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mariaofdoranelle · 7 months

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Look at Us Now - ch. 17

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Hey! It feels like forever since I last posted, probably because I was kinda handling a crisis at home 😅 the crisis is very much still on, but I’m ~excluding myself from the narrative~ for mental health reasons, which hopefully means I’ll stop skipping classes and write more lol. Anyway. Have fun!

Warnings: language

Words: 2,7k

Rowan failed her.

He was reminiscing, reflecting on a rocking chair, under the faint light of the beach house’s side porch. Alone. The hammering sound of the rain against the roof was loud, but not as much as Rowan’s thoughts.

His doom was a lot easier to deal with when Aelin was just someone who broke his heart because she didn’t care enough about him.

He rocked his chair a bit harder, his muscles strained. He was too angry at himself to stay still, but too gloomy to have an eruptive reaction.

Rowan got up, pacing around the porch. He couldn’t stop thinking what would’ve happened if he’d done his job right. Maybe they would be together now. Maybe their co-parenting arrangement would’ve stayed friendly. Either way would be better than what it became.

The purely physical affair he had with Aelin was brutally interrupted by his incarceration and the discovery of her pregnancy. After that, they bonded in a way that made him feel like their souls were melting to be forged as one, but it was just another way of not having her.

Aelin was never fully his, and she would never be after what he’d done.

And even if she wanted to take a risk and have him, what if Rowan broke his family all over again?

Three knocks against the doorframe snapped Rowan out of his thoughts, and was all warning his mother gave him before sitting on a rocking chair.

“I brought some hot tea for you to tell me what happened. Come on.”

He complied, knowing he didn’t have the energy to defy Rory Whitethorn right now. Rowan could trust his mom to read his moods like a manual. He sat on the other rocking chair next to hers. “Did I ever tell you you’re too nosy?”

“I’m your mother. If I didn’t pry, I wouldn’t know anything that happened in your life ever since you left for college.”

He let out a quiet chuckle and sipped the chamomile tea she brought. Breathing the rain’s fresh air in, he let it fill his hollow chest. Rowan couldn’t even begin to explain his situation without uttering the words he dreaded the most, something he’d never dared say out loud before.

“I’m in love with Aelin.”

He stilled, bracing himself for the I’ve been telling you that forever or You’re six years too late, but all he got was an unreadable motherly look.

Rory reached for his upper arm, stroked it with her thumb before she said, “That’s a good thing, honey.”

“We were growing closer lately, and I… well, I didn’t have a plan, but—“ Rowan ran a hand through his hair, closed his eyes and let out a pained breath. “She explained today why she asked me to move out of her house. It’s bad, mom.”

“I see…” Rory trailed, his chest caving as she did. This was a bad indicator. The situation was so serious his mother was actually thinking before she opened her mouth. She continued, “I’m assuming you won’t tell me what happened?”

“I’m not sure I can.”

Even if Aelin allowed him to tell Rory about her mental illness, everything that happened between them back then still felt too raw, too intimate.

“That’s okay.” His mother gave him a small, reassuring smile. “Did she forgive you?”

“I—“ Rowan’s mouth hung open for a moment, then he closed it. He was about to say ‘no’, but even though Aelin didn’t say the words, she didn’t look mad or wounded either. “I’m not sure.”

“It was a long time ago, and she doesn’t look upset about it anymore.” His mom’s voice was soft, her touch on his forearm gentle. “This looks a lot like forgiveness to me.”

“Yeah, but that’s beside the point.” His mouth was ajar as he flailed his arms in front of him, struggling to explain that weight in his chest. “I shouldn’t be looking for cues and forgiveness. I shouldn’t have done anything that—“ Rowan rubbed both hands against his face, coming to terms with the fact that it’d take a while until he found the right words. “I don’t even feel like I deserve her forgiveness, to begin with.”

Rory recoiled. “But that’s not your decision.”

The sudden change in his mother’s tone, from soft to firm, snapped Rowan out of his spiral of self-loathing. “What?”

“Honey,” she pursed her lips, that trademark Whitethorn frown on. “Only Aelin can decide whether you deserve her or not. If she thinks you do and wants to try again…” Rory shrugged. “Just take that chance and don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Rowan’s mouth and shoulders went slack. “Am I supposed to forget I deeply wounded the mother of my child?”

Because that’s exactly what happened. Rowan was so scared to hurt Maisie it made him blind to some of Aelin’s needs, and he hurt his family anyway. His throat closed, and he felt as heavy as Aelin’s words on the night that crushed his dreams. That’s what happens, right? It’s impossible for a man to wound the mother exclusively. As if this isn’t bad enough, it leaves a trail of hurt that affects the entire family.

This one was on him.

“That was included in the ‘don’t fuck up again’ part.” Something about his expression made his mother soften. “It’s normal to wallow, but you can’t let that stop your life, Rowan. It’s always the same thing.” Rory sighed, and Rowan felt she was gazing right into his soul with the same green eyes she gave him. “Honey, you’re so full of what-ifs, it’s putting your entire life on hold. Sometimes you gotta be a little bold to get the things you want in life.”

Rowan stared at his mother, dizziness taking over him as his insides sank to the pit of his stomach. The rain was dying down, the gentle wind rustling his hair, but he couldn’t move.

At that moment, Rowan wanted to defend himself. He didn’t have the energy to, but he wanted to say that his mother was wrong, that she didn’t understand. He wanted to get up and scream.

He doesn’t like the way things are now, he never liked the co-parenting arrangement.

He didn’t choose this.

He never chose to wait for things to settle until six years passed by, it just happened.

Rowan is a careful person, that’s part of him. Always weighing his next step, always waiting for the right time.

And while he waited for the timing to be perfect, Aelin got pregnant, moved in with him, birthed his baby, kicked him out, grew to hate him, stopped hating him, and now their daughter is five years old.

He was still gravitating around her, waiting for the right time to do something. Anything. Rowan wasn’t even sure what exactly he was supposed to do, he just knew it involved bringing Aelin back into his life.

Sensing his struggle, Rory sat back and decided to not press on the subject. “This reminds me of your dad, you know?” Her gaze grew distant, a bittersweet smile on her lips. “It’s easier for him when I mess up than when he does. The guilt is always the worst part for him.”

“Sounds like Dad,” Rowan said around a faint chuckle.

Rory wiggled her eyebrows. ”You know what helped him a lot?”

“Huh.”

“Therapy.”

Rowan tensed, and he narrowed his eyes at his mother, trying to decide if he should believe her. “You’re lying.”

“I am! But it got into your stubborn head, didn’t it?”

Rowan chuckled, his gloomy state not strong enough to survive his mother’s antics. “Not now that I know it’s a lie!”

She gave him a small grin, then reached for her son’s hand. “Honey, your father’s mental well-being is called retirement, a grown child, and leaving the big city to a beach house. You can’t have any of that now, so you should consider therapy.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Rowan waved her off. “I’ll think about it.”

“Also, you should really talk to Aelin. You’re not good at reading cues, honey, you got this from your dad as well.”

He gave her a sidelong glance, noticing that she was off her handling-my-son-in-crisis mode, back to her usual self. “Is that so?”

Rory adjusted herself in chair, picking back the long-forgotten mug of tea. “Did I ever tell you your father hired a band when he proposed to me? You have no idea the amount of unsubtle hints I gave him.”

“Mom.” Rowan interrupted, giving her a pointed, knowing look. “I don’t remember saying anything about proposing.”

He had no idea if Aelin would let him get anywhere close to that.

“I know.” Rory’s elbow on his side was as faint as her subtlety. “But keep that in mind.”

He chuckled. “The band or the hints?”

“Both. Especially hints about bands.”

“And what if you want to swim?” He asked, crouched on the floor and eye-to-eye with Maisie, his face as serious as it could be.

“I can’t swim without a grown-up.”

“Any grown-up?”

“No strangers!” She dramatically shook her head. “Just Mommy, Auntie Sellene and Aidan.”

“Maisie.” Rowan’s voice was firm. “Your cousin Aidan isn’t a grown-up.”

“But he’s nine!”

“No, he’s still a kid. And…” He bowed his head, running his palm against his forehead. “I’m forgetting something.”

“Daddy.” She gave him a pointed look. “You’re being a buzzard.”

Rowan bit back a smile. The weight in his chest almost crushed him to pieces the first time Maisie called him that, about a month ago, but he was growing to love hearing the nickname Aelin gave him come from his daughter’s mouth.

“Oh.” He looked back up to her. “And what do we do about the beach animals?”

Maisie crossed her arms. “Leave them alone because it’s their home.”

“Perfect.” He kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “Time for sunscreen.”

“You done, Buzzard?”

Rowan startled, snapping his eyes to the doorway and finding Aelin there. If he wasn’t on his knees already, he would be now.

Her pink bikini made his eyes linger, but was enough to make him train his eyes back to her face, and Rowan thanked Mala she was at least wearing denim shorts. He plastered on a smile, looking at her face. Not her pink bikini and exposed curves. Blonde hair—not the ends hugging her breasts—and blue eyes. He focused on her face.

It was a regular beach attire, but Aelin didn’t need much to take his breath away.

She smiled at her daughter, pointing at the lotion in Rowan’s hand. “Auntie Sellene can’t find Bree’s sunscreen, can you hand yours to them?”

Maisie got the tube from her dad and ran downstairs, a girl on a mission. After a quick peek in the hallway, Aelin closed the door and took a step closer to Rowan, her arms crossed.

“You sure you don’t wanna come?”

Rowan shook his head. “I got a thing.”

“You got a thing… in a city where you have no work, and half the people you know are going to the beach?”

His lips pressed together in a slight grimace. “I’m staying home with the other half.”

“Rowan, are you—“ Aelin took a step closer and lowered her voice before asking, “Are we alright?”

“Yeah.” His voice came higher than intended, then he corrected, “No. Um.” Rowan grimaced. “Actually, can we—“

“Come on, Aelin!” Sellene shouted from downstairs.

He gave her a close-lipped smile. “You should go.”

“Sure.”

She took a step back, eyeing him carefully before fully turning around. Rowan’s shoulders dropped in relief when she left. They needed to talk, yes, but Rowan needed to organize his thoughts before they did.

He waited in his room until the rental car drove off the garage, and headed towards his dad’s office. Rowan flinched every time the wooden floor creaked—he didn’t know why, since he wasn’t sneaking, but something about that moment made him want to go unnoticed. It wasn’t his childhood home, but it still had the same smell of baked goods and the same pictures on the wall. Except that now the pictures of Rowan as a kid were side-by-side with Maisie’s.

In one of the frames, he was wearing his daily camouflage uniform, while Aelin wore the hospital staff’s maternity uniform—white pants and a white wrap blouse she absolutely hated, but her blinding smile suggested she wasn’t worried about it at the moment. Rowan remembered it was taken on the day they moved into her house, but he never understood why his mother kept it there. She wasn’t even with them that day, Aelin texted her that one, but maybe she noticed how Aelin’s silly smiles and enormous bump broke his usual serious stance in pictures.

Rowan didn’t miss how she ignored his love confession yesterday.

He glanced at the watch at the end of the hall. It was almost time. He wanted a better way to look at things, but it was a difficult task. What was Rowan supposed to tell her? Hi. Remember when you made me realize the biggest mistake of my life, I confessed my love to you, and you stayed silent? I already have my rejection, I just need the complete humiliation to have some closure.

