was her birthday that day or something like that)

My dumbass decided to take this opportunity to do something I knew was going to get me into this kind of trouble and fucking did it anyway (i.e. confront my mother about it)

*cue her threatening to punch me, shoving me into a wall and basically pinning me there while acting like she's about to physically hurt me while screaming in my face about how I can't tell her how to raise her children and calling me and my friends some names and bla bla bla trauma trauma trauma*

It was 9:30 at night, so when my mother told me to get out of her face, I grabbed my drawstring bag that holds all of the stuff I usually carry around with me everywhere these days, and I left and spent the night at a friend's house who I didn't know was also mid breakdown because of stress

That night their boyfriend (who is also a mutual friend) and another mutual friend also spent the night because they were helping to provide emotional support and stuff because everyone was having a shitty night (the other two are also dating and had some sort of important conversation too that I technically don't really know how well that went, but they're still talking and together I think)

I spent the rest of the next day internally freaking out at work because I had to go home that night and face whatever consequences for my actions were going to be, and since nothing like this has ever happened before, I didn't know what to expect

Forgot my mother had class Wednesday nights, so we set a time to talk the next day

According to my sister and the way I read all the adults' actions and what they said, they weren't overtly angry and no one has threatened to hurt me or kick me out yet, so I guess that's something?

Thursday morning I had my psychiatry appointment before I got a chance to talk to my mother, so now I have to wait another week-2 weeks before I can see a professional about the result of this :')

I had the conversation with her after the appointment that has left me royally emotionally fucked up since

Still cannot sort through my fucking emotions and beliefs for the fucking life of me

Spent the night at a friends place again and all day Friday with friends

Had work on Saturday

Told my mother the complete truth for once Saturday night about where I was planning on going Sunday and morning before D&D and why for the sake of communication

Basically got told I was a bad person among other things, which is exactly why I never tell her jack shit

Helped my friend with some of our other friends clean their mom's house because their family was going to house a stray cat we found outside of my friend's place of work that Friday

Ended up taking the cat back with us because they and their boyfriend weren't confident they were going to be able to take care of them

(Cat ended up going with two of our other friends)

Had D&D and the DM called me a nazi for "talking bad about her friend (insert my name)" because I basically repeated that I was a bad person

(Still haven't stopped internally laughing about that tbh and still hate that it fucking works like how dare lmao)

(Seriously, when you have such a visceral reaction to being called a nazi in any context, including a joking one, because the thought is so horrifying, your brain automatically starts thinking good things about you instead on command because Fuck That Shit^TM)

Had work yesterday and got told by my boss that I need to work on getting faster (which duh, I know, but also how tf is he so nice about it and been so patient with me wtf)

Finally got confirmed today by friend who got me the job in the first place what I already knew all along: I'm probably going to end up losing my job because I'm not getting fast enough

(They still think I can improve and they still believe in me somehow which really means a lot to me, but still. Lowkey haven't stopped crying because of so many mixed emotions piling up)

I'm supposed to talk to another friend about what happened between me and my mom today, but that's probably not going to happen because lowkey avoiding replying to everyone because everything is too much especially since at the exact same time my friend was texting me about my job, another friend (and their boyfriend) was texting me about possibly letting me get an apartment or something with them and letting me pay less for rent

I simultaneously hate my life and love my friends so deeply that I'm being torn apart by these two emotions alone

I literally would probably be dead if it weren't for them, and I definitely would have been a lot worse off

Anyway, I gtg fold clothes now, but those are just some thoughts I needed to jot down real quick. And in case no one has ever told you:

Only nazis would say such cruel things about you that you tell yourself. Don't punch yourself in the face, but metaphorically punch that voice in the face and tell it to shut the fuck up because you're not a nazi. You're a beautiful and amazing human being, and God damn if you think I'm going to let you get away from the nazi metaphor lol Go find some self care and love yourselves 💜

