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ahiddenpath · 4 years

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36 Questions to Make You Fall in Love

SO my boy Eugene Lee Yang released a video where he answered the 36 first date questions to make you fall in love. Apparently, the idea of the questions is to create an emotional connection upfront.

(Related: It’s been interesting to see what Youtube/video content creators have come up with to produce content from home during quarantine!).

ANYWAY I thought it was an interesting “get to know you” thing, so I’MMA DO IT TOO below the cut! It is extremely long.

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

I have way too much anxiety to impose on a stranger to this extent, so I’d magically have my friends teleported to my home (pre or post quarantine).

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

Fame is a nightmare scenario for me.

3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

Yes, but only with service providers. I can and will utterly blank on what I need and what my dang name is when asked, “How can I help you?”

4. What would constitute a "perfect" day for you?

Ha! Right now, just a day without covid-19. I miss the outside world. Even things like browsing a store sound heavenly.

But... The best days of my life thus far were my Hawaii vacation, especially snorkeling and hiking through a rain forest. So... I’d want a day where I wake up early in Hawaii to snorkel and hike, and then drink mai tais and watch the sunset with my husband.

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

...I sang “Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing” in the shower today...

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

Oh, yikes, my mind. My mother’s father started degrading from Alzheimer’s when I was about 10.

(I’m assuming this refers to having a healthy mind throughout your life, and not remaining frozen in your 30-year-old mindset/experience set).

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

No, not at all. Definitely hoping it’s not Alzheimer’s related.

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

Well, I assume you and I both love Digimon!

As for my husband, we’re alike in habits and hobbies, but different in personality. We’re both introverted homebodies who love video games/nerd stuff in general/learning. We also highly value security, so we tend to work hard and save. I’d say we’re both grounded and reasonable, although I’m the more emotional one.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

This is too hard! I’m constantly feeling so grateful. I love existing as me! I seem to have a strong sense of self, and of where I stand, and that’s so dope. I’m also intensely grateful for my husband, who is so generous with his love and affection and care. And I’m glad that I found a career that suits me so well.

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

Er.

I had a difficult childhood. It’s hard, because my Mom loves me and my brother and sacrificed so much for us... But she (and all of our relatives) failed to protect me from my father’s various flavors of abuse. We were both also under a ton of pressure to excel academically.

Still, I can’t change the past. I’d rather donate to women’s shelters and resources for people dealing with abuse at home.

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

Let me bullet point it:

-Spent most of my time from 6 months old to 2 years old in a body cast because my hip wasn’t in the socket, and my muscles developed around it like that. Went to tons of physical therapy.

-Drew comics when I was 3 and 4 because I needed to get ideas out, such as they were, but I couldn’t write yet.

-I love cats, and have had at least one since I was five.

-My home situation was rough. I started trying to plan how to get out and be independent early and have been working and saving since I was 16.

-Interests/hobbies: animals, singing, nature, science, books, music, writing, video games, art, baking

-Met and started dating my husband at age 14. We’re blissfully married.

-First job was at an aquarium. Worked summers at a biotech firm during college. I’ve been working in biotech since I graduated. I currently research immunotherapies. I have a B.S. in biology.

-I have general anxiety disorder and see a therapist every other week. Therapy has been amazing, A+ would recommend.

-I’m an asexual cis lady

-I need to read and write to stay sane. Reading connects my mind to other minds, which helps me grow, understand, and think. Writing releases the pressure that builds up in my brain.

-I’m introverted, but friendly. Also, I’m an enormous dork.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Teleportation

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

No, thanks. I realize the point is to share information about myself through my response, but... This just isn’t how humans are meant to live. We’re supposed to discover our way and forge our futures, not have answers magically handed to us.

14. Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?

...Sigh. My husband and I have dreamed of visiting Japan since we were teens. We were just starting to plan the trip when covid-19 hit. Thankfully, we hadn’t booked anything yet.

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

Being me, being happy, whole, fulfilled, and confident. There’s no one magic accomplishment that makes everything “worth it” or makes me feel like I “made it.”

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

Oh, oh, oh, there’s a lot to this! Obviously, a friend needs to be kind (you don’t want to spend time with a jerk), but they also need to be emotionally mature (lending a kind ear is good, but functioning as a therapist for a friend is exhausting). But it’s the best if a friend has both of those things, but also is interesting in some way. Like... maybe they’re funny, or charismatic, or share your hobbies. And it’s a great feeling when a friend reaches out to you and makes time for you now and then; it’s a vulnerable feeling to always be the one to reach out.

17. What is your most treasured memory?

My first kiss, which was with my husband when we were 15.

Also, my entire trip to Hawaii with my husband.

18. What is your most terrible memory?

I’ll probably go with the time my father called me into his room while I was doing homework- I was probably 16ish? He told me I’d never be as smart, talented, or successful as my brother, at great length, for no discernible reason. He said I’d have to work more than twice as hard as him to get by, since I was so deficient. I still have nightmares where this replays.

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

I would say that I would quit my job and travel with my husband, but... You know, covid-19. I’d want to spend a ton of time with my husband, see as much as I can of the world, and do whatever I can to get details in order and make things as easy on my husband as possible.

20. What does friendship mean to you?

It means that you love someone and actively want them in your life, and you treat them as such.

Life is short, and people only have so much physical and emotional energy. If you choose to freely and joyfully give it to someone, then that’s a big deal.

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

??? Same as anyone else, I’d assume. People need people, although everyone has different levels of need. I guess I do tend to avoid casual relationships so I have more energy for my closest relationships. I’m also extremely independent, so I think my needs are smaller than average.

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

I assume that you, reader, are a cutie pie. Hello!

But let me talk about my husband! He is wicked smart, always learning for fun, and skilled at logic/reasoning. He’s also a hard worker, and the head of software development at his company at age 31. He is sooo shy and terrible at small talk, but I adore that he’s the quiet type, since the world is always so loud. He’s gentle and loving and kind, and he takes amazing care of me and is constantly looking for ways to do something for me. And he’s laid back and easy-going, which is so soothing.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people's?

No and no.

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

It’s... complicated.

25. Make three true "we" statements each. For instance, "We are both in this room feeling ... "

WE ALL STAN THE CHOSEN. We are all excited for the Digimon Reboot to restart. We all love Koushiro!

26. Complete this sentence: "I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... "

...I want more writing and reading friends.

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

I’ve had to explain to a lot of people that, despite being friendly and open, I’m introverted and independent, and a total homebody. I often find that people want to go to bars with friends, or maybe see movies or go to festivals. I would rather talk on a video chat while we each do our own thing. People tend to want too much too fast for my slow, cautious pace.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you've just met.

I like that you love Digimon and have somehow managed to read this much of this never-ending thing. Also, you look cute.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

I asked my husband out over the phone when I was 14. I was sitting on a wooden chair that was far, far older than me. Because I was so nervous, I was rocking the chair back and forth.

It splintered and broke while I was trying to ask my husband to my school’s homecoming dance, pitching me to the floor in the middle of the most crucial sentence.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

Yikes, this is a lot, but I last cried in front of my therapist. I asked out loud, for the first time, why no one did anything to protect me as a kid and ended up bawling.

I can’t remember the last time I cried alone. Generally, I go to my husband for support.

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

Your fine, fine taste in blogs.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

You know, I’m not sure. Millennials tend to have fairly dark/nihilistic senses of humor. I will say that, generally speaking, you should only “punch upward.” Ie, don’t kick people who are down. It’s better to joke about the rich than the poor, for example.

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?

Sometimes I wish I could articulate some things to my parents, but they wouldn’t hear me, anyway. I know because I’ve tried.

But my loved ones know I love them, so that’s taken care of.

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

The boring and honest answer is my important documents and my computer/external hard drive/charger/cellphone, followed by a fire extinguisher. But I realize the question is about what physical items I hold dear, so... Assuming my wedding bands are already on my finger, like always, and that I am wearing my glasses and some clothes, I’d grab my grandmother’s clock.

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

Jesus Tap-dancing Christ.

My husband’s. I love him beyond compare.

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

I’m 31, and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whether or not I want children. The trouble is, I feel like my country has gotten so much worse since I’ve been alive, and especially over the last four years (I’m American). Meanwhile, the environment is deteriorating globally... Would my child even have clean drinking water when they’re 30 or 40?

Is it ethical to have children under these circumstances?

And this is all before I even address the question of whether or not I want to be a mother, or if I think I would be a good mom! Yikes.

THAT WAS A LOT, are you still here? Thanks for reading xD

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freakscircus · 4 years

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as much as i grumble about graduate school and the phd process, i am so grateful to be here and sometimes it’s really humbling. this has been my dream since i was fourteen years old. i remember the summer going into the 10th grade when i would stay up really late reading the che book by jon lee anderson, or watching the che movie with benicio del toro. i remember daydreaming about spending an extended period of time in cuba which i thought would never happen. i would soak it all up just be awestruck about these rugged guerrillas holed up in the mountains fighting batista’s army hit and run style. i watched the scenes of the battle of santa clara and was absolutely mesmerized. i adored the forceful speech that che delivered at the UN, the denunciation of imperialism, and longed to understand everything in the original spanish. before this i really didn’t know what i wanted to do, but i knew that somehow i wanted it to be wrapped up in this story. ironically now, ten years later, i have somehow ended up being almost fluent in spanish, planning a six week long trip to cuba in preparation for living there for a year later down the road, and my dissertation will partially focus on.... the battle of santa clara. if i told my fourteen year old self this, she would be amazed.

since then i have always loved history because i love the cause and effect of human decision and events. i love patterns and links, but also anomalies and things that can’t be easily explained. i have fallen in love with so many things across so much space and time... the civil war, egypt, greece and rome, world war II, post-colonialism, the italian renaissance, cold war studies......... but cuba and latin america are where i feel the most comfortable. i can authoritatively move through this space and command material at an advanced level. i’m not sure if i will stay in academia or move into a policy or research position and maybe adjunct at a university on the side. but all i know is that this really gives me purpose in life and i’m proud i have had the work ethic to stick to it.

getting to the phd level was insanely hard. i spent the last year of undergrad crying on a weekly basis and getting sick from anxiety over the idea of not getting into grad school. betting my entire future on getting into the next program was my biggest source of anxiety. i loaded up on as many extracurriculars as possible, took the backbreaking and completely optional opportunity of the honors undergraduate thesis on a subject i was completely unfamiliar with (cuba in angola), and spent endless hours studying for exams and writing papers all while courting professors to write recommendation letters for me. i regularly spent twelve hours at school, juggling coursework and volunteering for various things in the department. i would then go home and sleep for a few hours, get up at midnight, and work until the wee hours. my MA was no different as i realized the next step would be to apply for schools in the united states, a frontier that none of my canadian peers even cared to attempt because of the complicated and convoluted nature of american academia. it was always been a dream of mine to enter the bigger pond of the large american research university/

in undergrad, they do not teach you how to be a professional historian. they teach you how to learn facts and understand a story. but now, i was being paid to do this work and approach subjects as an academic and producer of knowledge and not as an amateur student. the lump sum given to me by the department would later purchase my new car in north carolina and all of my furniture. but with professionalization came a whole new set of struggles. i needed to learn to stop reading for content and start reading for argument and evidence. everything i thought i knew about doing history was wrong. i remember being frustrated over not understanding the advanced theses of natalie zemon davis, or carlo ginzburg. i went from being the best in my class to being a novice all over again. but i learned eventually, and i became competent enough to have a chance at the doctoral program i was dreaming about for years. i also realized that advanced academia was the place that made me feel the most purposeful. understanding complicated ideas from foucault and marx and gramsci made me feel intelligent and learned, and the work that i put into it was returned tenfold as i gained new tools for understanding complicated historical works previously inaccessible to me. i began to be able to join conversations not meant for undergraduates or laypeople. i was still a small fish, but i was beginning to adapt.

i rode my doctoral hopes on ONE school in north carolina, a state i knew nothing about and a program that was run by a person whose books i had relied on heavily for the last five years. my future advisor was introduced to me as “the patriarch of cuban history” which made me feel very small and the goal seem very far away. i remember taking a laid back position at a museum where i was my own boss for the majority of the day. every morning i hoped for a rainy day so that i could study for the GRE instead of having to actually do my job and teach history to people coming through. i would sit unsupervised in a large empty historical building modeled after a 19th century inn, pouring over a textbook until a visitor would come in. this consumed my life so much that when i went to british columbia with my parents over the summer, i stayed up at night in hotel rooms or at my uncle’s house working over my GRE book or binder. the four hour drive from ucluelet to victoria became four uninterrupted hours that i could practice how to calculate a permutation. lunch breaks at work were for rapid fire flashcards with big words that were sure to show up on the test. the relief over doing well was almost overwhelming. i would be accepted to my program four months later. reading the acceptance letter was one of the highest highs i’ve ever experienced.

sometimes i have a bad habit of achieving something very hard and looking back and thinking it was all easy. it really wasn’t. it hit me how much work required me to get here as i wrote an email to a professor at ryerson that i haven’t spoken to in years. i realized that he would see my email signature or address and realize where i was studying and that made me so proud. i truly can’t believe how much i’ve done to get here. but i have to do so much more!

#no rest until published book

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lifeoftinablog · 4 years

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WHAT I LEARNED AFTER BEING DIAGNOSED WITH IC

Strap in, grab some tea, maybe a coffee, this is going to be a long post.

Incase you don’t know what IC is, IC stands for Interstitial Cystitis. About a year ago now, in April 2019, before I quit my daycare job, I started experiencing uncomfortable symptoms in my bladder. I couldn’t hold my bladder, and had to run to the restroom every 5-10 minutes at most. It was an absolute nightmare, and a struggle. I was worried at the time, working a solo position job, that I would lose it. I had no coverage other than managers to come and relieve me for the restroom, and when managers weren’t available and I had no customers, I would quickly run to the restroom. I felt like I had no control, and like my life was primarily being spent in the bathroom when I should be working. I had a hard time suddenly occupying myself with activities with the kids, or watching movies. There was just this constant tugging feeling in my urethra, begging me to use the restroom to catch some relief. A little TMI, I know, but that is my day to day, constant feeling in my body. The tugging feeling never stops in my bladder. I feel like every single moment, I’m going to suddenly use the restroom. At the time I thought I couldn’t live my life like this. I thought a huge contribution to the feeling might in fact be the amount of stress that my job caused me.

In mid May 2019, my job received word that we would officially be closing down for good. Corporate had decided we weren’t worth keeping open. A lot of children and their families were heartbroken, and in a sense I was too. That job had been 7, almost 8 years of my life. The stress of it had finally started baring down on me, and especially my bladder. But it seemed like a sign in the end. I reached out to my long distance boyfriend, and we had decided it would be best for me to take a step forward in life and move to Florida. So I quit my job before it officially closed down, and prepared for my move. In the time frame of moving, and settling down in my new place in Florida, I suddenly felt better. My bladder symptoms seemed like they had completely gone away. In that same time frame, I had made the decision to change my lifestyle. I started clean eating, where I completely eliminated sugar, and stuck to plain and simple dishes with spices. No dairy, very little bread/carbs, and a cheat meal of my choice maybe once every week or two depending on my self control. I ate lots of meats, and complex carbs like rice or sweet potatoes. I had lost 37lbs by the time I completed my move entirely.