It could be a dramatic depiction of what he was going to say, but he couldn’t find a better way to put it right now.

Depending on how the conversation went, Rowan could even grovel enough to confess that he didn’t need Aelin to love him back, that was not his issue. If she chose to share her life with him, that’d be more than he could ever ask for.

But would that be what he deserves?

Deserving of her or not, Aelin is the mother of his child, the love of his life. He didn’t expect her forgiveness, but he couldn’t let go of her either.

He opened his dad’s computer and logged into his email to get the link. He opened Zoom two minutes early, but the meeting’s host was already there.

“Hey there!” Yrene cheered from his screen. “I wasn’t expecting your text, but it’s good to see you.”

This session had been canceled for a very long time, since he and Aelin decided to not do therapy during their vacation. However, it came in very handy that Rowan’s mental turmoil started a day before their weekly session was supposed to happen, so he texted Yrene asking if they could meet online.

Rowan tried to smile, but his expression was strained. “Did I crash your plans?”

“Not at all! I was going to lie on the couch and play Subway Surfers for an hour. It’s a good thing you called, since I’m always encouraging people to fight their vices.” Yrene leaned closer to her screen, as if it’d help her see Rowan’s better. “Where’s Aelin?”

He scratched the back of his head, fighting the unease in the bottom of his stomach. “It’s just me today.”

She straightened her posture, squaring her shoulders. “An individual session, then?”

Rowan nodded.

“Good!” Yrene cleared her throat and continued in a serious tone, “I mean, good. What made you take that decision?”

Rowan swallowed, fiddling with his fingers and steeling himself for what he was about to say. For the second time.

“I’m in love with Aelin.”

“Go on.”

He frowned. “You don’t look surprised.”

“I’m really not.” Yrene’s own blunt answer made her grimace. “What I mean is, I’ve been working with families for a long time. It gets easy to tell.”

“Sure.”

He looked at Yrene. She looked at him. He was the first one to break, darting a glance at the wall, feigning interest there to ignore the awkwardness of this situation. Rowan wasn’t used to leading conversations, Aelin and Yrene usually did that.

“Okay.” His therapist cleared her throat. “I’ll give you two options, and you’ll choose how we start: you can tell me what happened in your vacation, or we can talk about how you only choose therapy because of your family, never yourself.”

Rowan was halfway into a flinch when he schooled his expression. This wasn’t a difficult choice at all.

“We arrived here last Saturday…”

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hear-that-music-in-the-air · 2 months

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Ada and Ian Headcanons (Rhythm Doctor)

this got Long As Hell i'm sorry lmao. headcanons under the cut!!

Ada:

- We know that Ian is a radiologist, but I think Ada is probably a general practitioner/primary care physician! If she's canonically a cardiologist (bc heart stuff) then that's my bad lmao. But based on what we see in the game, she doesn't really seem to specialize in anything. She instead seems to have a wide range of medical knowledge and we see her treating a variety of different illnesses/injuries, including Mr. Stevenson's broken leg and Lucky's torn rotator cuff. We know that she's been having to do pretty much everything around the hospital bc they're so understaffed, and primary care physicians usually have fairly extensive medical knowledge covering multiple fields, which I think is what allows her to do that.

- One of my biggest hcs about Ada is that she has a very strained relationship with her parents, and that her parents are also both doctors, though I imagine they're close to retirement by now. However, unlike Ada, they both specialize in highly specific fields like brain surgery or something (I actually do imagine her dad to be a neurosurgeon lmao), and because they're both so successful they have incredibly high expectations of her. They look down on her for choosing to be a GP/primary care physician because they think of that work as somehow less important/less worth her time. They're the kind of people who absolutely have a superiority complex about being doctors and ~saving lives~. Also definitely not the kind of people who should have had kids. They're distant at best and extremely judgmental and condescending at worst.

- Ada has one younger sister who's six years younger. Because their parents were always so busy with their careers, Ada basically grew up taking care of her sister, which definitely contributed to her mentality of feeling responsible for everyone all the time. Her sister moved out of their parents' house as soon as possible and is currently attending college somewhere far away, but she and Ada still keep in touch. Ada being an eldest daughter just makes too much sense to me lmao

- I like to think that Ada is an extremely affectionate person by nature. But because of growing up with emotionally distant parents, she doesn't ever really expect for that affection to be returned, especially from Ian who's not very outwardly affectionate most of the time. So when he does go out of his way to express affection it means a lot to her :)

- Because of the way her parents are, I think she kind of has an unconscious mentality of "no one is ever going to love me as much as I love them." She also struggles with people-pleasing tendencies (taking on more work than she can handle, having difficulty saying no to people) and self-esteem issues. So whenever someone goes out of their way to show her love, it kind of catches her off guard lol

- Ada's primary love languages are physical touch and words of affirmation (I'll explain this more below lol). She's REALLY big on physical touch—Ian generally does not like physical touch and one of the only people he tolerates/enjoys it from is Ada. Though I definitely think acts of service is one of her love languages too, as seen in Middlesea College Life. I simply think that she has so many love languages because she's FULL of love

- I imagine Ada as someone who feels her emotions very strongly, and who is generally just a highly emotional and empathetic person. Her empathy makes her good at connecting with the patients, but it also means that she feels everything so much all the time and it can be overwhelming for her sometimes. She’s undoubtedly very intelligent, but I think she’s still very much a heart over head type of person. She also cries pretty easily, though she has to try her best to keep it under wraps at work. The list of movies that make her cry is extensive, which Ian lovingly teases her for.

- Ada is extremely nearsighted and can't see much at all without her glasses. Because of this one of her favorite jokes is saying “I’ve seen enough” and taking her glasses off lmao

- Courtesy of @nightmun: Ada earnestly loves dad jokes, puns, and anything similar. Ian gets her a joke book as a gift once and regrets it immediately.

Ada, incredibly excited: IAN WHAT DOES A LEMON SAY WHEN IT PICKS UP THE PHONE

Ian: …what?

Ada: YELLOW!! *WHEEZE*

Ian: <:)

(this is the fifth one she’s told him today)

Ian:

- Ian’s mother is a single mom and his dad left when he was ten, hence why Ian is currently the only one taking care of her. Ian was also an only child. I imagine he and his mom are very close since it’s just been the two of them for so long, so her illness has really been taking a toll on him.

- Ian is bilingual and speaks Mandarin! I don’t think he has a canon ethnicity in-game (though please correct me if I’m wrong), but I’ve been thinking of him as Chinese Canadian, in line with @pokeblog123’s headcanon that Middlesea is in Canada. I imagine he and his mom speak Mandarin at home sometimes.

- I think Ian probably did robotics and/or coding as hobbies in high school and college! We know that he’s insanely tech-savvy, and he seems to have quite a talent for programming. In that same vein, another one of Ian's hobbies is buying old/vintage video game consoles from garage sales, on eBay, etc. and taking them apart to see how they work, sometimes also restoring them if he can.

- I know this is a pretty popular hc already but I think Ian is autistic/generally neurodivergent lol. I do try to write him with this in mind

- Related to that, Ian struggles with social cues to a certain degree, and subsequently has more trouble connecting with the patients than Ada. His little character card says he’s “better with computers than people” and I think this is probably because people are just difficult for him to read. Computers are much simpler; they’re predictable and generally do what they’re programmed to do. People are a lot more complicated. I do think he’s learned to read Ada fairly well simply because he’s known her for so long

- Ian's primary love language is acts of service/gift-giving. He struggles with physical touch and with verbalizing his feelings so he shows his love by doing things for people instead (which was part of the inspiration for my fic "Helping Hand"). If he goes out of his way to do something for you, that’s how you know he really cares. He's an actions over words type of guy :)

- Ian can be very blunt and straightforward, as we see in the game, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care. We know from game dialogue that he regularly encourages Ada to take breaks and is generally concerned for her wellbeing, and we can also infer that he worries a great deal about his mother. He definitely cares, he just has different ways of showing it.

- Ian normally doesn’t cry very easily and he also doesn’t like to cry in front of other people, but my hc for why he cried at the Stevensons’ reunion is because it reminded him of his own sick mother, who’s been alone ever since his dad left. He’s usually not one to cry in public but that just got to him. I like to think that Ada checked up on him afterwards.

(ACT 5 SPOILERS)

- Although he doesn't really show it, I think Ian probably feels a certain amount of guilt for everything that's happened with Connectifia Abortus, especially now that it's been revealed that the virus originated from the system he created. He knows that the rhythm defibrillator system could put the patients in danger if the virus keeps getting worse, and he's been working day and night to try to fix it. Of course, Edega's demand for a "miracle cure" at the expense of caution and safety certainly isn't helping matters. Given that Ada also needs treatment on occasion, one of Ian's biggest fears is that Ada will get hurt because of the virus (and, he thinks, because of him).

BOFA THEM:

- I think Ada was Ian's first, and possibly only, good friend at college. I imagine they met through their shared classes and Ada was one of the only people who made a point to talk to him. After that she sort of just stuck around, much to Ian’s initial surprise. He had always struggled with making friends and he was hesitant to open up to her at first, but her persistence and genuine sincerity eventually won him over. Now they’re best friends :)

- I've seen other people say that they were probably roommates at some point in college/med school and I definitely think so too. I'm sure they pulled a lot of all-nighters together lol

- Once Ada and Ian became close friends, I like to imagine that she also got to know Ian's mother. She's always gotten along with her very well, and because her own parents were so distant, Ada came to think of her as somewhat of a parental figure. When Ian's mom first got sick and started requiring intensive care, Ada insisted on helping out with anything they needed.

- What I was referencing above about Ada and physical affection: I think Ada might be somewhat touch-starved because of my headcanon that her parents aren't very affectionate people. She craves physical touch and words of affirmation because she never got much of that from her parents. Once Ian figures this out, he tries his best to do those things for her even though it doesn't come as naturally to him (as in like, he’s normally not one to initiate hugs but he’ll give Ada a hug if he can tell that she needs it).

- Ian’s pragmatism balances out Ada’s bleeding-heart altruism, and vice versa. I think over years of friendship they’ve learned to appreciate the other’s perspective and find a middle ground, though of course that’s not always possible in high-stress medical situations.