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wakasagayhime · 5 years

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very long, very personal post

tldr, im still not drawing but here’s a detailed account of everything that’s happened in case anyone is confused or misinformed

alright. let me start out by saying i’m not going back to art just yet. it still hurts to do anything art related and i’m still trying to find a way to heal from all of this. i need some kind of professional help first, and i don’t know how long it’ll take afterwards for me to begin feeling like myself again. i don’t even know if i’ll be able to get any kind of professional help at the moment; my university’s counseling center told me, in short, that i’m so mentally ill that their services would not be enough for me and i’d have to look elsewhere (which is reasonable, tbh, they’re almost always completely booked so it’s difficult to actually even talk to someone there in the first place, i only got to talk to them to begin with because i nearly killed myself one night after having the most intense panic attack of my life where i felt like i was actually in the process of dying) and as if that weren’t enough, if you follow me on twitter you’d know that my mom finally left my stepdad, but this means that we no longer really have a home to call our own and are now living with some of my mom’s friends. on the bright side, miso is a lot freer and gets to explore the house as he pleases, but on the downside money is tight and my mom is trying her best to find a place to live while working two jobs and trying to help pay for my tuition. long story short, i want some kind of professional help badly, but all the bullshit that’s been happening in my life makes that difficult.

anyway, i understand that i’ve worried a lot of people through all of this, and i’m sorry. i truly, genuinely am sorry for everything that’s been going on. i blame a lot of it on myself not being strong enough. if i were stronger, i wouldn’t care about some stupid internet trolls, or some random grown man in florida stalking all my social media. if i were stronger, i could take my life back. i wouldn’t feel the need to constantly contemplate suicide, or to torture my own body by starving because of my physical form feeling like the only thing i have left to be in control of. if i had only been stronger, like my old stupidly foolish overconfident 16 year old self who got into fucking STEVEN UNIVERSE DISCOURSE of all things, maybe i wouldn’t care. even when it first happened to me, after the initial shock and hiatus, i was pretty much back to normal almost instantly. but this kind of trauma is sneaky and will gradually eat away at you more and more while you pretend to be ok, and then eventually you reach a breaking point and it’s taken over your life. that’s why i’m still obsessing over that day two years later. that’s why i can’t be left alone on december 13th this year, or else i know for a fact i will harm myself in some way. (don’t worry about that though, burger is going to hang out with me that day and i’ll be fine.) still, even though i keep telling myself my past self was stronger, i do know that she really wasn’t. she was still struggling with depression, anxiety, and self harm issues. maybe it just manifested differently for a while. maybe she felt unstoppable at some point in time because she finally found a girlfriend and got a cat. i got into so many fights that weren’t worth my time or energy at all, and part of me wishes i could be that confident again, but i also know that was my downfall to begin with.

i have followers who haven’t been around for longer than a year or maybe less than two, so i might as well give everyone a true, thorough rundown of what happened leading up to that day, the day of, and after.

i’m sure a lot of you who are worried about me at the moment have seen the recent callout for colboh and his involvement in what happened. i’ll be honest--i don’t know the full extent of his involvement, and i want to believe his foolishness ends at not leaving artists who have blocked him alone and uploading their shit to booru sites when they explicitly state not to. so let’s just start there. i honestly don’t remember if it was before or after i first blocked him, but he uploaded one of my NSFW drawings to danbooru when i first shared my NSFW blog. (PROTIP: if you’re a minor, don’t share your NSFW art with anyone. don’t care if you’re 17, i was about to turn 17 myself. it will bite you in the ass. as such, some of this is my fault.) i quickly contacted danbooru asking them to delete it, and they did--but that artwork subsequently ended up on gelbooru as well, and i was unsuccessful in my efforts to remove my art from there.