I was feeling real good about myself by that point. I finally went from a 1x size in women’s clothing, down to a medium depending on the type of clothes, although it typically stayed around a large in most clothing items. My body felt so healthy. And not to mention, I’d reduced a lot of stress in my life. I moved away from stress in Washington - a stressful job, and some times stressful home life. I’d gained freedom and took a giant leap forward in my life by moving to Florida. It all seemed like I was getting a grasp on myself. I started a new job in Florida, and it felt a new beginning. No one knew me, so it was a chance to potentially make friends and make a secondary home for myself. I learned new skills, and worked harder than i’ve ever worked in my entire life so far. That goes for both physically and mentally. The holidays put a true test to my patience and my newfound skills. When the holidays passed, I was heavily praised by customers and coworkers for all my hard work, and even offered promotions of various kinds. I climbed my way up in my new job. I felt so appreciated, and on top of the world.

And then suddenly that tugging feeling came back. I distinctly remember standing at the register at my job, waiting to take a customers order, and I just couldn’t hold my bladder back. I felt like any second I was going to burst in my pants and embarrassingly wet myself. I couldn’t let that happen. I quickly flagged down a coworker to take over my position, and I ran to the restroom. I suddenly felt a burning sensation after relieving myself, and I started to cry from the embarrassment and pain of it all. My manager was so kind when I had returned from the restroom, and she had made an emergency run to a nearby pharmacy to get me UTI medication and a test kit. I was sent home early that day to test myself and rest. My test came back positive for a UTI, and I was immediately sent to Urgent Care. I hadn’t been to a doctor in years by that point and was very nervous about cost. Luckily, I had insurance coverage, and my family’s help. I seen the doctor, and was prescribed medication for a UTI - antibiotics, and over the counter AZO (a bladder medication that helps relieve pain, burning and urgency). The doctor was certain my symptoms all meant a UTI, and my tests all came back positive for it. They insisted that the antibiotics would be what would cure me.

Weeks later, after finishing my antibiotics and seeing the doctor for a checkup, I was given another round of antibiotics as the UTI supposedly had not fully gone away yet. But the urgency, and frequency I’d been experiencing for months at that point was all still there and continuing to feel fresh. I took the second round of antibiotics, and my stomach became extremely upset. I was sick at work constantly, with severe stomach pain. I decided to come off of the antibiotics a little early, and saw the doctor again. They ran urine tests and cultures, and my UTI was gone, but my symptoms remained. The doctor was baffled - and referred me to a urologist. My job became insistent and urgent that I seek care, and so I did. For the following months, I suffered with constant bathroom useage that hindered every aspect of my life. My time at work was always interrupted by the call for the toilet, and even outside of work I was spending more time in the bathroom than doing hobbies. Trying to walk at the park meant searching for the nearest bathroom every couple of feet. Going on trips, especially long car rides, meant pulling over every 10 miles or so, if I could make it that far, and using a gas station bathroom or a rest stop. My life was getting sucked away from me.

I finally saw the urologist after many appointments beforehand, and after a few weeks of waiting. It was determined that I had IC, interstitial cystitis, a lifelong bladder disease that would never be cured. The urologist refused to treat me until I completed some tests and procedures that would require some hospital time. It wasn’t long after that the coronavirus pandemic started, so I had to hold off my hospital visit and testing required by the urologist. In the time during the lockdown from the pandemic, I’ve learned a lot of things about my body.

I wish I had known much sooner how important it is to take care of the human body, and to listen to it. My body had been telling me for such a long time that things had been irritating it, and yet I’d continued forward with a lot of what my body was hurting from. A major cause for my IC is stress, which is something I found therapy was helping me to work with. For anyone dealing with major stress in their life, I highly recommend finding yourself someone to talk to. Therapy doesn’t fix everything though unfortunately. I found that my body, especially my bladder, was extremely sensitive to a lot of foods. Gluten, dairy, and soy are major triggers. I found by cutting out anything involving dough or bread made with wheat, milk and cheese, and soy sauce or oils containing soy, I’ve felt like I’ve gained a little more control over my bladder (although still not perfect). I also started pushing myself to incorporate more greens into my diet. I started taking supplements that would help try to heal my bladder and body. I take D-mannose to heal the bladder, Pumpkin Seed oil to help the bladder, Vitamin D3 because I’m deficient and low energy, PB8 Probiotics for gut health, Ashwaghanda Root for anxiety and stress relief, Magenisum for muscle relaxation and tension, Claritin for any potential allergens irritating my body or bladder, Peppermint capsules for bloating relief, and a multi-vitamin for women to have healthy skin, hair, and of course my overall body.

The combination of everything has started to provide some relief, but I know that I’m not yet at perfection. I can only hope I’m on the road to healing my body. Cutting out all the sugar and junk foods is something I truely wish I had done sooner. Not only did all of it cause me to gain weight most of my life, but it sure took a toll on my health. Taking care of your body is so important. As you get older, you’ll face struggles like myself if you don’t start sooner on caring for yourself and your general health.

#whatilearnedafterbeingdiagnosedwithic #Interstitialcystitis #health #healthblog #healthupdate #livingwithchronicillness #disease #lifestyleblog

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rorywinslowpatch · 4 years

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My Story of COVID-19

We all have difficult days, weeks, months, even years. Keeping it simple, I can say my family and I had our fair share of hardships in 2019. My husband and I went into 2020 with hope that it could only go up from here. January and February were off to a good start. I was happy with my job and all the opportunities it was presenting to me. Life was finally going our way.

In early March, I was invited to attend a client event in Vail, Colorado. During this time, COVID-19 was a concern but there had only been a handful of cases confirmed in the United States. I had just returned from a conference in Miami, shaking hands with people from all around the world and thought, “If I didn’t get it there, I should feel safe going on this trip”. So, I went. I met some of the most genuine and intelligent people I’ve ever come across. Walking away from that event I knew I had friends I could call when I visited Philadelphia, DC, California, Florida, New York, even Brazil. It was truly the trip of a lifetime and I’ll always be thankful for such an incredible opportunity.

The week of March 9th. I had returned from Vail that Sunday and was back in the office on Monday. I was still exhausted from the amazing long weekend, sharing stories with my manager who had also attended the trip. It was about 4:00pm when I felt ‘off’. I remember explaining to my manager that I felt weird and my throat was sore when I had woken up and continued throughout the day. I asked if she minded if I left early to get some rest and come back ready to tackle it on Tuesday. Tuesday morning came and I still had this strange sore throat, it’s hard to explain, but I didn’t recognize this pain. I started to self-diagnose myself thinking…maybe its strep, allergies, weather change? I looked in my throat and saw some white spots so figured it was some sort of infection. I took a sick day and went over to Urgent Care. Reminder, COVID-19 had not hit the United States as hard as it had internationally. I walked in and felt immediately uncomfortable. It was packed and every single person was wearing a mask. I walked up to sign in and immediately took note to everything I touched – the counter, the pen, the paper work. After I was signed in the nurse let me know it would be about 2 hours, she wasn’t wrong. I struggled to find a spot to sit while keeping a fair distance from the other coughing patients. As I sat there I remember listing out the COVID-19 symptoms in my head to make myself feel safe – fever (nope), cough (not really), shortness of breath (nope), nausea (maybe it was a very long hangover from the trip?). I even got joking texts from my coworkers – “make sure you don’t have the rona”. As my mind spun out of control, I finally heard my name called. We do a strep test, negative. We then do a strep culture (I guess it’s more accurate), negative. The doctor said I definitely have Tonsilitis which is an infection in your throat from a virus, can be any virus. I asked the doctor if he thinks it could be the COVID-19 virus. His response, “No, because you haven’t left the United States”. Feww, I felt a sense of relief. He prescribed some antibiotics and I was on my way. On Wednesday I woke up with the same sore throat with an additional symptom, fatigue. I slept from 9pm on Tuesday to 10pm on Wednesday and then 11pm on Wednesday to 7am on Thursday. In the last two days I had slept 33 hours with brief moments to go to the bathroom and drink water. When I woke up on Thursday, I felt rested and my sore throat had gone away so I figured it was some sort of infection I had fought off and was on the mend. I went to work as we had our CRO in town and wanted to at least show my face. We had a happy hour after work for a colleagues work anniversary. As I walked into the bar I was told someone from the Vail trip had tested positive for COVID-19. I remember the gut wrenching feeling and the amount of exhaustion that suddenly flooded my body. I immediately panicked and called my sister in-law crying on the curb outside. She was trying to calm me down and said to just call the Urgent Care back that I had visited a couple days earlier and see if they knew where I could get tested. There, began the downward spiral of searching for information – WHERE COULD SOMEONE POSSIBLY GET TESTED. At the time, we didn’t have the testing resources we have now. Every new number I was given gave me another number to call, which resulted in a lot of frustration and worry as my symptoms got worse. I remember crying to my husband with the panic and unknown of COVID-19. I slowly learned no one had access to the test unless you walked into a select few hospitals in Georgia. I called around and found one that did, Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital. On Friday, I walked right up to the front desk and said nervously, “I came in contact with someone that tested positive for COVID-19 and I have some of the symptoms.” She immediately told me to back up 3-steps and to wait for my blue suit. I was then asked to sit on a separate side of the waiting room as they moved others farther away from me. You could tell everyone was thinking the same thing. Maybe 2 minutes later they escorted me to a room by myself where the nurse asked me questions through a window – I verbally had to give my social security, insurance, and physical address. I spent the next 6 hours in the room having various tests done. First, they had to test me for the flu to rule it out (negative). They then performed two tests for COVID-19 - one swab in the nose and one in the throat. They then had to x-ray my chest to make sure I wasn’t developing pneumonia. Each time someone came into the room they had a very thorough process: sanitize their hands, put on a new blue suit, 2 layers of gloves, sanitize again, a medical mask, glasses, the plastic face shield. There were roughly 30 minutes in between each test and during that time many nurses would walk by my room labeled with a big red paper and black X, marking it was for a COVID-19 patient. As if, I didn’t feel like an alien already. I will say the doctors and nurses at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital made me feel as comfortable as they possibly could and were amazing describing each step of the process. As I left the room the doctor goes, “You’ll get a call in about 3-5 days with the results, but I doubt you test positive”. It was 12 days. During those 12 days of waiting, I found myself gaining more symptoms, which then came more anxiety and fear. I wrote down my symptoms each day in case the doctors needed me to recall anything. I kept all of these in my notepad on my phone, but I’ll save everyone some time and skip the details.

As the days went on more people from the trip were getting positive results. I think the actual ratio ended up being 70% of the people on the trip. During those 12 days, every moment was different. One day you feel worse than the day before and then the next you feel like you’re finally making progress. With those new symptoms, came defeat. It wasn’t until day 5 (after being tested) that my deep chest cough developed. I had some ‘dry cough’ on the first couple days, but nothing like this. It took 3 days to finally get a doctor to prescribe an inhaler without seeing me in person. They also sent over what I call ‘the miracle drug’, Tessalon Perles also known as Benzonatate. It was the tiniest pill I had ever seen. I immediately called my mom (which I was doing probably twice a day at this point) to see what it was. She encouraged me to take them as it would help with the coughing fits. IT WORKED, after 2 days of taking it the fits had subsided and I was slowly starting to have ‘proactive coughs’. Over the next few days I took a combination the ‘miracle drug’, mucinex-D, elderberry syrup, and a liter of water. As the coughing subsided, another symptom returned, fatigue. This wasn’t like the tiredness I was feeling before but more exhaustion. The smallest tasks were completely wiping me out – the dishes, vacuuming, folding laundry, etc.

March 18th. I remember this moment as if it was yesterday. If you aren’t someone that is open to faith, stop here.

I was having one of my defeated days and couldn’t see the light at the end. My husband was out on the porch talking to his mom. I felt the need to clear my head but couldn’t walk more than 10 minutes without having to take a break so I decided to drive around instead. I was driving down one of my favorite roads in Atlanta, bopping my head to the music because I didn’t have the lung capacity to sing along. Realizing why I wasn’t singing, I started to cry. I pulled over in one of the neighborhoods and completely let it out. I was crying, snot everywhere, and of course I couldn’t find those stupid napkins you are supposed to leave in your glovebox. I took a moment to settle my breath and started to talk. At the time, I want to think I knew Who I was speaking to. I had just started to go to church about 8 months ago for the first time in my life. To be fair, I was still skeptic but open to the idea of a higher power. I started rambling in my car at the end of some random person’s driveway. I was saying it all – how scared I was, the unknown, the lack of control, frustration of not having my results, worry of job security, everything came out. Then, all of a sudden, I found myself praying for the first time. I prayed for guidance..support…anything that would give me some sort of relief. I looked at the time and realized I had been talking to myself for over an hour. I started up the car and made my way back to our place. I walked in and my husband asked where I had been but only shared that I had taken a drive to clear my head. The next few days I wasn’t feeling any new symptoms just the constant struggle to breathe normally and exhaustion with simple tasks. Tuesday morning I got the call. It rang and I knew what they were about to tell me. At this point, I was out of the woods and whatever the results were, I had overcome the worst of it. It was positive.

Jump to a few weeks later. Georgia slowly started opening up but we still weren’t back in our offices. I had done some research and heard about how intravascular plasma was saving patients that were severely ill with COVID-19. Atlanta Blood Services was a local platelet donation center that opening their seats to recovered COVID-19 patients to donate their plasma. I immediately signed up and they got me in 2 days later. They had a round of questions and tests they needed to do before I could donate. I sat down with the research technician and they walked me through the questions – how did you get it, date of last symptom, etc. They then tested me again for COVID-19 to make sure I wasn’t still contagious, it came back negative. They then took a sample of blood from my left arm to test for the antibodies, which came back positive. They then guided me to the donation chair and I sat there for about 2 hours. I couldn’t help but watch the tubes take the blood out of my arm, recycle it inside this very noisy machine, push this yellow type liquid into these bags hanging above my chair (the plasma), and then the machine pushes the red blood back into my body. It was truly amazing seeing what medicine was doing to defeat this pandemic. I continue to go back every two weeks to donate my plasma.

Now, fully recovered, I look back and am thankful this happened to me. I am thankful I didn’t develop phenomena. I am thankful of the person I found within myself. I am thankful I found my faith when I needed it the most. The world has a funny way of making you realize your purpose on earth. COVID-19 led me to my faith, which allowed me to see what I want my future to be. I wake up every day with a positive attitude, thankful to see what the future has in store for me, striving to have an open mind and heart. I found myself with the wrong priorities before and made it a goal to push myself to find what I love to do every day – at home and at work. I started this story with the idea that 2020 was worse than 2019. I move forward with 2020 with a new outlook and perspective. I couldn’t be more grateful for where this bumpy road has led me. Thank you, for opening my eyes.