- Ada doesn’t really understand anything about the online games that Ian plays, but she probably uses gamer lingo incorrectly on purpose just to annoy him lmao

- Unrelated to anything but I think one of their favorite pastimes is hate-watching Grey's Anatomy together and making fun of all the medical inaccuracies (I’ve never watched Grey’s Anatomy but I’ve heard there are many). Despite this they’re both low-key invested but neither of them wants to admit it lol

Anyway I love them. In my mind they are besties who get married for tax benefits. Thank you for your time if you read this far lmao

#rhythm doctor #ada paige #ian rhythm doctor #act 5 spoilers #hi. i’m so normal #a good number of these are things that i’m either actively writing fics about or want to write about in the future #unfortunately school is keeping me busy so have this in the meantime #augh. i love them #honestly i can enjoy them as platonic or romantic or anything in between. i just think they belong together in any capacity #Do Not Separate Them #paian #<— for the paian lovers. target audience tbh we are shaking hands 🤝

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looselipssinkships-x · 8 months

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fall out boy lyrics that make me think of the places i grew up

this town is wasted and alone -- death valley -- when i visit, if I'm lucky i get to drive around, and the nothingness is crushing. You go to school, you graduate, if you're upper or middle class you go to college, probably the local one an hour away. You have to drive an hour to get to the good grocery store, twenty minutes to the shitty one. You marry your high school sweetheart, or someone you met in college, you settle down and have kids. You have at least one family member who works for a company you're pretty sure is still just a factory, even though they have fancier names for it now. I look out the window of my parents' house and i can barely see the neighbors' house.

you were the last good thing about this part of town -- grand theft autumn/where is your boy -- i left my best friend in the city i moved from and god i miss her so fucking much. Every time i visit it's like we were never apart. Every time i leave we both wonder if we'd have made it had i not moved away.

i can't remember the good old days -- 27 -- your parents' house is supposed to feel like being a kid, running around carefree. I have not lived with my parents for eight years but every time i visit i wake up with that same chest crushing anxiety and it does not go away. Even when i get back out east it takes me days to feel like a person again.

every pane of glass that your pebbles tap/negates the pains I went through to avoid you/and every little pat on the shoulder for attention/fails to mention I still hate you -- chicago is so two years ago -- i did not visit for almost two years, and then only did so because my grandmother was dying. Had she not been, it would have likely been so much longer. I spent those two years hating that small town, because i thought if i hated it i wouldn't miss it, and it all hurt so much that it wasn't hard to try to hate it. (that didn't work, because even though it hurt, it was still home)

I know I should be home/all the colors of the street signs, they remind me of the/pickup truck out in front of your neighbor's house -- chicago is so two years ago -- it's the little things that get me, the parts that weren't so bad, the parts that were even good, the parts that killed me to leave behind. The first dance class i took out east i sobbed the entire two mile walk home.

whoa, can't do it by myself -- reinventing the wheel to run myself over -- this one gets me because every time everything just feels like too much, it's amplified by the fact that i did this to myself, i chose to move away from everyone and everything i ever knew, and it's therefore my responsibility to indeed, do it by myself

we're the kids who feel like dead ends//and the poets are just kids who didn't make it -- i've got a dark alley and a bad idea that says you should shut your mouth (summer song) -- literally all of my friends from home don't quite fit the midwestern mold, and we're all mentally ill creative types. We're in our mid twenties now and have felt like burn outs for years

I swear I'd burn this city down to show you the light -- sophomore slump or comeback of the year -- the same best friend from earlier. I worry the small town is crushing her and she's so, so bright.

the best way to make it through with hearts and wrists intact is to realize two out of three ain't bad -- i'm like a lawyer with the way i'm always trying to get you off (me & you) -- you make sacrifices to survive. Mental, emotional, physical, everyone's sacrificing something just to make it through.

it's all a game of this or that, now versus then/better off against worse for wear/and you're someone who knows someone who knows someone/I once knew, and I just want to be a part of this -- hum hallelujah -- the duality of living in such a small town where everyone knows everyone and still feeling like you have no place to belong

literally all of g.i.n.a.s.f.s. but especially: everybody wants to drive on through the night if it's a drive back home//things aren't the same anymore, some nights, they get so bad//i sleep with your old shirts and walk through this house//it's a strange way of saying that I know I'm supposed to love you, I'm supposed to love you//I've already given up on myself twice third time is the charm//threw caution to the wind, but I've got a lousy arm -- ioh was my first fob cd, and i listened to it on repeat the summer i spent commuting from my parents house to the hospital in the city to camp until i finally got an apartment. This was also the year i spent coming out to myself, terrified of the future and expectations i knew I'd never meet. I was also in love with one of my best friends and god it hurts so much for your first love to feel so wrong

I will never end up like him/behind my back, I already am -- headfirst slide into cooperstown on a bad bet -- when i first moved to the east coast i swore I'd assimilate and no one would know where i came from, but the second I'd open my mouth it would be "oh what part of the midwest are you from?" Over time I've learned to make peace with the parts of myself that are so unavoidably rural and midwestern, but there were parts i resented for a long time, because it felt like I'd never be free from where i grew up

I don't know where I'm going/but I don't think I'm coming home -- alone together -- i remember driving home from a college course i was taking my senior year of high school and just, dreaming of driving on, starting somewhere new

and in the end/i'll do it all again -- the kids aren't alright -- if things had been different, if i'd grown up differently, i wouldn't be who i am today. Also i almost got these lyrics tattooed on my thigh. Still might tbh

you were the sunshine of my lifetime/what would you trade the pain for?//and I just about snapped, don't look back//what would you trade the pain for? I'm not sure -- love from the other side -- leaving was, and is, so goddamn hard. Every time i visit my best friend, my grandparents, i have to remind myself why i left, and why i can't go back, and so much of that focuses on looking forward because if i look at the past too much i begin to romanticize the pain

scar crossed lovers, forever -- heaven, iowa -- i am so inexplicably, irreversibly bound to the people i grew up with like some sort of fucked up trauma bonding. Out here on the east coast, in the cities, it's just different. Even people who grew up east coast "rural," it's not the same. It's strong with friends from the city i moved from and even stronger with my friend who grew up in the same county.

#fob #fall out boy #moving #so much for stardust #take this to your grave #actually a lot of take this to your grave #infinity on high #folie a deux #american beauty american psycho #save rock and roll #from under the cork tree #song lyrics #this got long #midwest #east coast #transplant #long distance friendship #long distance

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avpdpossum · 5 months

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Hi. After following a hyperfixation rabbit hole (thank you, ADHD and Autism) I have been wondering if I have AvPD. I've been obsessively researching it for a while now, and it would make a lot of sense for the struggles i've been facing that just aren't really explained by my other diagnoses but also aren't really *normal* per se, but I'm scared I'm wrong or just looking for something else to be "wrong" (i put wrong in quotes bc i dont think any disability/mental illness is actually something wrong, but that's how a lot of the people around me perceive it) with me so I feel like my suffering is more valid. My thoughts and hang ups are this:

I feel like my avoidance isn't severe enough to qualify (also me: hasn't made a follow-up appointment with either my neurologist or psychiatrist bc the idea of making the phone call "wrong" is crushing; changes the time I eat lunch so I don't have to either ask to sit with the people I know would let me sit with them bc they consider me or a friend or have them see me sitting alone even tho I literally like them and want them to be my friends; still haven't applied for my college housing accoms that I literally need bc I'm too scared i'll get turned down; feels crushing embarrassment even existing in the same space as my roommate; has a grand total of 1 friend)

It could just be my social anxiety/autism/agoraphobia. I feel like none of these really explain how deeply I feel rejection (my best friend was too busy to eat dinner with me like we usually do bc finals season and I nearly threw up bc of how much it hurt, and I ended up in tears for almost an hour) or just how crushingly embarrassing I find being perceived by others/existing to be (I literally can't make phone calls unless I'm locked in my dorm without my roommate there because I feel like people will judge me for doing a normal human activity like answering my mom's phone call; can't brush my teeth in the morning bc what if people see and only do it at night when most of the dorm hall is asleep), the constant reassurance I need from people (I'm constantly asking my best friend (only friend really) if I'm annoying them/too much work/going to get left by them/actually welcome to hang out with them).

I also wonder if my self-esteem is too high since I know low self-esteem is a key part of AvPD? I don't feel like I'm inferior academically/intelligence wise, hell I'm kind of arrogant in that respect, but also feel like I'm not good enough/interesting enough/pretty enough/funny enough for someone to want to be around me and have struggled with suicidal ideation because of it. I sometimes (by that I mean almost weekly) have meltdowns where I end up just wallowing in my own self-hatred for hours and ignoring people's texts/my homework bc I feel like i'm not good enough to have friends/long term partners.

I'm also not particularly quiet when I *am* in social situations. I tend to blurt out whatever's on my mind, even though I immediately regret it 99.9999% of the time, and my ADHD impulsivity results in me interrupting people a lot even tho it makes me feel like a horrible person. I always feel like I've overshared to everyone (tho my best friend, the only person I can be around all the time and not have a meltdown, says I actually under-share and should open up more to people).

I don't have any childhood trauma that could have caused it, at least I don't think? Like. My parents are amazing, they've always been there for me emotionally and physically. I was kind of bullied in pre-school through elementary school (people would take stuff from my bag and throw it and make me "fetch like a dog," I was really short so they'd hold stuff out of my reach) and never really had friends in middle school, just these three girls who let me hang out with them when I was around but would ignore my texts a lot, not invite me places they were going, etc, and after I moved away just before high school i didn't really bother to try making friends bc even tho i was lonely it just didn't seem like it was worth it bc they wouldn't like me anyway and I was just gonna go to college soon and they'd leave me then but none of that's really traumatizing?

I don't know. I feel like it really fits but also like if it were actually a big enough problem to qualify as a personality disorder my therapist would have caught it by now? And I'm scared to bring it up bc if she thinks i'm wrong i'll probably never want to talk to her again bc i'd be so embarrassed. Sorry, this was really long. If you actually read all of this, I guess I just want to ask if you think it's even possible I could have it.

i'll give you the short answer first: yes, it's absolutely possible that you could have it. i can't tell you if you do or not, but i can tell you that all of the doubts you mentioned are things i've personally struggled with while figuring my avpd out.

i'll put a much more in-depth answer addressing each of your concerns under the cut:

I'm scared I'm wrong

here's the thing: being wrong doesn't hurt anyone. people will act like researching your own potential diagnoses and coming to the wrong conclusion is the end of the world, but the reality is, there's very little actual harm that could come from a self-misdiagnosis.

with a clinical diagnosis, if the doctor is wrong, that could end with consequences like taking the wrong medication or doing therapies that do more harm than good to you. but just doing your own research and coming to your own conclusion? the worst that happens is you use the wrong word for a while and then eventually realize it doesn't fit as well as you thought it did, or you ask a doctor about it and they decide it's not a good fit and (if they're a good doctor) help guide you toward a more accurate explanation of what you're experiencing. either way, there's no harm done!

or just looking for something else to be "wrong" with me so I feel like my suffering is more valid

here's the thing: whether avpd is the answer or not, you're suffering. and if you're suffering and you want to better understand why that's happening, you're allowed to do that! your suffering is valid whether there's a name attached to it or not, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to want a name for it. it's only natural to want to understand why you feel the way you do and find people like you.

and if you're worried about a "psychology student syndrome" kind of thing – that you might just be projecting symptoms onto yourself that you don't really experience – the best thing you can do for that is to take some time to really look at yourself and your life and see if you see those things taking place. don't worry about if they're "as bad" as other people's; if you see examples of those things in your life and you're suffering because of them, that's all it takes to know you're genuinely experiencing it.

I feel like my avoidance isn't severe enough to qualify

it seems like you already know this on some level, but yeah, all of the things you listed after this sentence absolutely sound like some pretty significant avoidance to me. again, i can't tell you if it's avpd or not, but those do sound like the kinds of things i would count toward my own self-diagnosis if it were me.

there's no hard line of how severe your avoidance has to be, or any real way to objectively measure severity in the first place. if those things are getting in the way of you living your life and/or causing you to suffer emotionally, that means they're bad enough to be taken into consideration.

the secret is, almost no one feels like what they're experiencing is bad enough. i've had times in my life where my avoidance literally almost killed me, and i still wonder if it's "bad enough". don't let that imposter syndrome feeling stop you from better understanding your brain and getting the support you need.