fast forward to december 13th, 2016. it was a normal morning. i was getting ready for school, but also being dumb and lazing around in bed browsing tumblr. i saw a post from a blog that shares Funny 4chan Screencaps. my art was in it. the art was of a very muscular yuugi, a drawing i was proud of, especially in how much gay energy i thought it radiated--but this drawing was being used in one of those typical “here’s a touhou, i wanna fuck her! am i right guys? let’s talk about how badly we want to fuck her” threads. seeing my art used for this was appalling. my first mistake was reblogging the post and saying how it was wrong, and how my art shouldn’t ever be used for such a purpose. my second mistake was making a text post AND tweets expressing my disgust at the situation, thinking no one who frequented /jp/ would ever see, sure that it would be a big waste of their time to concern themselves with some random dumb “”sjw”” artist. i also probably shouldn’t have specifically called them “gross neckbeards,” in doing so i absolutely struck a nerve with basement dwellers everywhere. i got to school and during my second period class, suddenly felt a strange urge to look at /jp/. why i did that, i still don’t really know. maybe i was expecting hate. maybe i was trying to see if they used my art for something gross again. i don’t know. either way, that moment changed everything forever. i saw the screencap of my tweets posted for everyone in their circlejerk to see. even worse--i looked in the thread, and someone had also posted the NSFW art colboh had uploaded to danbooru, mocking it and calling me a hypocrite for drawing two girls having sex while also saying i don’t like my art being used for those kinds of threads. this is what truly ignited the amount of hate i saw directed towards me in the threads. i got called a bitch, a drama whore, got told to kill myself, and in one reply etched into my mind forever, someone said something along the lines of “we should all call her local gang and have them rape her, she just needs a good dicking.” there were multiple threads, too; i don’t know how many, but there was another one about me after the first one was deleted, in which someone edited a typical fat balding NTR hentai doujin style man into art i made of kagerou nosebleeding at wakasagihime. more disparaging comments were made. in both threads, people expressed their hatred and dislike of my art, some calling it garbage, some just saying it’s “bad,” etc. some people said the threads were unnecessary and rude, but they were a kind few in a cesspool of violence.

i don’t know who started these threads. i can’t assume anything about anyone, but whoever did this was definitely looking through all my social media out of bitterness and hatred, or perhaps even following me on both my tumblr and twitter considering the timing of the threads immediately after i complained. it eats at me that i most likely will never know who did this to me. i’ll never know who hated me so much that they decided to completely destroy my self esteem. if whoever it is who did all of this is reading this and feels any ounce of remorse, i’m begging them to reveal themselves and why they did it, but i know the chances of that happening are incredibly slim. someone, i can’t remember who, maybe it was queenly, told me they hope someday i reach a point where i don’t have to worry about that because i won’t care in general, but i still don’t know if i’ll ever reach a point where i stop caring about all of this.

like i mentioned earlier, after this all first happened, i was destroyed. the next day, my school’s GSA happened to have a vote for whose art would be on the club t-shirts, mine or someone else’s. mine lost. i broke down completely--anywhere i went, i wasn’t good enough, not for anyone. for days, there was a constant feeling of horror and fear in my chest, something i’ve only ever felt so intensely when one of these threads resurfaces or i suddenly relive my trauma due to other things triggering me. i took a hiatus that lasted a few weeks, i believe i came back sometime before the new year. i thought i was ok, and i pretended like i could go back to being myself. but as time went on, and i continued living with the weight of that day on my back, i became weaker and weaker. i stopped drawing as frequently as i used to. my final year of high school started and i ended up falling into such a deep depression that i constantly skipped school and eventually attempted suicide in november 2017. the suicide note i wrote cites that day as being one of the main things leading me to my decision, telling whoever did this to me that i hoped in my passing they’d have to live knowing what they did to me. my attempt only failed because i swore to take every pill left in the bottle and there were only four pills. had it been full, i’m not really sure what would have happened. i was sent to a mental institute afterwards for a week. being there was the absolute definition of hell. i was alone. i cried myself to sleep every night. they claimed to be a place where people were improved and got help, but i did not get any help at all. they basically imprisoned me for trying to kill myself. when i got out, i was only glad to be alive because i just wanted to be able to talk to my friends, my family, and my girlfriend again. it still shocks me that i was able to graduate from high school considering how much school i skipped before and after my suicide attempt.