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sign-from-god-complex · 5 years

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The Purpose of Marriage, To Know That You Are Loved

I’m sorry that you’re sad, anon!!! I wrote you a fluffy lamp/calm fic and I realise it’s more than a little late, but I hope it succeeds in brightening your mood nonetheless.

Summary: Roman had been thinking about it for a while now, and although this wasn’t exactly the way he had expected to propose, he certainly didn’t regret it.

Pairing: LAMP/CALM

Warnings: None that I can think of! But if you see any let me know.

A/N: Catch me out here with my long, weird titles. Also, I’ve started writing two entirely new fics instead of continuing on with A Gift From Me To You, so I think I’m truly getting the fanfiction author experience now. Hope you enjoy this, though!!

AO3 Link

“Marry me?”

There was a shocked silence in the darkened room as the other three occupants processed what had just been said. Roman could see the vague outline of one of his boyfriends, Virgil he thought, turning to look at him incredulously.

It was an impulsive thought, sure, but at the same time, it wasn’t. The four of them had all been together for over a year and a half now, and every second of it had been the best of Roman’s life. Things had been hard at times, of course—they all had their own issues they were trying to work through—but Roman truly felt safe with the three of them. Safer than he’d ever felt with anyone else before, including his family. It may be selfish, but he wanted to keep that forever.

Roman had been thinking about it for months, really. He may not have necessarily expected to be asking right now, but he just hadn’t been able to help himself.

They were laying in the dark in what had previously been Roman’s bedroom but had quickly become their shared room after they’d realised Roman had the largest bed. Roman’s hand was stroking through Patton’s hair, listening to his small noises of contentment. Logan and Virgil were curled up on the other half of the bed behind Patton, though Roman knew that Patton had shoved his legs over in their direction, unwilling to let the two of them cuddle alone.

The moonlight had shone in through the blinds between parted clouds, illuminating the scene for just a long enough moment for Roman’s heart to swell. He loved them. He was so sure. If they said yes, Roman was going to spend the rest of his life telling them, watching Patton giggle and Virgil blush and Logan sigh. In this moment—this perfect moment—Roman’s insecurities were pushed away and he was so, so sure.

“Roman,” Logan sounded strangled, “You know that we can’t. Get married that is. It’s not legal.”

Polyamory still wasn’t accepted, or even really known, by the general public. It wasn’t surprising of course, but it definitely made things slightly harder for them in some areas. If they were ever going to adopt a child, for instance—though that was an entirely different conversation, one that hopefully was much further away—and if they wanted to get married. But Roman wasn’t lying when he said he’d thought about this.

“I know that, Specs, but weren’t you and Virgil the ones telling me that weddings were, and I quote, ‘outdated expensive pageantry’? And, loathe as I was to admit it at the time, in some ways you were right. The point of a wedding shouldn’t be to get married-”

“It shouldn’t?”

Patton was staring up at him in the darkness, sounding extremely confused. Roman smiled brightly down at him, though he was unsure if Patton could see it.

“No! Well, I mean… yes, but not ultimately! The point of a wedding is to put love on display!” Roman waved his arm in an arc above his head, hearing Patton giggle at the gesture. “Would it be nice to have the legal system recognise our commitment to each other? Absolutely. But, quite honestly—and I never thought I’d say this—I am perfectly as content with having a small party with our close friends, just having an evening where I can fully appreciate the three of you and declare to the heavens and beyond how much I love you. Because I do love you all. So much.”

There was silence for a few seconds, and Roman worried that maybe he’d gone overboard and was being too clingy. The quiet was broken however by a choked sound from Patton and he looked down to see tears pooling in his eyes, a massive grin on his face. Logan and Virgil had both sat up at this point and had shifted over slightly closer to Patton and himself. He could still only really make out their silhouettes in the darkness, but Roman could see Virgil leaning against Logan, the latter of which was wiping suspiciously at his face.

“Oh my god, someone turn the lights on,” Roman heard Virgil say, his voice wavering but full of affection, “There is no way you are getting out of giving us a real proposal, you absolute dork.”

Patton lifted his head of off Roman’s chest, instead situating himself between Logan and Virgil. Climbing out of bed and turning the lights on, Roman spun around to see his boyfriends. They were all in slight states of disarray, considering they had just been about to go to sleep before Roman had dropped this on them, but to Roman, they looked as perfect as ever.

They watched him move back towards the bed with shining eyes, Logan and Virgil barely containing their smiles and Patton still beaming. Roman gave them a dazzling grin in response, causing Virgil to snort and Logan to roll his eyes.

And there, in his room, at 11 pm, wearing a Disney princess shirt and Patton’s borrowed cat pyjama pants, Roman got down on one knee.

“Patton, Logan, Virgil. The three of you are the most important people I have ever known in my entire life. Every second I have spent with you has been a blessing-”

Logan opened his mouth, but Roman cut him off before he could speak.

“Yes! Even the time you, Virgil and I almost set fire to the house in an attempt to cook Patton breakfast in bed, resulting in all 3 of us receiving superficial burns and having to go to the emergency room. That moment is still included because although it was one of the less-fun trips to the ER I’ve been a part of, it was still time spent with the three of you. And I cherish that. Every second I can get.”

Logan shut his mouth, a soft look in his eyes. Roman proceeded.

“Patton, you are the sweetest, most kind person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Your light is so warm and bright and I treasure every moment I am allowed to bask in it. From the moment I first saw you—taking time out of your day to help a little kid find their parents, managing to stop the tears with just a smile and a joke—I knew you were going to have a big place in my life, though I don’t think I ever could have predicted just how big.

“Even on your bad days, you’d drop everything to help someone who needed it and it’s so incredibly admirable. You don’t always have to be strong though, my love. Sometimes, you need to let other people care for you the way you care for them. You’re allowed to be sad and I want to be there to help you through every moment that you are, because you deserve that and much, much more.”

Patton was crying freely now, tears streaming down his face. He’d leant back against Virgil who had wrapped his arms around his waist, pulling him closer. Roman watched as Virgil pressed a soft kiss to the top of Patton’s head and smiled.

“Virgil, although I may be a clueless moron all of the time, I’m not such a moron that I can’t see how lucky I am to know you. I was stupid in the early days of our friendship, not understanding that your cautious nature is something to be recognised and understood, instead of mocked the way I had. I’m quite sure you’ve saved my life on more than one occasion, just by stopping me from going through with my ill-advised plans, and even just by being there for me. By granting me with a kindness I hadn’t shown you.

Because that cautious nature of yours presents as more than just anxiety. It presents as concern for others’ wellbeing and care when your friends are feeling down and fierce protection and loyalty to those you consider worth your time. And I could never be more grateful that I was allowed a place amongst those people.”

“Geez, save something for the wedding vows,” Virgil quipped, but his eyes were full of tears.

“Logan,” Roman continued, addressing the last of his boyfriends, “Your intelligence is dazzling, we all know that. Almost every day you teach us something new, whether that’s the scientific names of various vegetables, the relationship between anxiety and achievement, or even just pointing out constellations for us. And I know I like to pretend like I don’t listen or care, but I promise I do. But, dear, there is so much more to you than your intelligence. Logan, you are fun.”

At that admission, Logan’s eyebrows shot up, the shock on his face evident. Roman doubted that anyone had called Logan fun before. Something he needed to rectify.

“I know I haven’t been very good at showing or articulating how much I enjoy spending time with you, but I do. I love debating with you about useless topics, I love assisting you in your science experiments and I love watching you glare at the crossword in the mornings because the caffeine hasn’t caught up with your brain yet, and you're struggling to remember your own name.

“But most of all, I love when you squirm your way into my arms as I’m sitting on the couch, grumbling and telling me to shut up. Because you feel comfortable around me, for some reason, and that’s a privilege I could never take for granted.”

Logan was crying too now, but he tried to cover it up by holding a hand against his face, though not in such a way that it blocked his view of Roman kneeling down there on the carpet.

“Patton Gabriel Hart, Virgil Alexander Moore and Logan Crofters McKenzie-”

“You are aware that that is not my middle name, correct?”

The look Logan was giving him was full of tears and warmth and Roman had to blink back tears of his own in an attempt to keep his composure. He shot him a crooked smile.

“Well, then what is it?”

Logan just laughed, shaking his head.

Roman let out a teasing sigh, “Worth a try.”

“So!” he continued, “Patton Gabriel Hart, Virgil Alexander Moore and Logan McKenzie, I’m quite sure in another life we would have been soulmates. Truly, we fit together in a way that I can barely comprehend, but I never wish to miss out on a single second of it. Will you do me the incredible honour of spending the rest of your lives with me?”

Roman watched as his three boyfriends shared a look and then before he could even recognise the danger, they all tackled him, knocking him over onto the rug. There was laughter ringing in his ears and warmth—so much warmth—all around him. His face was wet from scattered tears but he didn’t notice, his entire being wrapped up in his boyfriends, in the experience of so much love and joy focused in one place.

One by one they all pulled away, leaving Roman laying on the floor as he took a moment to get his breath back.

“Roman, you are… captivating.”

Roman propped himself up on his elbows at Logan’s comment, somewhat confused. The three of them were sitting up, watching him with so much affection in their eyes.

“You are full of life, absolutely brimming with it, always romanticising every aspect of your existence. At first, I thought this to be foolish and setting yourself up for heartbreak, but I now realise that you are not ignorant to the way the world is, you just choose to appreciate the small things. Making sure that you take happiness where you can get it. That is truly admirable.”

Roman smiled. His boyfriends just couldn’t let him have the last word, could they? Though, truly he didn’t mind. How could he possibly mind?

Virgil spoke up next, “You’re so passionate and dedicated to everything you do. Sometimes that passion can be a little bit overwhelming to witness, but mostly it’s… inspiring.”

Roman inhaled slightly in shock. Inspiring? He hardly thought anything he did merited such a label.

“You know that I’m a little, well, a lot anxious, about putting myself out there; the cost of rejection just seems too high, you know? But, watching you come home from auditions, watching you create and create despite every time you’ve been turned down because it’s something you love to do… it’s inspiring, yeah. Makes me feel like there’s a way to get past anything, no matter how hurt you may feel in the moment.”

Roman could tell he was crying again, though he didn’t really think too hard on it, instead pushing himself up so that he was sitting alongside the other three. Patton beamed at Roman, taking the reins from Virgil and leading on.

“You live your life like you’re always in the spotlight. Always providing the audience with a smile, radiating confidence, even when you don’t truly feel it.” He laughed a little self-deprecatingly. “It’s something we have in common.”

Roman gave a comforting smile to Patton, trying to somehow telepathically communicate reassurance. Patton returned with a small smile of his own.

“But,” he continued, “We get to see you backstage too and that’s amazing. We get to see you grow and learn and change, we get to see you at the moments where you don’t feel like the dazzling star you are and we are all so, so happy that you trust us with that. Because it means that we can show you just how wonderful you truly are. We’ll spend the rest of our lives showing you if that’s what it takes.”

Roman was positively glowing.

“Was that a yes then?”

“Yes, Roman,” Logan finally said, “We would be honoured to marry you.”

The next few minutes were kind of a blur. He vaguely remembered lifting Virgil up into the air, much to his fiancé's— fiancé!—protests, and spinning him around, laughing and crying all at once. He definitely kissed each of them at least once, and somehow he’d ended up in Patton’s arms, revelling in the surety they provided. Logan and Virgil had decided to join in too, wrapping their arms around both Patton and Roman as best as they were able to.

It was warm, it was likely a bit uncomfortable but, god, it was perfect. He wanted to be surrounded by his fiancés like this forever, and now, he could.

#sanders sides #sanders side fic #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #lamp/calm #lo can write #I keep accidentally writing super late cause my sense of time is Shit #I swear 12 am we need to stop meeting like this

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haltandcatchfiretothemax · 5 years

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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2019 #19: In which Cameron reads a book

[CW: mentions of food and eating]

Things had gone back to what she and Donna apparently both took for granted as normal. Or, not really, Cameron had decided. There hadn’t been any sort of going back, things had just continued forward after that Sunday night, both of them seemingly comfortable, at least for the time being, with not talking about why Cameron had brought up the realtor. Cameron thought of that night often, she’d dreamed more than once of Donna’s chicken pot pie, probably because she habitually thought about that evening, about how warm and bright Donna’s kitchen was, and how relaxed she’d felt there even when she was self-conscious and afraid of upsetting Donna, when she was trying to fall asleep.

In the mornings, Cameron thought about work: if she should follow through on designing the game she’d been imagining for a year, whatever freelance project was paying the bills that week, and Donna’s idea. Donna was always one of the first things to cross Cameron’s mind when she woke up. But, that was how it had always been: when she’d been recruited to Cardiff, she’d thought of whatever game she was playing and the alterations she’d make to it if she were a game designer, the Giant’s software, and J*e. At Mutiny, she’d thought about whatever game they were in the middle of writing, their user base, whatever she and Donna were arguing about that week, and then, Tom. It took a long time for her to stop thinking about Mutiny and Donna after she relocated to Tokyo, or maybe she never really had. She’d never thought to question any of this. It was easy to think of it as thinking about work, rather than thinking about Donna.

With as ‘normal’ as things were, Cameron couldn’t get through a day without wondering, what if she wasn’t ever ‘ready to talk’ about everything that had happened with the realtor, with Simon, with her entire relationship with Donna over the past ten years? She wasn’t usually really asking, on most days, she worried about this instead of really considering it. She wasn’t even really sure what she was worrying about when she asked herself about this. It was a knee-jerk thing she did that she couldn’t help.

Over one of their regular dinners, Bos had asked her, “Well, that’s a good question. What would happen if you two never have that conversation?” Eyes narrowed in bafflement and slight irritation, Cameron had said, “I don’t know? I’ve never thought about it?” Bos had responded with a fatherly but gruff, “Well think about it now, then!” With minimal effort, Cameron imagined driving to Donna’s house to write code and eat various kinds of takeout every night until they were in their 80s. She knew that it wasn’t realistic, but it sounded incredibly appealing. It maybe sounded perfect.

For some reason, Cameron was afraid to say this out loud, even to Bos. She admitted that it wouldn’t be the worst thing, for things to stay as they were between her and Donna. “So then there’s no reason to worry,” Bos said. Pointedly, he added, “No need to borrow worry, get all worked up over a hypothetical conversation.”

Which made sense. So why did it feel like something was still bothering her?

The next day, Cameron got up, got dressed, and went to a bookstore.