It could just be my social anxiety/autism/agoraphobia. I feel like none of these really explain how deeply I feel rejection or just how crushingly embarrassing I find being perceived by others/existing to be, the constant reassurance I need from people.

this feeling was actually exactly what started me on the path that led to me realizing i had avpd. i knew that i was autistic and socially anxious, and i thought for a long time that those explained what i was experiencing, but the more i interacted with people around me who were also socially anxious autistics, the more i realized i was dealing with something none of them seemed to understand.

and all of the things you described – intense emotional dysregulation caused by rejection and embarrassment and needing constant reassurance to function in social situations – are classic avpd things. so i would say, if your gut tells you those things aren't being explained well enough by the words you already have to describe yourself, avpd is definitely worth considering.

I don't feel like I'm inferior academically/intelligence wise, hell I'm kind of arrogant in that respect, but also feel like I'm not good enough/interesting enough/pretty enough/funny enough for someone to want to be around me and have struggled with suicidal ideation because of it. I sometimes (by that I mean almost weekly) have meltdowns where I end up just wallowing in my own self-hatred for hours and ignoring people's texts/my homework bc I feel like i'm not good enough to have friends/long term partners.

hey, you're talking to the guy who's not just avoidant but also a narcissist. avpd can absolutely coexist with being highly confident (or even overconfident) in certain parts of yourself.

it also sounds like that confidence is an exception to the rule. feeling like you're "not X enough" for other people to the point of having self-isolation spirals or suicidal ideation because of it are really common forms of low self-esteem in avpd. if you ever here an avoidant refer to having an "avpd spiral" or "shame spiral", the experience they're talking about is a lot like what you described.

the stereotype of avpd is a super shy and quiet person, and some of us definitely are like that (myself included), but not all avoidants are. there are some who mask their avoidance by coming off as incredibly social and talking to people a lot, and others who (like you described) talk a lot even if they don't want to because of other aspects of their neurotype.

i think those feelings of regret and shame that you feel in response to what you're saying are really the important thing here. those internal experiences are much more fundamental to what avpd is than how they present externally, so the fact that you're experiencing them means i definitely wouldn't count avpd out just because you're not as quiet as some of us are.

I don't have any childhood trauma that could have caused it, at least I don't think? Like. My parents are amazing, they've always been there for me emotionally and physically. I was kind of bullied in pre-school through elementary school and never really had friends in middle school, just these three girls who let me hang out with them when I was around but would ignore my texts a lot, not invite me places they were going, etc

first of all, a history of trauma isn't actually required to have avpd. it's often assumed that personality disorders are also trauma disorders because they are often associated with trauma, but there's nothing suggesting that's always the case.

there's also research that has shown some people are born predisposed to avpd. it tends to cluster in families along with social anxiety, suggesting there's some sort of heritable aspect, and some research suggests avpd might start in childhood with a person having a nervous system that's naturally hypersensitive to certain triggers.

it's also important to remember that the kinds of trauma that can lead to something like avpd aren't always things we would look at as obvious trauma. for example, one paper i found said that a possible form of trauma that could lead to avpd is having an overprotective parent – the parent projects their fears onto the child and, despite just trying to keep them safe out of genuine love and care, ends up teaching their child that the world is dangerous. we might not look at that kind of parenting and automatically see it as traumatizing, and it's hard to fault that parent for trying to keep their child safe, bu the result for the child is the same. especially if we are born with more sensitive nervous systems than the average person, things that seem totally mundane could have a significant impact on how our brains develop.

all of that to say, it is possible that the experiences you described –being bullied in school and excluded by your friends – had enough of an impact to cause the struggles you're experiencing now, even if they don't feel like trauma. it's also possible that they're unrelated, because avpd (if that is what you're experiencing) can develop even in the absence of trauma.

I feel like it really fits but also like if it were actually a big enough problem to qualify as a personality disorder my therapist would have caught it by now?

you'd be surprised what therapists don't catch, especially if there's a much more common and less "scary" label (like social anxiety) that can, on the surface, explain away what you're experiencing. i've been seeing my therapist for 8 or 9 years now and she's very aware of my avoidant tendencies, including how much they get in the way of my life, but she still never brought up avpd with me. whether it’s because they just don’t hear about avpd enough to think of it, because they avoid diagnosing personality in general, because they don’t know “do with” avpd and would rather assume it’s something they do know how to handle, or because they think avpd is just another word for severe social anxiety, a lot of therapists will see all the signs of avpd in a patient but never actually bring up avpd as a possibility.

at the end of the day, you know better than anyone how much of a problem these struggles are for you. if you think this really could be the explanation, don't worry about what she did or didn't catch. therapists aren't infallible; they're human, and they can miss things.

I'm scared to bring it up bc if she thinks i'm wrong i'll probably never want to talk to her again bc i'd be so embarrassed

i 100% get that fear. i actually had that happen to me with my therapist – i brought up a few theories of mine to her, she shot them all down, and i ended up stopping our sessions and eventually going to a different therapist for a while because i felt like i couldn't trust her anymore. ultimately, i went back to her (mostly because the second therapist was an incredibly condescending asshole and my parents didn’t know of any other options), but i honestly still haven't brought avpd up to her to this day because of that.

so i can't blame you at all, and it's okay if you feel like you need to work up to bringing this up with her. try doing some more research and getting more confident in your theory so you feel like you can explain it well to her, and maybe even put together a collection of the evidence you have for it – examples of how you feel like you exhibit the symptoms, things like that – so you have something to hand to her instead of having to explain it on the spot. once you've looked into it more on your own, you can reevaluate how confident you feel in the theory and decide if it's time to talk to her.

in the meantime, you could try testing the waters to see how she might respond to you bringing up a theory. there are some therapists who are super against patients doing their own research and having their own ideas about what's going on, so it’s good to know if your therapist is one of those people ahead of time instead of finding out the hard way.

i would also recommend telling her that exact fear if/when you do bring this up to her. that sentiment of "one somewhat negative interaction is all it takes for my embarrassment to be so bad that i can never talk to you again" is a really common thing with avpd, and is one of the reasons a lot of avoidants struggle with therapy. so being honest about that fear can both help her understand that she needs to be cautious in her approach if she does disagree with you and could actually make her more likely to agree.

I guess I just want to ask if you think it's even possible I could have it.

so yeah, like i said at the beginning of this, i think it's very possible that you could have avpd. i can't tell you for sure, but pretty much everything you've described here sounds very familiar to me as an avoidant person, so at the very least i think it's definitely worth looking into further and seeing if it continues to feel accurate as you learn more.

i hope this helps! and whether you end up concluding that you're avoidant or that there's something else going on, i hope you're able to find the understanding and support that you need.

#poss.answers #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

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septembersghost · 9 months

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Did you find your friendships evaporated when you got sick? I have debilitating depression and basically all my friends have abandoned me and it's like, okay cool, thanks for validating the feeling that mental/physical illness makes ppl worthless!

they did, but in my case there were some extenuating circumstances with it too. the permanency of my illness set in at 19, many of my friends had moved out of state for college, were forging ahead and doing their own things and finding their paths, i couldn't anticipate getting so sick but also couldn't expect anyone to hang out in that stasis with me. most of us probably would've drifted anyway. my closest friend was still local and did...completely abandon me in it...but that's a saga of its own too. it's probably for the best that my illness broke us even though it was devastating, he put me through so much before that. and now everyone is in their 30s and have careers and spouses/partners and kids, and there is not a single experience we have in common. none of my once irl friends and i are in touch, but it's been that way for so long and my isolation bubble is very much the norm for me now? it's hard to explain this, but we adapt as humans to our conditions as best we can sometimes. i am very very blessed that friends i've made over that span of time online have been remarkably kind and supportive and generous and true to me - more so than anyone i knew as a teen - and that has meant everything to me and helped keep me afloat.

all that said, that's only my individual experience, and i am so very sorry you're going through this and feeling alone at all - you are so worthwhile and deserving of friendship and support, no illness makes you any less valuable or whole as a person. you're wonderful and i hope you find the people who will lift you up and love you in every way you need. 💙💙💙

#anonymous #letterbox

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weabooweedwitch · 1 year

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I mean I guess from my perspective I've already explained myself pretty well, but I've had so many conversations with so many different people at this point that maybe some of it is blurring together. We ARE discussing the possibility of personality disorders that somewhat warp my perception of the truth and as I've said, I've pretty much lost the ability to empathize wirh her at all because, again, I'm constantly expected to put myself on the line for her bssicslly by obligation but when I need some emotional understanding or support, well, I get talked over, I get invalidated, I get mocked.

Oh text Miranda from across the house for a glass of water because you have a headache and emotionally badger her until she does it, but when she's so congested she can barely eat or breathe, let the litterbox literally start molding waiting for her to recover because 'I just don't like how it smells'. Oh, your super depressed daughter who's been physically abused by the husband you barely knew before getting married to is depressed and isn't going to school/doesn't have a job? Better make sure that any time you ask her for anything, if she doesn't feel like it, shove down her throat that she sits at home all day anyways while you're at work, but don't worry, when your daughter is the one working manual labor jobs and you're unemployed sitting on the couch all day, you'll just use AGE as an excuse and still badger and insult her when she's too sore to get out of bed! When I was A CHILD literally falling apart from clear mental illness and literal actual disability, I'm told I need to exercise more, im told "oh you're like a self fulfilling prophecy, it's like you WANT to be this way, it's like you give up and MAKE bad things happen to you" but when she wastes DECADES going to doctors trying to investigate issues that are just symptoms of things she already diagnosed with I'm just the absolute fucking devil for implying the reason why her body aches is because she's been overweight and physically sedentary fir big portions of her life and she barely gets any vitamin D let alone exercise

Oh, I need to apply myself more, oh, I need to have more confidence in myself, oh I need to buy things for myself if I want them, but then I start buying things for my hair and my skin and makeup because I like those things and there are also problems I am legitimately trying to fix and then it's "oh you're overdoing it, oh you're wasting money, oh you're making it worse, oh are you even researching any of this" when she's the one telling me stupid bullshit like "when you shave it grows back thicker, I had a friend in my younger days that was a dermatologist and that was what she said" 🙄

All the times she lost jobs because she just kept oversleeping and oversleeping or quit just because she lost her temper and suddenly we're on foodstamps and going to pantries again. Having to get cars every few years because she treats them poorly and they keep breaking down and then she has to take out loans or make payments to get another shitty car and then she'll forget about older payments until they're being sent to collections and they're coming after her (she literally doesn't answer her phone unless she's expecting a call because she's gotten collections calls for YEARS) and now there's stuff on my credit report because she put shit in my name and forgot about them

I literally keep turning around and there are LISTS of mistakes she had made that have significant and often financial consequences and she does them over and over and over! There were times she was taking out loans to try and get degrees and literally finished none of them. Cosmetology school, TWICE. A community college for idk a computer degree or something, never finished. Something for university of Phoenix, never finished

My public school education was DESTROYED by the constant moving. I had problems brushing my teeth as a kid ao she LIED TO ME and said I had cavities and never told me the truth until YEARS later and by that point I had stopped brushing my teeth BECAUSE OF HER LIE because it made me more depressed and told me everything was pointless.

