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simsadventures · 5 years

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After All: Chapter 13: Is This Real?

Summary: Hannah is back and her intentions are scarier than ever before.

Warnings: angst (I cried writing it, I’m weak), swearing, no reader and Bucky in this one

Word Count: 2250

A/N: Go easy on me after you’ve read it, that’s all I have to say (haha *hides behind a couch, peeking nervously*). Anyway, wanna know what you all though about it, feedback is everything. And I would like to know what you guys hope for- happy ending or not? Love you all!!

Series Mastelist __ Masterlist

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Bucky’s mind was all over the place. There were many things he didn’t understand just yet. Firstly, how did Hannah get on the aircraft, or where were the rest of the agents that were supposed to be there with him. He just hoped she didn’t hurt them to get to him. He felt like he had enough of lives on his shirt and didn’t need to feel any more guilty, especially for somebody he knew and worked for. His mind also wandered towards you. If you were safe if Hannah didn’t manage to get to you first.

His heart skipped a beat just thinking about Hannah hurting you again, and this time maybe physically. He shook his head and tried to calm his anxious mind, knowing that you were in the safest place you could- with the rest of the team in almost a fortress. ¨

Hannah was just standing there, watching him intently. He didn’t understand what she was doing there. Sure, he was the reason she had to leave the compound and SHIELD, but she was transferred to the CIA, which was like the second-best option. And the very best option for her after what she’s done. Bucky thought she should be glad that Tony didn’t make sure nobody would ever employ her. So Bucky really dint get why she was now in the quinjet, obviously looking for trouble.

Bucky looked past her, trying to see if anyone of his team was there and if they were ok. What he didn’t see coming, was the three agents suddenly coming into the light and standing behind Hannah, their arms crossed over their chests, sinister looks on their faces. Bucky wasn’t scared of them, far from it, he just didn’t understand what the hell was going on.

He looked at all of them quizzically, waiting for someone to speak up and tell him what the actual fuck.

“Are you confused, sweet little Bucky?” Hannah asked sweetly and took a step forward, to which Bucky reacted by also taking a step forward. He would rather die than show her any weakness. Bucky started to realise that she was a sick bitch and that she is truly insane.

“What is going on?” Bucky all but growled at her, to which she only smiled again. He was getting sick of her, and they were standing there for less than a minute.

“Can’t an old friend come and say hi?” She smirked and took another step towards him, standing almost too close for comfort. Bucky inwardly shuddered at her closeness, cursing himself for ever letting her close, and for kissing her. He would vomit if he could.

“Cut the crap, Hannah. How about I open the door and you all willingly get out of this thing, before I send you flying.”

She chuckled at his reaction, cocking her head and smirking. “Oh, baby, when I’m done with you, you’ll be kissing my feet!” She hissed the last part and lurched at him. At the same time, the three agents of SHIELD, or whatever they were now anyway, ran towards him as well.

Bucky did quick math in his mind, the next few minutes eloping in front of his eyes like a movie. He knew how it would go down. While Hannah would keep him occupied in the front, the three guys would try to corner him and somehow catch his hands to stop him from resisting. But Bucky knew that no matter how strong a tape they would use, he would be able to rip it and continue to fight for his life.

He smirked as well, letting Hannah get one good punch, making her feel as if she had the upper hand. As he predicted, two of the guys tried to go around him to stand behind, but Bucky wouldn’t let them. While he kicked Hannah with all he had (girl or no girl, she was an enemy, and he didn’t give a fuck about her gender), and stood so that he was facing the two guys.

Punches were flying, Bucky could feel bones shattering under his blows, making the guys groan in pain, but the adrenalin didn’t let them stop. He saw Hannah lurching back at him, hitting him in the ribs, and trying to have a go at his face. But Bucky could see right through her, and he blocked her punches with his metal hand while giving a few good measured hits to her stomach.

The three of them were groaning, and Bucky suddenly realised that there used to be four. He quickly turned around and saw Micheal just standing there, watching. When he saw that Bucky turned his attention to him, he smirked and as if playfully made a sign to Bucky to come and get him.

Because Bucky was in the mode of fight, he didn’t hesitate and made a run towards him. Micheal didn’t budge. Bucky didn’t care, he wanted to have this over with, and so he raised his left hand to punch him, but at the same time, Michael raised his own hand, clenching something in it.

Before Bucky knew what was happening, the thing in the agent’s hand flashed and Bucky could suddenly feel his left metal hand twitching and growing numb to the point Bucky had no control over it.

It suddenly felt as if it weighed 100 pounds, and it fell to his side. Bucky looked at it shocked and tried to fight Michael with just one hand, but suddenly, the other three behind him came to life and jumped at him, bringing Bucky down with them.

He groaned and tried to fight them, but each of them grabbed one of his own limbs, probably knowing that his metal arm had quite some time before it came back to him. While the three men were kneeling on Bucky body, Hannah took his head into her hands to keep him in place and set on his chest.

“It’s a special little thing, isn’t it? One of the scientists we work for made this specifically for you, you should be honoured, baby!” She was now mocking him, he was sure of that. She didn’t let him even form a sentence, as she went on. “It destabilised the electric board in your arm and made it completely unworkable. Isn’t it great? You’re suddenly a very normal guy.”

Bucky scoffed, and despite the guy sitting on his right arm, he shook him off and punched Hannah square into her jaw. It took her off balance for a little bit, but shook the pain away, hissing at the guy holding Bucky to fucking do his job.

Bucky didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but he started to feel really uneasy. They obviously came prepared, totally surpassing his expectations of the battle (he really didn’t think he’d be laying on his back with four people on top of him).

“You’re making me work for my money, for real, Bucky. When I got you as my mission, I thought it’d be walk in a park, considering my looks and charm, but you’re a tough cookie.” Bucky rolled his eyes at her remark with beauty and charm, knowing as much as she did that she obviously dint have any of it when she had to lie her ass off in front of him for him to open at least a little to her.

She saw what he did and smacked him hard across his face. “This is no time to be funny, asshole. I was so fucking happy when you finally started spending a little more time with me because I lied to you about that slut.” Bucky’s whole body convulsed, fighting against her words. He didn’t want her to even think about you.

“Don’t you dare talk about her like that.” He hissed at her.

She just smirked and made a long awww sound. “You’ve actually fallen for her, haven’t you? That’s so sweet, disgusting and sad, but sweet, sure. I thought I’d be done with you before you realised what was happening, but your little bitch just has to be everywhere, doesn’t she? I really thought I lost the chance to get you on our side, but, fortunately, I got one more chance. So, here we are. I hope you’re ready.” She smiled and fished for something in her back pocket.

—-

You were ecstatic. You knew Bucky was coming back in a few hours, and just the image of him there with you made your heart grow a little warmer. You didn’t even need to do anything with him (not that you didn’t want to and that it wasn’t one of the main things you’ve been thinking about while he was fighting the evil), but you would do with him just laying next to you. You missed the warmth his body emitted, especially when he was asleep. He was like your own personal furnace, and the nights without him were cold and lonely.

Though you knew you should be getting used to it, if your relationship should grow, because, after all, he was a soldier and there were still wars, he needed to be a part of. And he’d be gone for more than few days at a time, and just the image made your heart clench involuntarily.

While Bucky was gone, you tried to get as much work done as you could, knowing that when he came back, and if he came in the same mood he was leaving, you would want a few free days that the two of you could spend together.

When you asked Tony if it was ok, you expected some kind of fight, or at least a lot of muttering and him just being a child in general. But when you raised the question, Tony just nodded understandingly and told you that he understood and that you were a part of the team and didn’t need to ask for free days. You were glad that you didn’t need to fight him, and even happier he saw you as part of them. Not that you could fight, or anything like that, but it was nice to be seen and appreciated.

It was only two hours until you could hold Bucky again, and you thought about what to wear to make a pleasant surprise for him. You took a long bath, scented candles all around the bathtub, relaxing you even more thoroughly. You took your time putting on some make-up to look at least presentable, and also put on your newest lingerie, knowing Bucky would appreciate them once things started to be a little more heated up. Just the image made a shiver run down your spine. You couldn’t wait.

—-

Bucky’s eyes almost fell from their sockets the second he realised what Hannah, or whoever was her boss, planned for him. He was rolling on the ground, trying to shake those people off of him, or at least causing enough fuzz that he wouldn’t hear the damn words. But it was to no avail. Hannah laid the paper with the ten words on top of his chest and continued to hold his head. She smirked at him, the devil peaking from behind her irises.

(A/N: I looked up the translated version of those words because I don’t know a word in Russian and wouldn’t want to screw it up, imagine them in Russian, or don’t... I don’t know)

Longing

Bucky trashed harder, trying to compose himself and to survive this hell she was putting him through.

Rusted

Furnace

Bucky was screaming now, for his ears to hear anything else than those damn words. He almost forgot what it felt like when his own consciousness was slipping away, being replaced by something so cold, menacing. He wanted to run away, to you, at best, and just let you play with his hair and tell him that he’d be ok, just like you did when he had the nightmare. But fate had obviously different plans.

Daybreak

Seventeen

Benign

The Winter Soldier was now licking into his brain, the robot mode almost on. He tried to fight it as much as he could, if for nothing else, then at least for you. Because he was very much aware, he wouldn’t know you, and if you saw him like that, you’d never want him close to you. He’d lose in an instant, and Bucky was sure he couldn’t live without you.

Nine

He saw your face in front of him, smiling up at him, looking at him with the adoration in your eyes that was there lately. He smiled, absent-mindedly, remembering how your skin felt under his fingertips, how your laugh warmed him up inside. He prayed to whoever was listening to stop this, that he’s been through enough and that he doesn’t have it in him to go through all of that again. Knowing that there is something better waiting for him, for the first time in his life.

Homecoming

One

He could feel the Winter Soldier taking over, but not before Bucky gave your image one last goodbye, knowing that it’s probably the last time he ever saw you. He fell in love with you, and he didn’t even have the time to tell you.

Freight Car

With the last word being said, Bucky’s body went rigid and stopped resisting. Hannah smirked and looked at the person beneath her. The dead was done, and she couldn’t wait for what was to come.

/ Next Chapter >

After All:

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If you’d like to be tagged comment/message/send an ask. If you like the story, please reblog :) any comments are appreciated, even the critical ones. Always a space to get better, so let me know what you guys think.

#bucky barnes #bucky #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky barnes #the winter soldier #the winter soldier fanfiction #soldier mode #the white wolf #avengers #avengers fanfiction #marvel #mcu #mcu fanfiction #multiple chapters #after all #angst #cliffhanger #tears

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starkerkeyz · 4 years

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Keyz Personal Life/Health TMI

I called out of work because of my stomach and I’m very frustrated and can’t stop thinking About Things. So, I’m going to write out the whole sordid affair and maybe it’ll be cathartic?

I’m going to add a cut but mobile users won’t be able to see it so just be aware this will cover from 2017-present and might be long.

Warnings: involves traumatic health issues, divorce, depression, food related health issues, and just generally goes way too personal about me.

..........Divider for mobile users...........

To start off, I was married from 23-26 to the person I’d been monogamous with since I was 20. We met when I was 19 and they were 20 and got together within a few months.

In 2017 I (25) started throwing up. A lot. And it didn’t get better. I grew up healthy, no disabilities or chronic issues, hell I barely ever got sick, so this was abnormal. And a little weird. (And a little scary because my uncle died of cancer when I was 18, so I was thinking about that in the back of my head).

But I was 25 and nothing bad happens to young people.

So I put it off, didn’t go, drank lots of water, and generally lived in denial for weeks. It got so bad I started sleeping on the couch, because sleeping on my back or side caused acid re-flux. I started throwing up more and more each day. 5-6 times a day. Undigested food, from deep within my guts. I got so familiar with the pain of my my internal organs contracting to push the food up, I could almost track where it was in my intestines. It felt like everything below my belly button was a tube of toothpaste being squeezed up towards my throat. The back of my throat always burned.

I got so weak and tired from not being able to eat that I couldn’t handle my job, and quit over the phone, crying.

I got weaker.

Without a purpose and with only the pain I’d sit up in my corner of the couch and watch the wall. For hours. Sometimes I thought I would die there. Sometimes I thought I’d die in the bathroom, head hanging over the toilet. Sometimes I laughed at the idea of being strong enough to make it to the bathroom to die.

When I finally did go to a Dr, they said I was overweight and my stomach was being pushed on by the fat. They gave me GERD pills.

At this point, I was eating only a handful of baby carrots a day to stay hydrated and get *something* in me. Mostly got my nutrients from drinks.

The pills didn’t work.

I got weaker.

I can’t *not* try, though. I can’t actually stop and lay down and die. I will die fighting. And I thought I would.

So I researched my symptoms on my own, narrowed it down to a severe intestinal blockage, and put myself on a liquid diet of bone broth and Gatorade for a week.

I don’t remember that week.

Then came the enema, which made me cry. I was so tired. There was nothing in me to expel. Until, at 3am after I’d given up, a sharp, searing pain woke me up and I went to the bathroom for yet another painful round. Something came out! but I was so tired and out of it I didn’t look closely; looking back, I think it was whatever had been plugging me up.

All through this, my spouse had been trying to be encouraging and supportive. A sickness like this is difficult for both parties. I’m also a fighter, and I don’t mean that I like to hit people, but I mean, my default setting when you get down to my bones of ‘fight or flight?’ I will ALWAYS pick fight.

So when a fighter gets weak, they get nasty. I’m ashamed. I was so mean. I lashed out verbally so much. I was in so much pain and fear and depression that I couldn’t see them helping me (or recognize where they truly failed me vs where my panicked brain thought they had) or how stressed they were getting, watching me die on the couch in my corner.

We fought. About everything a couple can fight about. We weren’t fighting about the issue, we were fighting because I needed a caregiver with backbone and they were too submissive to stand up to me. (We were not D/s just fyi but I definitely was the decision maker. They broke down under the pressure of running the household and taking care of an emotionally unstable depressed wife)

It culminated in a fight so bad I slammed a plate down on the counter and broke it. I didn’t mean to break the plate, but there it was, broken. And there my palms were, bleeding. And there I was, crying over the sink, telling my spouse I wasn’t getting better and that I was scared.

They talked me down from seeing a therapist or dr. No money for it. Washed the blood off. They’d help me. They loved me. They’d be there for me.

They kicked me out after a bad fight a month later, and texted me on my birthday asking for a divorce while I was out with my mom.

So I moved in with my mom because what else do you do when you’re depressed, can barely eat (at this point I was back on solids though! recovery started) and have no job and no home?

I became so depressed my mom made lists for me that included ‘read a chapter of the book’ or ‘take a shower’ just so I’d do more than just sit on the corner of HER couch and wait to die.

She made me see a dr, get on anti depressants, and talk about therapy options (better to wait until you’re employed for insurance). She came with me to the appointments. Before we went in, she’d ask me to recite what we needed to go over so I knew and she could remind me.

And ever since then, I’ve been working on recovery.

Got a job 3-4 weeks after moving in and being on the anti-depressants!

Then moved out of my mom’s in October 2018!

Found Starker fandom and my og bestie, Cagey, around March or April of 2019? (Dates may be off)

Good times! 🥰 Good people! 🥰 Feeling better about myself and life in general! 🥰🥰🥰

But I still occasionally get these ‘flare ups’. Where my stomach gets hot, I’ll break out into a sweat, my right side hurts, and I throw up. It’s not the same throwing up as before though; it isn’t the deep, uncomfortable toothpaste tube squeezing, but like the muscles ABOVE my belly button lock up and force bile up? And of course if I’ve recently eaten, food comes up too.

I’ve had bloodwork done, I’ve had an ultrasound for gallstones, and now spoken to a GI specialist. He’s thinking pinched nerve somehow, but wants a cat scan to make sure. (I have like 3-4 drs to call to set this stuff up ugh)

So I’m not worried that this sickness is That Sickness. But I’m still so upset because even though 2017 was so far away and i’m so much better now (I’m writing! I’m eating! I’m living!) every time I have a flare up, there’s this emotional gauntlet of ALL OF THE ABOVE running in the background upsetting me.

But, writing it all down like this did help. I realize how far I’ve come in just 3 years and I’m so glad. Recovery is long, and hard, and messy, no matter what you’re recovering from and I hope everyone out there living through their version of it has someone to help them like I did.

Stay safe out there everyone. I love you💕

#keyz personal #TMI #TW depression #TW divorce #TW health issues #personal post #cathartic post #I wrote this all in one go so I hope its coherent #Also might have cried a little #so emotional #its good to get it out #and sorted #moving on #recovery

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stylesmyth · 5 years

Photo

FLOURISHED SUN

I stop by my dad’s office, knocking twice and waiting for his cue to enter. He’s bent over the wide desk, still clothed in his pear green, pinstripe pyjamas from the night before. He looks ready to pass out in his chair—I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept very little in the recent hours.

Walking in until I stop beside his chair, I crouch so he’ll look up at me. “Brandon is going to drive me to school in a few moments. I wanted to wish you a good day, but now I’m debating sending you to bed and calling the Queen to explain your absence.”

He doesn’t laugh, which is so unlike him that I realise the last few days have truly worn him down.

“I have requested two other members of security assist you today,” he informs me, sounding too casual for the implication of the words.

“Two more?” I stand from my position. “What, are they supposed to follow me around school now, too?”

Dad sighs, massaging his fingers against his forehead. “If they must, Delaney. Please do not argue with me on this. Their job is to keep you, the Prime Minister’s daughter, safe. From people and sickness alike.”

I want to refute his idea. I want to sigh and groan and give him my biggest doe eyes, in hopes that he’ll change his mind. I want to remind him that I’ve never been in danger at my school, from students or faculty. I’d wear a damn surgical mask if it meant I wouldn’t be watched for the next nine hours.

Then I remember someone’s dead. A family is waking up without their loved one in the world for the first time. And I want to kick myself in the arse for being so careless as to forget that my dad had already lost his wife in order to save me during birth. The least I can do is let him try to keep me safe without a complaint.

I’m nearly out of the office, dreading the day that waits for me, when my father speaks again. “Delaney, I’d also rather you not mention anything about shutting down the schools. To anyone.” To Ernie is what I’m sure he wants to say. “It’s a miracle I’m even allowing you to finish the week there, but we can’t arouse suspicious before an announcement is made.”

“Is that all?” I ask, hand on the doorknob.

He mulls over his thoughts. “Please wash your hands diligently…” he pauses and then tacks on, “and no kissing.”

I refrain from rolling my eyes. “See you later, Dad.”

“I love you!”

The door is nearly shut when I shout the words back.

***

Mrs. Garino’s class is even smaller today. Only seven students are in their desks, Ernie and myself included. My three security guards sit in the very back, bring attention not only to themselves, but to me, just because of their mere presence. For years, I’ve attended Westminster alone, to fit in more with the student body. It would be harder to be seen as a regular student if there’s someone far larger than a teen, dressed in an all-black suit following me around all day. The female guard even has to trail behind me in the toilet. I’ve never felt so awkward in my life.