Cameron had become a reader in Tokyo. She’d been too anxious, too full of nervous energy to enjoy it as a kid, and even a good story with an interesting lead couldn’t soothe her the way that taking apart and reassembling a computer always did. She’d gotten into the habit of visiting libraries and bookstores, mostly because Tom had given her a strict ultimatum about how she needed to get up, get dressed, make their bed, and go outside every day. The result was that she’d spent a lot of days sitting in libraries and cafes, where, if nothing else, she managed to significantly improve her Japanese reading comprehension. Sometimes Joanie sent her new paperbacks from California, and she’d usually devour them in a few days; they were one of the few things she’d regretted losing in her move back to the states. Books became a sort of security blanket, an escape that gaming and game design couldn’t be anymore, and reading became Cameron’s most reliable method of self-soothing.

She had anxiety about accruing too many books, especially after having gotten so attached to the Joanie volumes, so Cameron also finally got a library card from her local branch, and got into the habit of stopping there whenever she was out. She didn’t need to buy books, she just needed to always have something to read, a novel or essay that she could grab when she started to worry about ‘things with Donna,’ and a place to go on days when her trailer felt too small, and sitting outside, or weeding her flower beds wasn’t enough of a distraction.

On her third bookstore trip, Cameron went to a large chain bookstore that she’d been to with Haley. Feeling strangely lonely, she wandered through the same sections they’d browsed, the magazines, the bargain books, the art books, the science fiction section, where Cameron stopped to look for a short story collection by Ursula LeGuin, but didn’t find it, and the cookbook aisle, which had become Haley’s favorite section of the store. Cameron looked idly at the cookbooks in stock, wondering which aisle she should try next, or if maybe she should go somewhere else altogether. She turned around, and then she saw it, in the next aisle — a copy of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

Fried Green Tomatoes had been one of the movies that Cameron had gone to see at one of the few theaters that showed English language movies in Tokyo. She’d gone by herself on a rainy afternoon after yet another battle in the cold war that her marriage to Tom had become since her last COMDEX trip, and then she’d gone another time, and another. She managed to find a vhs copy, and watching it had become another kind of security blanket, like the books, a weirdly comfortable space that felt like going home, even if temporarily, even if Cameron had never actually been to Alabama, or had fried green tomatoes. She put it on when she couldn’t sleep, when she got sick, whenever she needed background noise to make household chores and tedious bookkeeping-type work tasks go more quickly. She’d worn out her tape, another thing that had been either left behind in Tokyo or in the dumpster behind the Mutiny/Calnect/Comet office, but hadn’t known that it was based on a book.

Cameron took a giant, slightly frantic step across the aisle and grabbed the book off its shelf. It was from a more recent printing, it had the actresses from the movie on the cover. She flipped through it, and went straight to the end, and saw that there were recipes in the back, for the titular fried green tomatoes, both milk and red eye gravy, cornbread, biscuits, snap beans, creamed corn, pork chops, fried chicken…Cameron’s stomach growled, and she suddenly realized just how hungry she was. She decided to buy the book.

She looked up at the shelf where she’d found it, vainly hoping that there was some kind of Fried Green Tomatoes series, and at least 4 other novels about Ruth, Idgie, and the rest of the Threadgoode family and Whistle Stop Cafe staff. Instead, she saw the placard announcing the section: LGBT Themes. Confused, Cameron looked back down at the book, had there been ‘lgbt themes’ in the movie? Did they mean Ruth and Idgie? A tiny voice in the back of her brain said, Of course, Ruth and Idgie. Cameron felt the most bizarre combination of surprised panic and overwhelming relief. It was like making it to the next level of a game after days of trying, only to realize that the next level would be harder, but that it was okay because that was made the game worth playing. She took the book up to the register and paid for it before she could talk herself out of it.

She wound up reading the first 100 pages in one sitting, and would have gone farther, if she hadn’t had to stop and make herself breathe. At 80 pages, the book finally described Idgie, Cameron’s favorite character in the movie: “Some people are like that, you know…run from you, won’t let you love them.” “She wouldn’t let anybody get too close to her. When she thought somebody liked her too much, she’d just take off in the woods.” “But when Ruth came to live with us, you never saw a change in anybody so fast in your life.” A few pages later, Idgie was charming the honey out of the oak tree for Ruth, and eating a picnic lunch with her, "happy as anybody who is in love in the summertime can be.” A few pages after that, Idgie was pitching a fit over Ruth’s decision to marry a man from her hometown, and then she was crying and drinking and carrying on, living down at the river for the next five years with a well-known prostitute that Idgie’s brother had wanted to marry. And all of it made sense to Cameron, even more than Idgie had made sense to her all those times that she’d watched the movie.

The passage that had really gotten to her was from Ruth’s perspective, though: “When Idgie had grinned at her and tried to hand her that jar of honey, all these feelings that she had been trying to hold back came flooding through her, and it was at that second in time that she knew she loved Idgie with all her heart….she had never felt that way before and she knew she would never feel that way again…. She had no idea why she wanted to be with Idgie more than anybody else on this earth, but she did.” Lying on her bed, in her pajamas, in her trailer parked out in the middle of nowhere, Cameron thought about Tori Loman, her first friend, her only real childhood friend, who she’d wanted to be with at all times. She was never happier than when she was at Tori’s, she stayed at her house as many nights as the Lomans would have her. As an adult, it had been easy to think that of course she’d loved visiting them; she’d hated being at home after her father’s memorial service. But Cameron vividly remembered playing with Tori every day after school before her father had been redeployed. She remembered telling him, “Tori is my best friend, she’s my favorite person after you.”

Cameron pushed that out of her mind and made herself read a little more, but she couldn’t concentrate. She closed the book, and holding it in her left hand, she reached for the cordless phone where it sat on her nightstand. She started to dial Donna’s number, but when she realized that she had no idea what she would say. She didn’t know how to tell Donna about Tori, either. I wish I knew what to say to her about Tori, Cameron thought, unable to imagine how that phone conversation might go — hey, did I ever tell you about Tori, my friend who I used to play house with? And how I didn’t realize I was playing house with her until Joanie pointed it out to me? As soon as she thought this, she realized how badly she wanted to say exactly that to Donna.

That was when Cameron decided that she needed to quit reading for the night, and put herself to bed.

#needed another night off to regroup/do household chores #this one got away from me too which is a sign of writerly fatigue #i will be fine but pls pray for me just the same #also i picked FGT for a v specific reason here but we'll talk about that another day #femslash february #femslash february 2019 #cameron howe #donna clark #donna emerson

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smallblanketfort · 6 years

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reasons not to

i asked followers and friends to tell me why they’re alive. why they stayed. this is what happened.

the world is beautiful, like, breathtakingly, stunningly, dashingly, spectacularly, exasperatingly beautiful. every wall dirty with paint and ornate with mud and graffiti, all the moldy trees and infuriating insects, all the contorted perfect faces around the world, the decaying and the rising, whatever dichotomy that comes to life and anything that grows according to the plan is beautiful. and it breaks my heart that i will never see all the beauty in the world, but at least i gotta try.

I’m staying alive because I am not ready to be forgotten. This universe has existed for 14 billion years and will continue to exist for at least 14 billion more. In this grand scale, I get an average of 70 years, if I’m lucky. I will not be forgotten. I will do everything it takes to make a difference, to create, to grow and to cherish. I will not be forgotten.

tbh, the main reason i keep myself clean and alive is that i know my family wouldn't be able to take it if i didn't. everyone in my family either has psychological issues or strong tendencies to develop them, and the reason we all keep going, i believe, is because we know we have to be there for each other, otherwise everyone will fall. and i know it's kinda sad and maybe a little unhealthy sometimes but it's how we've worked for the longest time, and hey, we're still here, right?

I’ve stayed alive for my gay ambitions. I wanna kiss a girl! While sober! I’ve had 2 kisses while drunk but I don’t remember one and it sucks. I wanna be confident enough to kiss a girl without anything helping. Also one of those girls was straight and kissing me for attention from her gross boyfriend, I’d like to avoid that situation again lol. But yeah, gayness. Fuckin wild my dude. Gotta shoot my shot and get some lip-lock ya feel?

i reached out for help a while ago to a teacher and if it weren’t for him i might not have made it. he’s said so many things and tells me that i matter, i’m worth it, i deserve to be happy, and he wished he had a daughter like me. it makes me cry knowing that he puts effort into making sure i’m okay, and that’s what keeps me going. i want to make sure his efforts don’t go to waste.

I'm still alive for going out with friends on nights like this. Hearing the birds wake up. Seeing neon lights and stars. That even when I feel so lonely, so alone, I can at least see my friends have fun and lose myself in the music.

I want to be clean because then at least i know i can do it. I've only stayed clean for a few months and then relapsed. If i can make it to a year, then at least i know i can do another and then another and then another and maybe even not deal with it at all anymore. I just want to beat this for good.

my mom’s battled depression her whole life, and last fall i broke down sobbing and started telling her about how mine had been festering in secret for so long. and she started telling me about all the pain she never thought would bridge the mother-daughter divide and how she wanted to breathe in the shadows like smoke to keep them from burning my skin. sometimes at night we crawl into each others beds and carry the weight together when our arms have started giving out. i stay alive for her.

The thing that kept me here most was knowing that my life is not really my own. No one is purely self- contained. To end my own life would be to alter dozens. So, to counter my own feeling of worthlessness, I invested my time in things that I knew had a net positive impact on the world. The more objectively positive meaning that I gave to my life made it harder to argue that I should kill myself. What would my parents do? What would my also suicidal younger brother do? We're probably a package deal in this regard. Same with some students I lead a mental health group with. I had set an example to them, and I can't fail that hard without risking their well being.

Simply, my boyfriend. It started with him physically hiding anything I could use to hurt myself. Over time, with his support, I learned some self worth and improved so much. Now those things don't have to be hidden. Even now that he's gone for a year and a half and our contact is limited to a 20 minutes phone call a day and letters, I find I'm still stable enough to stay alive and clean. He taught me how to be safe even without him and that's worth everything.

I stuck around because for some reason, something was telling me to check things out until I'm 30. When I was a kid, I imagined myself getting older all the time. When I wanted to die, I couldn't see anything past the age I was in, 19. I was both so scared and so sad for my innocence, but apparently, it never left me. Because, even though I couldn't /see/ myself beyond 19, my body made me feel like I could. Did that make sense? I'm 24 now. So far I'm glad I stuck around.

Don't want to sound conceited, but there was a kid at church who just loved me. She was like my tail. Although, I think I learned from her more than she learned from me. We both spent the whole day in church because of various activities I was involved in and because her parents were in the choir for all the services. We were always together when there was nothing for me to do-- she talked a lot. I loved hearing what she had to say. That's why I didn't. I looked forward to her growth every week

I'm alive because of the Oscar's. A few years ago a theater was showing all the nominated movies, and my mom and I went to see Manchester by the Sea. It's a sad movie, about an accident that killed some kids, but it affected my mom a lot more than me. I remember walking back to the car and her talking about how she probably wouldn't be able to go on if one of her kids died. I still can't imagine a future, but so far I'm here and tthinking about that conversation in that parking structure.

i stayed alive because i couldn’t choose which sunrise would be my last.

My family, friends, and God keep me here. If it weren't for them, I might have committed suicide or at least harmed myself because I was so overwhelmed with the world and hated myself for how far I went into sin. I might be in prison because I was heading down a path that could have lead to illegal things. God has always pulled me back in and my family has always been there to talk to. A couple of friends have helped a lot too. I also hate inflicting pain on myself and others, so that has kept me here as well .I am still coming out of certain sins and I am still recovering, but I have hope now in Christ and hope for a better future. I still get overwhelmed and perplexed by this world, but I have support and I know that God is working in my life which will allow me to help others hopefully.

i’m alive because of the little things. seeing your plants flower, the dew in the morning, low hanging clouds in the mountains, the smell of warm dirt after it rains, the tingling feeling of your fingers warming up after going numb.

A fear of hurting my mum, sisters and best friend is the biggest factor in me staying. There have been so many times that I've thought - known - they'd be better off without me, but I know they won't see it like that, and will just be hurt. Personal vanity and the hope I can accomplish the projects I've dreamed of finishing also keeps me going.

On most days, staying clean is the hope that I can be used by the Lord in the lives of people who have been through the same thing—that one day I can look at someone and say, “I made it through… you can too.” On the nights I almost relapse, I think of the girls I’m discipling and the witness I have for Christ and wrestle with the effects of one hasty decision—and five years down the drain. The staying alive thing is a little more complicated sometimes. For the most part, it’s because I’ve personally seen the impact of suicide—both in my family and friendships. However, sometimes that’s not good enough. And, as pathetic as it seems, there are times when my cat is the only reason I’m still here. Phteven has super high anxiety, is afraid of most everyone (myself excluded), and is, generally, pretty high maintenance because of all his fears. No one in their right mind would take care of him if I were gone. So, on the darkest nights of my life, I’ve honestly stayed because I think my cat would end up at a shelter, and he would 100% have a heart attack because of the anxiety (which written out sounds really silly, but there ya go.) In general, however, it’s the knowledge of the impact it would have—regardless of how well I perceived to be loved or cared for.

For me the hope of tomorrow, there is always a new day. Ive always been an optimist and even in my darkest moments, hope keeps me grounded. Romans 8:18, Psalm 51:10 & Hebrews 6:19 have been verses that have helped me through to the point i have an anchor tattoo with Steadfast across it.

While some of these may sound dumb, they’ve kept me going all these years: all the books I’ll be able to read some day. all the movies/tv shows/music I’ll get to watch/listen to. All the laughs with my crazy friends. All the laughs with my crazy family. The possibility of road trips and vacations. The possibility of writing a book of my own. Falling in love. Being best friends with my sister. Loving my niece to pieces. Smelling the air after it’s just rained, and/or after the grass has been cut. Seeing the first snowfall every year. Seeing the corn and beans sprouting every spring. Sitting on a porch when I’m old. Having grandchildren to tell all your crazy stories to. And laughing. So much laughing. 😌

my reason to stay alive is my friends. they needed me to keep going, to keep pushing through every dark night. I know just how devastating it would be if one of my plans actually did work. since my dad passed away, every day was getting harder and harder to get through, until eventually i just didn't want to even live for the new morning. it's only been a few months now since the suicidal thoughts and the urge to self harm has left, but I think what got me through the worst of it was the unrelenting support of my friends. they were there for me through every breakdown, every panic attack and every dark thought. I genuinely don't think I'd be here today without their support- their kindness is what kept me going. I've worked hard for three years now on my mental health, I've been going to counselling and seeking support from other people. I've taken self care with open arms and its made such a difference. reaching out for help was so hard but it was so so worth it. I've reached my 18th birthday, a milestone I never thought i could ever achieve- yet here I am proving every horrible thought my brain spews up wrong. I'm so thankful I never gave up, because each day now - while sometimes still a struggle, shows me how the world has a little light bearing through even when things seem to be going shit. my lovely friends, my art and music is what wakes me up every morning and motivates me to sleep at night. life does get better.