I guess I'm just a shitty person and I'll never change, idk, I dunno what im supposed to do to fix things. I think I'm beginning to realize I'm just a shitty person who was born wrong and maybe its time I stop burning myself out for everyone else when i still have to fix my ken problems, or, something. I get talked over and invalidated at home, in the past at school, and now as an adult it's at work. It's draining. If no one wants to listen to me then I'll just keep being bitter and shitty on my own terms and just marinate innit until I finally get the stones to take some sort of action, whatever that may be, positive, negative, hopefully a positive change obviously but you never know

I'm so exhausted at this point that sometimes it really is just "shrug shrug guess I don't care anymore". It's not like I want to be this way. I'm trying. To be better. I'm trying to be perfect. And it's just never going to happen.

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funky-gobbo-art · 2 years

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John Donovan notes

(At this rate he’s a semi-oc considering how little the game tells us about him and this is all headcanon and speculation. Hamster weirdo became my hyper fixation cause I just wanna give him more depth.)

Some of these things were inspired from conversations with both @sleepytimemoga-p2 and @thesketchykid as well. So giving them credit too UwU

Open to discussion as well ofc. I am releasing this for all who wanna see it.

LETS GOOOOO

Name: John Donovan Nicknames: Donovan, Johnny Birthday: November 21st 1932 Current Age: 35 Zodiac signs/Horoscope: Scorpio Sun/Leo Moon/Sagittarius Rising, Water Monkey Height: 5ft8 Weight: 150-something lbs Gender/Pronouns: Male, He/Him Orientations: ▇▇▇/Not straight though Ethnicity: American Race: White (Irish background with grandparents) Place of Birth: Washington, Pennsylvania Current Residence: Delray Hollow, New Bordeaux, LA.

Affiliations: C.I.A, U.S Army (Both formally), Clay Crime Family Education: Bachelor's Degree from Princeton Political leaning: Democrat (I GUESS??)

Hair Color: Honey Blonde Eye Color: Light Blue Body Type: ▇▇▇ (All I’ll say is personally I think the endomorph body type is more fitting than what we saw in game) Scars/Marks/Blemishes: Horizontal scar across his left palm, scar slash on his chest, moles on his face and neck. Faded freckles. Physical health: Left hand is prone to stiffness and pain on occasion, exhaustion. Chain smokes and nearly excessive drinking. Mental Illnesses/Disorders: Undiagnosed for all of these. C-PTSD, PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Insomnia. Susceptibility to illness: Medium-Low Overall: Despite everything, he’s okay.

((Relationships/Family))

Mother: Irene Donovan. Status: Alive Relationship: Was close with his mom as a small child, but she had to work a bit throughout his childhood and very much through WW2 and since then they’ve been increasingly distant and completely cut off by the time he graduated college. She’s pretty religious and once John started questioning things, she did not like that at all.

Father: Robert Sr. Donovan Status: Alive/Injured and needs a cane. Relationship: Had the fear/respect type relationship with his father, felt like walking on eggshells the time he got back home from WW2, increasingly got more hostile during his teens and escalated to his adulthood. Despite the rough relationship, the patriotism/nationalism got passed down, but not the Bible thumping. Had some contacts at Princeton from his past military service at least.

Siblings: Family of three children, oldest is Robert Jr. (Bobby or just Junior), the second oldest is James (Jimmy) and the youngest is John. Bobby Jr: Born Feb 1929 Status: Alive/injured-lost his right hand. Jimmy: Born March 1930 Status: Alive

Relationship with Bobby: Being the oldest he was expected to watch his younger brothers while their mother worked. They all got along for the most part but Bobby mostly wanted to keep his parents happy. John was closer with him when he was younger but once he was able to be independent, then they started to drift apart. Bobby being a “kiss-up” as a teenager was the start of a downfall. Volunteered to serve over in Korea and that made their dad happy at least.

Relationship with Jimmy: Much better than his relationship with Bobby weirdly enough. Even though Jimmy and Bobby were closer in age, Jimmy would hang out and play with John more when they were kids. He got into sports, specifically baseball and got real good at it too. John enjoyed going to his games. He got a scholarship and went off to college and only came back home when Bobby came back injured. Things got bad and he continues to be estranged from his younger brother.

((Romantic Relationships))

Single. He never got around to dating while he was in highschool, and had no time at all to allocate time into forming relationships like that while in college. It wasn't something he thought about either and I’m sure going to mostly all boys educational facilities did something to him. Being raised in this time period and Catholic made him never consider that he probably liked men like that until he actually got out of his home, but even then he wasn't sure. Did some impulsive stuff though during breaks that won’t be elaborated on.

Connor Aldridge: After being recruited into the C.I.A after graduating, John was put on an assignment down in South America and was to work under a more experienced agent, Aldridge. Without getting too into the actual plot and conspiracy happening, John got really attached to Aldridge because he was his mentor and things eventually elevated to a relationship that was really toxic thanks to the power dynamic and John’s willingness at the time to get jerked around like that. He was easy for Connor to manipulate because he was fresh but also had something off about him so convincing him to do more extreme stuff for their “jobs” was easy. Dangled patriotism in his face but also positive reinforcement. ((Theory: John still doesn't want to admit he was being abused by another man because of the stigma at the time and genuinely is more angry about Connor selling out information to the NVA. He puts his job and concerns about his country over his own well being, even though the betrayal really messed with his head.))

The Pen pal Girlfriend: Right after the fallout of the Aldridge situation, feeling lonely and confused, John joined a pen pal program being offered to the servicemen at the time. John started talking to this woman and it lasted for a while, he wasn't realizing it was a rebound reaction and just thought they went from friends to being in a long distance relationship. He wanted to meet her in person at some point but then she dropped a bombshell that she just got married which devastated him. He reacted by pulling information on her new husband and found nothing to realistically be mad about. John’s still upset because it implies she was seeing this guy the whole time they were writing and never told him. ((Theory: Girl joined the program out of boredom, John was friendly in the letters but was a little too weird for her (basically going on long rants and infodumping) eventually got a boyfriend in person and just kept the letters up cause John seemed kind of lonely. When John wanted to make plans to meet her when he was on leave, she had to cut it off for good because her and her boyfriend got married and didn't want to deal with it in person.))

((Childhood))

((Personally I don’t want to get into possibly too much uncomfortable detail because he’s not my character and I don’t know what it was like to be an upper middle class white boy in the 1930’s-1940’s.)) Was a chubby baby and you can tell he was even now. Old baby pictures of him are really funny because he just looks like dough in baby clothes. When he joined the C.I.A he worked hard to lose weight but it’s noticeable and he hates doing office work because it will come back.

Always got into things as soon as he was able to crawl, digging through boxes, going to other peoples rooms. Really nosey, I’m sure he ruined the times his brothers brought any girls home. Unfortunately also eavesdropped when his parents were having some disputes.

Him and his brothers went to catholic school their whole lives, church was unavoidable. Got into the habit of keeping up to date on the gossip at school and at church, during WW2 when his dad wasn't around and his mom was spread more thin, the habit got worse. Sometimes he liked to spread what he learned around because he thought it was funny, he’s probably about 11-12 at this time. With digging around he got interested in some technology, like figuring out how the phone works and messing with the family's radio (which got him in trouble).

Despite being technically “a nerd” during his school years, the other kids had mixed opinions on him. Either he was the weird and off-putting kid, the rude kid that always got into fights, the nosey kid or to a very small select group of kids: a pretty good friend. Really depended on who you asked.

His oldest brother, Bobby, also got into Princeton thanks to his fathers connection, but took a break to volunteer for the N. Korean conflict. Jimmy got involved in a local baseball team and focused on his career in that, so John was expected to be the one that goes to college and finishes it. John graduated highschool at 17 and got into uni pretty fast, thanks to his test scores speeding up the process. He took mostly journalism and engineering related courses, but got into other programs relating to foreign studies and languages.

((Other))

((This is just random stuff that’s just speculation for fun that I didn't know where to fit anywhere))

Always complaining about the weather, even if he’s somewhere that snows, he’s complaining about it. Especially hates humidity and yet keeps finding himself near swamps.

Despite being an Ivy League graduate with a government job, he really likes psychedelic rock music and genres related. Can’t seem to stand music he doesn't like and will get cranky if he’s made to listen to it. (The Doors fan…perhaps)

Because John’s not beating the Autism allegations, he turned down Lincoln’s offer of eating Cajun food because that’s not “safe” food for him. As soon as he feels slimy okra in his mouth, he’s gonna run to the bathroom and his appetite will be ruined for the day. Ice cream’s a safe food, despite it not being a meal.

He probably, if anything, learned some very base level Spanish that was somewhat useful when he was in Guatemala, but I wouldn't be surprised if Aldridge did most of the talking anyways. It didn't stick that well since he was insulted to his face during that one part in Stones Unturned and he didn't react to it at all. He’s probably better with South-East Asian languages, picking up Vietnamese, Khmer and Lao. Also just helps that he was there longer.

Speaking of not beating the autism allegations, that’s why he uses those pliers instead of regular nail clippers. I eventually got over it and learned to deal with how clippers feel but John seems to be content with his own weird setup.

When “Pong” comes out, he goes nuts over it.

If anyone finds out where he’s from and if they bring up the fact he’s from the Appalachian region, he will get defensive and say he’s not like those “backwards hillbillies”. Also he’s pretty touchy about his Irish heritage. He has some internalized stuff he needs to work through.

If he didn't get recruited into the C.I.A, he probably would have been some type of journalist specializing in political news and foreign affairs.

((Aldridge Notes))

Name: Connor Aldridge Nicknames: Aldridge Birthday: February 8th 1920 Current Age: 48 Zodiac signs/Horoscope: Aquarius, Metal Monkey Height: 5ft10 Weight: 160-something lbs Gender/Pronouns: Male, He/Him Orientations: ▇▇▇ Ethnicity: American Race: White (British family background) Him and John have a 12 year age gap. Connor was 34 when John joined the C.I.A and got involved in the Guatemalan coup d'etat. At 43 he turned on his country to sell out information to America’s enemies. 48 at the end of Stones Unturned. Why this specific age and age gap? Similar sort of to Lincoln and John’s age gap and parallels of starting out as a mentorship thing. While that’s where the similarities lie, Aldridge did see it as a way to get under John’s skin on top of everything else when they were hunting him down. The biggest difference is that Lincoln and John were equals, while Aldridge kept John in the dark and who knows what he was making him do without his knowledge. Did really mess with John’s head though, that “Yeah…” said a lot. ((Keeping this ship neutral cause I think it’s also valid to worry about possibly hurting your friends because you were hurt in the past.))

#mafia 3 #mafia iii #mafia 3 definitive edition #stones unturned #john donovan #connor aldridge #headcanon #writing #rambling #mucho texto #this is all headcanons so take with a grain of salt #cant believe i made up family for him #wild

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cupcraft · 9 months

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hi cup cupsmp since ur a grad student i was wondering if you had any college advice? im starting in the fall and i am. so very nervous

HI YES ANON I DO!! sorry if this becomes long its below a read more just incase! Also if theres any specific advice you'd like to ask just send another ask this is just what i could think of rn.