sometime before that school year ended, i became extremely upset one afternoon and decided to run away from home. i had what happened to me and what was said about me that day running through my head. i tweeted that i hoped maybe in running away i’d end up being raped like they wanted, like how i deserved. someone who i considered a friend replied to this with, “fuck you.” after all of this was taken care of and i was safe at home, i responded that i was sorry, that i wasn’t thinking right when i made the tweet. she responded that i was, and blocked me. i tried to explain that i said what i did because of the threads about me on /jp/ and the one response threatening rape, but this was disregarded and, seemingly, ignored. a few days later, the former friend in question started sending me anon hate on tumblr, asking me why i want attention so badly, accusing me of making light of actual rape victims by saying such a thing. i explained myself, but to no avail. i blocked her on tumblr, and left it at that. but then, at the end of the school year, when i was proud of myself for finally getting through high school without killing myself or failing or anything, i stumbled upon the second thread. the date the thread was created lined up exactly with the time between me running away from home and me receiving anon hate. she can try to act like she didn’t make the thread all she wants, but i’m not an idiot. the replies were also eerily similar--people in the replies remembered me, a year and a half after the original thread. some replies mentioned me having attempted suicide months before. some mentioned my NSFW art again. i had a massive breakdown and nearly drowned myself in the pond down the road. it was a wet, rainy night, and i sat on a bench by the pond sobbing loudly, trying to find some way to want to keep living. but i couldn’t. i might have gone through with it if it hadn’t been for burger coming and talking to me and giving me a ride home.

entering college, i thought things would be easier. in a way, they are. i have more freedom with classes. this semester, i attended almost all of my classes, almost every day, just with the exception of me being sick some days and me accidentally oversleeping once, and then one day when i just didn’t feel like it. but things continued to get worse for me--i developed an eating disorder for many reasons, one being the time i spent a year prior depressed caused me to gain a significant amount of weight, and the other being i had sworn off self harm in the form of cutting. i found that i was able to get the same gratification from starving myself. at one point, it turned into a game of sorts, where i tried to see how long i could go without eating anything. my record was a little over 72 hours. being constantly hungry or in pain this way felt like something i deserved in a way, but also something to distract me from the pain of realizing i was losing my love for art. i was in denial about it for months. i tried to keep drawing, but everything i drew upset me, saddened me, and even angered me. i looked at anything i made and only felt disgust. it was the one thing i used to love doing more than anything, and now i only felt shame.

in november, i acknowledged this and decided to quit for good. recently, i discovered colboh had uploaded more of my NSFW art to gelbooru, even though i specifically stated on my blog to never upload my NSFW art to image sharing sites, specifically right after he uploaded my art the first time. by the time i found this, i had already sworn off art for good, but looking at the comments on my art on gelbooru (and rule 34--i guess they’re connected upload-wise like danbooru?) filled me with so much sadness and shame, not because they criticized my art, but because they said horrible things about my depiction of kagerou. for those who don’t know, i headcanon kagerou as a trans woman, and one thing i do not regret about my time as an artist is how that depiction has helped numerous trans women feel good about themselves and their bodies. seeing so many disgusting comments deliberately misgendering her and making other transphobic remarks hurt me on a completely new level. my trans friends have been such a source of strength for me through all of this and seeing that made me feel disgusted, especially with myself. i felt like i had failed them. i had made so many trans women happy, only to see a man i blocked two years ago had uploaded my art to porn sites, tagging it with dehumanizing words like “f*ta” that i specifically tell people never to refer to my art with, displaying that art for the exact same crowds of people that ruined everything december 13th 2016 to continue to pick apart. one comment even told me to kill myself, effectively bringing back every memory of that day.