I warned Ernie over text that I wouldn’t be alone today. I don’t think he realised to what extent I was being watched until I found him in the courtyard, flanked on three sides. It put a strain on our conversation, having the guards within hearing range, even though they’re under oath not to pry into personal matters.

There’s no chance I can tell him about the schools being shut down this weekend with government employed guards around either. Despite my father’s wishes, I want Ernie to at least be prepared for the news. It’ll be public knowledge soon, telling one person won’t hurt anything. I decide as we were walking down the hall to class that I’ll tell him. I just have to find a way to do so without three pairs of all hearing ears.

Mrs. Garino walks into class a few minutes late. The florescent lights that drone overhead can’t hide the dark bags under her eyes that she obviously tried to conceal this morning. “Good morning, students,” she says, attempting to sound like her normal self—upbeat and cheerful—but instead it comes out strained, like something’s caught in her throat.

Oh, God, she’s sick, too.

She instructs the few of us there are to open our books and she’ll begin the lesson, but I raise my hand. “Are there no announcements today?”

“Not today, Miss Burrell. All teachers have been told to proceed with class without them.”

With that, she dives into the lesson, coughing in the middle of her sentences. Three others, Ernie included, cough with her.

***

“Today’s been...weird.”

I hum at Ernie’s comment, feeling the ball of worry in my gut. “Weird is an understatement.”

We trail behind my guards, through the courtyard and to the parking lot where my car and Ernie’s bike wait. By the time school let out, a guard informed me that it was lightly raining outside and presented me with a black umbrella. He also handed another to Ernie, despite my offer to share so the other guards can have some protection from the rain.

All he replied was, “It’s your father’s orders to have as little contact with others as possible.”

The umbrellas create distance between Ernie and I as we walk. A distance that, after a day of being unable to talk due to classes or the stares of security and students alike, I want to crush. It unsettles me. The last twenty-four hours have started to weigh on my mind—from my father’s unwillingness to discuss his concern to learning someone has died from some seasonal virus, and I can’t even find comfort in my boyfriend. I’m not allowed to.

I wait for Ernie to stop his fit of coughs to ask, “So, how’s Ty doing?”

“Better, actually,” he says, forcing a tight-lipped smile.

But for the first time today, my stomach doesn’t twist like it would when I walked into a near empty classroom or unoccupied lunch tables. That’s good, I tell myself. That’s actually great. If his brother can fight it, Ernie certainly can. The death was an outlier; an unfortunate, worst case scenario. Everything will be normal in a week.

Ernie continues, “Yeah, he took some medicine last night and said he felt well enough to go to school today, but Mum wants to make sure he’s completely over it before Monday to send him back. The bugger was quite excited to stay home and draw with his new crayons.”

My chest deflates. This is the chance to tell him of my father’s plan, before I’m swept into the car and locked behind gates. My stomach is full of anxiety, weighted by an anchor that drags it further into a bottomless pit. Thankfully, Ernie notices how I’m chewing my lips with furiosity when we stop outside of the car.

“What is it, Dee?” he asks, coughing into his wrist, and then his voice lowers as the guards enter the car. “Is there something going on? Is it about the security you had today?”

I’m aware that the window on the left side, closest to us, rolls down, but I can’t tell if the guard is looking at us through the side mirror due to his glasses. Regardless, I force myself to rip the plaster off and quietly share what I know.

“My dad told me something last night,” I begin, turning my body slightly away from the ears that are listening in, in hopes that my words will be muffled enough. “This evening, he’s going to announce to the country that all schools will be shut down.”

His eyes expand. “What?! What’d you mean he’s shutting them down? For how long?”

“He didn’t say, but he thinks it’s best to close everything because of all the students already sick and”—and someone’s dead— “...and to prevent anyone from contracting anything.”

Ernie takes a moment to process this.

The guard calls me. “Miss Burrell, we should be leaving.”

I snap. “Three more minutes won’t kill you. You work for my family.”

From the driver seat, I hear Brandon laugh. As he’s been my driver for many years, he’s gotten to know the many sides of me, including the one full of smart remarks and near empty threats.

Ernie finally says, “I feel like I should be happy that school is basically cancelled for a few weeks, but under these circumstances, it’s a bit...sad. I guess it is for the best of the population, though.”

As he’s sent into another round of coughing, I can see why my father is quite fond of Ernie—though, he’d never admit it as he’s meant to be the big, bad Father, locking his little girl into a tower for a decade. They’re rather similar. Always looking for the best for the majority instead of selfish gains. They are both clever, and, at times, witty. And the biggest bonding point between them is their deep care for me.

“When can I see you again?” Ernie asks.

Throughout the day, I’ve wondered this same thing, and see as there’s no certainty of when school will reopen, I don’t hesitate to respond, “Tonight. I’ll text you with details.”

He opens my door with a soft smile, and after collapsing my umbrella, I step inside. He bids me a short farewell and closes the door. I watch through the window as he stands on the pavement, looking at us drive away. He’s also shut the umbrella given to him. He won’t be able to use it as he bikes home, anyways. It was idiotic for a guard to give it to him in the first place; it’s just dead weight now.

The same guard I snapped at earlier speaks up again. “You should not have disclosed confidential information to Mr. Winland, Miss Burrell.”

I do not give him the satisfaction of a reply.

“Your father will have to be informed of this.”

“Go ahead,” I mutter. “It’s too late, anyways.”

***

The usual ten-minute drive home, mainly due to tourist and local traffic, ended up being more like six minutes. Even with the radio playing, everything was oddly quiet. The city didn’t have the same flow to it as every other day. Parliament Street, the home of many tourist attractions in London—the Abbey, the Palace of Westminster, even Big Ben—were all lacking their usual madness. It’s frightening to see, the places I grew up around, so full of movement and life, suddenly so stagnant. Usually the ever-present overcast that encapsulates London would never feel so depressing.

As we arrived on Downing Street, I noticed one less police officer at the gate.

No reporters stood anxiously behind their barricade.

Inside, there was no smell of Harriet’s baking lingering from the kitchen.

Even now, as I slip on my shoes, texting Ernie where to meet me in twenty minutes, there’s no sound of the maid’s heels scurrying by my door every so often. Dad also hasn’t arrived home yet, and it’s nearing six in the evening. In my two years of living here, the house has never, ever, been so quiet.

So, understandably, I’m quite startled when I open my bedroom door and find Brandon lounging in an ornate chair across the hall.

“Shite!” I breathlessly exclaim, pressing a hand against the doorframe to steady myself. My phone vibrates in my back pocket, reminding me that I have to leave as soon as humanly possible in order to hail a cab. Meaning, I have to play everything as normal in front of Brandon to make sure he’s not suspicious. “You scared the piss out of me, I swear! What are you even doing here? Aren’t you meant to be off duty?”

He evades my questions, eyeing my trainers. “And where are you off to?”

“Just to the kitchen for dinner. I assume my father isn’t back yet?”

“No, he is not,” he says, standing from his chair. “Which is why I’m here. The majority of the staff here are sick or in contact with those who are sick, and have been ordered to stay home until further notice. Harriet is sick, so there will not be any dinner tonight. I’m instructed to provide you with food for the night, since I’m not sick.”

Just as I think of how this ruins my plan to meet with Ernie, I think of how having Brandon can help me. I wouldn’t need to sneak out or find a cab. I have someone who can take me outside of the gates without questions.

“That...sounds perfect, actually. I’ve been craving something greasy for a change.” I begin to walk, and Brandon is soon following. “Where shall we go?”

“Uh,” he pauses. “I was thinking more so that I would go out and get the food to bring back to you.”

No, no, no, that would ruin my plan!

I turn on my heel to face him. “C’mon, Brandon,” I pout. “It’s been so long since I’ve eaten out somewhere. Plus, if you’re there, you’ll be able to keep me safe, right?”

The safety card plays to my advantage as I see his hesitance crack.

He finally sighs, asking, “Where to, Miss Burrell?”

With a grin, I link my arm through his. “I was thinking Ed’s.”

***

Ed’s Easy Diner, on the outskirts of Soho and a few minutes down the road from my home, is fairly busy for a little American burger joint in a typically congested area of London. It’s easy to see why, though, as many restaurants lining the road have their lights turned off. However, it’s a relief to see one place I’m fond of still standing strong.

The diner is where Ernie and I had our second date—the first being at my house so Dad could meet the boy I started taking an interest in. On the occasional weekend, Ernie would take me back to Ed’s for a relaxed dinner. A retro jukebox plays American music from the olden days, and all the booths and chairs and stools are clothed in bright colours and a material that makes your skin stick to it. The food is, by far, the best aspect of the diner, though. A little taste of vibrant, greasy America in dreary London.

I lead Brandon inside, and we’re greeted by a lacklustre waitress who asks if we want a booth or table. But I’ve already found Ernie in a booth to our left, staring down at his phone.

“Actually, I think Brandon, here, will take the counter. I have someone waiting.”

I can feel Brandon tense as he realises what I’ve done.

“This was not a part of the plan, Delaney. He shouldn’t be here,” he seethes.

“But you’re here,” I emphasise. “You can still keep me safe, okay?”

I know Brandon has more he wants to say, but I’m already walking toward Ernie. He looks up from his device, smiling with his crooked teeth. Two menus are already on the table, along with two fizzy drinks and an appetizer of nachos.

Sitting down under Ernie’s light, expectant eyes, I immediately reach for my drink. As the liquid passes my lips, I can almost moan from the taste.

“Good?” he asks, cocking his eyebrows as I polish nearly a fourth of the drink in seconds.

I hum. “I’ve not had Pepsi in so long. I wish my dad would allow it in the house instead of having a no sugary drinks policy in the kitchen.”

“He’s smart enough to know that you’ll sneak down in the middle of the night for a glass and then not be able to sleep for hours,” he chuckles, biting into a nacho. Another thing he had in common with my dad: they both know me too well.

“If I only do it on the weekends, though, it wouldn’t be a problem!”

“I cannot fault you there, but I think we both know you wouldn’t keep it to just the weekends, now would you, Miss Francie Pants?” he teases, wagging a finger in my direction.

We laugh, and then Ernie coughs.

The waitress comes to take our orders—I ask for the Halloumi and Roasted Pepper Burger with fries whilst Ernie decides to go for the Big America Combo, which consist of a chicken breast, half rack of ribs, corn on the cob, onion rings, and waffle fries. It’s amazing how the boy eats so much but gains nothing. Maybe when school restarts, I’ll join a gym class.

“Hey, have you seen what a lot of people are talking about online?” Ernie questions, pulling out his phone again.

“Considering I don’t have any social media apps, no, I haven’t.”

He knows this, and loves any moment he can tease me about it, proven with the wicked glance and smirk he throws at me over the top of his phone. As the Prime Minister’s daughter, I am not allowed to have public online accounts, per safety reasons. The head of security did say I was allowed private accounts for my closet family and friends, but as my father was elected Prime Minister just as I was entering sixth form at Westminster, I saw no need for them. The only family I’m close with is my dad, and I have no friends at school, only acquaintances, and, of course, Ernie. Brandon can be considered a friend, though I doubt he’d agree with the statement right now.

“Well, there’s been a lot of conspiracy theories about where such a widespread virus could’ve come from,” he says. “They range from things like aliens trying to wipe out the human race—”

“Doubt it.”

“—to the governments trying to make us all more complacent—”

“More believable, though still unlikely.”

“—to some infection escaping a lab without anyone noticing.”

“And that’s just highly fictitious. This is why you don’t listen to people on the internet,” I say in a motherly tone.

He coughs into his jumper and shrugs. “I’m not saying I believe it, Delaney. It’s just interesting to hear different viewpoints on it. What do you think it is, anyways?”

It’s my turn to shrug. “I don’t know. The next plague?”

“Ha-ha,” he sarcastically laughs at my poor joke. “With technology nowadays, it’d be impossible for the world, let alone a country or two, to be wiped out by a plague.”

I think of the person dead. The outlier. With any sickness, the potential for death is always around. Each year, some people die from a simple flu, but that doesn’t stop the world when the colder seasons come around. Maybe the person had a weaker immune system, or some pre-existing condition. I start to wonder if my dad is just overreacting, but Ernie pulls my attention back to him before I can seriously consider it.

We continue with our conversation until the waitress delivers our food. With our mouths occupied, we can’t speak, but that doesn’t stop me from laughing at his absurd meal, or him from coughing every few minutes. We haven’t been on a proper date in about a month, and it feels like any other night. It’s easy to fall into a familiar pace, like nothing is wrong.

And, for a while, I can convince myself that there isn’t a single thing wrong, until I feel a tap on my shoulder.

Brandon stands beside the table, worry in every aspect of his face. “Delaney, a news station has said your father is making an announcement in a moment.”

“About the schools?” Ernie asks.

I’m only able to nod before one of the waitresses behind the counter turns up the volume on a telly extending from the wall. The video cuts from a news host to my father walking to the podium in front of parliament. Someone turns off the music playing from the jukebox, and people hush their conversations in order to hear what the Prime Minister has to say.

“Good evening, citizens of England. As you may be aware, a recent outbreak of disease has been reported in many countries now. Yesterday, it was proclaimed the largest widespread virus we know to date. There has also been almost two dozen reported cases of death by this virus, and I regret to inform you one of those cases has taken place in England.”

There are audible gasps from patrons in the diner, my own among them. Twenty-four deaths? My father certainly forgot to mention that last night, and I feel nauseated from my sudden light-headedness. Ernie reaches across the table to grasp my hand. It comforts me, but only slightly.

“The Maspenock Virus, as called by America, is found to be highly contagious—”

Ernie attempts to take his hand away from mine, but I grip tighter to it, aware of the pair of eyes watching us by the man meant to keep me safe.

“—but victims are not aware they have contracted it until days later, and by then, they could’ve passed it on to others. Many scientists around the world have made it their top priority to create medicine that will combat this virus, as others start looking for its origin. Most notably, the University of Massachusetts Medical School in America will be sending approved medicine around the world over the weekend, and by Monday morning, hospitals, doctor offices, clinics, and pharmacies will be ordered to start giving out shots or oral medication.”

For the first time since my father started to speak, the room felt significantly lighter and more hopeful. Even Ernie squeezes my hand as a show of assurance.

“Until then,” my father continues, “with agreement from the governments of Scotland, Wales, as well as Northern and Southern Ireland, I am ordering that all schools in the United Kingdom be shut down until the virus is under control and students can be there safely.”

A stunned silence falls over the diner. Even the reporters inside the Palace of Parliament are quiet as they take in what has just been enforced.

“Also, being implemented immediately by all local law enforcement in England and Wales is a curfew of eight o’clock in the evening until eight in the morning.”

And then there’s uproar.

#flourished sun #fs #fsp2 #delaney #ernie #fic #fiction #original fic #original fiction #original writing #apocalypse

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wellesleyunderground · 5 years

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WU Reviews: Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos Scandal

When brainstorming ideas for the next WU Review, we discovered that Tiffany Chan ‘15 had read Bad Blood, a book chronicling the rise and fall of Theranos; Cleo Hereford ‘09 had gotten the whole story via The Dropout podcast; and Shloka Ananthanarayanan ‘08 had watched the events unfold via the HBO documentary, The Inventor. Therefore, we three editors decided to combine forces to give you one mega-review about this fascinating story. Settle in!

Bad Blood reviewed by Tiffany Chan ‘15 (@omgitstiffyc)

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup is a book written by John Carreyrou detailing the meteoric rise and fall of the blood diagnostics company Theranos. While many of us came to know this story relatively late in the game, John Carreyou was the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who originally broke the story of Theranos in 2015. The format of the book allows for the stories and characters involved in the downfall of Theranos to be developed richly.

The book takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster ride. The beginning is a slow build, as Elizabeth starts the company. Over several years, the company grows steadily, and towards its late phase, it is a full sprint towards chaos. I was struck by how many people tried to stop Elizabeth Holmes and failed. Part of what makes this story enthralling is the number of people who simultaneously saw through the mirage and those who were sucked in. She managed to survive a for-cause audit by the FDA and almost being ousted as CEO by her board of directors. Then Vice President Joe Biden took a tour of her lab and was impressed by her work. Frankly, I started to wonder if she was some sort of Superwoman, immune to the rules us mere mortals live by.

While other accounts may focus on Elizabeth’s charisma, Bad Blood focuses on the people who were hurt by her actions. Each excited and talented employee was initially taken in by the promise of Theranos and all ultimately left disgraced and disappointed. The book underscored Holmes’ secretive, ruthless, and litigious nature where Theranos’ intellectual property was concerned. For me, this book also most clearly demonstrates Holmes’ failings as a leader. She made so many people collateral damage in the pursuit of personal glory. This point was most poignant in the case of Ian Gibbons, a long-time Theranos employee who was called to testify in court and tragically took his own life, balking under the pressure he was facing from the company to not say anything. Additionally, the narrator enters as a player in the third act and I found this to be really effective because we the readers empathize with him and understand his frustrations as he tries to tell this story while facing Theranos’ intimidation tactics. By building this cast of smart and relatable people, Carreyrou builds a sense of horror and outrage on multiple levels.

Simply put, this book was a trip for me to read because of all the ways it intersects with various aspects of my life. As someone who spent time working in the pharmaceutical industry, it was incredibly discouraging to hear about all the ways Theranos circumvented the checks and balances designed to keep people safe. While we might not be happy about all the regulatory hoops we need to jump through sometimes, they exist to ensure that our drugs and devices have been tested rigorously and I think people need to know that a majority of people in the industry take those standards incredibly seriously. As a Longwood Medical Campus student at the time, I can easily see how this young, female Silicon Valley CEO was lauded as THE lecturer of the year, the next big innovator. As a bench scientist, it was obvious to me from the beginning that Theranos’ pitch was pure fantasy but I had my doubts about whether I would have had the wherewithal to realize it without the gift of hindsight.

I liked the medium and content of Bad Blood because it underscores how much of Theranos was visual facade. Elizabeth LOOKED (and sounded, ha) like the next Steve Jobs. The Edison LOOKED beautiful when really it was just a sleek box with a robotic pipette inside. This story has been endlessly sensationalized in popular media but Bad Blood grounds us in what was the ludicrous and sometimes frightening reality for Theranos employees. I think this format allows for us to truly focus on the actions of the company and keep that in mind without getting sucked in by the ersatz company.

The Dropout reviewed by Cleo Hereford ‘09 (@cleoc87)

The Dropout is a 6-part podcast produced by ABC News and narrated by chief business, technology and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis about the emergence and downfall of Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes. Each episode is between 37 and 45 minutes, giving the listener a brief but comprehensive overview of Holmes, the founding of her company, and Theranos’ eventual demise.

The podcast does more than simply narrate the series of events; it also includes interviews with a number of the key figures including Stanford Medical School Professor Dr. Phyllis Gardner (who heard early plans for The Edison technology and questioned its viability), whistleblowers Erika Cheung and Tyler Schultz, and Bad Blood author John Carreyrou. The most striking interview, however, comes from the widow of Ian Gibbons, a biochemist who worked as Theranos’ chief scientist before taking his life in 2013 in the context of what is described as a toxic work environment and a pending patent lawsuit.