In the past it was always my sister and brother. I always kept going and stayed here just so one day I could find them and we could be together. Be a family. I loved them since the moment I met them. Though my sister was only three and didn't speak English at the time only French. Of course I only knew English. My brother was to be born very soon. I was instantly in love. To know that I had them. They were my world. They held me together. Even though for the next 13 years we would not see each other for unfair reasons. Now 22 years later what keeps me here has changed only slightly. My sister and my father are what keep me here. For a very different reason now though. Four years ago my little brother, the one I was just speaking of, was murdered. Along with his girlfriend and her sister. I keep going because right now I can't let my dad suffer the loss of two children. I can't let the sweetest sister in the world lose two siblings. I can't let them down. I have to stay strong. I have to keep going. It's exhausting most days, and it gets harder as time goes on. So I fight back more to keep going because I love them and I know they love me.

I guess for me -- the reason I stayed is because I almost didn't stay, and it was the total grace of God that I'm here. At the time I thought I would have stayed for my family, or my friends, or my future -- but I totally could not see any of that other than the continuous hurt I thought I was inflicting on them. I had a really bad fall semester at my university that led me to eventually take a much needed and helpful medical leave my spring semester;; but the first time that I really almost did it I was breaking down on the top floor of a parking garage at my university, begging that God would actually see me and wanting prayer but not knowing where to go and not wanting to "burden" anyone I knew. As this was happening, this guy walks to the top of the garage and sees me - comes over to where I was sitting, asks if I'm okay and gives me a hug, and asks if he could pray for me (and my university is not even religious at *all*). He literally slept in a booth across from me and stayed with me all night as I finished my homework, and he walked with me to class the next day. In the midst of everything that I was a bit of hope. Towards the very end of the semester, I had seriously made the decision I was going to do it and went about with all what I thought were my parting arrangements -- the next morning when I was going to leave he sends me a text and shows up at my dorm, telling me he was praying for me and wanted to stay with me that day until I left to go back home to Pittsburgh where I'd be for my medical leave. Both of those times I actually didn't see a reason to stay -- but God did. And it took some time for that to really sink in... that God wants me to stay. That he wouldn't let me go. And that has been a massive reason why I stay now. In addition to that, through this healing season I have relearned the beauty of family and friendship, and how much love there actually is surrounding me -- and now, I look around and I appreciate it that much more because it was almsot never there. Knowing that God never gave up and there *actually was* soooooo much love and life on the other side of this that I was convinced I would never see gives me so much hope to keep holding on and to not listen to the lies that there is no good for me or my future. I don't want to live my life out of guilt or fear of what will happen to me or my friends/family after I'm gone -- but I guess that is a part of it, seeing many friends die from preventable causes and the damage it does puts things into perspective. But I'd say my main reason for staying is knowing that life really is worth it and precious when I can't see it, because I know what it's like to make it out the other side and understand how tightly God holds onto us when we don't want to even hold on anymore.

I stayed alive because I didn't know there was another option. I was young. I stayed alive because I didn't want my sister to have to live as someone with that kind of hole in her life. I stayed alive because there was always some upcoming performance and my company is too small for understudies or alternates. I stayed alive because there was always someone not quite as steady who relied on me to do so. Only now, finally, I can stay alive because I want to.

Reasons I stay alive: the love of the people close to me, and the knowledge that with age we get better. Anxieties lessen and dissipate, confidence grows, skills develop and things generally become clearer.

Ive been thinking about this post quite a lot, Haha. Mostly, it’s because I don’t want to give up. I want to prove to myself and my loved ones that I’m so much stronger than I think I am and I’d like to show the bullies of my past that I’m stronger than they think. Also, my family and friends and boyfriend keep me here. There’s so much see in the future, and I sometimes just... hold on to that. I lost touch with one of my best friends for years and I’m just too glad to have her back in my life since last year and I know (haha this sounds selfish I guess, but she told me haha) that she’s so glad about it as well. There’s so many things I want to achieve and things to see. I mean - about three weeks ago, said best friend and I met our childhood hero and I just kept thinking “man, I’m so glad I stayed”.

it’s on my blog too x and twitter

#mental health #suicide #anxiety #depression #thesproutclub on twitter + ig #stay alive #still alive #important #stories

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papermoth-bird-blog · 5 years

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musings on fear & freedom.

I’ve lived the past twelve months in an odd internal order. Emotionally, my winter came at mid April of 2018. I recall these events with slightly squinted eyes, doubting even my own memories. The sheer rapid movement of time has left me tumbled. It was the second week of April, that my younger cousin Ellie died at the age of 20. Even now, I still feel it cannot be true. Not because I didn’t see her at the funeral, or that I didn’t cry for weeks & feel grief sit in my chest -- but because I don’t know how to reconcile the death of someone who still had so much left to do.

I too, had a lot to do. And so, not knowing fully how to process such a fundamental loss, I went home & went back to work. From the outside looking in, I was fine for the most part. I cried a reasonable amount, but laughed too. I went to all the parties & shows I would have gone to anyways. I made new friends, and was able to maintain my cheerful disposition. “You can use this. You’ll be so much stronger because of it” people would tell me. I’m a hypocrite, I’ll admit it, because I’ve always been one to toss in those ‘profound’ quotes when someone is going through a difficult time. Fundamentally, I know these things- these big life shaking things- are going to change me, and probably for the better, but people aren’t always ready to show gratitude for the shit life throws you. It feels icky. Yes, I’ve grown so much since Ellie passed, but I would love to be the naïve, silly 23 year old that still had her cousin around. Gratitude is not a word I like to use in this context- it kind of feels like praising the universe for something awful happening. Peace, is a word that feels much more comfortable here. I’ve found ‘peace’ can get along with my feelings of grief, without pushing them out. Even then, my feelings of peace & strength, wax & wane with the moon.

Even back then, I felt some parts of me falling away from the inside. Mostly, my tolerance for superficial-small-talky conversations. I stopped drinking, and going to the bar (that had acted as my public living room). To my own huge relief, my tolerance for my own anxiety has dropped to an astonishing low too. It’s hard to acknowledge when you are in it, but being scared about things just takes up so much fucking energy. I just don’t have the time to give to those fears anymore- the fear of failure, fear of not being enough & all the other pacing thoughts in my mind. There is a comfort there. In identifying the things that make you feel unsafe and nervous. Then, you are able to work hard to avoid them. I became very good at that myself. I did a lot of work (with the help of my friends & therapist) to really reconcile how my traumas from abuse have affected me in my current incarnation. I found a certain strength in then being able to run from those things. I talked about them openly. I fought for safe spaces & causes I believe in. Inside though, those fears still sat as a key part of me. Running from your traumas leaves you exhausted; not everyone talks about that part of it.

So there I was, swirling in post-anxiety and it’s resulting restlessness and I decided to get myself back into therapy. I was at a funny point in my emotional cycle. Outside it was autumn, but inside I found myself in a kind of early sping. My leaves were barren now, but I could sense a refreshing change developing. I spent a lot of time in group settings, starring off into space & swirling some thoughts around my brain. Work, proved to be nothing but stressful and disorganized. My housing situation became increasingly and factually unsafe for me. My core best-friend group was spread to the wind. I was suffering from severe burn out, due to my over commitments to various non-profits. And then, in a blink, my partnership broke (on the very same day an self-proclaimed witch ACTUALLY CURSED ME. --which is a longer story obviously--- Sounds like a strange fairytale-real life mash up, but this was what actually transpired that day). It was almost comical, how much shite did hiteth the fan that September. (I can laugh now because, I’ve grown a lot since then. And no one is dead).

I kept coming back to fear in my mind wanderings. In all honesty & humanity, though I’ve banished my anxiety, I still have a healthy amount of fear living in me. The kind of fear that keeps you alive & safe & fundamentally unharmed. Fear can be helpful and constructive, if you treat it appropriately. Fear is a tool if you don’t allow it to be your prison. When I was exiting my long-term-terrible-no-good-phsycally-and-emotionally-abusive relationship, I found myself very bare in terms of support. Those relationships are most sinister becuase of the way they slowly isolate you. Essentially, I had nothing left to loose in terms of putting myself out there in my attempts to make new friends. And because of that, it actually happened rather easily. I found myself in a community that supported my oddities and interests, in a way I hadn’t experienced since I was a young child. It transformed me. Now, in my present, I was lost with the thought of how to go about transforming previously transformed (but less sparkly, now more dulled) me?

My solutions to most things, end up being dares to myself. I pick out the exact thing that makes me scared- and I make myself do it & I don’t give myself the time to panic about it. I discovered this “solution” to fear in one of my self-talks about bravery. Bravery, requires fear, it wouldn’t exist otherwise. Bravery is looking the fear in the face and doing it anyways. It’s wreckless as much as it’s freeing. Finding myself in fear & sadness again, was scary for me. I hadn’t been there for a long while it felt. The one thing I know, is that I need a change, despite me feeling so happy with Halifax (and my community and friends and new home), there is an unhappiness within me. I need a challenge & a change.

I find New Years to be one of the most exhausting and arbitrary holidays, mostly because of the hyperbolic approach to it. There is nothing about a time of a clock that is going to change you forever. Even more exhausting is people’s determined attitude to have the best New Years ever. I’ve only ever promised to have an okay New Years, and so have always been very satisfied. I’ve even had some great New Years, in which I have then proportional & appropriately been able to revel in. One of my best friends, Kluane, has adapted the whole new years resolution thing, in a much more realistic way. Instead of shouting into the void about utter and complete transformation, she’s actually been able to foster real & sustained transformation through self-determined ‘themes of the year’. Her theme for 2018 was ‘strengthening family ties’, which I believe she was successful at. In one of her bravest acts to date- she went on a multi-month road trip with one of her parents- an act that I cannot say I’m quite brave enough for at this point.

So I found myself dancing in my kitchen to Janis Joplin, being reminded that “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”. I realized how much I craved that- to feel free. Unchained. Unburdened. Autonomous & free. My biggest fear is loosing the friendships & community that I’ve worked to foster over the last 7 years. The beauty of Halifax is its ability to hold such a transient community. People are constantly coming and going. By virtue of being the one that stays, I am also the one that is having change thrust upon them, not the one pursuing change. Being left behind is always more challenging then being the one to leave. Those weights that keep me here are becoming a burden. I’ve never allowed myself to feel the other side of it. I’ve never been the one to leave, and now I feel the time has never been better to do just that. This year I am determined to live free.

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jauneflowers · 3 years

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Birthdays and Being Known

This blog post starts as my previous one did. With an inciting incident and a large, wacky realization. How exciting.

Thursday I got a parcel in the post. That has been a little more of a regular occurrence recently due to the fact that it was my birthday! Exciting, right? For anyone, a birthday is an excellent time to reflect, but this birthday in particular marks a rather large gender milestone for me. This I will delve into shortly, but back to what started this post, the post.

This particular postal arrival was significant because it had a cowboy boot on the front. A green, marker-drawn pointed toe boot with the classic cowpoke embellishments and denoted me as the ‘birthday babe’. I could not, for the life of me, think who this was from as the return address was not one I recognised. So, like any normal person, I opened it right away! Inside was a pink tote (hell yes) with a cowpoke print (hell yes!) and various little cowpoke goodies (hell yes!!!!!!). The items were by Morewenna Farrell (You can find Morwenna on Instagram as @morwennafarrell_illustrations, or through her etsy https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MorwennaFarrell). After some reading I realised it was sent on behalf of a dear friend!! Now you’re probably thinking, “Wow Jayne, this is very nice and all, but why are you telling me, the reader, about this moment?” Well. To receive a gift like this was wonderful. I love cowpoke aesthetics and the colour pink, so the two together was a real combination of these. It made me feel like the brilliant friend that had sent me this really knew me well and it made me realise how birthdays we really tied up in being known. Furthermore, it made me realise how birthdays are also tied up, for me, in aspects and symbols of my Non-binary identity, such as the aesthetics you hold dear to yourself- for me this would be Cowpoke/Western regalia. The mental gymnastics of which I will take you through a little further in just a moment, but for now I want to delve a little further into topics around my birthday. If that, or discussion of Alcoholism, gender and being closeted is not your cup of tea, stop reading now!

I want to start off by saying that birthdays have been historically and notoriously bad for me. Why? Well, when it is annually ruined by parental alcoholism and trauma, you come to expect the worst from your birthday. For a large portion of my teenage birthdays, what I really wanted, more than any gift, event or frilly whatevers was to have an anxiety-free day. To see the passage of time go by where I didn’t have to worry about wine or humiliation, that I could speak to the person I loved the most and spend time with her knowing she would be sober, happy and lucid. With this in mind, my first, memorable, wonderful birthday was my 18th. The actual day itself, admittedly, was shit. I remember sobbing and feeling like the most ungrateful child in the world as I begged for sobriety from my mother and she, in turn, told me I was spoilt. In complete contrast, a few days later, I had dinner with my friends at a local restaurant to celebrate the milestone. I wore clothes that made me extremely gender euphoric, I got to eat food that I loved and spent the time with people that I cherished. The true moment of the night is when a cake was presented to me, baked by two of my nearest and dearest. It was shaped like a geode and, inside, the cake slices were lemon flavoured and rainbow coloured it was several of my favourite things all at once.

At the time I had gotten increasingly into collecting crystals and had shared my delight at seeing a cake that was made to look like a geode (a particular favourite gem of mine) a month or so prior to my birthday. At the time I was also owning my gay identity more openly and proudly everyday, and having my friends recognise these two parts of me really touched me. I remember crying. I’m crying while writing this! I remember repeating over and over, “You know me! You really know me!” I’m not sure if any of them knew about my horrible past with birthdays, but in that moment I felt listened to, seen and known. I felt loved. There is extreme healing value in having these integral factors of yourself recognised by others. To feel this amount of love from everyone around me made me feel like the current home climate I was living in could be escaped. Even more so, it helped me start to relate having birthdays with feeling like those around me truly cared, and knew me in a way no one else could.

Jump forward to 22.

As mentioned, earlier in the week I had received that lovely cowboy bundle from one of the masterminds behind the gorgeous geode cake. Cowboys are especially important to me because I feel the aesthetics are somewhat relational to my gender identity, but that is a whole other blog post in itself! To the point, in the weekend to follow I was treated to a delightful day (appropriately socially distanced) by my closest circle. I got to pick American Cereal (I’m a lowkey expert in the stuff, dontchaknow, this is thanks to the Empty Bowl, which I listen to get to sleep. You can listen to them at www.bowl.rest ). If you’re wondering, I chose Trix Fruity Shapes as pictured, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

My friends took me to a Barbie capsule collection (pictured) and I got myself the most tacky and wonderful Cowgirl Barbie shirt and they treated me to a wonderful ‘experience’ ice cream.