1: if you are going to live in a dorm/apartment/house with roommates please think about your living space boundaries and communicate these EARLY as well as communicate cleaning schedules/how you feel about guests/etc early. The most important thing is to work out these things really early and to make a chore schedule of some kind and also create an avenue of "what will we do if boundaries/chores are not done?" Like will you have a formal roommate meeting? will you just text each other? etc. Set up healthy manners of communication. And if your roommate is not willing to do this and you have troubles you may have to confront them, or you may realize "this is the kind of person i am not compatible living with", or you can bring it up with an RA/university stuff if youre in the dorm. But from both being an RA myself and having roommates this is the kind of thing that helps avoid anger/irritation with each other. Remember, you may not like your roommate or be friends with them but feeling comfortable living in a space with said person is important.

2: Studying! Learning how to study! I think its important you start college with what you know how to do but also try out other avenues of studying too because what worked before may not work now. It really also depends on the subject. Like ie math, really the only way to study for math is to do math practice problems over and over i feel like but when it comes to things like biology/chemistry/physics/etc. it seems more complicated than that. Take notes, but also find ways to study that aren't just "reading" notes (unless youre super good at doing that for me its not the most efficient). There's so many resources out there. There's flash cards quizlet yes, but also ANKI which is a great way to do time based learning and memory (and its free lol). There's making picture guides for yourself. There's making small study sheets with your notes. There's just so much to do! This isn't really an easy thing to develop but just do a bit of everything you can i think to see what works. Also other tips: go to office hours often with questions (you will learn a lot and also a professor will really get to know you and they become good candidates for rec letters and they also will know you well to see where youre struggling if you are), if you like studying in groups do this OFTEN review sessions with groups esp before exams is what savedd mee srsly because i learned really well from teaching other people what i knew and them correcting me (some ppl also learned well from listening to me go over stuff). Go to student run tutoring sessions if you need because often they are more helpful and less intimidating than the prof and they can really tell you the key to not only learning but passing the specific prof's class. You can also make a large google doc with a bunch of friends like a master study doc (i did that for a few engineering classes) for constant review. And if its something you can do easily, try to get back exams (exams from previous years) to practice on (but just be careful as some profs consider this cheating/bad. most of mine were fine with it though). Last thing ill add here is to make sure you learn how to make an exam/study schedule for yourself please do not cram last minute and do all nighters because over time it will really fuck your mental health and its not efficient in the long run. Do things in small chunks.

3: Making friends getting involved what to do? In my college i lived in a housing situation freshman year that housed us with ppl in our major and we had like a lot of events/stuff that forced us to hang out and we saw eachother inf reshman classes everyday so we studied together too. I do recommend that if your school has it, however that's not the only way to make friends. I made friends by interacting with ppl in class and study groups i created/or was invited to. I made sure to go to club events and i signed up for tons of clubs and then wittled down what i really wanted to do and made friends that way. I also joined an academic fraternity (not a social one) which really helped me with long term friends. What i would say is just get involved and dont be afraid to just quit if you dont like things. Getting involved can help you meet so many ppl. And you will meet ppl in class, you will have group projects/lab partners that just sort of just become part of your study groups and circle and you'll meet their friends and etc! And also realize that if youre scared to get involved and scared to talk to ppl nearly every single freshman is thinking the same thing (even though ik taht sounds cheesy it really is true).

4: dealing with competitive people that are awful. Depends on your major but you may encounter people that are Arrogant and Competitive and Awful. In the end, what's most important is to focus on yourself. Don't focus on class rank, don't focus on the 4 people that are trying to get a 100% on everything, don't focus on the people that schmooze professors every day and try to be their bffs, don't focus on the ppl who hve never outgrown highschool, dont fcus on the ppl that are like "oh yeah im a legacy and im so cool im going to be [insert prestigious career] just like them", dont focus on the petty bs! Srsly. in the end what these people are worrying about really doesnt matter at all. You should focus on YOURSELF and what YOU want. Want to get better grades? that's great and make that a goal for YOURSELF and seek out studying help/prof for YOURSELF and don't worry about bell curves this and competitive person number 5 that. Do your best for yourself. Surround yourself with ppl that care about you and want to get to know you and want to survive college. These drama filled ppl are never worth your time. I only add this advice because the program to get into my grad program eventually had a lot really over competitive ppl in it that were so toxic, but i just was civil and nice and just ignored them on the most part (or was lucky to get a few back exams from them) but they were never ppl i wasted my energy on because its not that srs. You should only ever compete with yourself and not other people, i think competitiveness can become really toxic for others and also yourself. To worry so much how someone ELSE is doing really harms yourself. Idk if that made sense but yeah ill end that one there.

That's all the advice i can think of for now off thet op of my head this morning.

#tea.cups #ask #advice

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ranjxtul · 1 year

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cw: mention of self harm, si, abuse and mental illness

i don’t know why i’m doing this, maybe it’s because we’ve changed so much and we’re finally learning how to be alive again, that there’s more to life than pain, so now we actually sort of want to be alive. but, this is to 14 year old me, specifically on january 1 2016.

january first, you started cutting because of the words spat at us by someone supposed to love us unconditionally. i know you didn’t want to live, that we felt crushed. i acknowledge your pain, we were in a rough situation far too young. but i’m here to say almost 7 years later, a lot has changed.

you aren’t ‘friends’ with that abusive person anymore, we’re a third year in uni and have some lovely friends who actually care. you aren’t unlovable. our research professor came to see the show we were just in and she hugged us with the love of a parental figure and told us how proud she was. we have a girlfriend who’s the light of our life. in fact, we’re moving to australia next year for grad school to be with them. we’ve been together a little over two years.

you aren’t useless or untalented. we just made our main stage debut in college despite what everyone said in high school about our talent. we do voice lessons still with someone who believes in us completely. we just got funded to spend our summer doing neuroendocrinology research and we’re soon going to be sending a paper in for peer review so soon we’ll be a published author. we also just got invited to develop a queer piece of theatre.

you’ll learn to speak out about who you are and you’ll educate yourself to be the advocate you want. you’ll escape.

we still struggle though. we still cut sometimes but i don’t blame you, it was your way of surviving. we have DID and america is trying to exterminate us for being trans and we’ve been in therapy for years now trying to sort out everything, which by the way is far more complicated than you think.

you’ll find out that we’re disabled physically and that we’re autistic but we love it. we’re done apologising. we still have a lot of body image issues and we still breakdown when things get bad, and we’re still scared, but we’re trying.

you’ll lose most of your high school friends but maybe it’s for the better. only one of them really loved you for you. eventually you’ll begin to heal from the trauma of highschool and being your classmates’ punching bag. we’re working on it. you’ll learn to love what you love unabashedly after graduating. we love taylor swift and ttrpgs and ethel cain and social advocacy and science.

you technically aren’t me, because of the DID thing, but you’re somewhere in the head and you did what you could.

sometimes it’s hard to not blame you, but i don’t. i forgive you. you did everything you could to survive and for that i’m grateful.

we’re trying to learn to love being us, existing and thriving. we’re trying to forgive ourselves but we forgive you. sometimes all of this writing doesn’t ring true but we’re trying

love, alicent, the future host

#ptsd thoughts #cptsd thoughts #did system #actually did #trauma #generationalhealing #generational trauma #trauma healing #i dont really know what this is supposed to mean #we felt called to it

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fitzonomy · 2 years

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Okay, so, This Guy. We'll call him Richard (Dick). I'd been talking to Dick off and on via instant messaging. We'd met through Reddit (where I meet maybe 60% of dates? 55? 55% Reddit, 44% Okc, 1% Craigslist. Yes, I've met someone via Craigslist. It's been an okay ride so far. Far better than my fetlife adventures).

Anyway, so we'd been talking and he seemed decent. I met him face-to-face at his apartment maybe four weeks ago. It was fine. We watched two episodes of The Bear together, we stayed on opposite ends of his couch, and I had an okayish time. It was okayish because I discovered he had a doctorate and I am very suspicious of people with doctorates who still teach at university (see: this blog between the years 2012-2017 to relive my nervous breakdown while I was working on my PhD). But, I'm always trying to get better about how to reserve judgement and not assume things about people. So I let it slide.

Then, about two weeks ago, I went back over to his place. We had planned on giving each other massages because 1. He'd been unable to attend a chiro appt due to illness so I offered to try and at least offer a bit of relief with some physical contact and 2. I've been touched starved and also wanted to have a bit of relief, even if it was just skin-on-skin contact.

Well, Dick and I start talking about the university. I've taught at the university level for about a decade and will be working on getting my license in teaching middle and high school math next year. I have opinions. He's not good at staying on point and I have to be patient.

He starts off with how younger students lack focus and originality. He's middle-aged so I sort of reply with, "Well, I'm very much constructivist-minded so my approach is looking at the teacher as an expert student who is supposed to help construct the knowledge in a learning environment." They're in a different place in the building process, basically, but everyone is a student and a teacher for one another.

This guy was just insistent that, oh, yeah, he's definitely one of those teachers. I mentally rolled my eyes.

So Dick asks if I want to hear what happened to him, it was bad.. Granted, REALLY bad things happened to me at all levels of my college and post-grad experience. My threshold for what "bad" is sometimes skewed. I understand that we all have our own limits and I try not to assume anything. So I say yes and let him talk without any interruptions or weird face journeys.

The tldr was: Dick reported a tenured male faculty member for sexual harassment. The department did nothing. He was very upset. When he applied for positions in a post-me too era, the department prioritized hiring women. He didn't get the job. A woman from Harvard did and she left Harvard because she had a sexual harassment against HER. He found out about it and was so upset he was sick to his stomach.

My reply: "I don't know what you want me to say."

Dick got upset, tears were welling up. "I'm a human being who is trying to relate to you an experience as another human being."

And I take in a deep breath. I try to figure out how to explain how other people might perceive the situation (aka mine at that moment).

Me: Okay, so. Here's the thing. When I hear that I know [X] things about you that are highly contextual. I know you aren't THAT person. However, I can see where someone who doesn't know you might think you're an old white cis male who is complaining about a job he didn't get.

"I'm not white," he said whitely, whitingly pushing back. "I'm Jewish."

Adonai. I apologize, but I pulled out a reverse Uno card so fast. “I was raised Jewish, so yeah, I mean... but I’m still white? Unless someone asks me or I tell them, I’m a basic white bitch rolling around in the world.” For those unaware, I have blonde hair, light-colored eyes, and am, what a shock, white. No one would ever confuse my race or ethnicity as being anything but Basic Bread European stock. Which, for the most part, is true. More importantly, No matter what I identify as, I get the privilege of not facing as many barriers walking around the world on a daily basis. To others, I’m perceived as a “nice white girl.” That’s a pretty powerful perception to ascribe to. Even more relevant, I was socialized and lived a good deal of my life as a “nice white girl.” Dick had lighter hair than me. Blue eyes. And, surprise, white skin. Since he told me he wasn’t religious and he doesn’t wear a kippah, I’m guessing that most people don’t look at him and go through the mental gymnastics of, “Well, my first thought is that this person is a straight, white, cis-man but everyone is more than the surface I see so maybe he’s actually bi-racial and he’s white passing,” or something or other. Some might, but my guess is he gets to avoid a lot of barriers. I felt like he wanted me to root for him in the Oppression Olympics. And we sort of went on like that in circles for a bit. He just couldn’t seem to grasp that other people might have different biases and perceptions of listening to him. Especially if the person listening was a person who had experienced trauma and harm in the same arena he worked. So, yeah, I left that evening with him placated. We hugged and I gave one of those friendly, “Talk to you later!” things and then immediately decided to never talk to him again. the end!