What I walked away with after listening to The Dropout were the parts of the story perhaps touched upon but not fully highlighted in the hype surrounding the scandal: just how many lives were negatively impacted through the scheme either by Theranos’ work environment, the technology’s misdiagnoses, family disagreements or in Gibbons’ widow’s case, death, among the many issues that existed outside of or leading up to the truth behind Theranos being made public. Oftentimes, those affected by a particular person, organization or incident are forgotten in favor of whatever emblematic figure perpetrated the wrongdoing. The strength of The Dropout is that it does center Holmes while also highlighting the stories of and giving a voice to those she hurt. For those with longer commutes, I would fully recommend this highly engaging podcast.

The Inventor reviewed by Shloka Ananthanarayanan ‘08

My first thoughts upon starting this documentary - that lady really talks like that? I know we as a culture are entirely too obsessed with policing women’s looks and voices, but Elizabeth Holmes specifically cultivated her look (a wardrobe solely composed of black turtlenecks, à la her hero Steve Jobs) and apparently employed a fake voice, dropping down to a lower register, perhaps in the hopes that this would imbue her with more authority. Many people in the documentary also comment on her almost reptilian stare, and how she wouldn’t blink for ages. Thus, from the outset, you get a sense that this is a terrifically odd woman. And as the documentary progresses, you watch with spellbound horror as she cons some of America’s most senior business and political leaders, with seemingly no remorse once she gets caught. The woman is undoubtedly a villain, but she is a compelling one.

Directed by Alex Gibney, the film is a fascinating look at Theranos in particular, but Silicon Valley in general, and how entrepreneurs like Elizabeth Holmes can take advantage of certain loopholes and privatization to orchestrate scams of this magnitude. It’s well and good for Silicon Valley to embrace a model of disruption and to “keep breaking things,” but in the case of Theranos, when you are trying to create a revolutionary diagnostic product that human beings depend on for vital medical information, you can’t simply barrel ahead without appropriate testing, rigorous scientific discipline, and a basic understanding of regulatory compliance and ethics. The film features many interviews with employees, who initially started working at Theranos with bright-eyed optimism and visions of changing the face of healthcare, and who ended up disillusioned, terrified that they had harmed the public, and personally fearful of lawsuits and ruination. Through it all, we have Elizabeth Holmes as the Messiah, promising the world that she could diagnose hundreds of diseases by testing a single drop of blood, and lying through her teeth every time she was questioned about the technology behind this miracle.

Indeed, this film is about a cult of personality. At one point in the film, someone defines the word “credit” as deriving from the Latin “credo,” which means, “I believe.” Ultimately, Holmes managed to con many powerful people in America and make them blindly believe in her. She put many patients’ lives at risk as she sold a product that did not work and tried to orchestrate a cover-up that was laughably audacious and destined to come crashing down around her feet. I honestly don’t know how she thought she was going to be able to get away with her scheme, but it’s certainly thrilling to watch the faces of her employees as they detail what was happening in the office and get increasingly agitated as they realize the magnitude of the criminal enterprise they were involved in.

If you don’t have time to read a book or listen to a podcast, The Inventor is a breezy 2-hour thrill ride through this scandal, and while it may not have all the details, it certainly has enough content to make you slightly sick to your stomach about how easily we can all be fooled by bright and shiny things that lack any substance whatsoever.

#wu review #theranos #elizabeth holmes #the dropout #bad blood #the inventor

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mutantmorphingpotions · 5 years

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The life, death and undeath of Kerrigan

In which we take a moment away from space alien shenanigans to discuss the life and death of a big boy.

Again, I hope you enjoy, this one is much longer, and I always like feed back and commentary.

(3,231 words)

Kerrigan wasn't afraid of dying. He lived in Moltara. The land of industrialism and child labor. Anyone with small enough hands could get a job in the factories.....at the high risk of death. The constant threat of reaching in between the gears of the machinery or getting sucked in because the edge of your clothing was poking out of your belt and becoming the embodiment of hamburger helper was always a looming thought. He was never scared of the Machinery. He didn't like the noise, but he wasn't afraid of it. 'You just had to watch others make their mistakes and then you never have to make them yourself. ' Was his life long motto. Better to be the second place with both your hands than first place with your family paying for a tombstone.

He wasn't afraid of the Coal Sickness that made children better deserving cough up the thick black ash, laid out on their beds in hospitals. He wasn't afraid of the phosphorous chemical burns, he wasn't afraid of the supervisors with their barking voices and cruel beating sticks. He was worried about going hungry-anxious about his weak mother going without a meal-but never feared it truly

Kerrigan wasn't afraid of the mobs who employed him. First hired him as a driver to move their goods around-illegal things that shouldn't be in a city as hot as it was. The City forbade a lot of things but the Mob didn't care and the citizens didn't care. He didn't care either. He never felt an ounce of fear interacting with these men and women in their fine outfits and hidden honeyed words that sounded like one thing but meant another. He was a sucker for those sweet words. They led him to a secret underground world and community, cold and cool compared the rest of this damned hot lava pit that they all had to call him. It was a world of deviancy, debauchery, cheap drinks and violence for sport. He liked that world. It was removed from the Lava Pits and the Craters and the Molten City itself.

He didn't fear hurting others and that's what the bosses liked about him. He didn't feel bad about making idiots who tried to muscle their way in on his boss's turf swallow every tooth they had in their skulls. He vaguely enjoyed it, using his astounding muscle and strength- built up thru childhood and adolescence working in those mines and machinery-to heft drunks and fools into the air and beat them within inches of their life to remind them of their place. Kerrigan was glad to be the brute. He was good at it and it gave him little risk. Kerrigan was top of the food chain-physically that was. No one was stronger and more violent than he. He made his way up, to a made man, to Capo and gained people under him to command. Sniveling cowards who feared him and would take out anyone he commanded them to. But he still liked working with his hands. He liked the feeling of blood on his knuckles and the rush in his ears.

He liked the way the boss praised him for his can do attitude and turned to him first for wisdom on how to handle interlopers, business and his thoughts in general. He liked the interest the Boss had in what he had to say and what he thought. He later learned that made him the Underboss, the right hand man, the deputy if you will. Not formally yet-the current Underboss was doing 30 in the clink because he slipped up. They needed someone new. Someone who didn't fuck up. Someone who could see a mistake made by someone else and never repeat it.

'He's grooming you to take your place, baby.' The Boss's wife had cooed to him one evening in the bars after drunkenly musing his confusion of this attentions. 'I wouldn't mind having a place with you any time.'

He never took her up on that offer, he had too much respect and love for the boss, this man who treated him so well, like a son.

Kerrigan never feared the police or the jails. It didn't take him long before taking his place on the top of the food chain there and most of the police in the Lava pits were on the Mob's Payroll to look away. Jail stays were never long-mainly for small misdemeanors like being too loud or public drunkenness. He was pretty sure that all the cops on the straight and narrow thought he was just a local over muscled idiot who got a bit too rowdy at times. People didn't get chances to squeal on him and what he did. He made sure they couldn't speak by the time they find them. The hospital was probably grateful for all the patients he sent them every week.

Kerrigan wasn't afraid of dying. He wasn't afraid of the concept of the afterlife despite all the fire and brimstone his deceased father tried to fill him with. He was more concerned with the afterlife stories his mother spoke of-the perilous trip into the underworld and it's dangers. How a sacred spell book was needed-blessed woman, she had already prepared her own and Kerrigan with the money they got after father died-to survive the underworld and to survive it’s perils. To stand before the lords of the underworld with two things separating you from the Field of Reeds-the paradise of the dead-a hideous monster known as Amut- the devourer of hearts and the feather of truth. Should the sins and guilt of actions in life weigh the heart heavier than the feather, Amut would pounce and devour his heart and his soul would to simply unexist. A punishment worse than Hell because there was no Hell. Simply to dissolve into nothingness. He didn't fear that despite all his crime and deviancy.

He didn't fear that for everything he had done, the people he stepped on, he had beaten, scared, robbed, swindled, seduced into his bed, and betrayed. He knew his heart would be heavy upon death and Amut would eat him. He knew he would unexist. And that is why he did not fear death. Kerrigan knew what would happen to him and he readily accepted it. It gave him more motivation to live for the moment, for the now, that life was so insufferably painfully short and that Amut would soon eat him alive and it would be best to simply leave his mark before the wretched beast could.

He didn't fear it when he felt that knife in his back. Repeatedly. Over and over again. He didn't fear it while he laid there bleeding out in an alley, a pitiful ending for his greatness. He didn't fear it as his ears rang and his sight bled into a single color and everything went dark and silent without a single final poetic thought. Kerrigan was never one for poetry or final words.

He didn't die afraid, but he would be lying if he didn't say it had taken him by surprise. - He feared her, the bitch who ripped him from the emptiness of the afterlife in which he wandered, trying to read languages from a book he couldn't read in a land of horror and dread. He should’ve listened to his mother who always criticized him to learn the language of his ancestors rather than submitting to the common tongue.

He feared her the minute she wrapped her swamp green hand around the tie on his neck and jerked him upright in his coffin and demanded that he live.

DEMANDED!

The Gall of this bitch, this wretched woman who disturbed his sleep just as he was finally figuring out the damned spell book! Who did she think she was? Some cloaked bitch who only had a shovel, a shitty book of her own and was half his size was making demands to him, an Underboss, the brute of Moltara, the Beast among the pits! How DARE she!

But she had ordered him and he felt so compelled-such a desire had filled him to drop everything and return to her who held him by his neck garment. And he felt that dry raspy gasp as she commanded him to breath, and the stiffness of his preserved body as she commanded him to walk. And for her to command him to talk-

"You fucking BITCH, who the hell-" Was all he had coughed out thru the dirt before she had snatched him by the tie again and practically dragged her down into eye level. She wore a carnival mask-the kind he had only seen in books, one half made up to look like beautiful stained glass, with smooth golden lips.

"Let's get some shit clear quick, Pony Boy." She had half rasped and snarled. "I'm you're master and You're my Revenant. I'm the one thing standing between you and the muzzle of a shot gun of anti-zombie fanatics." He had stared, mouth half agape as she continued. "When I say 'Jump' you say 'How High, Boss?' When I say 'FETCH' you've already FETCHED. When I say 'Get me some Thai Takeout, you already have my order ready." She had jerked him forward again with another snarl to make sure he had been paying attention and he felt a lump form in his throat.

"You're my bitch until I decide I'm SICK of you and let you return to the hell you've rightfully earned. But until then, let's try to get along and I'll consider keeping you around longer after I've run out of uses for you. I can assure you a rather comfy retirement if I've decided that you've been a good boy." Was all she had snarled to him before he felt an entire sense of submission to her. An impulsive intense desire to just roll over on his back and show her his belly. To have her step on him, this nameless woman of greens and blacks and a carnival mask.

He was a BITCH and he was HERS.

Kerrigan finally found something to be afraid of.

Because when he retaliated before they entered her house, when he had jerked the hand away she had been leading him with and him mindlessly following, when he had spit those words, when he found his fire again-

"WHY SHOULD I EVEN LISTEN TO YOU YOU FUCKING MASKED CUNT?"

-He had been on the ground vomiting up blood, crying and screaming like he never had before while she slid the mask back on. His mind spinning and reeling, unable to comprehend what he had saw, his brain literally blown into shock while he dry heaved things that shouldn't still be in his stomach back up. Kerrigan felt like he was losing his mind, everything HURT and it hurt BAD. Worse than any beating he got. Worse than the time he watched someone get caught in the industrial machines. Worse than those knives that cut into his back.

"Because I am a person worth being listening to. "She had replied once her mask had been fastened back on. -

He was afraid of this new world Beatrix 'Trixie' Ravenhearse had brought him into. This was not the world he knew of heat and bitterness and lava at every corner and where questions could be solved with fists and the sound of machinery and bubbling magma was a second lullaby.

This was place of constant cold, like the steel of an abandoned factory, unfeeling and unalive. Deathly quiet. No birds ever sang and the ones that did had such horrid songs. He had never been in a world away from his home of lava and steel. He had never seen the rivers of water or thick lush grass of the above earth or the starried sky and moon or the things that walked between those trees that never grew leaves or bore fruit. A world where the long dead and forgotten walked as if it were nothing to be among the living. Creatures that lapped up blood and spread their parasitic disease thru bite, beings that changed forms with the waxing and waning of the moon, Daemons and devils that belonged the world of brimstone and fire his father had preached. Mortals who worshiped the earth and the magic in the 'ley lines' which ran most powerful in these deadened woods-despite how barren it is- and worship ancient gods and goddesses or in the case of Beatrix Ravenhearse-ancient entities beyond the comprehension of the mind made of pure knowledge.

Arcane rituals to beings that had no form and took no mortal coil took place in the basement that she dissapeared into every few days. He was permitted to clean up there after she was done. It was just a big empty room with candles piled at every edge of what was a perfectly round room with no edges and no corners. Markings and symbols painted all over the walls, the floor, the ceiling in immaculate detail and design. Kerrigan didn't know what any of these runes meant, or what the thick fluid they were painted in WAS. But his undead body trembled in fear, it knew better than his soul, that these held such deep power, he could feel the room vibrate under his hooves until he scrubbed away every mark with the bucket of bleach and soap water. He feared that room and he feared what she did in there.

A Demanding arrogant bitch she was, she played with powers that made him sick to his stomach to think about-the proof of her early faults at the lack of her face, concealed and covered by one of the numerous masks she ordered him to maintain and polish daily. He could feel himself flinch a bit every time she raised the mask just a bit to move it aside so she could eat her meals. He was too cowardly to ever try and poison her or serve her tainted food. He never felt compelled to. The minute he had the thought-it would be gone as quickly as it had come to him. Every thought against her, any idea of rebellion that popped into his skull would be immediately doused. He feared the fact that escape was impossible. That his freedom only earned by his servitude and loyalty to her.

He feared how nonchalant everyone was, how nobody turned a head or batted an eye at his mummified preserved zombie body. He feared how he could feel EVERYTHING, every ache and constant pain after so long of feeling nothing. He could feel the burns of the stabs in his back, like hot ugly irons, the pains never soothed. He feared waking up in the mornings, the pain resurfacing before he could even open his eyes.

He feared the maiden who lived in the attic. Kerrigan was charged with feeding her meals, leaving her food at the bottom of the second flight of stairs, leading to the attic. He never saw her. He heard her carefully creep down and snatch the tray up, a flurry of petticoats and the faintest scent of lilys and vanilla creeping from her room. He knew from Trixie that her name was Lu and she would be left alone by him and she was not to be disturbed. She was a paying tenant who kept to herself to do her work. Lu never made noise, but sometimes late into the night in sudden fits of insomnia that Kerrigan had, he would hear of the sounds of typewriting. Quiet frantic clicking over and over again and the sound of the carriage sliding back across, soft frantic whispers as the typewriter got stuck and it banging on the table. He feared what she was, a mystery, the unknown, that made her home above him while horrors below him were committed.

He feared the beast that followed around the Younger sibling of Trixie like a savage animal. She dripped of chocolate, but his strange new senses told him there was something under all that slime and chocolatey sweetness was something foul, wretched and horrifying. Flashing him sweet wicked smile and everyone submitted to her. Her name was like a dying animal's cry, Marolou-awwowhwowhwowh or something like that, he never caught it fully, she made Kerrigan nervous. The way Trixie reminded him of his Boss, Marolouw reminded him of the wives who bothered him to get their way. Feeding off attention and money and glamour her submissive Warlock Barnabas provided her. But he feared her power. Because she was truly a wolf in sheep's clothing. He feared that smile and those honeyed words. She was a monster of a different caliber.

He didn't fear the brother as much as the sister. He feared his smile, the things he did, the things he SAID sometimes-perfect echos of his sister's influence, wicked and quick witted with a sharp tongue at times. But he was quieter. More demure. More submissive. If things were ranked in the house hold, It would have gone something along the lines with Trixie and Marolouw at the top, Miss Lu in the attic second place, Barnabas and then Kerrigan himself. But he was much calmer, less eccentric. He didn't have the venom that Trixie had always laced on her tongue, he did the same things his sister did, venturing down into that edge-less room that was the basement. But he kept to himself, his books and his studies. Kerrigan greatly preferred Barnabas. But he feared what he felt. He feared the way the little purple goat stirred emotions in him.

He had one set of feelings for his sister, an unabashed loyalty and arousal to her no shits taken attitude towards everyone everything, arousal and his need to submit to her could be love. Or ancient magic spells to keep him in place, he wasn't sure but he didn't really care. But Barnabas wasn't that. He was cowardly. Fearful of everything around him like he was seeing everything with new eyes. The neglect their mother had apparently given them had made Trixie indifferent to affections of any kinds and Barnabas starved and hungry for it. That very small power given to him by the Warlock. He could so very easily dominate and bully and break Barnabas like the rest did. But his kisses left Kerrigan weak, his sweet breath filling his long dead lungs. To touch him felt like a privilege, ravaging him a blessing. Barnabas was so welcoming to his advances it frightened Kerrigan at first. They never exchanged pledges of love the way many of his previous girlfriends goaded him into doing that were easily and quickly broken within weeks or days even. Their-ahem-'interactions' were frequent enough to be satisfying, but far apart to leave Kerrigan feeling starved and wanting of attention again-only to be fed and satisfied at Barnabas’s choosing. They were gentlemen friends with benefits. And to lose that privilege frightened him.

He could often smell that scent on him-the same smell his sister carried-but being so intimate with her brother, he smelt it stronger on Barnabas. Kerrigan wasn't even sure if they knew they had that smell. The smell of Sulfur and Brimstone and of rose waters and candlewax. The smell the demons that walked the earth had, made of heat and hate. The siblings did not belong to that cast exactly, but a linage once removed by the tainting of mortal blood to the demonic. Dangerous parentage that made other Demonic creatures that walked in false skins and hides in these parts flinch and back down as they walked the streets. As if they were royalty of some kind. Royalty worth being feared and respected. And Kerrigan lived in fear at one day learning what creature decided to descend into the world and make them with a mortal.

Kerrigan lived in a world of fear. An uncertain world. A world that was no longer his. He was was no longer a big fish in a small pond. The world had grown, but he had not. He had stayed the same, but this world moved and changed.

And that scared him most of all.

#Mutant Muttering #Neopets #Neotag #Neopet #Writing #text #Kerrigan #Trixie Ravenhearse #Barnabas Vladstik #Marolouw #Lu #Uni #Ixi #Wocky

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stomachflu · 6 years

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prompt for T /// A /// Z: carey is an emetophile and gets a stomach bug, so she's miserable but sooo turned on. could be solo or carey/killian? OR with any other characters, really.

Could you write a fic where character A is puking while character B is holding her belly and masturbating her ? Thanks

tip jar!

🚫don’t rb/share to non-emeto/sickfic/kink blogs, thanks!🚫

first anon, are we the same person?? because i was literally thinking about this exact concept when you messaged me. hope that you don’t mind that i, uh, took your prompt and ran with it!! (sidenote: i know none of the physiology hcs i put in here are anywhere near canon!)

anyways this fic is very long (nearly 5k) and very nsfw, and has an excessive amount of buildup even for me.