The trip was topped off by my partner cooking a yummy dinner and the whole day I did not have to worry about a thing- not where I was going, what I would be eating or who I would be seeing. My gorgeous, fantastic, intelligent friends sorted that for me. The key to all of this was how every moment was spectacularly tailored to me, esspecially since all of the days experiences were markers of how I liked to establish my Nonbinary identity. As mentioned, cowboys have a special place in the abstract concept that is my gender, so does Barbie. It’s a lot of gender nonsense, there’s no need to get it completely. However, in acknowledging these things as a part of my interests, my friends also acknowledged parts of my gender identity too. All of these fun to-do items might have seemed vastly unrelated to do in a day, but grouping them together had a symbolic nature to it that I don’t think they even realised it had. During a pandemic, I would of course have just been happy if I had ended up with a digital well wish here and there, but the effort and time put together to craft a whole day with me in mind really sealed my thoughts on being seen, known, as well as having my gender (or lack thereof) recognised.

I’ve come to realise that, in the strangest way possible, my gender is tied up with my birthday, beyond the usual malarkey around a baby’s sex and birth. Birthdays are about celebrating a person, giving them well-wishes because you’re thinking of them. You may give them things they like because you know them enough to know what they’d want. The structure is inherently built on the idea of being known. In my opinion, being known and having your interests highlighted by others has an intrinsic link to transness, even further so to Nonbinary identity. A lot of the interests and aesthetics I enjoy are wrapped up in the conceptualisation of my gender. Cowpokes. American cereal. Ice-cream. They become abstract concepts that others see and connect to me, and they (and many others) are themes and aesthetics I consider markers of gender. Due to Nonbinary identity being incredibly personal to the individual, these things being celebrated with me, by my friends, was also a recognition of my identity as a whole.

I mentioned a gender milestone earlier in this text. That is because it has now been 10 years since I found the right language to describe my gender. I say that, instead of any alternative, because I personally believe describing it any other way is disingenuous and plays into cisnormative nonsense that I’m not that interested in. It is relevant to these ideas around being known and birthdays, because up until that 18th birthday I often concealed true interests or facets of my identity because I had been put into a setting where those that needed to care didn’t and I worried that lifting the lid on even the most tangentially related idea relating to my gender might result in transphobia and social punishment. In turn, birthdays where everyone turned the spotlight on me were incredibly nerve wracking and part of a cisnormative pantomime, because I didn’t feel comfortable telling people my real interests. To get to 22 and instead have a whole day where I can feel gender euphoric and comfortable in my own skin makes my birthday very special indeed.

This current birthday was great, but not just because I received material goods. 21 and 22’s birthdays were ones to remember because I got to spend it with people I love and feel their love, even through the digital glow of a screen due to Covid. I mention my 21st birthday because I think that is where the seed, planted at age 18, of birthdays and gender really started to sprout, but it didn’t flower until 22. I wonder what would have happened and how I would have turned out if this idea of Nonbinary identity and birthdays had been planted at age 12? If society let me feel safe enough to be myself? Would I have had more positive birthdays, despite my home situation? Speculation does not help my 12 year old self, so I will save myself from fretting on the topic.

Instead, I like to think about what I would say to my 12 year old self, now that I have this realisation. First of all, I think I’d give them whatever obscure anime cosplay their little heart had desired, and lectured them on safe binding. But on a more serious note, I think I would want to look into their eyes and say, “22 does happen. Things are a different type of terrible, but you are free and that is important. The overwhelming feeling is you are known, and you are loved by people you intensely love back. Your friends are great now, but don’t lose touch with reality about how you treat them. Treasure the friendships you have at 18, they will be some of your greatest friends. Oh. I also love you a lot. I know you’re waiting for someone to say that to you and mean it. And I do. I do mean it. You’re Nonbinary and great and loved and birthdays get way cooler.”

Phew. All of this aside, I think more stock needs to be put into the abstracts and concepts that make up Nonbinary identity. In the future, I hope to write a little more about the ‘things’ that make up my Nonbinary identity, such as music, fashion, art prints, mugs… In turn, I’d like you to think beyond boring regular language around gender and consider what makes you the gender you are. I have come to 22 with a large, abstract idea of my gender, collected from 12 onwards… and I hope to keep collecting until my last birthday.

#peronsal #Blog #gender #identity #birthday

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editorialsonlife · 7 years

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April

Well, April was a month!! It disappeared so quickly. And now its may, and I’m on another ridiculously turbulent flight down to Dunedin this time - first time ever going there! So I shall write a life update to distract myself in the interim.

I also ate best ugly bagels at the airport and got jam on my screen so it’s all sticky. Bad planning yo.

Oh April! We started off with three days up in auckland for work. Damn was I hanging out for those three days, in the peace and quiet of a hotel room, away from everyone and normal life and the office and dare I even say it, Dave. And it was lovely. The humidity was most definitely not! But it was great getting to be up there and hanging out with people and getting to know their jobs a bit better as well. I got a lot of stuff done and it was so good to just be able to walk out of the office and go home and not have to be anything to anyone and just journal and watch what I wanted to on Netflix and so much other good shit.

The downside was I got sick - boo. Got back to Wellington and a cranky boyfriend and oh my god this plane wants to kill us all. Jeepers.

I went to a first aid course the next day deaf in one ear, and by the time I got to work on Friday could hardly hear in either ear! Anyway, ear infections usually clear up quickly for me which is good because then it was HOLIDAY TIME!! and by holiday I mean road trip up north to Taupo and Rotorua and Auckland. Primarily for Auckland zoo and Kelly tarltons because let’s be real all Dave and I care about are cute fluffy animals. Except, then, on top of everything else arrives a chest and sinus infection. #allclass #gobigorgohome

Which actually turned out to not be such a disaster because it meant we actually slowed the f down, and didn’t try and cram a million things in and we didn’t feel bad about staying in bed til 9am every day and going to bed early. So we spent a lot of time in hot pools and just wandering slowly and I went on swings in every single city we went to. Man, swings are just so much fun! I seriously want a decent set in our back yard.

Taupo was lovely and we had such nice weather. I really like it as a laid-back country kinda vibe. Its a great place to mosey round and read some books and just relax. Quest was awesome too. Both of us were just so excited to have a big bathroom again!! Honestly, its so the little things in life that make you happy. We also had a washing machine and dryer as well which was fabulous!

We drove up to Auckland on the Monday and oh my god, so many roadworks. We hadn’t even made it to Auckland and both of us were just like, f living here ever (no offence aucklanders, but your traffic is shit and your city is so badly laid out). Auckland zoo was cool but OH MY GOD so many freaking rat???? Like, literally ever single enclosure had multiple rats in it!! It turned into spot the rat not the animals actually there. And proper big, 20 cm long body rats, not little field mice or anything. Groooosssss.

And then to make it the perfect storm of health things, I got my period on the drive up, LOL. poor Dave, he never gets laid on holiday. I don’t know we always manage it but we do. Crack up.

The hotel was good, the fact it had two bedrooms was awesome and we had a washing machine in our room as well?? Nailed the washing on this trip, honestly. I basically wore the same three things the whole time. #lazyas

We decided Waiheke was too far (lol, that’s how lazy we were) so we did Devonport instead which was lovely. And had a great playground with fab swings (a+ recommend if looking for swings in Auckland)

Omg this plane is rocking like a boat it’s the weirdest sensation.

We also went to Kelly tarltons where we bought Bruce, a massive soft toy shark!! He’s so amazing, he’s my new cuddle buddy at night, he’s almost as long as I am. Poor Steve has been demoted (Steve being the dugong Dave and I bought on our first ever trip overseas to Sydney). It was hilarious because we went on the morning that tropical cyclone cook was meant to hit Auckland and they were banging on about how terrible it was going to be for Auckland so everyone mass evacuated (sensible, because if our office up there is anything to go by, no one had emergency kits or would know how to get home if anything actually went wrong). So everyone is stocking up on groceries and water and food, and then there’s me and Dave wandering up Queen Street after going to a pharmacy for more drugs (Dave was sick too by now) and me with a giant soft toy shark. We got some odd looks man. It was great! We went back to the hotel and celebrated by watching finding Nemo waiting for the worst of the weather to pass. After that we went to town and played minigolf and got burgers for dinner. All in all it was a very us five year anniversary. Speaking of which, we had our five year anniversary WHAAAAAAAAATTTT where did those five years even go?!?! God I love that boy.

The next day we joined the rest of Auckland evacuating for easter weekend and it took 6 hours to get to Rotorua (usually 2.5). So stupid. Dave was definitely sick because at that point for the first time ever he actually slept in the car. Crazy. It was a really fun drive though Google maps took us on all these mental back roads that were flooded and had trees down and fun crazy stuff so I had a good time. We spent a night in rotovegas with my mental family which was lovely and my uncle finally gave me a prescription for antibiotics (cheers to having a doctor in the family). We went back to Taupo for another night and cruised on home.

It was all rather lovely, despite being so sick.

And then it’s been back to work and the busyness and the rest of life.

One of the best things about April was doing my best to deal with the small things for my mental health, which has been pretty shaky over the last 8 weeks. I knew that after my birthday I needed extra help because #life and not coping, and I found a fucking AMAZING naturopath who I just love so much. She’s been so helpful and supportive. I went to her originally for my anxiety and crazy overthinking and she does homeopathic stuff and whatever she gave me fixed it within a week. Well, fixed it as in it took away the total panic from the overthinking, not that the anxiety has gone away but the whole ‘sky is falling down feeling’s disappeared enough to allow some rational thought back in. I went back on Anzac Day (bless her, she came in for an appointment just for me because we couldn’t make a workday work) and was like, so you said responsibility like, 40 times the other week, let’s look at that, and now we’re working through my hating the system feeling, and dealing with all the suppression that came with working at shit old job and various other life situations.

One of the biggest things I’m struggling with right now is hating the system that society has designed. like, who the fuck ever thought it was a good idea to work 40 hours a week and create a world where people can’t achieve self fulfillment and why don’t we let people work to their natural strengths and why do you have to own a house to be an adult and all this other fucking nonsense. And how do you live a life of your terms but also somehow within the system and cultural norms as well because I don’t want to be an outsider but there’s so many things I don’t agree with and how are so many people ok with sneidng kids to school hungry each day and just, whyyyyyyyyyyy do we all exist and why have we created this inequity and inequality in life?! Like, I don’t get it and I don’t know how to live in it and I don’t know how you’re meant to bring kids up ok this and so many other things ya know.

So just like, not tackling the big issues or anything at all.

Actually, I was watching Moana on Saturday night and just bawling my eyes out because its so reflective of life - the world is telling you to be this and this and this and this and somehow you have to find the courage to be like, nah, fuck off mate, I’m Gunna go sail my ship far away from y'all and see what needs doing somewhere else.

So Sophie, god bless her soul, I absolutely love her, and she tells me I’m not crazy, and I’m not losing my shit, and that while there’s not necessarily an answer we can still deal with it and cope with feelings and also she’s been there and done that and that it will get better.

And I’m so, so grateful I’ve found her. I’m also grateful for all the ladies in my life who have put up with these brutally honest conversations in my life, and let me cry over lunch, and who are working through all their own things and still manage to hold space for me, and who create space for laughter and silliness as well. I’m so grateful for Dave who is willing to just ride the wave with me and go with it. That boy puts up with so much from me and just takes it and goes with it and doesn’t complain. Work has likewise been amazing. I told my boss I was losing my shit internally and I was going to be disappearing for a few hours each week to sort myself out and he was so upset with himself because he’d asked how everyone else was doing but he hadn’t asked me how I was. Even more so he was like, what can we do for you, do you need work from home days, do you need time in other offices, do you not want to travel, just let me know what you need and I will make it happen. Which was fucking lovely.

I also took a month of fitbit and stressing about my weight and I bought new clothes that make me feel good and it’s so much nicer than loathing yourself every single day and cramming yourself into something too small and pretending like it’s ok.

PRAISE BE JESUS WE HAVE FINALLY LANDED.

I apologise for all the typos, I’ll try and fix them at some point. That was a seriously bumpy flight. Amen for antianxiety pills that make it all ok.

Now I just have to turn around and do it all again in 10 hours time.

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mcleanstanley1991 · 4 years

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What Is Reiki 2nd Degree Cheap And Easy Unique Ideas

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Reiki Chakra Mantra

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What Is Reiki Healing Wikipedia

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#What Is Reiki 2nd Degree Cheap And Easy Unique Ideas #Reiki Master Healer

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jessicakehoe · 4 years

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These Celebs Are Destigmatizing Mental Illness

Many campaigns have worked to normalize the discussion around mental health (Bell Let’s Talk and CAMH’s One Brave Night among them). But one thing that really reaches the masses is when a celebrity speaks out about his or her struggle to spread the message that it’s okay to have a mental illness; it doesn’t make you weak.

Anyone who has ever suffered from depression or anxiety—whether temporary or chronic—knows the feeling of wanting to crawl into bed and stay there until things seem okay again. And somehow when these celebrities who seem to have it all come out and say that they actually don’t have their shit together, it is encouraging to us. By focusing on their health, it normalizes the conversation and gives us the courage to take care of ourselves (and be vocal about it).

Below, see the celebrities who are helping to fight the stigma against mental health by being open about their own struggles. Want to learn more about mental illness? Here are 5 myths about anxiety and depression, and information about different types of treatment.

Post Malone

In an interview with GQ Style, the Grammy nominee opened up about dealing with an unshakeable sadness from a very young age. “Middle school, I would cry myself to sleep every f**kin’ day,” he reveals. “High school, the same thing. I tried to drink some beers to get rid of that shit but it just never goes away. And I don’t think that’s anybody’s fault; it has to do with something predisposed in you.” Music has become his way of coping with these struggles, and of processing what he’s going through. “I’m trying,” he says. “It’s difficult. Through my songs, I can talk about whatever I want. But sitting here, face to face, it’s difficult.”

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"Through my songs, I can talk about whatever I want. But sitting here, face-to-face, it's difficult.”–@PostMalone Photographs by @jason_nocito_studio. Styled by @mobolajidawodu. #gqstyle #postmalone

A post shared by GQ Style (@gqstyle) on Mar 2, 2020 at 8:16am PST

Prince Harry

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Day two of #SussexRoyalTour is underway, and The Duke and Duchess have joined young South Africans and @WavesForChange to focus on mental health and take part in ‘surf therapy’. • Hundreds of young people from Cape Town’s townships meet every week at Monwabisi beach to surf, but also share stories with mentors and talk through the daily challenges they face. Their Royal Highnesses were able to hear how the sessions are building trust, confidence, and belonging, and they also got to join in as children took part in ‘power hand’, which teaches them how to keep calm down reflect on strengths. While on the beach The Duke and Duchess met @TheLunchBoxFund – which was one of the charities they nominated to benefit from donations following the birth of their son, Archie. Almost 30,000 meals are provided by the charity every day across South Africa, including for three @WavesForChange projects. And before they left The Duke and Duchess joined the Commonwealth Litter Programme (CLiP) – which was teaching the surfers about the impact of plastic waste on the ocean. #RoyalVisitSouthAfrica • Photo ©️ photos EMPICS / PA images / SussexRoyal

A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Sep 24, 2019 at 5:00am PDT

The Duke of Sussex has spoken out extensively about his own mental health journey, and the trauma he suffered as a result of losing his mother, Princess Diana, at a young age. In an interview with Bryony Gordon for her podcast about mental health, Mad World, the royal said, “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well.”