speaking of that, another thing i want to touch on now that i’m up to speed with the details of everything that’s happened related to the original threads two years ago, is kagerou. i’m positive you all know that i really love kagerou imaizumi, and that she’s my favorite touhou character. it’s embarrassing to say, but she’s brought me so much comfort through all of this. sometimes if i’m sad, i’ll imagine her giving me a big hug, or i’ll look at cute pictures i have saved of her, or something along those lines. it’s pretty cringy for a fictional character to make me happy, i know, but i’ve grown so attached to her and she really means a lot to me. and another thing that made me want to swear off art is because she’s loved by so many others that i don’t think my depictions of her do her any good. i’m constantly compared to other artists, and it’s never good. even in the threads, i’m told i should be more like those other artists and these things wouldn’t happen to me. i am not allowed to love kagerou imaizumi. i draw her as a hairy trans lesbian, and that disgusts people. hell, the fact that i draw lesbians in general disgusts people, which sure fucking sucks because i constantly hate myself for not being attracted to men and being able to draw happy lesbians made me feel better about myself. but i’ve ruined kagerou for so many people, especially with my stupid kagewaka bullshit. maybe that’s why those artists unfollowed me. maybe it’s a combination of that and my constant breakdowns becoming far too annoying. i think all the popular artists who used to like me and then unfollowed/softblocked me are really glad to see that i’ve given up. and that’s something else that saddens me too--even as an artist, in my own community of touhou artists, i often feel like i’m lesser, and that i don’t belong. maybe it’s because i’m so foolishly outspoken about my opinions that they dislike me. maybe it’s because i’m a woman, and a lesbian at that. i don’t really know why they hate me so much. i wish i could belong somewhere.

and i think that’s what it all boils down to in the end. i’ve lost all sense of belonging. when i was 14 and people started noticing my art for the first time, i finally felt like i had something. like i belonged somewhere. after being bullied through middle school and having to deal with abusive friends and an abusive dad, it meant the world to me that i finally had something. but it didn’t last long at all. it all came crashing down, not just because of others, but because of me. i was the one who was cocky, getting into fights that weren’t worth it. i was the one who provoked people and made them hate me. i was the one who complained about /jp/ posting my art in their threads. i know people want to believe that i’m a saint, but i’m not. i have myself to blame too. i at least want everyone to understand this, above all else. there was so much i could have done differently to prevent this all from happening, but i didn’t. i was stupid and naive. i was a massive fucking idiot, and now look where i am. i lost everything. i thought i had friends, i lost them. i thought i loved art, i lost that. i thought other really talented nice people liked me, i even lost that. all i have now is an empty shell of my former self. i don’t know what to do with it. i don’t know how i’m going to rebuild myself. it’s so painful to have to keep living like this. i don’t know if there’s any fixing me at this point. i’ve lost so much, i feel permanently broken.

but despite all of that, despite everything i’ve been through, i still receive so much love and support from my followers and friends and it means so much to me. it means the world to me and has kept me going through all of this. knowing that people care about me and want to see me get better and improve makes me want to try to fix myself even if i am broken beyond repair. i just want to thank you all for being that source of strength for me. these past few years have been so hard for me and time and time again i still get love and encouragement from so many people. from the bottom of my heart, thank you. there is nothing more precious to me than those moments when i feel like i do truly belong, when i feel loved, when i feel like i’m not alone after all. for those moments, i’ll keep trying. even if these threads keep continuing and breaking me further, i’ll keep trying. even if every last artist in this fandom comes to hate me and my shitty art, i’ll keep trying. it’s still painful to draw right now and i have a long way to go before i can share art with anyone again, but for you all, i’m going to keep trying my best. at the end of the day, i know everyone’s encouragement and love is worth far more than hate threads urging me to kill myself.

i’m sorry how long and personal and unnecessary this is, but i felt like i had to set things straight. if you read all of this, i applaud you. if you just kinda skimmed through to read the last paragraph, i also appreciate it. again, thank you.

#glub glub #suicide //#self harm //#disordered eating //#rape //

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edeneben · 5 years

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My Coming Out Story

⚠️//TRIGGER WARNINGS: Homophobia, Sexual Assault, rape, depression, self hatred, and suicide//⚠️

If you know me, you know I’m pretty flamboyant and pretty open about how the fact I’m pretty flipping queer. But I haven’t always been very happy being like this, as most other queer people also aren’t and this is basically the story of how I accepted that.