Carey feels it when she first wakes up: this slow, sickly ache in her stomach, her insides churning sluggishly. It’s not bad enough to tell whether she’s truly sick or just suffering from a bit of indigestion, so she rolls over to the empty space on the bed where –

Her girlfriend isn’t there. Right. Killian’s on an important-save-the-world mission, or maybe also the kind where she just has to kill some dudes. It’s unclear, but she’s been gone for the past few days, and Carey misses her like hell, but she’s supposed to be back tonight.

So she just lays there on her back, pulling up her shirt to expose her soft underbelly, where her scales just sort of… trail off, and then stop, leaving an expanse of warm, velvety flesh. Killian loves this, has spent many times kissing her belly or slipping her hands under Carey’s shirt to feel it or sometimes just admiring it, and godsdoes it feel good to be admired by someone like Killian.

She can’t tell, but it feels like her stomach is slightly bloated. Then again, it’s early, artificial grey pre-dawn light trickling in through her window, so she just lazily rubs her belly, trailing two claws gently over the exposed flesh, enjoying the thought of what Killian would do if she was here.

It’s enough to make her wet by the time her alarm goes off, but Carey isn’t sick enough (or turned on enough) to skip training, so she reluctantly scrambles out of bed, pulling her uniform on one piece at a time. Her limbs ache, and getting dressed is actually a slow process for once, like her arms are encased in molasses. Could be that she’s sick, but then again, could be that she just trained too hard yesterday. Which she did, so.

She thinks about when Killian comes home tonight – telling her, my stomach hurt this morning, I almost thought that I was sick, and Killian’s strong arms coming around to encircle her middle and maybe saying, I wish I was there, and, maybe: them making something of it.

Then again, it’s not like her stomach hurts, more like she just feels… weird, and off. And then again,it’s fifteen minutes past her alarm and she’s sitting there thinking about the passionate kinky scenes she could be playing out with her girlfriend, and she is definitely gonna be late for training if she keeps this up.

The cafeteria is oddly empty for this time of morning, but then again, it seems to be built for far more members than are currently employed here, so it’s always a little empty. Carey is actually never in here this morning, but she figures that some food might be a good idea right now (her stomach gurgles obnoxiously, as if to agree), so she grabs something that’ll be easy to digest – a plate of fruit, as it turns out, and takes a seat next to… Taako, actually.

Dude’s sitting alone, which is both weird and par for the course for him. Par for the course, because she knows a loner when she sees one. Weird, because she’s never seen him without his group to back him up, no matter how hard he tries to lose them.

“Hey,” she says, thumping her tray down. “Where’s Magnus? And Merle? Aren’t your buddies coming to breakfast?”

Taako shrugs, cutting off a section of pancakes. “Dunno. Actually I do know, but, like.” He stabs a forkful and shoves it in his mouth before responding. “Magnus is really fucking sick, he’s been puking all night ‘n shit. And I’ve been dealing with that for long enough –” he stabs his fork in the air for emphasis “–so Merle’s looking after him while I get the fuck outta dodge.”

“Oh. Jeez, poor guy. I hope he’s okay.” Carey stabs a piece of fruit with her fork and swallows it down. She’s not as hungry today as she is usually.

“Yeah.” Taako looks tired, but sits up in his seat a little. “Apparently, there’s a flu going around the Bureau? So, like, be careful, I guess.”

“I will. I mean, I will, but Dragonborns can’t get sick, so…” Carey squirms in her seat a little bit. The idea of a flu going around is… enticing, to say the least.

“What, like in an elves-don’t-get-sick-but-actually-we-do kinda deal? Or some other fucked-up bit if physiology that you’ve got going on?”

“The latter. Physically? We don’t, our stomachs are like… We’re meant to keep food down? So Dragonborn can’t actually puke. Like, almost never. All that happens is we just feel kinda gross for a bit.”

Carey has, as a matter of fact, thrown up once in her life, when she took a blow from an enemy’s axe that was so bad she’d collapsed to her knees, retching up bile and blood. She still has that scar, and Killian loves it. Between the two of them, her girlfriend’s only been able to make her gag once, after half an hour of trying with her fingers and any object available. It would be a good skill to have, if she had certain… inclinations.

Other than that, she just gets super fucking nauseous, and she and Killian have plenty of fun with that.

“Jeez. That’s… really weird, actually. Fucked up.” Taako’s actually really quiet after that, playing with his food rather than eating it, and throws away his tray before breakfast ends.

For her part, once she’s alone, Carey realizes that the fruit hasn’t helped her stomach much, which feels like it’s bubbling under her fingers. What if I did get sick, she thinks to herself, and the resulting arousal is almost enough that she sneaks to the bathroom to take care of matters, but she’s saving her libido for when Killian comes home tonight. Sick or not, they can have fun then, so she just goes up for seconds.

Training starts off easy, with some stretches (Carey can’t help but notice how many absent spaces there are in today’s lineup) and then some light boxing, which she’s grateful for, because ever since breakfast, her stomach’s felt weirdly tight, her gym shorts creating an uncomfortable band of pressure around her middle.

Then everybody splits off to do their own style of training – Carey sees Taako pairing off an instructor for spellwork and guesses that Angus must be an unfortunate victim of today’s flu. She’s not sure who she feels more sorry for, Angus or the instructor.

Carey practices some half-hearted flips, but her mind isn’t really on it. She feels dizzy and distracted, and halfway through a particularly tricky maneuver, there’s a sudden sharp pain in her belly. She curls in on herself instinctually, missing her foothold and crashing to the ground.

She lands wrong, knows she’s landed wrong before she has the chance to catch her breath, one arm folded awkwardly under her, the other wrapped around her middle. Carey opens her eyes to a crowd gathered around her and swears quietly, quickly removing the hand that’s on her stomach. She tries to sit up, but the pain racing down her arm from her shoulder tells her that putting weight on it isn’t a good idea.

“Okay, everybody clear out, go back to your routines,” says the instructor, a middle-aged halfling woman. “Carey, are you alright?”

There’s another pain in her middle, more dull this time, and Carey nods. “I’m fine, just… kinda sore from yesterday, I guess? Think I hurt my shoulder, though.”

Stupid, stupid move. She’s usually the best at this, and she can’t afford to be outta commission the way a long-term injury would make her. The instructor just shakes her head and sends her to the infirmary to get ice and come back tomorrow.

She ducks into the bathrooms on the way, stopping at the sinks to splash water on her face and change. The dull cramps in her stomach are coming on and off again, with no discernible rhythm, just a sickly ache. She’d worn a sports bra to training, and her underbelly is showing signs of bloating. To anybody else, it wouldn’t be visible, but Carey knows what to look for.

She stands there for a moment, rubbing her hand up and down the bulge of her stomach before changing and leaning in close to the mirror. Nobody can tell she’s ill, thank goodness – Dragonborn run much, much cooler than humans, and although Carey realizes once she’s back in uniform that she’s been shivering slightly not from being underdressed but from fever, she’s probably still cold to the touch, enough that nobody will notice. A little-known fact is that Dragonborn can blush, and a faint flush is spreading across the scales on her face right now, nearly invisible except to those who specifically look for it.

Carey touches a slightly-shaking hand to her forehead as her stomach does a slow, oily flip. This is probably the sickest she’s ever been, exempting the time she and Killian’d both got food poisoning from a shitty inn in Phandolin (may its residents rest in peace) and had made a night out of it – Killian vomiting while Carey fucked her brains out, nearly ill enough to gag herself.

The infirmary is packed. There’s healers moving every which way, bustling between beds, and the sound of retching seems to come from all directions. A nurse leads her to an empty cot, placing a basin on the bedside table, and Carey shakes her head. “Oh, no, I’m not gonna throw up! I just hurt my shoulder.”

I think. Her stomach isn’t doing too hot, actually, and she’s starting to feel the beginnings of nausea in the pit of her belly. The experience is as hot as it is sickening, and she shifts uncomfortably in the cot, aware of the warmth between her legs. Later, she tells herself.

The nurse heads off to grab some ice, and the figure in the bed next to her draws aside the curtain. It’s Johann, of all people, looking even more pale and sickly than usual.

“Oh…” he says miserably. “I was just wondering… if you’re not sick…. if I could have your basin?”

“Sure thing!” Carey passes it over, briefly entertaining the thought of being sick in a basin with Killian watching. “You’re sick too?”

“Yeah… I’ve been throwing up all morning… and the healers took my basin to clean it… and I’m feeling – urk!” He claps a hand over his mouth, but it’s too late: liquid sprays through the cracks between his fingers, and Carey watches, fascinated, as he retches water and bile into the bowl.

“You okay, dude?” she asks, and he gives her a shaky thumbs-up as a harried-looking healer hands her an icepack and a sling and informs her that the slight sprain should heal in a few days’ time, thanks to her body’s healing properties.

“No clerics?” she asks, and the healer shakes her head.

“They’re all out making rounds. With this bug and all, we’re spread so thin…”

Carey nods in understanding. Her shoulder isn’t anything a hot water bottle and a good massage can’t fix, so she thanks the healer and steps out of the infirmary. Briefly, she considers retiring to her quarters for the day, but it’s nearly lunchtime, and does she –

She does.

Carey is definitely sick and definitely queasy and she is definitely going to pack away an entire plate of spaghetti and meatballs. She thinks about how nauseous she’s gonna feel, how her body isn’t digesting any food right now, how her lunch is just gonna sit in her stomach, churning away, and a pulse of excitement shoots through her.

She has to force herself to eat, though it’s with more gusto this time. Taako doesn’t comment on the sling, just picks at his own meal, so it’s just Carey, forcing herself to swallow down small bites of spaghetti even as her throats keeps trying to close up, until he abruptly pushes back his chair and stands up.

“What are you –” she manages to ask before he vomits all over himself, the table, and his lunch. There’s no warning except for a quiet hiccup the first time, but he retches and brings up a second, equally large wave. Carey can only stare, but Avi grabs him by the shoulders and escorts him away once he finished gagging.

Several employees stop by to clean up the mess on the floor, and Carey’s not prepared for the sudden wave of nausea that washes through her, nor for the arousal that follows. She has to excuse herself quickly, taking off to the bathroom at full speed. Once there, she slams the stall door shut, taking hitching breaths as she rubs her churning belly with one hand.

As a general rule, she’s not into guys, so it’s not Taako or Johann puking exactly that gets her, it’s just – thinking about it being Killian vomiting that much, or maybe what it must have felt like –

Unconsciously, she slips her other hand into her pants, playing with herself as she presses on her lower stomach, enjoying the low gurgles and dull bursts of pain from each push. Despite herself, she manages to get off twice, and as she climaxes a second time, her stomach honest-to-god lurches, and she tastes bile in the back of her throat, and this alone is able to tip her over the edge for round three.

She’d promised to save her libido for Killian, and she has; even after shakily emerging from the bathroom, she’s still well aware of the throbbing between her legs – her nausea is doing a good job of that, especially once she returns to the cafeteria, orders a second plate of meatballs, and tries not to think what the sauce would look like if she vomited it up.

Afternoons are reserved for paperwork, which is good, because Carey is quickly becoming too nauseous to handle more than anything else. It’s a bit exciting – she’s queasy, nauseated, and nobody else knows that she wants to throw up so fucking bad. Her stomach is churning, gurgling so loudly that at one point Avi asks her if she’s feeling okay.

It seems like everybody is ill – even though she’s trying to concentrate, both on her work and on her sick stomach, Carey keeps catching bits and pieces of conversation about who else is down with the flu. Supposedly even the Director is sick, unable to leave her quarters.

At some point after lunch, she starts hiccuping, a process that upsets both her stomach and her shoulder. Hiccups aren’t impossible for someone like her, just rare, but she’s never experienced them as a product of nausea.

The dull cramps are near-constant now and increasing in strength; Carey can’t wait to go home and massage her aching stomach. As is, she slips a hand under her shirt to press on a particularly painful spot and surprised herself when the pressure forces up a small, squeaky burp.

“Wow,” Avi says from two desks down. “I didn’t know that Dragonborn could burp.”

“Me neither!” Carey says. Then: “Actually, I’m not feeling so hot. Mind if I scoot early?” This is part selfish desire on her part, part honest truth: she’s quickly feeling too ill to even stand upright, chills and fever taking her over by turns.

Avi agrees to do the last of her paperwork, and Carey starts the slow trek back to her quarters, both arms wrapped around her sloshing stomach.

The first thing Carey does when she gets home is strip. She’s kind of a no-shirt gal in the first place – she doesn’t even have breasts, there’s nothing to hide – but rules are rules, and “no shirt, no shoes, no service” applies on the moon.

Underneath her uniform, her stomach is massively bloated, distended over her waistband. Carey can’t get pregnant, but if she could, this is what she imagines it would look like. She runs a gentle but firm claw over the curve and is rewarded with another burp, this one longer and louder. A firm press yields a wetter belch and the beginning of a heave, and Carey abruptly stops, clapping a hand over her mouth in surprise.

She waits like that for a moment, expecting more nausea, but her stomach just cramps harder. Face growing hot, she changes into a pair of lace panties that Killian’s partial to, fetches a hot water bottle, and waits.

Thirty minutes later, she’s drenched in sweat, swallowing down increasing waves of nausea, and pressing the hot water bottle to her stomach when the door opens. Arousal courses through her, a pulsating warmth, and she’s swallowing down burps that taste of her last meal, choosing to nurse a bottle of water in the vain hopes that it’ll relieve some of the churning pressure in her belly.

Despite all this, she finds the strength in her to limp to the door, leaving the hot water bottle behind. Her girlfriend is covered in blood and sweat, but her eyes light up when she sees Carey, and she scoops her up and tosses her in the air the way they always do when one of them arrives home.

It’s a bad idea with the state of things, though, and Carey cries out as her stomach heaves and pain shoots through her bad arm. Killian quickly sets her on the floor, holding her at arms’ length.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

Carey keeps her mouth closed until she’s sure that her throat will stop spasming with half-suppressed heaves, one hand pressed to the front of her snout. “I’m… not feeling so hot,” she confesses. “There’s a flu going around.” She shifts so that the bulge of her belly is visible to Killian, placing one hand on it suggestively. “Actually, I’m feeling really sick.”

“Holy shit,” Killian breathes, reaching out a blood-covered hand and quickly yanking it back, like Carey is too precious to touch like this. “Do you wanna…”

“Yes,” Carey breathes, taking Killian’s offered hand and standing up. “I’ve been waiting all fucking day, are you kidding me?”

“Okay! Okay, uh, lemme…” Killian rubs the back of her neck with one hand, thinking. “Lemme shower first, if you can wait that long? I’ll, um. Leave the bathroom door open if you need it.”

That must be a testament to how bad she looks, and a bolt of desire runs through Carey. “Okay, sounds good!”

Carey sits on the edge of the couch, twitching with nervous energy, but five minutes after the shower turns on, nausea swells in her belly again, and the way her throat tightens in an almost-gag makes her feel like the bathroom is genuinely the better option. She stumbles into a spot by the toilet, kneeling like she’s seen Killian do, staring into the water below. Saliva is pooling beneath her tongue, and she spits.

The shower turns off, and Killian steps out. “What are y– oh,” she says, expression softening. “Oh, jeez.”

“’M'okay,” Carey slurs, spitting again. “Kinda felt like I was gonna hurl for a second there.”

“Okay, can you – Are you good?”

Carey nods, not trusting herself to open her mouth.

“So do you wanna do this here or go to bed?” Killian asks

“Bed,” Carey says, but when Killian makes a motion to scoop her up again, she pushes her away. “No, no, I – think I’m gonna hmk! puke, don’t… I can walk.” She can, sorta, leaning against Killian, both arms wrapped around her heaving belly.

Usually, when they do this sorta thing on the rare occasions that Carey is sick, they wind up fooling around a bit, Killian soothing away the aches and pains, then collapsing into a heap to sleep. She assumes the position that she usually does, cross-legged on the bed, propped up against the headboard.

“So,” Killian says slowly. “You’re still feeling sick.” It’s a statement of fact, not a question, but Carey nods anyways. “What do you want to do?”

In response, Carey shifts over so that Killian can comfortably sit next to her. “Whatever – whatever you want,” she says, hiccuping slightly at the end of the sentence.

Killian leans in and swiftly kisses her. It’s always an awkward affair, considering the snout and the tusks, but they make it work, and by the end of it, Carey is giggling, which isn’t doing her stomach any favors.

“You should tell me about how you’re feeling,” she says, voice low.

“I’m – I’m really nauseous,” Carey says, voice wobbling a bit. “Like, I woke up, and my stomach felt off? Like kind of bubbly and gross, and I was already a little bit bloated?”

Killian slides a hand over Carey’s soft belly, fingers splayed out. The width of her hand is large enough that it covers her entire stomach, and Carey sighs as she feels the bubbles and churning under Killian’s hand. “Like that.”

Killian’s touch is enough to bring up one of the burps Carey’s been trying to hold down, and she lets out a muffled “Urp!”

A blush spreads across Killian’s face. “Jeez, babe.”

“Yeah, and then there’s – BRUUURP! that,” Carey says. “Been holding them in for you.”

“Let ‘em out,” Killian says, pressing in a little on Carey’s stomach and visibly enjoying the resulting gurgles.

“Yeah, so, get this – I hurt my arm in training 'cause my stomach was cramping super bad, and you’ll never believe what the infirmary was like…” Carey started telling her about her day, the story intermingled with belches and moans as the pressure in her stomach grows more, not less, painful. At one point, she has to stop completely and muffle a series of burps into the crook of Killian’s neck, each one bringing her closer and closer to gagging.

Killian kisses her again, and then she does gag against her girlfriend’s lips, her tongue arching against the roof of her mouth as the nausea washes over her.

When Killian pulls back with a self-satisfied smile, there are thick strands of saliva connecting their mouths. “Hot.”

“I – I know, right?” Carey’s throat keeps hitching with tiny half-gags, and when Killian shifts, helps her so that she’s lying on her back, facing the ceiling, she thinks, maybe now she’ll help me bring something up, but, much to her surprise, Killian starts with her injured shoulder, pressing featherlight kisses to the throbbing joint. Her strong hands press against the bruise, soothing away the ache that Carey hasn’t even noticed over the pain in her stomach.

Still, she squirms uncomfortably, mindful of the way her stomach sloshes. “Babe,” she moans. “I’m… feelin’ really sick. Please –”

Carey breaks off with a gasp as Killian kisses a path from her throat down to her underbelly, drawing a few light burps from her lips. She slips a hand between Carey’s legs, pausing to marvel at how wet she is already, and uses her other hand to rub her belly.

“I’m – hrmf!” Carey’s stomach lurches, and she dry-heaves. “I’m real close.”

To vomiting or coming, she doesn’t know, but Killian nods, shifting Carey so that she’s sitting in her lap, resting her chin between the horns on either side of her head. She keeps one hand on her belly still, and Carey’s slick enough that she easily can slip two fingers inside her with little testing.