“I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and sort of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle,” he added.

After seeking out counselling and learning to open up about his struggles with friends and family, the royal co-founded Heads Together, a mental health awareness campaign, with Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2016. While on a recent trip to South Africa with Meghan Markle, the royal couple met with Waves For Change, an organization promoting mental wellbeing through surf therapy, and spoke out about the need to counter the stigma against mental illness in our society.

“I think most of the stigma is around mental illness [and] we need to separate the two… mental health, which is every single one of us, and mental illness, which could be every single one of us,” he said. “I think they need to be separated; the mental health element touches on so much of what we’re exposed to, these experiences that these kids and every single one of us have been through. Everyone has experienced trauma or likely to experience trauma at some point during their lives. We need to try, not [to] eradicate it, but to learn from previous generations so there’s not a perpetual cycle.”

Ariana Grande

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A post shared by Ariana Grande (@arianagrande) on Mar 30, 2019 at 9:57am PDT

In British Vogue’s July 2018 issue, Ariana Grande opened up on her experience with PTSD after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. “It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.”

In November 2018, the singer/songwriter dropped a single titled “thank u, next,” dedicated to all of her exes, including the late-Mac Miller (who died this past September of a drug overdose) and ex-fiancé Pete Davidson, which resulted in fans wondering who her therapist is. “Therapy has saved my life so many times,” Grande tweeted in response. “If you’re afraid to ask for help, don’t be.”

photography via instagram/@arianagrande

In an Instagram story posted on April 11, Grande shared a side-by-side image of a healthy brain and a brain affected by PTSD. She also included an image of what is allegedly her brain, which appears to show incredibly high levels of PTSD. “Not a joke,” she captioned the story. In a follow-up story, Grande posted a selfie containing the captions “life is wild,” “she’s trying her muthafukin best,” and “my brain is tired.”

Selena Gomez

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I have a lot to be thankful for this year.. My year has been the hardest yet most rewarding one yet. I've finally fought the fight of not 'being enough'. I have only wanted to reflect the love you guys have given me for years and show how important it is to take care of YOU. By grace through faith. Kindness always wins. I love you guys. God bless

A post shared by Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) on Nov 24, 2016 at 6:21pm PST

In August 2016, Selena Gomez announced that she would be taking a break from her career to deal with anxiety, depression and panic attacks associated with lupus (an autoimmune condition from which she suffers). She made a return to the spotlight in November that year at the American Music Awards, where she delivered an emotional, heartfelt speech, briefly touching on her battle with mental health issues.

“I had to stop because I had everything and I was absolutely broken inside. I kept it all together enough to where I would never let you down but I kept it too much together to where I let myself down,” she said. “If you are broken, you do not have to stay broken.”

The songstress also opened up about her issues with mental health in the April 2017 issue of Vogue (which she covered). “Tours are a really lonely place for me,” she told the magazine. “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it—which, I think, was a complete distortion.”

She revealed she spent 90 days in a mental health facility in Tennessee, surrendering her cell phone and taking part in various forms of therapy. And while Gomez is the second most-followed person on Instagram, she told Vogue she no longer had it on her phone, and an assistant had her password.

“It felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about,” she said. “I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit.”

Camila Cabello

Former Fifth Harmony member Camila Cabello made headlines in September 2016 after she left the stage early during a performance under the guise of a wardrobe malfunction. She later revealed, on Snapchat, that the cause was excessive anxiety, even tweeting, “just wanna sleep for 3 days.”

Cabello had already been open about her struggles with anxiety prior to the incident, however, telling Billboard that 2015 was a “low” for her, personally.

“I was having terrible anxiety, nonstop. My heart would beat really fast the whole day. Two hours after I woke up, I’d need a nap because my body was so hyperactive,” she recalled. “I was scared of what would happen to me, of the things my brain might tell me. I realized the stuff I thought was important isn’t worth my health. Now I write in a diary every day, work out and meditate.”

In March 2017, the Cuban-born star revealed to Latina magazine that she also deals with obsessive compulsive disorder. “It was just totally out of control,” Cabello told the magazine of her OCD. “I would wake up with a super-accelerated heartbeat and really negative, intrusive, compulsive thoughts. I was so inside my head, and I didn’t know what was happening.”

She continued, “I totally understand now, being in it, why there shouldn’t be such a stigma on mental illness, because it’s a pretty common thing for people. But you can get help. If you’re dedicated to making it better, you can—because I’m in a much better place now. I started reading books about it and it really helped a lot when I understood [the illness], and that [the thoughts I was having] weren’t real. Sometimes you have to remind yourself to slow down and take care of yourself.”

Zayn Malik

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A post shared by Zayn Malik (@zayn) on Aug 14, 2018 at 10:01pm PDT

In June 2016, former One Direction member Zayn Malik cancelled a U.K. concert due to anxiety. He made the announcement on Instagram, writing, “Unfortunately, my anxiety that has haunted me throughout the last few months has gotten the better of me. With the magnitude of the live event, I have suffered the worst anxiety of my career.”

Later that year, Malik revealed in his memoir, Pillow Talk, that panic attacks have stopped him from performing on more than one occasion. “I just couldn’t go through with it,” he wrote. “Mentally, the anxiety had won. Physically, I knew I couldn’t function. I would have to pull out.”

And while a member of his team offered to say he was sick, Malik insisted on being open about his struggle. “I was done with putting out statements that masked what was really going on. I wanted to tell the truth. Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of; it affects millions of people every day,” he explained. “I don’t want to say I’m sick. I want to tell people what’s going on, and I’m not gonna be ashamed of what’s happening.”

Cara Delevingne

In 2016, Cara Delevingne took to Twitter to reveal she took a break from modelling due to depression. “I suffer from depression and was a model during a particularly rough patch of self hatred,” she explained. Later that year, she told Esquire she had been struggling with mental illness since she was a teen, more specifically, after she discovered her mother’s drug addiction.

“I was suicidal. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I realized how lucky and privileged I was, but all I wanted to do was die,” she told the magazine, adding a six-month break from school and medication might have helped save her life at 16.

However, Cara stopped the meds at age 18, saying “I get depressed still but I would rather learn to figure it out myself rather then be dependant on meds, ever.”

Adele

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Auckland / Mt Smart Stadium / Mar 25

A post shared by Adele (@adele) on Mar 25, 2017 at 9:41pm PDT

Despite being a 15-time Grammy winner, Adele still experiences stage fright. In March 2017, she admitted to her New Zealand concertgoers that she may never tour again, due to the ongoing issue. “Touring isn’t something I’m good at–applause makes me feel a bit vulnerable. I don’t know if I will ever tour again,” she told the audience. “I get so nervous with live performances that I’m too frightened to try anything new. It’s actually getting worse. Or it’s just not getting better, so I feel like it’s getting worse, because it should’ve gotten better by now.”

Lady Gaga

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I felt like a princess in custom @tiffanyandco made just for me for the #GoldenGlobes 🤗 The Aurora necklace was named after the Aurora Borealis as an homage to #AStarIsBorn 🌟 #TiffanyAndCo

A post shared by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) on Jan 8, 2019 at 10:29am PST

In 2016, Lady Gaga revealed she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after she was raped at age 19. “I suffer from PTSD, I’ve never told anyone that before,” she said on the Today show in December 2016. “But the kindness that’s been shown to me, by doctors as well as family and friends, has really saved my life.”

More recently, Gaga opened up about her mental health struggles in a conversation with Prince William, as part of the royal’s Heads Together #oktosay series, which aims to end the stigma with the help of celebrities.

“For me, waking up every day and feeling sad and going on stage is something that is very hard to describe. There’s a lot of shame attached to mental illness. You feel like something’s wrong with you,” she told the Duke of Cambridge via FaceTime. “In my life, I go, ‘Oh my goodness, look at all these beautiful, wonderful things that I have. I should be so happy,’ but you can’t help it if, in the morning when you wake up, you are so tired, you are so sad, you are so full of anxiety and the shakes that you can barely think.”

But despite her hardships, the A Star is Born actress told William “the best thing that could come out of my mental illness was to share it with other people.”

“I feel like we are not hiding anymore, we’re starting to talk, and that’s what we need to do really,” she said.

Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato is one of the most vocal mental health awareness advocates in the biz. The former Disney star, who has battled drug and alcohol addictions, bipolar disorder, self-harm and an eating disorder for years underwent rehab in 2010 and in 2013. Now, Lovato is much healthier and is committed to ending the stigma against mental illness. In 2015, she launched the Be Vocal campaign as a way to encourage individuals struggling with mental illness to talk about what they’re going through.

“I think the more people vocalize what they’re going through—their experience or just simply educating themselves so that they can learn more about what they’re talking about—that’s going to be the key to creating a conversation about mental illness and making it more understood,” she told HuffPost. “There’s a lack of compassion for people who have mental illnesses and there’s a lot of judgment. Once you make people realize that mental illness can happen to anybody—and it’s not anybody’s fault—then I think they’ll become more understanding of what mental illness really is.”

Jennifer Lawrence

Photography by Steve Granitz/WireImage

Jennifer Lawrence opened up about her struggle with anxiety in 2013, telling Madame Figaro that she began experiencing symptoms as a preteen. “When my mother told me about my childhood, she always told me that there was like a light in me, a spark that inspired me constantly,” Lawrence told the magazine. “When I started school, the light went out. It was never known what it was, a kind of social anxiety.”

She eventually went to seek help from a therapist and turned to acting as a form of self-therapy. She also revealed to the New York Times that she manages her anxiety with the use of prescription meds.

Emma Stone

Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage

Oscar winner Emma Stone told Rolling Stone in 2016 that she experienced bouts of anxiety and panic attacks as a child. “My anxiety was constant,” she said. “I would ask my mom a hundred times how the day was gonna lay out. What time was she gonna drop me off? Where was she gonna be? What would happen at lunch? Feeling nauseous. At a certain point, I couldn’t go to friends’ houses anymore–I could barely get out the door to school.”

She did reveal, however, that therapy and acting, specifically improv and sketch comedy, is what helped her work through it. “You have to be present in improv, and that’s the antithesis of anxiety,” she explained.

Chrissy Teigen

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My stoop buddy

A post shared by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) on Apr 29, 2017 at 6:47pm PDT

Chrissy Teigen is never one to hold back, but she shocked fans when she penned an essay for Glamour in 2017 on her struggle with postpartum depression. “I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role: ‘Maybe I’m just not a goofy person anymore. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a mom,'” she wrote, later adding “postpartum does not discriminate.”

Months later, Teigen finally saw her family doctor, where she got her diagnosis. She began taking antidepressants. “I’m speaking up now because I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone. I also don’t want to pretend like I know everything about postpartum depression, because it can be different for everybody. But one thing I do know is that—for me—just merely being open about it helps.”

Troian Bellisario

In November 2016, Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario revealed via a voting PSA that she struggled with an eating disorder when she was younger. She said it was early detection and mental healthcare that saved her. “If I had just been shunned to the side as not having ‘real problems’, I don’t know that I would be living today,” she explained. “I just want to make sure that everybody has the same opportunity for treatment that I have, and I think that we have to make sure that our government invests in those programs.”

Troian shared her story on her struggles with anorexia in her film Feed, which she wrote and directed. “It was not easy; it was like engaging with an addiction,” she told Interview magazine of revisiting her story, adding that working on the film was “like poking a sleeping dragon.” “One of the things I really wanted the film to explore was that once you have this relationship, once you have this mental illness or this disease, it never really goes away.”

And just like many others who suffer from mental illness, Bellisario said she feels like no one truly understands what she went through. “Still to this day, I couldn’t get anyone—even the people who loved me the most, even my boyfriend or my mother or my father—to understand what that experience was truly like for me,” she said. “It was about my eating disorder, and I found there were so many people who thought that it was about losing weight or being skinny, and I couldn’t quite get them to understand that it was about control on a very, very literal level.”

Gina Rodriguez

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One year after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, there is still work to be done. Thank you @ricky_martin for giving us all an opportunity to continue to contribute to the reconstruction of our beautiful island of Puerto Rico. #allin4pr #miislabonita ❤️🙌🏽 link in bio 🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷

A post shared by Gina Rodriguez-LoCicero (@hereisgina) on Oct 26, 2018 at 4:12pm PDT

Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez got candid about her struggle with anxiety in a moving Instagram post. “I suffer from anxiety,” she captioned the video, which sees her makeup-free in a New York Yankees cap. “And watching this clip I could see how anxious I was but I empathize with myself. I wanted to protect her and tell her it’s ok to be anxious, there is nothing different or strange about having anxiety and I will prevail.”

Shawn Mendes

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Je t’aime France ! 🇫🇷 x

A post shared by Shawn Mendes (@shawnmendes) on Nov 10, 2018 at 2:31pm PST

It may be hard to believe that Canada’s very own heartthrob has had his fair share of anxious episodes, but he has. In April 2018, the singer-songwriter told The Sun in an interview that he had seen a therapist a few times. “I found I was closing myself off from everybody, thinking that would help me battle [my anxiety], then realizing the only way I was going to battle it was completely opening up and letting people in,” Mendes said.

Said anxiety was chronicled in his single “In My Blood” (Lyrics: Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in, sometimes I feel like giving up, no medicine is strong enough, someone help me.)

“All pain is temporary, and the thing is with anxiety, and why it’s such a hard thing for people who don’t have it to understand, is that it is very random and it hits you at moments you don’t expect it. Sometimes it lasts two hours, sometimes it lasts a day and sometimes it lasts five minutes,” he said.

Sarah Hyland

Back in December 2018, Sarah Hyland opened up about experiencing suicidal thoughts after her body rejected a kidney donated by her dad. The Modern Family star, who has had a slew of health problems her whole life, appeared on Ellen in early January 2019 and spoke about her depression.

“After 26, 27 years of just always being sick and being in chronic pain every single day—and [you] don’t know when you’re going to have the next good day—it’s really, really hard…” she said.

“I would write letters in my head to loved ones of why I did it, and my reasoning behind it, and how it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” the 28-year-old revealed, adding that she was “very, very, very close,” to taking her own life.

When asked how she overcame her suicidal thoughts and depression, Hyland said that she confided in a close friend (“I finally said it out loud to someone… just saying it out loud helped immensely, because I kept it to myself for months and months at a time.”) who urged her to see a therapist.

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wildroseyposey · 7 years

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If I were honest

So while I was in Texas packing, doing interviews for my sponsorship and waiting to fly back to Chicago, I was in a deep concentration. That deep concentration followed me and gave my the strength to move from Texas to London within the span of 10 days. One of the things I avoided thinking about was the pain that pushed me to my edge. This pain and this denial that was killing me, and it nearly did. I was saved because I found inspiration, in what has for so long inspired me and that is flight. Adventure and embarking on the unknown. Being in a place nobody knows your name, a place where you can reinvent yourself. Leave the past and evolve into who you need to be to survive the future.