Second grade; the point and time in most people’s lives that is mainly a blur of silly bands, crayons, and story books. For me personally, it was the start of absolute hell.

So I was raised in a pretty religious family. I would end up praying before every meal, before I go to sleep, and at least three times a week at church functions. So really early on I heard a lot of really gross and disgusting things. (Not to say all religious people are bad, it’s just I was raised in a conservative republican town were Friday nights are spent at youth group by most high schoolers) so by the age of seven or eight I heard the words “faggot” and “queers” thrown around a lot and the whole “All homos deserve to burn in Hell and be stoned.” Though, I did’t really understand the concept of being gay, or love in general.

So you could sarcastically say I was off to a great start.

In elementary school we would read these short stories in these obnoxiously massive books, and one of these stories was about a hedgehog or something baking a yellow cake. As a fun activity my teacher Mrs.Blair has us bake a cake in groups of four. We didn’t pick our groups, she just kind of shoved our desks together and said “have fun.”

In my group it was two boys, a girl, and me. The two boys were kind of annoying and I basically ignored them the whole time, but the girl was a different story. I noticed that she had short, messy light brown hair, very pretty greenish eyes, and a very cute smile. I took a liking to her pretty quickly and I started sitting with her at lunch instead of with my friends. I knew I really enjoyed being around her and that I thought she was the actual prettiest person I had ever seen. Though, I didn’t get why.

Then my friends started talking about boys and crushes. I couldn’t relate to anything they were saying before but after I met the girl, I did start to relate. But I related in a different way. Everything they said about the boys they liked were how I thought about her. Wanting to hold her hand and play house with her and crap. (We all know playing house together was the way to flirt back then)

So inevitably I was like, “Oh. Why am I the only one thinking about girls? Am I weird?” And then I kind of understood I was the bad thing they talked about in church all the time. I was the evil horrid thing that didn’t have a place in being there. Which, was a horrible thing to think about.

This was when self hatred really set in. Not only did I deal with that crushing reality, but my teenage brother also started arguing with my parents a lot and hearing the fights really hurt me mentally and I started crying myself to sleep.

I was eight. None of that stuff should have been a problem, though of course it was. *** Then in third grade I started praying a lot more and I joined an after school church club thing ran by my church.

Every time we would meet, Father Michael would ask those of us who haven’t been saved to go to the back of the room and pray with him to get saved. He kind of knew something was up when I went back there every single meeting, but he never asked. Probably for the best in all honesty.

Then I was like, “Yeah okay all of the praying has to be working by now and I’m totally not a homosexual now lmao.” Which, obviously not but I pretended to like guys anyways. (Ey Tyler waddup bud, yeah that was you. Jokes on both of us were both gay now love youuuu)

The day I told everybody I totally definitely liked him was the day before he moved away so I wouldn't have to deal with it. So. Yeah. *** Fourth grade was more of the same, just sadder tbh. Oh and I got another crush on a girl named Kayla I dated twice. Almost three but let’s not get into that. ( @kayla-le-queen ) *** Fifth grade was the first time I ever said I liked girls out loud. Though I kind of lied to myself and said “ha ha I like both.” Which I didn’t, but I had convinced myself that I was slightly ‘normal.’

It’s kind of a weird story as I had just been swimming with my other religious friend in their pool and I was like “oh by the way-“ Which, describes how awkward I am perfectly.

This is also the year I started making internet friends who had the same interests and experiences as me and I was sort of getting my footing with myself. *** Nothing prepared me for the absolute shit storm that was sixth grade.

Not only did I deal with hitting puberty, drama, a new school, and the surfacing of panic attacks, I had to deal with getting outed. Yep. Let’s get into it shall we?