Killian quickly establishes a rhythm – not fast and not slow – and Carey shivers as she ghosts the pad of her thumb over her clit, pressing light kisses to the back of Carey’s sweaty neck. “Is this okay?” she asks, massaging her stomach with her free hand.

“Y-yeah, I just –mmMURP! – Can you press harder, mayb–” Carey is cut off by another sickening retch, and she lets her mouth hang open, drooling over the soft swell of her distended belly.

Killian doesn’t need to be told twice, increasing the pressure on Carey’s stomach, causing her to gag several times, tasting bile in the back of her throat. She’s shaking with fever and quivering under Killian’s affections, her legs trembling as Killian picks up speed.

Killian pushes on her stomach, and Carey barely has any warning before she climaxes, head snapping back and keening as a wave of nausea washes over her. She doesn’t even have time to take a breath before Killian pushes again, harder this time, and she retches hard, a torrent of vomit splattering onto the bedspread.

“Holy shit,” Killian breathes, and Carey chokes on another retch. The second wave brings up even more than the first, but she’s too weak to even lift her head, so she just vomits onto herself, sending a wave of chunky puke down her front, forming a warm pile in her lap.

Killian’s pressing soft kisses to the back of her neck and she stays like that for a moment, head bowed, gurgling retches issuing from her throat, spitting threads of thick saliva into her lap. She’s shaking still, Killian teasing her through the fabric of her underwear, drawing tiny aftershocks out of her.

“Think you have any more in you?” Killian asks after a moment, removing her hand from Carey’s belly.

“I – yeah. Yeah,” she breathes, replacing Killian’s hand with her own. Her stomach is still churning and gurgling, whatever food she has left sitting too heavily to be comfortable. She grits her teeth as another cramp runs through her.

“Wanna – y'know. Puke on me?” Killian asks breathlessly. In response, Carey shifts so that she’s facing her, pressing a quick kiss to her lips but drawing back almost immediately as vomit rises in her throat.

It’s more difficult this time without any pressure on her bloated, aching belly, and she barely manages to bring up a small mouthful of vomit before a series of dry retches scrape her throat.

Killian reaches towards her, presumably to help out, but Carey shakes her head miserably. She wants to get it all up and she wants to do it herself, so she pushes Killian into a lying position, leveraging herself above her on shaky arms.

Her stomach really doesn’t like that, and Carey urps up a few more mouthfuls of vomit. She closes her eyes, lets nausea wash over her in sickening waves, and then gags once, twice, and barely has time to part her lips before her belly lurches and a massive gush of puke splatters onto Killian’s chest.

She retches a few more times, bringing up thinner, more watery streams as Killian gasps, and then collapses next to her girlfriend, panting.

“Done?” Killian asks, pressing her hand to Carey’s belly suggestively.

Carey burps, not even bothering to raise her head. “I… I don’t know. I think so?”

“Wanna shower and find out?”

To no one’s surprise, Carey finds that she’s very partial to that idea.

Under the warm water, Killian teases another orgasm out of Carey, and is well on her way to another when the nausea returns. Carey’s leaning against her girlfriend, face pressed into the crook of her neck – her legs are too shaky to hold her up, and when she’d tried to slip a hand between Killian’s legs to return the favor, Killian just shook her head, saying that tonight was about her.

She barely has time to warn, “Gonna puke,” when her throat contracts and she retches up a wave of watery vomit all down Killian’s back. Her stomach heaves against Killian’s, slippery and wet, and she finds herself emptily gagging and burping again and again until she tilts her head up and drinks deeply from the showerhead.

The water barely has time to slosh uncomfortably inside her stomach before Carey burps wetly and it comes gushing out in two massive waves.

“There,” she says once her stomach finally feels empty, pressing herself up against Killian. “Now I’m done.”

#emetophilia #emeto #3 ///#4 ///#5 ///#this is like.... 5 kinks in one #yall i don't even KNOW show to explain half the stuff i'm writing but like. anyways #Please Allow Me To Wildly Make Shit Up About Fantasy Races #my writing #my fic

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writing-frenzy · 7 years

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Shipping too (and Shipping them out)

So, Discord and @crowsketches were very inspiring, and I love them, so I made another thing set in this Cuphead AU; It’s a few months after the first one, and goes into how Mugman get’s a new ability.

Also, I’ve putting these drabbles in this world as Devilishly Employed AU tag, because not only does it make sense, it is also a pun! :D

Enjoy now!

It was actually a rather nice winter night; perfect for staying in, maybe read a good book and enjoy some coco as the light snow fell down from Inkwell’s darker skies. And as if to complete the the picture, it was also nice and quiet, most people asleep on Inkwell as it was well past Bedtime for most in the lands.

Yes, it was honestly one nice picture to take in; made it a real shame one certain Mug couldn’t enjoy it, having to carry some of the Casino’s ‘shipments’ to and fro across the Land. Though the one he was carrying might have been overdoing it a bit for his line of sight.

“Hey, careful where you go; some of this ice is half melted.” was warned, a big hand stopping Mugman from falling from having view was blocked by his box of ‘shipments’. Looking up, the blue dishware saw a very familiar eight ball smile amusedly down at him, their own box of shipments carried over their shoulder.

(Damn giants, why do they all have to be so big and towering; really wasn’t fair.)

“Oof- Thanks for the save Mangosteen! Boss would not have been happy if I dropped this.” Mugman let out a nervous laugh, even as he straightened himself up.

“Considering that’s the one that holds his liquor, I would think not.” another voice chipped in, their drawl easy enough to recognize. Turning to look, one Chips Bettigan came walking forward, his own boxes carried with ease under each arm.

It only took the mug a moment to truly take in those words.

“... Either of you two want to trade boxes?” Mugman asked weakly, looking down on the box he was carrying with unease. While it wasn’t to heavy for him, it was big enough to obstruct his view, and making it that much harder to see where he was going. And despite the months the blue young man has worked at the casino, getting respect and unexpected friendships here and there, that did not mean he wanted to be the reason the boss did not have his drink.

The Devil got very crabby without his alcohol; if he didn’t have his smokes at the same time, no one willing would be around.

And the Devil just ran out of his favorite brand yesterday, this being the shipment it all came in on...

Something the other two with him understood perfectly, if judging just how they paled the slightest bit at his words.

“Yeah, I’ll take it here shorty.” Chips said, smirking even as he got a glare for his words.

“You are all just giants; I am perfectly average in height, thank you very much.” Mugs grumbled, even as him and Chips traded boxes, the young man noticing in interest that Chips’s box was actually heavier…

He probably didn’t want to know-

“Heads up guys, we’ve got company following us.” was suddenly grumbled, Mangosteen’s voice low enough to only carry in their small group, even as his smile never left his face.

Chips merely narrowed his eyes up at the taller eight ball, but smirked even as Mugman blinked, “Those fellas from last week ya think? They really don’t know when to quit, do they?” the poker chips chuckled, grin growing dark even as he tipped his hat over, making the snow gathering on it fall off.

“We’ll just have to remind them once more.” Mangosteen added, even as they continued on casually, Chips at his side soon after with Mugman following not far behind, a frown on his face.

“This happens often?” the blue cup asked, acting just as casual as the two, even if he was looking out the corner of his eye; if the two weren’t acting like there was a threat, they probably had a good reason for it. So for now at least, it was probably best to pay along, especially since this was his first supply mission he’s ever done; best to follow his superior’s examples and copy how they act for now.

“Not really, but sometimes our competitors grow some balls and try to sabotage us; simple stuff really, ruin our shipments, mess with our trade, attempted murder. You know, the general stuff.” Chips explained much to the starring mug’s horror.

“That’s the general stuff?” Mugman asked, his voice a little high even as he started wide eyed at the two men before him, both of who suddenly remembered just who they were talking too. Mangosteen gave a sheepish Chips the stink eye, his glowing eyes promising something later before they softened as they looked down at the cup between them.

“Nothing for you to worry about kid; all you got to do is defend yourself and the shipment. We’ll be at the trunk in a bit, so if needed, you’ll just have you drive it off to the casino.” Mango explained, which did a little to calm the boy down, even if he still looked a bit sick to his stomach.

This was why Mugman was being groomed for casino work and protection and not kill missions; the boy’s kind heart just couldn’t handle the darker stuff.

It was when they got everything into the truck that their stalkers made themselves known.

“Nice to see you got everything nice and packed away for us, but you don’t need to worry about it from here; me and mine will have it all taken care of.” was said by a rather obnoxious looking boxhead, the smirk on their face looking so worthy of a punch, even while the trio and their trunk were being surround.

“And here I thought I’d never have to see your ridiculous cubed ass again, Boxley. At least, not after what King did to ya.” was grinned by Chips, making the mentioned box man growl.

“I was admittedly unprepared; but not tonight.” the box man tried to defend himself, even as Mangosteen grinned wider, a deep chuckle escaping him as he cracked his knuckles.

“That’s what the all say, and what they’ll always keep saying.” the grinning being taunted, only getting a smirk form Boxley in reply.

“Well, let’s just see about that.” thus saying, the trap was sprung, light starting to erupt from the very ground at their feet.

And right before Mugman’s eyes, both Mango and Chips were ensnared in a green and blue light, strings of it tangling here and there all around them, tightening even as they struggled. Looking between the two, Mugman in the end went over to Chips, the closer of the two, trying to help him out as he wasn’t as strong as Mangosteen, the one more likely to escape on their own.

“How in the fuck did you manage to get your hands on Tangle Lights, that is a Final Stage Level spell!” Mango spat from the side, even as he tried to break the lights holding him at bay.

“I have my connections; you’d be amazed just what some people would would do for gold… Then again, you all probably know all about that.” Boxley laughed, looking ever so pleased even as he continued to gloat.

Ah, he monologues; they can hopefully work with that.

“It’s no use, Mugs;” was said, getting the blue cups attention, making him meet eyes with the poker chips, “Tangle Lights only breaks once the one who summons it takes a beating or someone of greater power overwhelms it with a greater hit. You’d best be getting out of here while you can, make sure you tell the Boss and Dice exactly what happened. Do you got that?” Chips asked, smile weak even as the asshole in the back continued to rag on, saying just what he would do now they he had them at their mercy.

Mugman stared up flatly at his superior, fully taking in the situation.

He could leave easily; no one seems to even notice him or cares about what’s he’s doing.

“Ah, have I been waiting for this for years. No King Dice, no Devil, and none of your other little friends around to save the day. Just you two dogs for me to play around with.”

He could just easily run, he’s fast and no one would be able to catch him, not in the dark and by himself.

“OH, I will enjoy the looks of pain on your faces for years to come, you’ll be begging me for mercy before the night is even through!”

It really could be that easy; he had been ordered to run, and the situation was sticky enough, it would be a logical choice, and he would be going by the rules.

“Hmm, I might even give you a break or two; don’t want you to be wearing your voice out before I’m through.”

It would be the easy choice honestly…

But when has he ever went down the easy road?

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t do that.” Mugman said, even as familiar words echoed through his mind, “It’s not in me to leave others behind, no matter what bullshit is in my way.” the blue mug said to the stunned stack of poker chips, even as he walked away, readying his shot.

Peashooter and Horseshoe should be able to handle these mooks easily; and oh look, with no one even taking him seriously, he’ll even be able to take advantage of all the openings all around.

And with that and careful aim, Mugman left off the first shot right into that stupid box’s smirk.

Now that was satisfying.

“What- Get him!”

And thus the fight was on; twisting and turning, backing up when needed, and making sure his shots hit as he jumped, Mugman was in his element. (He owed Pirouletta and Mango dinners after this; all the things the two have been teaching him in training sessions has only been a help to him.)

Keep shooting his Peashooter, dodge two mooks, trip them into each other, shoot the third coming over for a knockout, and get the one trying to faint to the left with a smoke dash and a Roundabout to the back.

But above all, make sure they don’t get at Mango and Chips; he would, no matter what, see to it that they would all get out of this mess and get back to the casino, shipment in hand. Maybe enjoy a drink or two at the bar, and get Mango that dinner he owed him.

And no matter how many people they have, or how tired and hurt he grows, Mugman would ensure they all make it back home.

But just as suddenly as that thought came, did his world suddenly explode into light in this cold night.

Blinking, because before his eyes, the mug saw what looked like a two little targets before him, see thru where the white parts on a regular target would be, while the red rings glowed rather ominously.

~Devil’s Blessing achieved; make sure to register Analyze at the Devil’s Casino as soon as possible~ seemed to be thought in his head, making him blink just as the “Blessing” hit him in the face.

Suddenly, the world looked a whole lot more different in Mugman’s eyes; where once he would have difficulties seeing anything in the cold night air filled with snow all around him, now it was as if he was seeing everything clearer. It was akin to taking dirty glasses, and cleaning them before putting them back on to see the world actually was brighter than it appeared.

Of course, Mugman’s reading glasses couldn’t point out enemy weaknesses, show him just what the perfect weapon to use would be on what opponent, what moves would be the most effective on what person, and just how to take advantage of his environment to his own benefit.

Interesting…. Analyze huh? Wonder what else this ability could do; because this couldn’t be it.

After all, Analyze had a bit of a broad meaning; who knew just how many details he could get out of it.

Taking all the facts he’s gathered, all the things he has learned, he then put the two together, readied himself, and fired.

“... Is he… Is he literally breaking his Blessing’s limits.” Chips asked hesitantly, eyes wide and his jaw dropped. And with good reason, seeing the little cupbro fire consecutive shots after another, kneecapping a dozen of the throwaway mooks easily, their fakes bursting into smoke with them.

“Yes. Yes he is.” Mangosteen answered, just as dumbstruck as his fellow coworker, watching how the boy didn’t even look before shooting his roundabout, easily clipping and knocking out the ones going for his back and them.

And all the while, his Blessing glowed in his eyes, flashing and glowing bright for all to see… as well as showing one was near the blessing’s limit itself...

The Devil’s Blessings were no ordinary abilities like the potions and items that could be found around the isle; they were bits and pieces of the demon’s powers, putting them on the level of supers. And just like supers, most people could barely have one too their name, their souls and bodies usually unable to handle the stress.

And yet, the Cupbros were not only able to handle three, but also the other magics they have consumed and items used for magic.

… There was a reason the brothers had managed to surprise them, after all; no one should be able to handle as much magic as they could, especially as easily as they did. Even Dice, the most powerful of them all under the Casino, always faced a powerful backlash from his abilities if he went beyond their limits.

And yet, it was like such things did not even bother the boys, the closest Mango has ever seen Mugman was when they were actually physically injured… and even then, that didn’t stop him for long.

It was terrifying, how things like magical limits and backlash didn’t seem to matter to the two… in fact, it was more likely the boys would be the ones to break magic then be broken by it, just like this boy was doing with his Blessing.

(The eight ball still maintained that their… Resurrection Parry was still the most fucking scariest thing about the boys, much to most of the casino’s general agreement; it literally unnerved even The Devil himself.)

And now watching how Mugman, just right before him, was about to do what was thought impossible (and should be) and break the limits of his Blessing, Mango could easily admit he was glad they had at least one of these little terrors on their side, soul bound or not.

For a bit, the two entrapped men could only watch, taking in the little guy not only beating back the ambush, but winning, the sounds of fighting the only thing to interrupt the otherwise silent night.

“So… He got the Boss’s blessing.” Chips put in, eyes thoughtful now as they took in the young man who was nearly dancing around their competition (And Mango was going to buy Pirouletta some of the best alcohol he could get, he could recognize her handiwork.)

“Yeah… That will certainly make things interesting from here.” Mangosteen acknowledged, a grim smile on his face.

After all, a certain, special clause had to be fulfilled in order to recieve a bit of the boss’s power.

When one in the Devil’s employ, on their own violation, will, and power, proves their loyalty to the Casino and fellow employees, may they receive the Devil's Blessing, assisting them in all things for the Casino and prove ever worthy of it.

Looking over at the young man fighting for them, refusing to let even one of the bastards even look at them, expertly taking out any threat with a well aimed knockout, the eight ball couldn’t help but smile slightly.

This is why they had the boy learning casino work and protection; he had a caring heart big enough to fit even the likes of them in.

And it seems just as he thought it, did the blessing break through, those red rings in their eyes no longer stationary, but moving much like one would if they were zooming in or out on something.

It was also the sign that meant the fight was ever in their favor, all their enemies either on the ground or running away into the darkness.

They had won, all thanks to Mugman… He couldn’t have been prouder of the little guy if he tried… And yet, even as he smiled, he worried as he saw the the victorious Mugman approach them, grinning happily as he worked them out of out of their bounds with a few quick, powerful shots in just the right places to get them undone.

After all, there were others who had a place in Mugman’s heart, one's true and dear to him even now… He honestly hoped the boy’s loyalties between his family, friends, and that of his soulbound wouldn’t break him one day. Because unfortunately, there could only be one thing the mug could do in those circumstances, leaving no one happy and probably one damaged cup in the mess.

(But looking into those target covered eyes, the giant of a man couldn’t help but wonder if they were already broken, just really good at hiding it.)

“Seriously, Mugs, you were moving quicker then Wheezy would be to get away from Pip and Dot, and the Cigar can really book it when properly inspired!”

“I have been training ya know, not just sitting and twiddling my thumbs all day.”

“Heh, but still! That was very impressive how you worked it all out.”

“Chips has a point; you moved much like sniper then, and were even just as accurate in everything you did, delivering only sure shots.”

“Yeah!... You know, I think that’s what we’ll call it!”

“What?”

“Yeah, let's call what you do Sniper Shot!”

“Hey, it’s my move!”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Well-”

“Then it’s settled; it will from now on be called Sniper Shot, from not only being a sure shot when you use it, but to how you'd be like a snipe when you do.”

#cuphead #cuphead dont deal with the devil #cuphead fanfic #cuphead dont deal with the devil fanfic #Mugman #Mangosteen #Chips bettigan #Devilishly Employed AU #Cuphead Au

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emerygoat26-blog · 5 years

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The Great SSRI Scam: How Taking Anti-Depressant Drugs Can Kill You, Part 1

Warning: This article contains strong language. If you don't like strong language, then please leave this page immediately.

I haven’t written much about anti-depressant drugs over the years. The reason is simple: They were of little interest to me. Quite frankly, I found the idea of solving a complex psychological issue like depression simply by popping a daily pill to be utterly absurd. The so-called “chemical imbalance” theory of depression is an absolute farce, a Big Pharma-contrived tale created purely to sell anti-depressants. To this day, no-one – I repeat, no-one – has ever presented anything even resembling proof for the nonsensical “chemical imbalance” theory.

My disinterest in anti-depressants recently changed - in a big way. I had the opportunity to witness someone I know closely go through pure hell on a SSRI drug known as fluvoxamine. The changes in his outlook and behaviour while on fluvoxamine were truly alarming – he began morphing into a different person.

Let’s call this person Adriano. What follows is Adriano’s scary SSRI experience, followed by the research showing anti-depressants dramatically increase suicide risk and often cause – yes, cause - depression, anxiety, mania, agitation, insomnia, aggression, impulsivity, and an especially dreadful condition known as akathisia.

After witnessing Adriano’s frightening ordeal, I promptly began scrutinizing the research on anti-depressants, especially the widely prescribed variants known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs).