There was a critical moment in last year and I should start there. I went to Dublin in December/January of 2015/16 and it was a short trip but it was deeply emotional.

I have had a lot of friends come and go in my life, sometimes relationships end in a flurry and sometimes they end in an inferno. There has only been one person apart from my mom who stood by me despite my difficult and sometimes even destructive behavior. That is my friend Christine. She had been home from college that summer going into the fall and we hadn’t been in the same town in a long time, and I wasn’t around as much as I should’ve been. As someone who had seen me in low tides in the past, I felt that I didn’t want to let her down by seeing that I was yet again in low tides. So that summer I tried to be my very best self while she was around, always making sure everything was fun and that I was fun. But since I was hiding so much it kind of left me more alone, more vulnerable. Because in truth I was suffering from anxiety attacks that had been brought on by various family troubles. In the pharmacies my father owned, a woman was shot and at another store there was a raid which resulted in an arrest of an employee. I feared my father could be indicted. I feared the long road we all walked down as a family, all knowingly walked down was coming to a dead end. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t sleep. The only way to escape myself was to pretend.

In my denial I got lost into something that I couldn’t control. I was taking pills to fall asleep. It started out with a half and then the longer it went on, the more I would take. But it was only to sleep, to get my mind to rest. If I couldn’t enjoy being awake, then I would fall asleep. Wake up renewed. But the problem with abusing narcotics is that they allow you to think you’re healing when in truth, you’re decaying.

I think my best friend knew what I was doing but I think she also knew that I didn’t want her to know. I felt like I didn’t want her around, I didn’t want anyone to tell me the truth because I knew the truth but the alternative was something I could not bare. The alternative was to be sober, face the nightmares. To be alive and I didn’t want to be alive. I didn’t want to be dead either but somewhere in between.

So I just kept pretending and that made me feel safe. By the time we were both bound for Dublin Christine had found a job in Dublin so she was going to be leaving. I thought this was great, she could be safe from me.

I had gotten back from New Zealand at the end of that summer and I was on a high. I saw this beautiful land and spent time with a friend I hadn’t seen in a very long time, a friend that inspired me to think bigger. When I came home I felt better, I felt like my life was bigger than it was and that the world was bigger than it was. But then, I was shut down. Reality rushed in and my dad had another heart attack. Which took away my light, shoved me right back into a darker place than before. I thought very ugly things around this time, I thought that he should die. I thought that I couldn’t stand for much longer to wait for something and I needed to happen so I could learn how to move on from it. It was too hard always, always anticipating bad news. We soon booked the trip to Dublin and this gave me something to cling to.

In the months that followed that summer leading up to the trip I really sunk further and further into myself. I felt selfish for only being able to think about my troubles, about my setbacks. The pills started to make me have periods of hysteria. Sometimes I felt like I was totally better and sometimes I thought, maybe if I take the whole bottle, maybe if I didn’t wake up for days that I would wake up and I would be different, and if I didn’t wake up the world would be different. Better somehow for anyone who ever felt like they knew me. These thoughts started out small and grew larger so I knew I had to do something so I admitted myself into a hospital.

I hated that place, I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was whiny, elementary and spoiled. surrounded by people all competing to be the most troubled. I left after five days and decided that I would not try and seek help. I have always felt that I was self aware and something I’ve come to learn is a lot of depressed people are but that doesn’t mean you can let go of your safety and let someone else help you.

I always wanted to be memorable and loved and interesting and I hated being so self involved. I always wanted everyone around me to feel like they were part of me and suddenly I was rotten and bitter, mean.

The trip to Ireland came at a good time but I wasn’t well. I was losing memories, easily pissed off and hiding how many pills I was taking. The stakes were really high and I wanted everything to be perfect and if I felt like it wasn’t then I would cry. I was desperate and it wasn’t easy to hide it.

The trip wasn’t easy by any means but it couldn’t have gone better after all was said and done. I had this idea that I would apply for a study abroad program, finish school and start fresh. It’s silly this idea didn’t manifest before when I was at the peak of my struggles but I couldn’t see clearly or think clearly with how much I was sedating myself. With how much I was lying to myself. So it was set and I paid my fees and just focused on school and planning another trip abroad. But then I found out that maybe that surge of positivity was all just another trick. Just a brief moment in time where I could live outside of myself because right before the summer began I got in a car accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury.

I had felt crazy before with the pills but this was something else. One night I convinced my mom to let me stay in my apartment alone and I woke up several floors down from my apartment in another unit with an older woman trying to calm me down. I walked down there and scared myself so badly that I retched. After that I wasn’t allowed to be alone anymore. So I spent months far away with no real friends, no one to talk to. I didn’t understand very much apart from how to pretend that I was fine. I would have good days and feel like a survivor. Because it could have been worse, I could have been dead. A week before my accident I cried in my bed, I had just been to my aunts funeral. She died in her house suddenly and nobody realized for days. I hated that idea of isolation, the finality of death. So in truth I felt like I was given yet again another chance to be happy, for real. But it was hard to hold onto with nothing on the horizon. I had to cancel my study abroad because I wasn’t sure i was going to be well enough. I had always felt crazy because of the problems with depression but I thought, this is your fault. You always said you were crazy, now you really are. Congrats.

I wasn’t physically or mentally ready but I decided to go to Canada at the end of that summer. Just to stretch my legs is what I told my mom. They didn’t want me to go but they knew I had to try. I went and I felt okay, in only a couple of months I had reached a new level of loneliness. But in Canada I started to understand that I really couldn’t wait for everything to fall into place, I would have to arrange it. I had let a lot of people down and a lot pf people had let me down. And what I learned while away in the hospital was that it is entirely possible to drag the same skeletons around with you forever. And in a lot of ways you have to do that but I guess without sounding like a cliche, there are a lot of different ways to heal but you have to face your demons if you want them to leave you alone.

So here I am now, I finished school and with divine luck I ended up abroad which travel had been my life boat for the past couple of years so I feel like I’m in a place I belong, a place to grow from. And I’m alive but most importantly I’m living, and it has been awhile since I’ve said that and meant it.

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thisishowyouletgoandfindyou-blog · 7 years

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Emily Parzybok

FollowBased in Seattle. Always trying to get abroad. Bibliophile. Northwesterner. World Traveller. Foodie. Yogini. Political Hack. Tea Drinker. Proud Cat Lady.3 days agoOn Solitude: Westward to Japan

I’m currently making my way westward on a 6-month circumnavigation of the globe. This piece is the first in a series of musings from the journey. They’re informed by place — though more reflection piece than travelogue. You can find photos from the trip on Facebook and Instagram using #ParzyWalk

I started my journey seeking solitude.

I started out from San Francisco and arrived in Tokyo sleep deprived gazing into the frigid sea out of the flight window on a crystalline day. The airport in San Francisco had been the easy part. I’d rolled through the motions, checking in at the China Airlines counter before shuffling through security amidst a crowd of international travelers bound for various home parts, catching snippets of conversation in a collage of languages to their family members in tow. I’d purchased a sparkling water to rid myself of the final quarters and dimes in my wallet and then stood in the impossibly long line to board my flight.

I like the motion of traveling. Sometimes I think my favorite part comes in navigating a crowded station, finding the flow of winding through a new terminal. In the daily motion of travel, there’s both anonymity and constant distraction. It’s the comfort of movement, the sense of blending in on public transit — headphones in, lost in thought — married to the novelty of new places. In SFO’s international terminal, I found a rhythm. I skipped the walking ramps and power walked myself to my flight out of the country. But as soon as I boarded the plane, settled my backpack underneath the seat in front of me, unlaced my hiking boots and leaned back, my mind turned on. I felt the panic creep.

The flight suddenly felt less like a passage to Japan and more like the abandonment of the life I’d carefully constructed for myself. And why was I leaving anyway? For months, I’d wrestled with the instinct to depart, to leave behind the comfort of my daily life. I hadn’t been able to work out why I want to abandon the things that bring me the most joy: my work, my partner, my pets, my hometown.

Sitting on the plane, spinning into anxiety, I reminded myself of advice a stranger had given me when I told her about my upcoming trip. She said, “I did something like this once. I knew I was turning my life upside down. But I just…” and then she mimicked holding her nose, squeezed her eyes shut tight and jumped.

Many times on this journey already, I’ve taken a deep breath as if to plunge into some unknown water. I took one walking into the chaotic Chinese rail station in Chengdu to buy an overnight ticket using sign language. I took one walking to a guesthouse, alone at night, down an unlit dirt road in rural Laos where the public bus deposited me without further instruction. And I took one sitting on that first flight contemplating the leap I was about to take.

A few minutes into the flight, I slipped into the airplane bathroom and turned to my reflection in the full length mirror. The veins in my cheeks reflected back a dull rust tone in the viridescent neon light and the wrinkle across my forehead splayed dark and shadowed, crowning my face. I like the slow appearance of wrinkles. It gives my face the look of being lived in, and I enjoy the enduring shadow of wonder written into my brow. As the tears started to pour down my face, I had a little talk with me. I reminded the woman standing in front of me that I am here for her, that she is my favorite person, that I am her best friend and that she can do this thing alone. Following my self-directed pep talk in the dimly lit capsule, I walked back to my seat, sat down and gazed at the miniature plane on my screen, venturing over open sea.

One of the first questions most people ask when you tell them you’re going on a trip is, “Alone?” It’s less a query and more a means of expressing their disapproval. Women should not travel alone. If we do, we should expect terrible things to befall us at every turn. Folks range from mild disbelief to personal affront.

There’s a particular kind of cynicism at play here that troubles me. Our fear of foreign places is ultimately a fear of foreign people — in particular, the kind that don’t look like us. Here, I’ve learned paternalism is alive and well. Folks are particularly worried about my safety in Muslim countries. White men have a really intense fear of brown men touching me. I’m not exaggerating when I say this. Nearly to a person, white men (particularly those in generations above me) have warned me about rape — some going as far as saying I’m asking for it.

Let me just take a quick moment to say: I’m fucking sick of being condescendingly warned about men by men. PSA for the men reading this: women know men are dangerous better than you will ever understand. You don’t have to explain it to us.

In a cafe in Luang Prabang, an older gentleman in John Lennon glasses and white linen pants bristled over his pho when he learned I was traveling by myself and then preceded to tell me that I should not travel alone and that the place I was in wasn’t safe. He was warning me about the people he lives alongside every day. They’re far from being his community despite proximity. And that distance — or rather, lack of it — is why this fear is so insidious. Fear of place inhibits our connection to people, limits our ability to empathize, and creates narratives in which those who are foreign to us become enemies of ours. When people question whether it’s safe to travel alone to a particular place, what they are actually questioning is whether or not it’s safe to interface and connect with the people in that place. There’s a mistrust of others coupled with a disbelief that I would want to confront a hostile world solo.

At a Christmas party the week before I departed, I was having the standard conversation. Yes, I’m going on a long trip. Yes, I’m going alone.

We were just heading into the series of ‘Alone? Are you sure about that? Shouldn’t you go with someone? I don’t think you should do that. You don’t understand how [insert country here] is. That’s just not a good idea.’ when the woman standing next to me interrupted my conversation partner.

“If she’s going on this trip alone, perhaps she wants a journey by herself. She chose this; she must have a reason.”

I set out seeking solitude, but I encountered loneliness first.

A partnership of many years becomes the water you swim in. In love, I lost my talent for being alone. The first few days in Japan were jarring. I felt as though I was looking at the place from underwater. Nausea made my eyes blurry. Worry turned a dimmer on the sky. I went through the motions of enjoying sumptuous dinners at ryokans in a fog. I got in the shower at night and sat down and wept, biting my knee to quiet the sound. I was incensed at how quickly the thing I spent years building could seemingly vanish. It was like absently tugging a stray thread on my favorite sweater one day and finding myself standing naked in the cold. Love unraveled in a flash.

But, although striking out on my own made me feel suddenly exposed, it’s also true that loneliness doesn’t merely happen when you’re alone. Loneliness can occur in a crowd, in a relationship, or even while traveling with someone. There is nothing so acute as the loneliness of crying yourself to sleep next to a gently snoring partner who has swiftly drifted off to sleep after a fight. It’s far less lonely to spend the night by yourself.

In planning my trip, I thought I would be relieved to have a travel buddy those first few weeks in Japan, but many times over, I discovered that the presence of someone else only amplified how desperately lonely I felt. Each morning, I dutifully pulled on my personality like a well-worn sweater. Being in relationship with others, friends and lovers alike, fundamentally requires the presentation of a certain version of ourselves. Whether we’re navigating with a travel companion, or navigating a long term relationship, we shape our self in accordance with another. And often this requires that we show up less than authentically in the interest of social nicety, particularly when it comes to negative emotions. Mourning and confusion, after all, make people uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s best to be alone when you’re lost.

At times, Japan made it easy to be lonely. Respect and decorum — designed to maintain appropriate interpersonal contact — felt like an enclosure. Navigating new social interactions insisted on a bifurcation of feelings and outward expression, on politeness married with restraint. Given my state of mind, perhaps I should have embraced this happy divide, but the insistence on propriety only magnified my loneliness. On trains, people around me stared into their phones. Those walking in parks looked the opposite way as we crossed paths. The people ringing me up for coffee studiously avoided my gaze. I missed eye contact. In Japan, I ached to be looked at, to be seen.

When we set out to new places alone, we invite the companionship of the individuals in those places more readily. When we travel, we can easily put ourselves in the way of interactions that challenge our assumptions, ideas that reframe our very sense of self. The cynicism I’ve encountered so many times with this question of “alone?” is the flip side to the open vulnerability of encounter. In the act of venturing out, there’s an inherent hopefulness and belief in connectivity. This seems particularly relevant given America’s current political climate.

But encountering others with empathetic curiosity requires that we first meet ourselves with that attitude. I have spent a bulk of my life contemplating my relationships with other people and less time laboring on my relationship with myself. This was the ultimate intention of my journey. My therapist reminded me time and again as I agonized over the decision to leave, “This is your time. You with you.”

Loneliness, then, is an opportunity to practice reacquainting with our self. Loneliness is the forge for self-reliance and self-relation. It’s the practice of learning to be with oneself in discomfort. Only through meeting ourselves in the potentially painful space of loneliness can we arrive in the peaceful realm of solitude. Loneliness is the sentiment of fear, of thinking we are not enough, and of thinking that we’re fundamentally disconnected from humanity at large. Solitude is where the faith in connectivity and the hope of connection converge. And I finally started to find that faith and hope on my last day in Japan, biking perfectly by myself down a quiet street in Kyoto with my best friend from the mirror.

Travel

Japan

Loneliness

Solitude

Self-awareness

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