#adventures with people

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capriciouscaprine · 1 month

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okay, ex roommate post tiem to get it out of my system

(feel free to be nosey that's why I'm posting about it on tumblr)

first of all, why not just TALK to someone about this? bc I don't like social interaction and I'm too busy to see anyone, but also bc my ex roommate is a self-employed traditional artist, so if social opinion about them tanks, that could genuinely jeopardize their income, and they didn't actually do anything worse than be a kinda crappy friend on the whole and a shitty roommate in their last few months of living with me

me obsessing over them and using them as my secret competition is bc I'm mentally ill, not bc they 'deserve it' or 'need to be taken down a notch' or should be 'cancelled' or anything

so, my ex roommate had a shit life growing up, right up there with being any given social worker's average case of a low income child who's dealt with physical abuse, neglect, and bouts of homelessness; then, they graduated high school and used student loans to go to university to get a degree in fine art, and finally experiencing reliable housing while they had that student loan money; they pick up food service jobs while in college, start building their social media presence, and take home every classroom art supply that isn't nailed down, just like any professional artist does at the start of their career

fast forward approximately five years after graduation

they're still only just building up their online presence and they've never held down a job for more than about 10 months at a time; all of their previous living situations have imploded and they're living with a family member who doesn't help them do anything and expects them to magically get a good job and move out any day now, even though they don't have a car and they live in the suburbs

enter me, the person who owns a crappy little house that (eventually) has a bedroom open up so they can move in and a job to recommend them to

(I'm cutting out a bit here to maintain plausible anonymity)

they start out strong, decorating the room, cooking and sharing meals (not a routine in our house, just something nice they do), and building up their art income while they make money from the job I helped them get; they even manage to get a car!

but then, as a year at the job approaches, they have a harder and harder time getting along with their boss, and it's unclear if the job really sucks that bad or if my roommate isn't communicating well; they also seem to be failing to balance art, their other job, and general life, doing things like going on art binges only to crash and get an hour of sleep and be late to work the next day; eventually, they experience a significant health event, and they get fired for being absent from their job for a month

they focus on their art business, talking about how they're gonna explore more types of social media promotion and showing off how much their income has grown since they were at their relative's house; I've started my masters degree at this point, and then the pandemy hits, so we spend more time hanging out, especially since my other roommate had moved out by this point so it was just the two of us in the house

over time, the cracks start to show; they're so positive and cute and bubbly when they have the energy, and they talk a bunch about effective communication and boundaries and all that, but when they talk about their other friends, it's like a constant stream of criticism about their life choices

oh, one friend has openly wept about being fat and not fitting into the cute clothes they both want to wear? well, sure, body positivity and all that, but then my roommate gets annoyed that their friend is annoyed by the regular attempts to invite them out for hikes or to a gym my roommate goes to, and is further annoyed when this friend won't 'just' tell them they don't want to go and that the friend simultaneously still talks about her dissatisfaction with her body; my roommate is flat out making 'pick a struggle!'-type comments about this 'friend'

another friend struggles with money; they were low-income, and now they make relatively decent money, and my roommate is FULL of judgement about how they spend their money and how they socialize at work and try to turn all their coworkers into their friends even tho that just isn't appropriate

any time they go to someone's house that is messy, there are several comments made about why they don't 'just' clean up as they cook or do stuff around the house, and if they see a roach that person is absolutely getting judged hard core bc my roommate 'has ptsd (jokingly)' about all the trashy places they've lived (we live in the southern US, btw, we have lots of thriving insects and small mammals all over the place)

they complain about how someone keeps talking about wanting a better, higher-paying job, but won't put in the time to get required certifications to get that better job

they constantly talk about the importance of 'open' conversation, harping on how they're happy to have a frank conversation about anything without blowing up over it

and yet

they do

ALL OF THESE SAME THINGS

they talk about wanting to lose w while binging on snacks with friends and eventually a new partner, complaining about wanting to go to the gym but also how sad they are no one will go with them and that's why they go less; their savings starts running out at the pandemy impacts their art sales so they go get a job after talking about it endlessly (another complaint about a different 'friend') and tries to make friends with all their coworkers and starts a room overhaul even though they admit they have no budget for it; they don't wash up after using a TON of bowls and pans to cook a single meal and even leave out tidbits 'for the cats' on the FLOOR that they never go back and pick up; they don't actually do any training on their own time to get promoted or improve their art business; and trying to give them advice and feedback or talk about something that makes you uncomfortable with them results in a near-immediate grumpy cold shoulder, let alone that they dominate nearly every conversation with their own personal interests and check their phone when you talk about yours

(I have to go to work rippp I don't want tumblr to delete this in drafts so I'm posting it now and will continue later)

#cc og #petty and/or negative

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pzos-amiserableidiot · 3 months

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Vent? Self diagnosing? Something like that

I’ve often thought there’s something wrong with me. Something that makes me alien, robotic, or simply different from everyone around me. I know that is wrong. There are people who shame my experiences and understand my feelings and that I’m never truly alone and I take comfort in that. However, it’s still weird and isolating. I know there are others who feel things like I do and think like I do and understand on a fundamental level why I react (or don’t) a certain way because they do the same.

That isn’t to say that I understand myself all of the time. I notice patterns in my behavior and can recognize when I’m hurting myself, emotionally, physically, and/or mentally (all at various levels of awareness and apathy depending on the situation ofc). But I have trouble defining it and putting a name to emotions I feel. I know I’m feeling something. I may even know it’s a positive/negative/yearning/upset/righteously angry/etc. feeling. But because I’m very shit at recognizing other feelings in my body, such as hunger or stress or pain until it begins to grow and start to overwhelm, I have trouble recognizing when something is a problem more than a feeling.

All of this to say I think I’ve been feeling touch deprived. I think for years. Or maybe deprived of the feeling of safety??? Unsure. I crave affection and hugs and physical touch and words of affirmation from those I truly trust and care about and feel safe with. However, I’m only ever around my little sister often enough to get safe feeling hugs around once or twice a week since I’ve moved out for college. I rarely see the friends I feel safe enough to seek hugs and attention from (I think the last I saw them was to watch the Barbie movie). I have only two friends in college who I’d say I’d be okay hugging (one more than the other but still uncomfortable feeling) and we also rarely see each other (maybe once or twice a month). I like and get along with my roommate but she still triggers my fight or flight and I’m incredibly aware of where she is at all times (we live together fine and have talked and bonded a bit but still). All in all, I rarely receive touch from anyone outside of the weekends, and even then the hugs are brief (my sister isn’t too fond of touch and my parents hugs feel choking and I hate them)

The symptoms of being touch blend in a lot with everything I’ve ever felt. I’ve suffered from depression since third grade and anxiety probably longer. I’m doing better now but they still hit every now and then. Plus college raises your stress levels so no dice there. The thing that has brought it to my attention the most was my hyper awareness of every brush of the skin and touch someone gave me. An accidental shoulder bump to a stray hand hitting me while someone gesticulates. Even someone leaning over to grab something and being close enough to feel the heat from their skin sears itself into my memory. It’s not quite burning but the touch seems to linger and I can still feel it days later. I think I want to cry about it sometimes. I’ve gotten good enough at telling my emotions and thoughts apart to know I’m nothing thinking about it because of anxiety. I think it’s a yearning. I’ve gotten clingier to my sister and the family when I see them. It’s weird and off putting how much I crave to the attention and hugs from people I used to feel mostly anxious and vaguely happy with.

I think I used to suffer from this a lot when I was in elementary school. 4th and 5th grade, when my world was a rollercoaster of ending, being revived, and ending once more. And middle school I was weary and constantly felt wrong footed, slowly I grew to have friends and they were affectionate. I healed and know I think I’m recognizing I’m returning to a warped version of that state before. I know how to deal with my depression, anxiety, many chronic illnesses, stress and school now. I am in a better place mentally than I was before. I do not quite know how to deal with this.

I have a weighted blanket that was supposed to be for my anxiety but now helps chase away the chill of the absence of something (someone?). It’s heightening my anxiety and I think causing my hallucinations to start up again. It’s causing my back to feel colder and more vulnerable than ever (it’s reminding me of middle school and needing a heavy jacket or backpack on me nearly at all times to help chase away the chill despite the weather reaching the 90-100s. When it wasn’t one of those it was a wall or chair or couch against my back, pressing myself firmly against it until the chill/eyes watching/wings trying to break free went away). I’m unsure if there’s anything more I can be doing. I am socializing just fine (I am the treasurer of the Pride club so I can’t exactly escape a certain level of socialization even if I wanted to) and I am exercising regularly (the campus may be small but my classes have the luck in being on the opposite sides of campus) and I am sleeping regularly and showering and generally doing my best to take care of myself.

I tried once, a long time ago back in elementary and again in middle, to try and be more touchy. To get that touch I craved and achieve my goal of being (what I used to view) a very friendly person who people feel safe with. But, it always made my skin crawl, my anxiety spike, and feel so incredibly awkward and weird. I concluded that I’m simply not the kind of person who can pull off or be a touchy friendly person. (I then turned to trying to tell people how much I cared verbally, this I managed to learn and do). However, because of my weird reactions to touch (mostly freezing or flinching) and not being very good at reciprocating, my friends had the impression I didn’t like touch all that much. And I can exactly deny that.

I hate random adults touching me. I feel uncomfortable if a stranger or someone I barely know acts too friendly touch wise. I hate when my dad rubs my back or does his weird supposed-to-be-comforting/calming rub on my arm. I hate when mom cuddles me. (It’s not that I don’t crave their hugs and affection, it’s more 50/50. I just hate when they do it without my permission. Or for too long. Or touch a spot on my back or rub my back that my brain registers as wrong. I stop feeling safe and more trapped and suffocated. Like I’m being held my claws or chains. I also know it’s impossible to ask for them to know when it’s okay to touch me and when, so I put up with as much as I can.) So when it comes to me trying to figure out if I’m touch starved, I get even more unsure.

Yes, I crave touch, but only from those I trust and feel safe with. However, the amount of touch and affection I crave is immense. I drive myself into a spiral imagining receiving positive non sexual touch from my real friends to fictional characters. I imagine cuddling, holding hands, hugs, laying on top off each other, a head on a shoulder, a hand clapping a back, etc. And then I’m thrusted back into reality and my anxiety spikes at asking for any of that let alone actually trying. I feel like anything outside sitting next to each, a hug or handshake or high five or maybe holding hands would cause me to climb out of my skin. And I’m unsure if that’s a positive or negative response. The only person I’m completely comfortable with is my sister, but I know enough that relying on one person for emotional support is ill advised and as she isn’t big on touch it would probably be ill received. Plus, we only see each other on weekends right now.

I hesitate to say that I have no one to go to for help with this. I have friends and I know they’d be willing to help as they’re all very kind people. But I’m unsure if I’d calm down from being anxious enough to enjoy it, with a few of them I can barely handle sitting close enough to press shoulders.