Sixth grade. I came out as bi to a couple of my friends and stopped going to church. Only low key though. I wasn’t looking for my entire life to be flipped upside down. My parents were casually homophobic and my peers were actively expressing that.

Still, I decided to start dating someone.

Remember my friend who I came out to in the pool? Yeah, them. I dated them.

BIG MISTAKE.

As soon as we started dating, they told everyone. I told them “no one needs to know, we should keep it private you know? For safety.” They refused to listen.

By the end of the day everyone in my grade and even some upperclassmen knew that I was bi. Though the message got messed up and everyone thought I was a lesbian. (Which made me uncomfortable because I was still mfnsjsjjd about gender and stuff) (that’s a whole other coming out that I don’t want to get into in this as the whole thing is not anywhere near over)

Then the bullying for it started happening.

I was the first “out” kid in my grade so of course I was met with a bunch of crap.

Girls in locker rooms would yell at me for looking up at all, and there was one incident were a girl decided to come up to me, grope my chest and laugh about it with her friends because, “I was just a dirty lesbo pervert who probably enjoyed it.”

Guys would say repeatedly they could make me straight and also would do similar things to what that girl is.

Did I tell my parents? No of course I didn’t. I wasn’t out and I needed it to stay that way. My dad had anger issues and he had once hit my brother out of anger. So, I didn’t really feel completely safe to be quite honest. (It’s kind of better now. He still gets angry easy but he only had one more incident and that was years ago.)

I ended up breaking up with that person because I clearly couldn’t trust them and I was very upset with them. I still blame them. *** Then seventh grade happened. As per usual things got worse.

My parents found out about my internet friends and read all of our messages and I got outed to them.

Then my parents never trusted me again and took away the one good thing I had in my life that was consistently there for me and genuinely made me happy and feel safe.

Their homophobia also worsened. They also outed me to all of their friends and family. (Thanks mom)

I also attempted suicide for the first time. My parents and friends still don’t know about that. *** Eight grade was the worst year of my life. In eighth grade I kind of realized I was ace and came out to my friends and the girl I liked at the time.

I kind of blocked out homophobia at that point. Yes it was still happening to me and it had gotten worse, but eighth grade was a blur for me.

I can’t really remember much of it.

My English teacher who was a mother figure, Mrs.Freeze, who was the first adult to accept me, died during the last two weeks of school.

As well as an extremely traumatic event happened.

I might delete this part when I upload it but if I don’t I want you all to know that this is where I’m warning that sexual assault victims might want to click away at.

I decided to go on the Washington DC trip with my school and the girl I liked went with me.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours so I was asleep rather quickly.

It was four girls to a room, two to a bed. The two other girls left to hang out with their friends and it was just me left alone with the girl I liked and was out as ace to.

She took it upon herself to try to “fix” me.

I woke up while she was doing it and I eventually got her off me and escaped to the bathroom and cried.

I didn’t tell any adult on the trip and I just told a girl that I wasn’t comfortable around that girl anymore and thankfully she didn’t ask why and just switched seats on the bus with me and beds.

I still deal with trauma relating to this everyday, and I still have extreme panic attacks because of it. I lost physical trust with people for a while and I couldn’t be touched by anyone until recently.

This event also drove me to another suicide attempt.

That’s all I can say about that. Acephobia does exist and it can be extremely violent and damaging to people, so please just kindly shut up about ace discourse. *** During freshman year I was finally starting to be accepted by my parents, I came out as queer and ace officially, joined the GSA, met some more gays and life has been a bit better since then. *** My life isn’t perfect and homophobia is still a huge part of it and a lot of trauma surrounding my experience is still yet to be dealt with but I’m getting there. *** So my labels?

Queer and Ace-spec. That’s as specific as I can get I don’t know what you want from me lmao. *** Conclusion? Life does get better and eventually you will find acceptance and peace within yourself. I know you might be an extremely dark place with what looks like no chance of happiness or safety, but I promise you will get it eventually.

I love all of you and I wish you all the best in your own journeys.