What I uncovered truly shocked me.

These drugs are dangerous junk, pure and simple.

Anti-Depressants: Turning the Black Dog into a Fire-Breathing Dragon

For reasons that will soon become obvious, I’ll endeavour to recount Adriano’s story in a manner that will minimize the chance of identifying him. Let’s just say Adriano hasn’t had an easy life. But he’s a survivor; several of his childhood and teen acquaintances, who grew up in similar trying circumstances, have since succumbed to suicide, fatal drug overdoses and mental illness.

However, the last few years have sorely tested Adriano’s resilience, and his mental outlook has suffered accordingly. An energetic guy whose positive vibes used to rub off on those around him, Adriano started to become despondent and withdrawn. Adriano’s doctor, increasingly concerned by this worrisome change, repeatedly tried to get his patient on anti-depressants. He’d already prescribed Adriano an anti-depressant known as Lexapro (escalitopram) after the latter hit a rough patch back in 2010, but Adriano took it for less than a week. Almost immediately, Lexapro turned Adriano into a zombie. Within days of taking it, he felt like all the emotion had been sucked from his body. “I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t sad, I was simply void of all emotion,” recalls Adriano. Because Adriano – a feisty Italian - didn’t fancy going through life with the personality and passion of a concrete slab, he promptly stopped taking Lexapro.

Like yours truly, Adriano is a highly active individual who places a premium on health and fitness. As such, Adriano has never used illicit recreational drugs. Ever. Heck, Adriano’s idea of a “hard drug” is dark ale. Even when it comes to prescription drugs, Adriano is reluctant to take something unless he truly feels it is necessary.

And so Adriano’s doctor really had his work cut out for him this time around.

The ‘anti-depressant’ Adriano’s doctor was pimping this time was fluvoxamine maleate, a drug introduced decades ago by Belgian company Solvay and originally marketed under the name Luvox.

After a particularly impassioned speech, in which his doctor told Adriano all the wonderful things the “very safe” fluvoxamine would do for him, how it would cure his “chemical imbalance”, put him on an even keel, lift his mood, make him think clearly, make him feel much better, and pretty much turn him into an international sex symbol adored by millions of gorgeous, panting women around the world, Adriano finally relented. Okay, his doctor never really mentioned the sex symbol thing, but he sure did make fluvoxamine sound like the closest thing to sex in a pill.

The first red flag was raised almost immediately after Adriano reluctantly agreed to start taking fluvoxamine. “You will probably feel nauseous when you start taking it,” said his doctor. “That’s a good sign.”

“Throwing up is a good sign? You serious?”

“It means it’s working.”

“No, it means it’s making me sick.”

His doctor persisted, but Adriano remained wholly unconvinced that feeling sick and wanting to hurl could possibly be a good thing. So he presented his doctor with a compromise: He’d begin by taking half the starting adult dose (the ‘therapeutic’ adult dose for fluvoxamine ranges from 100 to 300mg daily). He’d take the 100mg tablets, slice them in half, and take 50mg a day. When Adriano felt game, he’d try a full tablet. If it made him sick, he’d cut back and attempt the higher dosage again at a later date.

His doctor concurred, and so off Adriano went to fill the script. He then did exactly as promised: Every night, he took 50mg, and after a while ventured into 100mg territory. But every time Adriano tried the 100mg dosage, he felt nauseous the next day. His doctor may have somehow been convinced that nausea is a good thing, but as someone who exercised a lot and needed to eat like a horse in order to keep his weight up, feeling queasy all day was a disaster.

Even at 50mg, Adriano noticed his appetite, which is normally voracious, had started to diminish. He couldn’t eat as many meals per day, and at mealtimes he couldn’t stomach as much food as previously. For a high voltage, high mileage exerciser like Adriano, this was not a good thing.

This went on for months. Fluvoxamine impaired his appetite, but had no positive effect on his mental state.

In modern pop psychology parlance, I believe this would be known as a “lose-lose situation”.

Things Go From Bad to Worse

In early November, Adriano received a harsh financial blow, resulting from a wholly unfair decision that was completely beyond his control. Adriano had done nothing wrong, but a highly overpaid employee of the evil, callous enterprise known as the State of South Australia clearly didn’t give a brass razoo. When you’re in a position of power, you get to screw with people’s lives while remaining free of any personal consequences.

For someone who was really struggling to see the positives in life, this was a disastrous development. Adriano had come to view the world as an eminently unpredictable and unfair place, where nothing ever seemed to work in his favour. His family and friends were doing all they could to convince him otherwise, but this latest development didn’t exactly help their case.

Adriano proceeded to completely lose his shit. As in, he had a certified meltdown. Luckily, one of the people he messaged that night with the bad news was his doctor, who promptly jumped in his car, picked Adriano up, and took him to a café where they sat and talked. And talked. And talked some more.

Very wisely, he only let Adriano drink decaffeinated that night.

Get a Job, Go Crazy

At the same time this harsh financial decision occurred, Adriano began a new job.

Ever started a new job while your life is in turmoil and your sanity is being pushed to the brink?

It’s no fun, as Adriano will tell you.

Indeed, Adriano’s life was about to enter a whole new level of drama. And fluvoxamine would play a starring role.

Social Anxiety: When Introducing Yourself Becomes a Nightmare

Some people think terms like “social anxiety” are just wanky pop-psychology buzzwords used to describe pseudo conditions that don’t really exist. To those folks, I say this: Pull your heads out of your assholes. Social anxiety is real as jock itch, and in November 2018 Adriano suffered a massive dose of it (social anxiety that is, not jock itch).

His new job entailed six weeks of training, after which he and his colleagues were to begin taking live calls in a call centre. The morning of the very first day of training, the lecturer asked everyone in the class to introduce themselves and to tell a bit about themselves. As soon as the lecturer said this, Adriano’s heart began racing. By the time it was his turn to speak, his heart was pounding like a bass drum.

“What in bejesus is happening to me?”, Adriano thought to himself.

The muscular Adriano has faced down and fought guys twice his size without batting an eyelid, but here he was, absolutely terrified at the thought of simply having to introduce himself to his new classmates.

“It was just fucked,” recalls Adriano.

And it would get a lot worse before it got better.

A lot of people, when they are being kicked around by life, become emotional, mouthy and confrontational, and take out their frustrations on others. Adriano tends to do the exact opposite. He battens down the hatches, withdraws into his shell and goes all quiet while he struggles to deal with his inner turmoil. This process of withdrawal is known as “numbing,” a subconscious attempt to quell the emotional pain that is part and parcel of depression.

Those who know Adriano will readily confirm he is a friendly, polite and empathetic guy. Those who don’t, and who encounter him when he’s in numbing mode, can quickly get the wrong impression. They simply assume he’s aloof and unfriendly, even stuck-up and arrogant. The poker-faced, ice cold demeanour Adriano employs when things are really getting to him doesn’t exactly help matters.

And so at a time where Adriano needed to be mixing and ingratiating himself with his new colleagues, he was instead walking around with the demeanour of a CIA agent. Thankfully, some of his new colleagues weren’t so easily deterred and made the effort to talk to him anyway – something for which Adriano was truly grateful.

Traumatic Flashbacks

One morning, Adriano’s group was given a presentation on domestic violence. As the guest lecturers began their presentation, they said that if the subject hit too close to home for anyone, they were welcome to bow out of the session.

Guess who was the first to crack?

Yep, the Calabrian Iceman: Adriano.

It happened during a short 4-minute video re-enactment of a domestic violence scene. The re-enactment featured an abusive asshole terrorising his wife and kids. The bit that really triggered Adriano off was a scene in which the beleaguered wife served her prick of a husband a meal. This meal, it turns out, was not to the husband’s liking. And so to express his displeasure, and confirm what an utter turd of a human being he was, he held out the plate of food in front of her and their kids for dramatic effect - and then let it drop to the floor.

I won’t go into the details of just why this particular scene unlocked Adriano’s adrenalin pool. Nor will I elaborate on just why domestic violence so easily presses his hot button. Let’s just say Adriano is only too familiar with the behaviour of abusive pricks, and the long term scars these maggots leave on their partners and children.

What I will share is that when Adriano saw that scene, he immediately wanted to leap into the screen and gauge the abusive husband’s eyes out. Yes, Adriano knows, it was just a re-enactment and the folks in that scene were all paid actors. At that moment in time, however, that scene was as real to Adriano as it gets.

It left him trembling.

Life Loves Kicking You When You’re Down

Adriano has a dog whom he loves dearly and treats like a king. A couple of weeks into his training, Adriano had to take his pampered pooch to the vet for a routine dental procedure. He dropped his dog off at the veterinarian surgery early in the morning, then headed off to work. During lunch, he turned his phone on and promptly received a call from the vet.

“How is he?”, asked Adriano, fully expecting the vet to confirm everything went well.

The news was not good. While removing some calcium build-up from his dog’s jaw (a common phenomenon in older dogs), the vet had noticed a suspicious-looking growth in his dog’s lower jaw. The vet had seen these growths before, and the prognosis was almost always bad.

It looked like Adriano’s dog had cancer.

The news sent Adriano reeling; he felt like he’d just been smashed in the head with a baseball bat. His stomach started churning. In a state of semi-shock and struggling to gather his thoughts, he immediately packed away his half-eaten lunch, grabbed the rest of his gear, and headed for his car.

“All this other bullshit, and now my dog?!”, Adriano kept thinking as he drove home. “C’mon, not my dog!?!”

Thankfully, this was one shitty situation that would eventually have a positive outcome: One week, a series of tests, and $2,500 later, it was confirmed that the suspicious-looking tumour was in fact benign. But during that week while he waited for the pathology results to come back, Adriano was sick with worry.

A Disastrous Decision is Made

Clearly, Adriano was going through a rough time. And he was struggling to cope. He wanted to connect and interact with his classmates, most of whom seemed like really nice folks, but he simultaneously felt consumed by a need to withdraw. And his nervous system now seemed to constantly be on tenterhooks. This was a definite problem, because in several weeks’ time he would be live on the phone, taking difficult calls. He could expect to field calls from people in severe financial hardship, people with substance abuse problems and victims of domestic violence. To handle these calls calmly and confidently, Adriano would need to bring his A-Game.

But at that point, he felt a long, long way from being A-grade.

And so Adriano went back to his doctor and told him about his increasing anxiety. The 50mg of fluvoxamine he’d been taking each day was clearly doing absolutely nothing to help him.

His doctor promptly made the same suggestion a lot of other doctors would reflexively make: Increase the SSRI dosage.

”Adriano,” said his doctor, “you need to up the dosage of fluvoxamine. The starting adult dose is 100mg. You’re only taking 50mg, which is a pediatric dose.”

And so then Adriano agreed to do something he will forever regret: He agreed to increase the dosage to 100mg. He vowed to fight the nausea, and doggedly persist with the 100mg dose until it started helping him.

And so began Adriano’s frighteningly rapid slide into suicidal territory.

The Short Dark Road into Hell

One of the defining characteristics of depression is relentless negativity. Destructive, self-defeating negative thoughts become your constant companion. And they just won’t go away. They are with you when you wake up in the morning, they are eating at you all day, and they’re still there when you’re trying to get to sleep at night.

When you’re depressed, you don’t reflect on the good things in your life: Your excellent physical health, your supportive family, your awesome friends, your beautiful pets. None of that stuff even seems to register. Instead, you start dwelling on every real or perceived failure, shortcoming and disappointment that has ever afflicted your life.

An illuminating example of this soul-disintegrating mindset can be found in the recent and terribly sad death of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. On the surface, Bourdain seemed to be living the dream. "He had everything. Success beyond his wildest dreams. Money beyond his wildest dreams," said Bourdain's mother, Gladys. He was a celebrity, by virtue of hosting a popular TV series which involved travelling around the world, meeting interesting people and sampling delicious local foods. He seemed a talented, likeable guy. He was dating an Italian actress, Asia Argento, almost 20 years his junior.

But then on June 8, 2018, came the shocking news. Bourdain was found dead in his hotel room; he had hung himself in the bathroom. Bourdain reportedly “had been in a dark mood” the couple of days prior to his death. Pictures then emerged, taken prior to Bourdain’s death, of Argento cavorting with a French journalist.

Bourdain, I’m guessing, died with a broken heart.

The late Anthony Bourdain.

I’m sure Bourdain, with his celebrity status and his global travel, would have had little difficulty finding an attractive – and infinitely more worthy – replacement for Argento. But in his last days, that’s not how Bourdain would’ve seen it. When you’re depressed, you become engulfed by a suffocating sense of hopelessness and despair. Nothing ever seems to go right. You start wondering what the heck the point of your life is, and you start wondering why the hell you are even here. You remember all the hopes and dreams you had when you were younger, and you look at where your life is now. You start to wish that you could go to bed at night, and never have to wake up.

No more frustrations, no more disappointments, no more betrayals, no more hassles, no more bills, no more bullshit.

You start ideating about suicide.

And this is where anti-depressant drugs become a very, very dangerous proposition.

SSRIs Increase Suicide Risk

Despite all the lavish bullshit that doctors, drug companies and the medical-industrial complex have fed us over the years, the reality about anti-depressants, and SSRI drugs especially, is that they increase suicide risk.

Let me state that again:

Taking so-called ‘anti-depressants’ increases the risk of suicide. People on these drugs are more likely to try and kill themselves than similarly depressed people who take a placebo.

The drug companies who produce SSRI drugs know full well they increase suicide risk. For example, the “Warnings and Precautions” sections of the package insert for fluvoxamine warns:

"Clinical Worsening/Suicide Risk: Monitor for clinical worsening of suicidal thoughts/behaviors especially during the initial months of therapy and at times of dose changes."

“All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases.”

The insert provides no research data to show by just how much fluvoxamine increases suicide risk (don’t worry, I will), and these warnings are hidden away in the insert’s mass of fine print that most patients and, I’m confident, most doctors never read (Adriano’s doctor didn’t).

So we have a class of drugs that are relentlessly promoted and prescribed as a panacea for depression and anxiety, but in fact increase your suicide risk.

I’d say that is a major problem.

But the overriding priority of the Big Pharma drug cartel is making money, not doing the right thing by sick and vulnerable people. As such, there has been a monumental effort over the years to downplay the very real increased suicide risk imparted by anti-depressants such as SSRIs. This effort has gone far beyond using compliant researchers to write favourable SSRI reviews loaded with idiotic rationalizations; it has involved outright fraud. Unfavourable studies have been suppressed and withheld from publication, and much of the SSRI data that has been ‘peer-reviewed’ and published has been manipulated and fabricated.

The increased suicide risk from SSRI use among teens and young adults is so pronounced, that even drug companies and the morally bankrupt researchers they fund have not been able to massage the data enough to hide it. As such, the current official party line is that SSRIs may increase suicide risk in this demographic, but they exert no increased risk in middle aged folks and actually reduce suicide risk in those over 65.

Bullshit.

I’m here to tell you that they increase the suicide risk across all age groups. Rest assured, I’ll be discussing the research confirming this shortly.

The more I look into anti-depressant drugs, the more I realize they are just like statin drugs: Useless, toxic crap dressed up as “wonder drugs.”

Wonder Drugs: You Take Them, and then Wonder What the Fuck Happened

Suicidal ideation is common among people with depression. However, when people are depressed, they are often too despondent and lack the motivation to act upon their suicidal thoughts.

However, when these patients begin taking an anti-depressant drug, things can quickly take a turn for the worse. That’s because anti-depressants – contrary to their common image as drugs that leave you placid and dopey – actually have a stimulating effect in many people. Rather than reduce their anxiety, these drugs can make people jittery, agitated and even cause mania.

As the package insert for fluvoxamine notes:

"The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric. Although a causal link between the emergence of such symptoms and either the worsening of depression and/or the emergence of suicidal impulses has not been established, there is concern that such symptoms may represent precursors to emerging suicidality."

You see all those symptoms I’ve highlighted in bold? Adriano suffered each and every one while taking fluvoxamine and/or during the rollercoaster hell ride that ensued when he stopped taking it.

And so when you give a SSRI to someone ideating about suicide, and they are now in a “wired”, agitated, impulsive and maybe even manic state, you have essentially thrown fuel onto the fire.

That person is now much more likely to act upon their suicidal impulses.

Thursday the 13th

13 December 2018, was the second-last day of training at Adriano’s new job; the following week, he and his colleagues would be going live on the phones. He was a bit nervous, as he didn’t feel the training had adequately prepared him for what was about to come. Several of Adriano’s classmates felt the same way (and as subsequent events would confirm, they were right). They all wanted to do a good job, but were apprehensive about whether the training they had been given was sufficient.

Adriano’s emotional state had been erratic. One day he felt okay, the next he was down in the dumps. Thursday was one of those days. The day started off innocuously enough, but as Adriano began driving home, he could feel his mood sinking - quickly. He went home and rapidly descended into what he now describes as the darkest six or so hours of his life.

“It was ferocious,” says Adriano, “and it pretty much came out of nowhere. The intensity of my despair, the vividness with which I recounted all my major frustrations and disappointments, the overwhelming and crushing feeling of loneliness and isolation, was like nothing I’d experienced before. I completely gave up all hope that night, and have no doubt that if I had a gun handy, I wouldn’t be here today. That evening, burying a piece of lead in my brain seemed a far easier and much more attractive option than continuing on.”

Thankfully, Adriano didn’t have a gun handy.

He even thought about hanging himself, but again, he didn’t have the requisite length of rope, and Bunnings had long since closed for the evening.

And thank goodness for that.

Miraculously, Adriano somehow managed to get to sleep without much difficulty that night. Maybe he was just too emotionally drained and exhausted to stay awake.

When Adriano woke up the next morning, he felt better. Significantly better. However, the previous night’s chilling experience had left him absolutely stunned, and he was shaking. In a matter of hours, he had gone from 0 to 100 – no, make that 300. The very next morning, he was almost back to zero again.

Adriano was absolutely rocked by how quickly he went from relatively OK, to earnestly wanting to check out of life.

That morning, Adriano got to work and as soon as his team leader arrived, Adriano asked if they could go talk somewhere private. Adriano explained what happened the night before, and his team leader could see Adriano was still shaking. This team leader proved what an outstanding, non-judgemental individual he was by listening, talking with, and reassuring Adriano. He said something that immediately lifted Adriano’s spirits: He said Adriano was one of a handful of class members that he’d tagged as future floorwalkers. These are the folks who walk around the call room, armed with a tablet and providing assistance to those stuck on especially difficult calls. “You have the ability to break down complicated information and present it in a way people can easily understand,” said the team leader. “I’ve watched the class when you talk; everyone stops and listens to what you have to say. You’d make a great floorwalker.”

Wow, positive reinforcement! Adriano hadn’t tasted that for a while.

This actually lifted Adriano’s spirits, and he felt pretty good the rest of Friday and all that weekend.

Despite the positive boost provided by his team leader, that night and over the weekend Adriano still felt jittery and his heart was racing. On Saturday evening, he got caught up with chores and went to bed having forgotten to take his daily fluvoxamine dose. When the shakes and jitters continued throughout Sunday, he took 200mg in the evening to compensate for the missed Saturday dose.