I believe I’m managing fine (not great but not too bad) right now anyways. After writing this all out i think it’s safe to say I’m touch deprived. I’ll just have to be more aware of that when trying to figure out why I’m feeling bad/stressed/overwhelmed. I’ll also do my best to talk to my friends more (Google says that helps along with some other things).

#vent #vent post #it def turned into that #I’m chill and fine now that I got it all out I think #okay to read and reblog and stuff

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kirbycrouch · 7 months

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living with bpd has to be one of the hardest things i have to deal with. i cant even begin to count the amount of friendships and friend groups ive lost and pushed away because of my unstable emotions and my inability to talk about my feelings and be vulnerable with people. i fucking hate being vulnerable, i hate talking about my feelings. but also i guess its just that i never really learned *how* to talk about my feelings. my whole life i was yelled at and told im "ruining everything" and am being "selfish" or "self centered" or that im a "burden" whenever i talked about my feelings or showed emotion. you see, my family has always been huge on their image and reputation, anything that could possibly make them look bad was seen as a problem, and thats why my family always ostracized me and saw me as a problem. when i got bullied all throughout grade school and high school my parents would blame it on me and would tell me "why is it only you that has these problems?? no one else in the family had these problems!!" and thats around when the first time i attempted to kill myself, but even then my parents tried so hard to hide the reason why i was in the hospital and told everyone its from "allergies" even though i was there for two weeks. sure theyre nicer to me now, but the damage was already done. truthfully though im used to always getting the short end of the stick and losing everything, or having things just. not. go. my. way. on top of me having bpd and being autistic and honestly at this point probably schizophrenic too with how fucking often i experience hallucinations and paranoid delusions, i also found out that i have pcos the other day right before my birthday, which my birthday also sucked but at this point it was too late for me to have a good birthday in the first place. i have to deal with having chronic mental and physical illnesses for the rest of my life that not only affect my personality but affect my physical appearance and health too. im not desirable physically or emotionally. everything i liked about myself is being taken away from me. and it doesnt help that i keep pushing away the people that care about me because of how fucking unstable and stupid i am. i lost everything. and i really cant even be upset because its all my own fault. i just continuously self sabotage myself. but i guess its not only my own fault because how cant i be scared? not that long ago i got banned from a college club, lost a whole group of friends, because i reported my rapist/abuser and they called me a liar. my rapist/abuser was "banned" too but we all know that i was only told that so i wouldnt report the club or "expose" them or whatever even though regardless no one will fucking believe me. when i was raped in high school someone i thought i could trust told everyone and i got called a "whore" and a "slut" throughout the whole 4 years there, not to mention he was in most of my classes despite me fucking begging the school to take him out of my classes or to change my schedule so i dont have to fucking see him everyday. of course they didnt listen, though. why would they? a few weeks ago my therapist literally told me "next time this happens you should keep it to yourself because no one believed you the last two times" and that just. broke me. but i cant even really be upset because shes right. no one believed me, and if it ever happened again still no one would believe me. no one ever takes my side, ive been alone and lonely my whole life, but its mostly my fault that im like this so who am i to get upset over my own actions. i dont know how much longer i can handle any of this, i thought things were getting better for me but i feel myself falling down the hole again. i really want to end it all. i dont have hope for things ever getting better for me. some people are just given a bad set of cards and theres no way they could ever win, and i think im one of those people, so i should just give up.

#rant

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coffin-upalung · 8 months

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Vent post, TW mental illness, hospitalization, being fucking poor, speculation of symptoms

So I have a problem with disorganized speech, right? I kind of noticed it a few months ago but now it's impossibly to ignore. Or I'll just stop talking when i thought i already made my point but i actually only said half a sentence? I don't have health care, so I can't figure out right now if it's a mental illness symptom or a physical illness symptom, both of which I have several diagnosed.

But I also developed a stutter? Which makes me think it's gotta be mental illness. But also I've had like a good 10 concussions in my life, 4 of them were in 2019, so maybe just got a bruised melon.

And I've found myself fencesitting between reality and delusion. And I've caught myself hallucinating. Birds, music, people taking muffled outside my window where I can't make out any of the words, bugs in my food and spiders in my shower.

And I want so fucking bad to just voluntarily admit myself. I'm not a DANGER to myself, but I just can't function. I can't hold down a job, I spiral and bounce between panic attacks to disassociation. I feel fractured, like multiple people are living my life, like half the day is a dream or I'm in the passenger seat of my life.

I've been on antipsychotics since I was like 13 or 14, but I haven't had healthcare in years. And I just want to take a month or two and admit myself to get everything fixed. And it sucks that for YEARS I was repeatedly 5150'd and got thrown in residential for 4 months as a kid against my will but now I actually want the help and I can't AFFORD IT?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Like I'm not suicidal in the slightest. My husband and I are happy and living a good life, we never fight and it genuinely feels like a sleepover with my best friend every night-- depression is near non-existant. But I just want to not be crazy anymore so I can take a shower without thinking I can talk to the ghosts in the walls!!!!!

I literally just want the hallucinations to stop and the delusions and the rabbit holing to stop. I want to be able to think straight and speak clearly. I want to stop having episodes where I'm laughing and crying and pulling my hair out. And it's for no reason. The trigger will be like "thought about that one embarrassing thing you said" and I just can't breathe and then I'm gone. Like it's someone else and I can't think and then like I'm in the shower and I've calmed down and im singing to music that's playing on my phone.

Like how am I supposed to tackle this in weekly therapy. It's gotten bad enough I'm BEGGING to go back on meds.

Do you know how long this fucking took me to write? I feel so small and incapable of simple tasks like writing a paragraph-- things I used to do for fun with fanfiction and random essays on topics I'll never post. But I keep misspelling and starting with one sentence and writing the ending of another. I kept misspelling symptoms as mysomptms and that's the clearest example of how jumbled things get. Like everything is there it's just a mess. It's not like a typo, it's genuinely my brain tells me every letter at once and I can't remember what comes first. I'll tell a story about my day and I'll tell the middle then the first then the last, or in reverse and I know it's mixed up but I can't remember what came first. And my grammar is so absolutely fucked. Like I almost majored in English and my essays were the ONLY reason I got into some colleges because I absolutely bombed my SATs because I had just gotten out of the hospital. Not my point, but demonstrates that I used to have such a tight grasp of the English language and its mechanics and now for months it's felt like I'm struggling in a 3rd or 4th language, buffering and lagging like a 2006 Dell.

And im AWARE that none of this makes sense, I've got pinball brain and im trying to say too much with too few words but this is an exercise to at least push through and get as much as I can out. At least to document. I feel like I have to apologize for how hard it is to understand me. This feels like such a burden to everyone around me and that makes it harder to think and speak. I hate this and I just want to get better.

Idk just had to get this out, hopefully I'll be able tks how a doctor when I'm able to get help. This makes me feel so stupid. I can fucking write, I'm an articulate fucking human being. I've got so much going for me, why does my first language feel like I'm only conversational? I can't communicate, I've lost half my vocabulary and I used to pride myself on my intelligence. I was always the smart friend, the one who's good at everything and would write your papers and give advice and I was going to do great things. And now I'm just a college dropout lunatic housewife that needs help with everything.

And im not... sad? It's just anxiety and then a detachment of reality. And I've tried to write this more like I would say it, it feels like either my brain goes too fast for my mouth or fingers or that it's so slow I cant think there is no in-between.

#do not reblog #vent post #not all triggers tagged

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 10 months

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Our Moonie son “seemed to be in a bizarre world of science fiction” at Barrytown

Voices of parents of children lost to the moonies 3

February 1976

The following was excerpted from a testimonial submitted by a parent:

Our 21-year old son loudly proclaimed his intention to die in Korea for the Messiah (Sun Myung Moon) in August 1974. This was the first conflict with his family. He is the oldest of __ children. He had been an amiable, respected, industrious, successful 4th year college student.

He met the Moonies on the University of Minnesota campus while waiting for his sister, with whom he shared a car. He told us he was going to a Christian retreat for the weekend in Spirit Lake, Iowa. His emotions exploded there. By his actions we knew that this was not a Christian group, life investigated and found the kind of deception our Bible warns against. He couldn’t – or wouldn’t – hear us.

He was promptly moved to a commune 80 miles away and allowed only short contacts with us. He tried to convince us of the movement’s value, but the platitudes only thinly veiled Moon’s obvious mission for power and money. They followed the con-man pattern of telling the victim lies he wanted to hear to get his money, then making him feel good about it. After months of grueling days of fund-raising, not enough sleep, and emotional pressure-cooker weekends, he turned over his bank account. He had saved $1,150.00 while living at home, working part-time as a janitor, for his final-year at college.

In 1975, they pumped him up into thinking he was getting a scholarship, then flew him to Barrytown for deeper indoctrination. He wrote of guarding Moon’s Lincoln Continental and working nights on the telephone switchboard.

We drove him away from Barrytown for a holiday in July. Many young people who had left cults talked to him on the way back home. His values had changed. Money, personal freedom and comfort seemed unimportant. He had regressed to the level of early teen dependence. He wanted to marry, but it didn’t matter to whom since all Moonie women think alike. He seemed to be in a bizarre world of science fiction, but after 30 days, he promised not to go back. If we had had immediate psychiatric help in a professional Rehab. Center at that time, with necessary security, we would have had a better chance for success.

The cult was calling. They demanded to talk to him or initiate a police investigation and lawsuit on an alleged kidnapping charge. Our local police called them and told them that our son was free, that we didn’t have to tell them where he was, and to stop harassing us. He went to stay in a foster home with a couple who had had over 500 disturbed children from public and private agencies. We contacted the County Mental Health Clinic and gave them the background; they arranged for testing and counseling. It took a few weeks to get into this and many more to get him ready for family involvement.

The cult found his foster home, called and threatened them and alluded menacingly to their ten-year-old daughter. The mother became physically ill and was hospitalized, anxiety attenuating her illness. The stress was too much for them and our son seemed to be slipping back.

After he came home to stay, he found a good job near our home. He was, at last, willing to have us involved in Family Therapy. His father was ill and hospitalized for surgery. His emotions were straining from holding it all in and he told the therapist and me, “When I think like you, I’ve wasted a year of my life.” On New Year’s Eve, he watched Billy Graham’s telecast and became visibly upset. He quit his job and secretly had the cult pick him up outside his place of work. They returned him home at the usual time for a few days until I discovered them. He expected to stay in the cult and continue Family Counseling, but we could not agree to this. He agreed to continue individual therapy, but has not done so due to being so busy out of state on the fund-raising tours.

__________________________________

Voices of parents of children lost to the moonies 1 Ken Sudo’s 120-day Training Manual and Moonie telephone fraud

Voices of parents of children lost to the moonies 2 Moon’s mass marriages are “a form of sex perversion”

Voices of parents of children lost to the moonies 4 “only if she got rid of the baby and gave it up for adoption”

Voices of parents of children lost to the moonies 5 Moon is a man devoid of of human compassion

Voices of parents of children lost to the moonies 6 “One of your ancestors was a peeping Tom.”

Voices of parents of children lost to the moonies 7 Secret 1975 marriage, shaking and vomiting

Voices of parents of children lost to the moonies 8 Many parents suffered heartbreak after losing their children to the Moonies

#Moonies #Unification Church #messiah #Sun Myung Moon #fundraising #MFT #parents of moonies #Barrytown

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