Happy pride month.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💙💚💛🧡❤️

#pride

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pinkletterday · 5 years

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Writer's Year In Review

This year has been a revelation. I went from deeply, irrevocably believing I can't write fiction at all to knowing that I'm actually pretty good at it!

It's given me the confidence to find work as a freelance writer and editor in real life, after years of unemployment and anxious paralysis resulting from chronic illness and trauma. A lot of other factors also helped but the fic writing played a huge role in getting my shit together.

General Fic Stats:

Word Count on AO3: 92284

Fics posted to AO3: 23

Favourite Fic:

Kiss It Better (Westallen).This fic is my baby. I love little Iris and little Barry in it so much, the hurt and confusion in each other they attempted to heal, how that healing carried into their adult love and family. It will always and always be my favourite thing I have ever written. Wee!stallen is my jam, and the reason I ship them so damn hard.

Do Not Go Gentle (Westallen). Ngl, I love this for the sheer amount of truly gratifying comments. Every single one of them have been emotional and flaily. It all makes me feel like I may have finally levelled up. Hallelujah. xD

Funniest Fic:

The Care and Feeding (Queenwestallen). This is my ultimate OT3. This fic, written as a list and discussion is 95% humour and contains some of my best banter and (I feel) characterization. An element I'm really proud of is how I managed to center and include all their important non-romantic relationships in their conversations. Iris's boisterous female friends, Oliver's friends, Cisco and Caitlin's snarky commentary all shoehorned themselves into the list with hilarious and wholesome results.

It's not a popular OT3 but I feel like it's a good first attempt to drag this ship to water. xD

Cutest Fic:

Dancing Queen (Olivarry). Even after a year this contiues to be the fic with the highest kudos ratio (except for the more recent one) and the second most bookmarked. I love getting comments on this because they are all some variation of "my teeth hurt. I have diabetes!" xD Well, I did build it around a rainbow sprinkle icing sugar donut, but there is a significant dollop of angst there in the middle. A flangst donut.

Your Vigil In My Keeping (Westallen). This fic has less than 200 hits but has the highest kudos ratio of all. I guess kid fic isn't everyone's cup of tea, but Wee!stallen is cute af yo. I headcanon the origins of Barry and Iris's steadfast partnership in this story, where her faith and belief in him is as strong as his protectiveness of her, all tied up in the language and innocence of children.

Kinkiest Fic:

WA Smut and Kink Collection. I literally just posted this yesterday lol. So far it's just a face-sitting short, but I have quite a few hard and soft kinks lined up. Westallen needs more hard smut tbh, and they have such a unique powerfully loving dynamic that every kink I'm writing has required me to come at it a little bit sideways with a whole lot of emotional focus.

Saddest Fic:

Three fics I can't choose from.

Do Not Go Gentle (Westallen). This is basically Iris's grief and fear in a raging tempest, and it's strongly implied that the future Nora has warned them of will come to pass regardless of what they do. The fact is that there already is and will be a timeline where Iris loses Barry, just as there must be one where she won't, because that is the nature of potentiality.

The Paradigm of Uncertainty (Westallen). This was a drabble almost, that ruminates on the probability that speedsters do not erase timelines but abandon them, along those versions of their loved ones. It's as @rkwago's brilliant comment says: "Iris hurts in so many weird, cosmic ways that her life is almost an eldritch horror house," which is the most perfect description ever of what it means to be a time traveller's wife.

The Universal Constant (Gen, background WA). A lot of people find the way Barry goes off on Joe cathartic in this fic, and so do I. But it's not so simple. I don't think Joe was wrong to form the views he did, or that anyone was in the wrong really. As @sophiainspace pointed out, it's a mediation of grief and love, their parallels and continuations between parents and children and lovers. The fact that it takes Henry's death for Barry to find the adult language to articulate to Joe why he will always believe in his father's innocence is a tragedy that cuts three ways.

(This fic is also the reason I have a folder in my drive marked "how to get away with murder" and probably a likely reason to get me arrested one day. xD)