Then came the big day; Monday, the first day that Adriano and his colleagues began taking live calls. It was a tough day, to be sure. But at the same time, it wasn’t as bad as Adriano thought. With floorwalker help, he was able to answer and process the calls without issue.

All of which made Adriano’s concomitant physical symptoms a real mystery. All day, he was shaking and his heart was racing furiously. It felt like his throttle was stuck on. During the tea and lunch breaks, Adriano had to hide his shaking hands from his colleagues. Needless to say, these physical symptoms were out of all proportion to how he was feeling mentally. His mind seemed relatively at ease with what was transpiring in the call room, but his body was acting as if he’d just been confronted by a pack of sabre-toothed tigers.

And so Monday night, Adriano took 200 to 300mg of fluvoxamine. He can’t tell you which dosage for sure; he meant to take 200mg, but when he went to take the second tablet, he earnestly couldn’t remember if he’d already taken 1 or 2 tablets. This was another worrying effect of fluvoxamine; after he started taking it, the mentally acute Adriano began experiencing strange episodes of forgetfulness and absentmindedness.

Judging by the way he felt Tuesday, Adriano most likely took 300mg. His eyes were puffy when he got up that morning, and the lymph glands in his throat were swollen. His hands continued to shake and his heart raced all throughout the day. And he had the strongest feeling of nausea yet, which persisted all day.

It was at this point Adriano finally wised up to just what fluvoxamine was doing to him. He didn’t have any of these symptoms prior to taking it, and all these symptoms worsened in step with his dosage increases. At this point, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to detect the cause and effect relationship.

In disgust, Adriano quit fluvoxamine. Cold Turkey. Tuesday night, he didn’t take his scheduled dose, and he hasn’t taken any fluvoxamine since.

Instead, when he got up on Wednesday morning, he filled his bath with hot water and poured in some Epsom salts and green tea. Boy, did it feel good to lie back in that hot bath and just relax and let his mind wander. With such a relaxing start, Wednesday actually turned out to be a pretty good day for Adriano; the shakes and racing heart symptoms had almost entirely disappeared.

Adriano thought his SSRI-induced troubles had finally been laid to rest.

Boy, was he mistaken.

Quitting SSRIs: The Rollercoaster Ride from Hell

Anyone who knows anything about anti-depressants knows you shouldn’t just quit them cold turkey. But that is exactly what Adriano did. He was so disgusted by what fluvoxamine had done to him, so rattled by the side effects, and so angry he’d let his doctor convince him to take it, that he just wanted it out of his body and out of his life ASAP.

SSRIs and other anti-depressants are being sold on the fanciful theory that when you suffer depression, you are suffering from a chemical imbalance. It’s a nonsensical theory with no scientific foundation, but a theory that has nonetheless come to be accepted as fact by the medical profession.

I’ll tell you what does cause a chemical imbalance: Suddenly quitting anti-depressants.

Doing so leaves you susceptible to sudden changes in your brain chemistry, which then leaves you prone to all sorts of unpredictable and dangerous side effects.

The first one to manifest in Adriano was aggression. Gone was his trademark suffer-in-silence stoicism; he was now starting to develop the demeanour of an agitated pit bull. The first and most dangerous arena in which his new anti-social attitude manifested itself was on the road. “I started doing stupid, risky stuff on the road,” recounts Adriano.

What kind of risky stuff?

“One morning I was driving to work, and got stuck behind some crawling idiot in the right hand lane. [Here in Australia, slow-moving traffic is supposed to stay in the left hand lane]. Whether this guy was still half asleep or just an inconsiderate jerk, I don’t know. What I do know is that he would take off slowly from the lights, then leisurely work his way up to only 50 km/h, despite the 60 km/h posted limit. The other two lanes were full of traffic, and I couldn’t find an opening to change lanes and get around him.”

Normally, Adriano would just mutter under his breath, and wait for a safe opportunity to pass the offending driver. But Adriano, who had just quit fluvoxamine, was in anything but a normal state of mind. He was fuming.

Then came the eruption. While Adriano remained stuck behind Captain Dipshit, the traffic in the right hand lane came to a complete halt thanks to a car ahead that had decided to turn right.

Adriano lost it. He quickly glanced over his left shoulder and saw that the middle lane was now free. He swung to the left, maneuvered around the cars in the right lane, then stomped his right foot to the floor.

And left it there.

Adriano’s car shot forward, pushing him back into his seat. As the turbo on Adriano’s car kicked in with an almighty thunder-clap, it spat out a thick black cloud of carbon that engulfed the traffic behind him. Now back in the right hand lane, Adriano’s car quickly obliterated the posted speed limit, tearing past a long line of cars in the middle lane. They were doing 60 km/h – Adriano must have been doing at least 100 km/h.

Quitting SSRIs needs to be done gradually and under supervision.

“If one of those cars had pulled into my lane,” recalls Adriano, “we would have made the evening news.”

“I cleared the cars, and when I was way down the road I suddenly checked myself,” says Adriano. “’Che cazzo fai???’ [Italian for ‘What the fuck are you doing?’] I asked myself. That’d be a bit hard to defend in court!”

“I had a lot of those ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ moments during that post-SSRI period,” says Adriano. “That fluvoxamine filth made me shockingly impulsive. Normally, when you get the first inklings of a stupid idea in your head, there’s that counter voice that quickly crushes the idea with reason and commonsense. But when I was taking fluvoxamine, and especially after coming off it, that rational voice didn’t kick in until well after I did something dumb. I’d do something idiotic and irrational, then afterwards I’d snap to my senses and think ‘what the hell just happened??? What the fuck are you doing???’”

“It was scary. That fluvoxamine shit turned me into a different person. And not a good one.”

SSRIs: Making Flabby Women Seem Beautiful

When Adriano began his new job, he was assigned to one of four training groups. All four groups spent that first six weeks being trained in adjacent classrooms. One of those classrooms had a ceiling-to-floor glass frontage, and every time Adriano walked past it he noticed an olive-skinned girl flirting heavily with him.

“Every time I walked past,” recalls Adriano, “she was looking at me intently and smiling.”

“These weren’t ‘hey there, I’d like to get to know you’ smiles,” recalls Adriano, “these were more ‘I’d love to get you alone, undo your zipper and …’ smiles”.

For the purposes of this article, let’s call this girl Tahini.

From what Adriano had seen and overheard of Tahini, she wasn’t looking for Mr Right; she was a good time girl out for some casual fun. Here in uncouth and highly unromantic Australia, where the hook-up culture reigns supreme, that is hardly unusual. When this girl scanned Adriano and took in his chiselled facial features and his lean muscular build, marriage and kids were clearly the last things on her mind.

The problem for Tahini is that Adriano was way out of her league.

I’ve seen Tahini, and can readily confirm: She ain’t no Penélope Cruz. To give credit where credit is due, Tahini has nice olive skin and a pretty face. But that’s pretty much where the physical positives end. Perhaps the kindest way I could describe Tahini is that she could be quite an attractive girl if only she’d get off her ass and do some exercise. Tahini’s butt is big. Not sexy Latina-style “bubble butt” big, but rather “I sit down all day and do very little physical activity” big.

One day, Adriano caught a rare side view of the gap between Tahini’s top and the waistline on her pants. What filled that gap was a considerable belly.

“Gesù Cristo,” Adriano thought to himself, “she’s got a paunch on her!” No wonder Tahini always wore a jacket; she wasn’t trying to look professional – she was trying to create the illusion of slimness by giving an artificial taper to her waist.

As a guy of above-average fitness who takes pride in his physical appearance, Tahini was clearly not Adriano’s physical type.

Nor was she his personality type. Tahini belongs to an ethnic grouping whose women, in my experience, are easily among the most eager participants of Australia’s shitty hook-up culture. Ironically, men from this ethnic grouping have often been vocal in expressing their disdain for the purported loose sexual mores of Anglo-Australian women, but a lot of girls from this ethnic grouping absolutely thrive on casual hook-ups. When I was in my twenties, hanging around with idiots and frequenting those human zoos known as nightclubs, I had occasion to get intimate with a number of girls from this ethnic background. Without exception, I was amazed at what these girls would let you do to them – and how soon they would let you do it.

And from what Adriano had seen and heard of Tahini, there was no reason to believe she was any different.

When we were younger and all balls and no brains, we used to think these kinds of girls were great news. But then some of us in our social circle began to mature, and we began reflecting on all the drama and headaches these girls would typically bring into our lives. When a girl will let you do stuff to her that would make a farm animal blush, all within minutes of meeting her, the chances of her falling into the “crazy bitch” category are extremely high.

Nowadays, the hook-up culture makes us sick. As do the people who still take part in it.

Needless to say, Tahini wasn’t Adriano’s cup of tea. As a result, he paid her very little attention.

But then things got weird.

Really, really fucking weird.

Shortly after Adriano upped the dose of fluvoxamine, he suddenly decided he had to have Tahini.

No, I’m not shitting you.

Make no mistake: Adriano has high standards when it comes to women. He keeps himself in above-average shape, maintains a high level of dress and grooming, and can talk effortlessly and in depth on a wide variety of topics.

And he expects the same from potential romantic partners. If you’re not in good shape, or you struggle with conversation that ventures beyond guys, clubbing, hair extensions and bitching about work, forget about Adriano.

And yet here he was, suddenly developing a keen interest in a girl that, only weeks earlier, he’d already dismissed as just another flabby club/Tinder troll.

“I absolutely cringe just thinking about it,” says Adriano. “I wouldn’t touch this girl with a barge pole. But after I upped my dose of fluvoxashit, all of a sudden I had to make her mine!”

What followed was a rather stunted and awkward interaction that started out on friendly enough terms, but eventually culminated with Adriano and Tahini completely ignoring each other.

13 December 2018 may have been Adriano’s darkest SSRI event, but his newfound interest in Tahini was definitely the most bizarre.

As it turns out, Adriano is hardly the only person whose mating radar was completely thrown out of whack by SSRI usage. I happen to know Adriano’s doctor very well, and after Adriano came off “fluvoxashit”, I’ve been relaying my findings about SSRIs and suicide risk to him. And to his credit, he’s been taking these findings on board, as he is extremely unsettled about what happened with Adriano.

When we broached the topic of impulsivity and Adriano’s bizarre attraction to the tubby Tahini, he relayed a story about a girl treated by one of the other doctors at his practice (note to the AMA: Relax, neither this patient’s name nor any other identifying features were revealed). Prior to being prescribed a SSRI, she had been a quiet, shy girl. After starting the SSRI drug, however, she promptly relocated to Planet Skank and began screwing every guy she could get her hands on.

As Adriano and this girl discovered, SSRI drugs can rapidly transform you into a completely different person. They can remove your inhibitions, impair your better judgement, and cause you to make very poor mating choices.

Despite what our sleazy mass media and skanky hook-up culture would have you believe, that’s not a good thing.

“Hi, Welcome to [Famous Australian Government Department]. How Can We Screw You Around Today?”

While all this was going on, Adriano was trying to come to grips with his new job. Adriano has a strong perfectionist streak, but he was now answering calls on behalf of a Commonwealth government agency whose reputation for inefficiency is the stuff of legend.

It drove him nuts.

Calls that should, by all rights, have taken 5-10 minutes to get sorted instead took 2 hours. The database from which the Customer Service Representatives (Adriano’s official job title) were supposed to get their information from was a massive, convoluted and conflicting mess. Often, the information was just plain wrong. Adriano was now starting to understand why, if you rang this department and spoke to five different operators, you would typically get 5 different answers.

Adriano would routinely receive calls from people who had already spoken to another CSR and received information that was totally incorrect. “They told this poor girl what???,” Adriano would think to himself.

Along with misleading information, remedies that should have been actioned instead lay dormant in the system’s Neverland because the CSR in question had not forwarded the case to the appropriate department.

Adriano became truly embarrassed to work for an organization whose processes were such a mess. Initially, he had rationalized that he would do his best to make a difference, but it soon became apparent little was going to change. Much of the software platform the CSRs were required to use dated back to the 1970s, and hence used cumbersome, antiquated coding. This platform was confusing, poorly integrated and drastically slowed down the processing of calls.

To update the system would likely require billions of dollars, and it was made clear to Adriano that no such update would be occurring anytime soon. Here in Australia, taxpayer money is instead busily diverted to all manner of bullshit rorts (former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s half-a-billion-dollar gift to his buddies at the farcical Great Barrier Reef Foundation is a an especially egregious example).

In true half-assed “she’ll be right mate” Aussie fashion, the department in question has instead committed itself to propping up the current dilapidated platform for as long as it possibly can. As Adriano puts it, this approach is like stubbornly injecting an old, decrepit horse with large amounts of anabolic steroids, long after the horse should have been mercifully put down.

Then there were the customers. It wasn’t the abusive ones that got to Adriano; after having exchanged ‘pleasantries’ face-to-face with all manner of assholes over the years, some guy swearing over the phone was hardly going to rattle him. Nope; it was the clients who broke down and started crying because said government department had unfairly cut off their payments, failed to restore them, and then left them struggling to pay for food and rent. “What the hell are we doing to these people?”, Adriano frequently asked himself.

His increasing frustration started to take its toll. In the last week of December 2018, he experienced two particularly difficult evenings where he felt like he was having a nervous breakdown. The second was on a Friday night, a few days before New Years’ Eve. And it was unbearable, says Adriano: “I was ideating about suicide again. Nothing quite as intense as December 13, but still … I felt sick in my stomach, and my head felt like it was about to explode.”

The pain seemed inescapable. But then a light bulb went on inside Adriano’s head. The following day, he called a close friend in Melbourne. “Dude, you don’t sound good. Get over here,” admonished his friend. And so on Sunday morning, Adriano put his bike, dog and a bunch of clothes in his car, and began the 9-hour drive to Melbourne.

That Sunday night, after he arrived in Melbourne, Adriano sent his team leader an apologetic SMS explaining where he was and why, and that he would be back at work the following week. “It was the only thing I could think of to try and get a grip,” wrote Adriano, “again, my apologies.”

Once again, Adriano’s team leader was eminently accommodating and understanding.

Adriano stayed on a farm over an hour from the Melbourne CBD. It was just what he needed. Within days, he felt like a whole new person. As his close friend remarked with much relief, “you sound like a totally different guy to the one I spoke to on Saturday.”

As his break in Melbourne drew to a close, Adriano was confident he was now ready to return to work the following week and take on whatever his job threw at him. However, on the Saturday night before he was due to drive back to Adelaide, he started getting agitated and had difficulty falling asleep. He tossed and turned and did not get to sleep until around 1.30 am.

Not a good sign.

Nor was the sombre feeling he got as he crossed the border back into South Australia. Or the negative thoughts that started crowding his mind as he exited the South Eastern Freeway and began driving down Portrush Road to his Adelaide abode.

Upon returning to work the following day, Adriano again started experiencing anxiety symptoms. Once again, he started getting jittery and nervy. This frustrated him to no end: “I thought I was over all that,” recounts Adriano.

Then came the final straw. The morning of Wednesday 9 January 2019 had been a rough one. Late in the morning, Adriano began working on a particularly difficult call. It was a textbook classic case of something that should’ve taken no more than 10 minutes to remedy, but instead deteriorated into yet another exasperating marathon exchange thanks to the department’s hopelessly outdated software platform.

As Adriano tried to make sense of the extra-confusing procedures required to solve the issue at hand, he felt something he’d never felt before.

His mind froze.

His brain felt like it had seized up.

“I was just totally overwhelmed,” he said, “and just couldn't think. Normally, when I get flustered by a problem, I take a deep breath, or a few minutes to gather my thoughts, and then go back to the start and go back through the problem step by step. But I just couldn't do it, my brain just couldn't kick into gear.”

Adriano’s mind had completely stalled.

Adriano locked his computer, went over to his team leader and asked to speak to him in private. They walked to a private room, and after shutting the door behind them, Adriano’s team leader asked, “What’s up?”

“I'm quitting,” announced Adriano, “I can’t handle this anymore.”

Adriano’s team leader tried to talk him out of resigning as best he could. “I’m not here to talk you into doing something you don’t want to do,” said Adriano’s team leader, “but I don't want to see you go because you are a good CSR.”

During his first month on the job, Adriano was part of a small group who had achieved 100% accuracy on all their quality-checked work. Adriano has an old school work ethic; he firmly believes that, irrespective of whether or not it is your dream vocation, if you take on a job then you do it to the best of your abilities.

“I’m not blowing smoke up your ass,” reiterated Adriano’s team leader, “you’re definitely one of the better workers in the call room.”

Again, Adriano was flattered to hear such complimentary talk from someone of the calibre of his team leader.

But ultimately, Adriano stood by his original decision. Thanks to fluvoxamine, the challenges of his new job, and some shitty life circumstances, the last two months had been a nightmare. For the sake of his physical and mental health, Adriano wanted to make a clean break and start anew.

Life After SSRIs

Adriano says it wasn’t until around two weeks after quitting his job that he started to feel like he was finally thinking straight and regaining control of his situation. At that point, he’d been off fluvoxamine for just over a month.

“I’ll tell you what really pisses me off about that junk,” says Adriano, “I hate illicit recreational drugs, and I’ve never used them. I hate what they do to people, and I don’t understand why people take them.

But when I took fluvoxamine, it was like I was on drugs. And when I came off, it was like I was in the throes of drug withdrawal. My mood was erratic and I was irrational, impulsive, aggressive … I just wasn’t thinking straight at all.

I was suicidal, I was chasing some empty-headed floozy, and I was driving like I had a death wish. Looking back, the whole thing seems surreal, like a bad dream.

Aggression and impulsive behaviour are common SSRI side effects.

If I went to a music festival and got caught selling pills that did to people what that fluvoxashit does, I’d be in big trouble. Yet doctors are free to write scripts for this junk on a daily basis, and drug companies make squillions in the process.”

At this point, apologists for anti-depressants might argue that Adriano simply had an unusual reaction to SSRI use, or that fluvoxamine was the wrong SSRI for him.

Wrong.

Anti-depressants are, by and large, a garbage class of drugs, and I’ll explain why in coming instalments. First, there is something very important that we need to address.

If You are Feeling Suicidal

If you are feeling suicidal, please read the following.

Please fight the impulse. You are simply not in the right state of mind to be making such a monumental life choice. And if you are taking an anti-depressant, realize that it is very likely exacerbating your dark feelings.

I can’t think of a more immense or permanent decision than to end one’s life. Trouble is, by the time you’ve arrived at that point, you’re simply not in a good state of mind. That might be stating the obvious, but think about it: Would you recommend to someone else that they make a monumentally important life decision while in such a state?

To quote author Bev Aisbett (a former sufferer of anxiety and depression) from her excellent book Taming the Black Dog: A Guide to Overcoming Depression:

“If you are still considering this decision, then know that you are not WELL ENOUGH to make such a big DECISION!

You’re not yourself, are you?

You’re not thinking straight, are you?

You’re not really in the best position to make a SENSIBLE CHOICE, are you?

If you were to make any other MONUMENTAL decision in your life, you’d seek EXPERT ADVICE, wouldn’t you?

Well, there are few more monumental decisions than this one. You need a SECOND OPINION.”

On the evening of 13 December 2018, Adriano earnestly wanted to check out of life. He has no doubt that if he had the means that night, he would have killed himself.

But when he woke up the next morning, his suicidal impulses had disappeared. Instead, he was absolutely rocked by what he had been thinking the night before.

This reminds me of someone I knew in my twenties; he was the son of an electrical contractor my parents routinely hired. Let’s call him Ronaldo. A nice guy, Ronaldo accompanied his father to electrical jobs, but had been looking for full-time work in his own right. His job-seeking efforts were not bearing fruit, and when he and his girlfriend split up, Ronaldo sunk to that awful, horrible dark place where everything seems completely hopeless.

And so he hung himself.

Now here’s the extra-sad part: During the week following his death, two employers rang his parents' house, wanting to speak with him.

Both wanted to offer him a job.

If Ronaldo had held out for just one more week, he’d probably still be here today. He’d probably be running his own electrical contracting company, he’d be married, and he’d have kids in their twenties.

But instead, he prematurely gave up all hope and left behind nothing but heartbroken parents and devastated friends.

If you are feeling suicidal, then this is one of those times in life when you really need some assistance.

Don’t suffer in silence: Call someone.

To quote Bev Aisbett again:

“TELL SOMEONE! ASK FOR HELP!

Call TELEPHONE COUNSELLING

Call a FRIEND

Call a FAMILY MEMBER

Call a TEACHER, MINISTER, COUNSELLOR.

When choosing your confidante, keep in mind that not everyone’s good at it! Don’t be disheartened if someone can’t handle it; the important thing is that you have reached out! Keep reaching out until you get the help you need.”

If you’re suicidal, there’s another reason I don’t want you to act upon your impulses:

You’re probably a nice person.

Seriously, of all the people I know who committed suicide, none were assholes. Most were really nice folks. And it seems that way with most of the suicides I read about in the media. The world can be a c*nt of a place, and this seems to affect nice people to a greater degree. If it was the world’s assholes that were prematurely checking out of life, then maybe we could view suicide as some kind of Darwinian gene pool-cleansing phenomenon. But the exact opposite seems to be true.

So again: DON’T. DO. IT.

Get help. There’s no shame in that. In fact, it’s the smart thing to do.

Anyways…

In Part 2, I’ll start dismantling the monumental wall of bullshit that drug companies, the medical profession and immoral researchers have built around their lucrative anti-depressant drugs.

Stay tuned.

---

Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author of the groundbreaking books The Fat Loss Bible, The Great Cholesterol Con and Whole Grains, Empty Promises.

For more information on Anthony's books, click here.

---

The Mandatory “I Ain’t Your Mama, So Think For Yourself and Take Responsibility for Your Own Actions” Disclaimer: All content on this web site is provided for information and education purposes only. Individuals wishing to make changes to their dietary, lifestyle, exercise or medication regimens should do so in conjunction with a competent, knowledgeable and empathetic medical professional. Anyone who chooses to apply the information on this web site does so of their own volition and their own risk. The owner and contributors to this site accept no responsibility or liability whatsoever for any harm, real or imagined, from the use or dissemination of information contained on this site. If these conditions are not agreeable to the reader, he/she is advised to leave this site immediately.

Source: http://anthonycolpo.com/the-great-ssri-scam-how-taking-anti-depressant-drugs-can-kill-you-part-1/

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repwincoml4a0a5 · 7 years

Text

As Republicans Cheered Obamacare's Repeal, The Law's Beneficiaries Worried About Survival

On Thursday afternoon, by the narrowest of margins, Republican lawmakers passed a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. Pleased with their victory, they popped Bud Lights and abruptly took buses to the White House to celebrate with President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden.

Meanwhile, those actually dependent on Obamacare were anxiously wondering what happens next. Some of them were following the action on the House floor while in their doctor’s offices receiving treatment.

The House bill will almost certainly not become law in its current form. But its passage portends a sharp turn away from the patient protections and coverage subsidies that they have come to rely on in Obamacare’s brief existence. The bill dramatically cuts Medicaid coverage, to the tune of $840 billion less. It also undermines the provisions that prevent insurers from discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions by allowing states to seek waivers that would eliminate rules prohibiting higher premiums for people with serious medical problems.

For those who stand to be hurt by these reforms, Thursday left them both fearful about their own medical futures and motivated to act politically.

These are their stories.

Coverage After The Loss Of A Spouse: Marianthe Poulianos, Florida

A self-employed attorney, Poulianos and her two children relied on her husband’s health insurance plan until he died unexpectedly at the age of 41. Her kids were 7 and 10 years old. They all relied on COBRA to get by. When that ended, so did their insurance.

“Obamacare came along at just the right time,” she said. Without it, she would either have had to take a job in a law firm or change careers. But finding a new job with less flexibility would have been tough, since her kids “really needed me.”

Poulianos says her current insurance coverage is reasonably priced with quality care provided. As she watched the House vote, she felt “demonized.”

I’m not sure why I should. I went to school, got married, had kids, worked, employed people, made my children my priority. My husband died and today I feel as if my family is being punished for that. I hear more tragic stories than ours ― people with sick children, pre-existing conditions etc. But I believe that my type of story is part of what’s really devastating and wrong about today as well.

‘I Keep Wondering Why They Want To Kill Me’: Jacqueline Church Simonds, Nevada

In 2010, Simonds began having bizarre, scary health episodes. She was hospitalized for five days but lacked insurance; she and her husband ran their own business, and his pre-existing conditions made him uninsurable. She was able to negotiate down the $42,000 bill, but she still needed her parents’ help to pay the remaining $18,900.

The following year, she became sick again. Her surgeon told her she needed a couple of feet of her colon removed or she would die. When she told the medical staff she simply wasn’t able to pay for such an operation, they informed her about the Affordable Care Act. She signed up for coverage and had the operation. To this day, she remains sick, recently receiving the diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. And she suspects she will need more operations.

I keep wondering why they want to kill me.

Why are rich people so much more important than I am that their tax cuts are more important than my health? How can people vote to “improve” healthcare, but make themselves immune from the effects? So, you want to know how I feel about AHCA? I am thoroughly, implacably angry.

I would be out in the streets with a pitchfork and torch, if I felt well enough to leave the house (but I don’t). So I will sit here at my computer and figure out ways to get out the vote.

How Could Christians Do This?: Stacy Jarrell, Florida

“I’m somewhere between totally pissed off and sick to my stomach right now. And I’m scared,” Jarrell told HuffPost shortly after Thursday’s vote. She’s 54 and widowed and petrified about losing her health care. Years ago, she said a doctor misread a mammogram that allowed insurers to label her as having a pre-existing condition. Obamacare came along and gave her solace. She makes under $40,000 a year and gets a subsidy to help purchase insurance on the Obamacare exchange in her state.

As a Christian I can’t understand how these people that claim to follow Christ could support, let alone pass, a law that will kill people. While I believe in a separation of church and state, I also believe that as human beings, moral and ethical people need to take care of those that can’t take care of themselves.

The last thing I’m feeling is resolve. If they think there was a resistance before... they have absolutely no idea how this vote has motivated us.

‘I’m Fucking Terrified’: Bill Petrich, New York

At 21, Petrich was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Treatment was in 2010 and 2011, and Obamacare allowed him to stay on his mother’s private plan. Now 28, he lives in New York and must fend for himself. He has a job as a contractor with no benefits and pays $600 a month for his insurance coverage. It’s a hefty price tag. But it’s a good plan.

Petrich hopes the bill stalls in the Senate. But he’s afraid that Republicans won’t deny the president an accomplishment.

I’m fucking terrified. I can feel the foreboding in my stomach. I’m literally shaking a little bit right now, I was really hoping this wouldn’t pass. I know that, for the rest of my life, I will be seen not as a human being but as a pre-existing condition by private healthcare providers. ...

I already live with a baseline of fear about getting cancer again. Now, it’s terror. Financial ruin at best, death at worst. I’m already imagining a world where I’m starting a crowdfunding campaign to pay for my imagined future treatment.

Medication That Wasn’t Available Without Obamacare: Annie Agle, Utah

Agle, 28, has a rare disease called mastocytosis. She actually receives insurance through her employer, but she’s benefited from the provision under the Affordable Care Act that increased funding for research into diseases. Agle ― who was in treatment Thursday while following the GOP repeal effort in the House ― said that there were several promising medications that weren’t brought to market until the health care law passed because they weren’t considered profitable by the insurance companies.

Under Obamacare, a lot of insurance carriers were forced to present packages and coverage for medications that wouldn’t have even been available to us in the first place. I owe my life now four times over to an immunotherapy drug that didn’t exist before Obamacare and probably wouldn’t have existed without that piece of funding. ...

It’s very disheartening. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that 50 percent of my country doesn’t feel like that I matter or don’t have a right to live. The difference between treatment and no treatment for me is fatality. It’s not a grey area.

Putting Her Children First: Jill Thompsett, New York

In 2004, Thompsett delivered twins at 31 weeks into her pregnancy. Her son and daughter were in the neonatal intensive care unit for six weeks. Her daughter came home with an apnea monitor because of complications with breathing, while her son underwent three surgeries over the next 18 months. Thompsett’s health insurance plan, which she paid for out of pocket, spiked from $600 to $1,200 a month. She had to drop it.

New York state’s child health care plan allowed her to get coverage for her kids. But it wouldn’t be until 2008, when she took a job at the YMCA, that she was able to buy coverage again for herself. When Obamacare became law, the eligibility for Medicaid expanded to higher income levels. Thompsett, earning $23,000 a year and spending nearly every penny on health insurance and child care, qualified.

That the expansion is suddenly endangered enrages her. For now, Thompsett is making doctor’s appointments to take advantage of Obamacare while it’s in place. Down the road, she wonders what will happen to her family if there aren’t protections for pre-existing conditions.

My twins had a very rough start to life, but I am pleased to say they are smart, funny, honor roll 7th graders. ... I now feel like I am living in a nightmare that gets worse with each passing day of this administration. Somebody please wake me.

Chemotherapy During Repeal Vote: Laura Packard, Nevada

Packard, 40, recently moved to Las Vegas and noticed she had a cough. She didn’t have a doctor in the city yet, so she searched around and found someone. After additional trials and visits with specialists, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Self-employed, she gets insurance on the exchanges and had her first round of chemotherapy on Thursday, as Republicans voted to repeal and replace the health care law.

My treatment schedule is eight months of chemotherapy, which will take me right through the end of 2017. If there is still cancer in my lungs, I will need radiation. If the chemotherapy doesn’t take at all, I may need immunotherapy. So there are all kinds of good options in my health, but I may need them in 2018. ...

If Republicans truly believe that Obamacare is some horrible blight on our country, then the thing to do is to work with Democrats to make health insurance better, rather than start with the premise that you need to give the ultra-rich a tax cut and try to figure out how to fudge it for people who need health care to make it the least terrible on them.

‘This Sucks’: Sam Alcabes, California

Alcabes had health care coverage after college through his job in Los Angeles. During that time, he had surgery to repair a herniated disc. When he left his job to attend law school, he was denied health care insurance because of his pre-existing condition. So he entered a high-risk pool run by the state of California, which was expensive and limited in its coverage. After the Affordable Care Act, he got insurance through Kaiser and continues to receive it now through his employer.

I recently gave notice at my job to move on to other things. Now I am concerned that I will lose my ability to obtain insurance from Kaiser or anywhere else for that matter.

I feel like I’ve played the game the right way my whole life. Luck of the draw on having a bad back.

This sucks.

What Happens When You Lose Your Parents’ Coverage?: Kathryn Poe, Ohio

For the past two years, Poe, 20, has been in the hospital on a regular basis, fighting for her life after being diagnosed with three autoimmune conditions. She’s lucky enough to be able to stay on her parents’ health care plan for now but worries what will happen if she turns 26 and the protections for pre-existing conditions currently under the Affordable Care Act are weakened.

It’s incredibly hard to be positive...when you know that the health care legislation that’s passing is just not in your favor. ... At least in my experience in college, people will talk about it and really will have no idea what the essence of the bill means. Oftentimes [people don’t realize] what the real world ramifications are. People are so focused on this Republican dream of Obamacare being repealed that they forget what the real-life implications are for people like me.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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repwincostl4m0a2 · 7 years

Text

As Republicans Cheered Obamacare's Repeal, The Law's Beneficiaries Worried About Survival

For those who stand to be hurt by these reforms, Thursday left them both fearful about their own medical futures and motivated to act politically.

These are their stories.

Coverage After The Loss Of A Spouse: Marianthe Poulianos, Florida

Poulianos says her current insurance coverage is reasonably priced with quality care provided. As she watched the House vote, she felt “demonized.”

‘I Keep Wondering Why They Want To Kill Me’: Jacqueline Church Simonds, Nevada

I keep wondering why they want to kill me.

I would be out in the streets with a pitchfork and torch, if I felt well enough to leave the house (but I don’t). So I will sit here at my computer and figure out ways to get out the vote.

How Could Christians Do This?: Stacy Jarrell, Florida

The last thing I’m feeling is resolve. If they think there was a resistance before... they have absolutely no idea how this vote has motivated us.

‘I’m Fucking Terrified’: Bill Petrich, New York

Petrich hopes the bill stalls in the Senate. But he’s afraid that Republicans won’t deny the president an accomplishment.

Medication That Wasn’t Available Without Obamacare: Annie Agle, Utah

Putting Her Children First: Jill Thompsett, New York

Chemotherapy During Repeal Vote: Laura Packard, Nevada

‘This Sucks’: Sam Alcabes, California

I recently gave notice at my job to move on to other things. Now I am concerned that I will lose my ability to obtain insurance from Kaiser or anywhere else for that matter.

I feel like I’ve played the game the right way my whole life. Luck of the draw on having a bad back.

This sucks.

What Happens When You Lose Your Parents’ Coverage?: Kathryn Poe, Ohio

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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repwinpril9y0a1 · 7 years

Text

As Republicans Cheered Obamacare's Repeal, The Law's Beneficiaries Worried About Survival

For those who stand to be hurt by these reforms, Thursday left them both fearful about their own medical futures and motivated to act politically.

These are their stories.

Coverage After The Loss Of A Spouse: Marianthe Poulianos, Florida

Poulianos says her current insurance coverage is reasonably priced with quality care provided. As she watched the House vote, she felt “demonized.”

‘I Keep Wondering Why They Want To Kill Me’: Jacqueline Church Simonds, Nevada

I keep wondering why they want to kill me.

I would be out in the streets with a pitchfork and torch, if I felt well enough to leave the house (but I don’t). So I will sit here at my computer and figure out ways to get out the vote.

How Could Christians Do This?: Stacy Jarrell, Florida

The last thing I’m feeling is resolve. If they think there was a resistance before... they have absolutely no idea how this vote has motivated us.

‘I’m Fucking Terrified’: Bill Petrich, New York

Petrich hopes the bill stalls in the Senate. But he’s afraid that Republicans won’t deny the president an accomplishment.

Medication That Wasn’t Available Without Obamacare: Annie Agle, Utah

Putting Her Children First: Jill Thompsett, New York

Chemotherapy During Repeal Vote: Laura Packard, Nevada

‘This Sucks’: Sam Alcabes, California

I recently gave notice at my job to move on to other things. Now I am concerned that I will lose my ability to obtain insurance from Kaiser or anywhere else for that matter.

I feel like I’ve played the game the right way my whole life. Luck of the draw on having a bad back.

This sucks.

What Happens When You Lose Your Parents’ Coverage?: Kathryn Poe, Ohio

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2peRhv9

#DIYS

0 notes

grgedoors02142 · 7 years

Text

As Republicans Cheered Obamacare's Repeal, The Law's Beneficiaries Worried About Survival

For those who stand to be hurt by these reforms, Thursday left them both fearful about their own medical futures and motivated to act politically.

These are their stories.

Coverage After The Loss Of A Spouse: Marianthe Poulianos, Florida

Poulianos says her current insurance coverage is reasonably priced with quality care provided. As she watched the House vote, she felt “demonized.”

‘I Keep Wondering Why They Want To Kill Me’: Jacqueline Church Simonds, Nevada

I keep wondering why they want to kill me.

I would be out in the streets with a pitchfork and torch, if I felt well enough to leave the house (but I don’t). So I will sit here at my computer and figure out ways to get out the vote.

How Could Christians Do This?: Stacy Jarrell, Florida

The last thing I’m feeling is resolve. If they think there was a resistance before... they have absolutely no idea how this vote has motivated us.

‘I’m Fucking Terrified’: Bill Petrich, New York

Petrich hopes the bill stalls in the Senate. But he’s afraid that Republicans won’t deny the president an accomplishment.

Medication That Wasn’t Available Without Obamacare: Annie Agle, Utah

Putting Her Children First: Jill Thompsett, New York

Chemotherapy During Repeal Vote: Laura Packard, Nevada

‘This Sucks’: Sam Alcabes, California

I recently gave notice at my job to move on to other things. Now I am concerned that I will lose my ability to obtain insurance from Kaiser or anywhere else for that matter.

I feel like I’ve played the game the right way my whole life. Luck of the draw on having a bad back.

This sucks.

What Happens When You Lose Your Parents’ Coverage?: Kathryn Poe, Ohio

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2peRhv9

#DIYS

0 notes

stormdoors78476 · 7 years

Text

As Republicans Cheered Obamacare's Repeal, The Law's Beneficiaries Worried About Survival

For those who stand to be hurt by these reforms, Thursday left them both fearful about their own medical futures and motivated to act politically.

These are their stories.

Coverage After The Loss Of A Spouse: Marianthe Poulianos, Florida

Poulianos says her current insurance coverage is reasonably priced with quality care provided. As she watched the House vote, she felt “demonized.”

‘I Keep Wondering Why They Want To Kill Me’: Jacqueline Church Simonds, Nevada

I keep wondering why they want to kill me.

I would be out in the streets with a pitchfork and torch, if I felt well enough to leave the house (but I don’t). So I will sit here at my computer and figure out ways to get out the vote.

How Could Christians Do This?: Stacy Jarrell, Florida

The last thing I’m feeling is resolve. If they think there was a resistance before... they have absolutely no idea how this vote has motivated us.

‘I’m Fucking Terrified’: Bill Petrich, New York

Petrich hopes the bill stalls in the Senate. But he’s afraid that Republicans won’t deny the president an accomplishment.

Medication That Wasn’t Available Without Obamacare: Annie Agle, Utah

Putting Her Children First: Jill Thompsett, New York

Chemotherapy During Repeal Vote: Laura Packard, Nevada

‘This Sucks’: Sam Alcabes, California

I recently gave notice at my job to move on to other things. Now I am concerned that I will lose my ability to obtain insurance from Kaiser or anywhere else for that matter.

I feel like I’ve played the game the right way my whole life. Luck of the draw on having a bad back.

This sucks.

What Happens When You Lose Your Parents’ Coverage?: Kathryn Poe, Ohio

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2peRhv9

#DIYS

0 notes