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neurosharky · 2 months

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The Parts of ASPD That You Don't See

This post will only contain my personal experience and opinion. It may not be applicable to every other person with ASPD and may likewise be relatable for people who do not have it.

This post aims to educate, provide insight and contribute to the diversity of ASPD experiences. It is not gonna try to excuse any harmful actions/beliefs, nor does it want to encourage others to imitate those.

Once again, this is just my own experience and does not speak for the whole community, nor is it a reflection of my actual current actions or how good of a person I am.

Abbreviations:

ASPD = Antisocial Personality Disorder

In my time as a mental health (and specifically ASPD) educator on instagram I have published a total of 65 ASPD themed posts and have written countless answers to peoples questions and rambles on my story and in my direct messages.

If you would read most of that, you would have a pretty good understanding of my ASPD symptoms and ways this condition affects me, but you would still be missing quite a bunch of things.

So this my attempt at showing you some things I have not talked about (at all or much) yet, in order to contribute to more accurate representation, as well as practising vulnerability:

1. Whenever I am confronted with someones suffering, misery, hurt, etc. my first thought is not kind or pleasant. Even if that person is my friend, my family member, or someone suffering from something I equally suffer from. My first thought will always be mean, insulting and full of blame towards the other person. In my head I will scream at you to be less sensitive, that its all your fault, that I wish you'd stop whining and bother someone else with it. If I do not feel like engaging with it at all, my next few thoughts will be equally mean and I will rationalize not having to help you or engage with you, until it looks like the most logical way for me to proceed.

2. If I do feel like engaging with someone who is suffering, or if I have to, in order to socialize, make friends, keep friends, etc. it takes a lot of effort and work for me to do it right. You will never see that effort and work, you will never be able to appreciate it and for that I despise you, even if its not your fault or responsibility. It makes me irrationally angry if people do not thank me properly for doing the bare minimum and do not appreciate me helping them, being kind and being a good friend. Being kind, for me, is keeping my ASPD at bay, like a rabid dog on a chain and doing the exact opposite of what my brain is telling me to do. I have to choose to do that every single day in every single moment, every single interaction, time and time again, while desiring a level of appreciation for it, that no one can ever fulfill. This makes it even harder to choose kindness again, because it does not give me what I yearn for, yet I do it, because at least I'll get something in return, even if it will never be enough.

3. I am not always able to handle my money responsibly. If you would leave me alone in a casino and I would start playing a game, I would not stop until I lose everything, because I already cannot stop myself from doing that in online games with game currency. Next to that I am incapable of stopping myself from buying something once I decided I want it. If I want something, I'll get it and I'll bad talk everything else, just so I get what I want. I can rationalize any purchase, so I actively have to avoid things where I know I couldn't control myself, as well as constantly remind myself that luxury isn't needed, even tho thats all I desire. ASPDs impulsivity, irresponsibility and the disregard for everything else, make it hard to keep myself in check and I despise not being in control of myself. On top of that it makes me irrationally angry to see people criticize the lifestyle I wanna have, despite knowing that they're theoretically right about the base thought.

4. I am angry at myself for being scared of things, for being incredibly soft at times, for needing a specific level of care, for needing help, for not being able to live entirely independently, for not having been more careful with my choices years ago, for having let people hurt me, for still being affected by my trauma, etc. In short I am angry with myself, for not actually being that cold ruthless genius my ASPD tried to make me. I feel as if I failed my own brain & by extension myself, by not even properly becoming what it wanted me to be. My brain tried to protect me and I couldn't even let it do that, because I just had to be a soft little baby and cling to certain parts of my childhood & personality. Part of this hatred is internalized ableism, but part of it is also just an inability to accept, that its okay to be like this now, because there is no longer a threat I need to be protected from and even if there was, I can do it on my own now.

5. Being in recovery and having moved on from some of my more harmful behaviours, beliefs and views, as well as being a little more responsible & knowledgable about social rules, also means, that I now get to look back on my childhood, teens and early adulthood and get to see all of the mistakes I made, that I previously could not see. I get to see all of the bad decisions, all of the ways in which I may have permanently harmed people and in their eyes I will forever be that person. I can't feel sorry for what I've done, I can't have emotional empathy with them, but I can still wish I had not done those things & fuck I wish I hadn't. I hate that for most of the people who have ever known me, I will be the villain in their story and I hate that if any of them were to ever publicly call me out, they would never be able to understand why I did what I did, how much I have changed and that none of it was ever personal (as well as that some things where I broke social rules were never even intentional). It partially terrifies me and partially makes me me wish I had known better (next to wishing I had never been damaged enough to do it in the first place).

6. It makes you feel so far removed from being human, when you just cannot do what everyone else does. I wish I could form deep bonds, I wish I could cry more, I wish I was emotionally moved by sad scenes & people passing, I wish I could love deeply, I wish I could be really passionately involved in fandoms, I wish I could feel happiness for others, I wish I could experience deep levels of guilt & shame so I know what its like to feel remorse...I just really wish I could be that deeply connected with other beings around me. I know its not always fun, I know its exhausting and I know it hurts and on most days I am glad I don't have to go trough that, but on some days I just crave being that level of human and wish I knew what its truly like, because no description will ever suffice. I know that I am still human, even if I have ASPD, but it just doesn't feel the same when you don't have access to a huge majority of the human social features, that are supposed to define us. Its lonely, its othering and it just sucks, even tho I can appreciate my brain trying to protect me.

That was just six things and I am running out of space, so heres an incomplete bullet point list with little to no explanation:

• the constant fight between survival & what it could be like if I truly tried to thrive

• receiving disgusted or weird looks in every conversation, because you are just so obviously different when you socialize and switching between being angry about it & terrified by it

• having way too many "well that could have hurt/k*lled me" moments, because little danger awareness & care for urself

• denying yourself parts of life, because your brain thinks they make you "weak" or you said you didn't care about them and now you can't let people see you care, because you know they'll make fun of it/you, which is why you developed a no care attitude in the first place

• people describing people like you as lazy, immature, not deserving of good things etc. and having that fuck with your progress, self esteem & identity

• knowing that people will always believe others over you, because you are the lying manipulating cunning guy, even when you tell the truth & knowing you can't do shit about it

first posted on my insta account (same @)

#actually aspd #aspd #mental health education #antisocial personality disorder #mental health #antisocial #aspd awareness #aspd feels #aspd thoughts #aspd safe #aspd stigma #aspd tag #aspd traits #aspd things #aspd mood #mental heath awareness

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not-poignant · 1 month

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Im really sorry if this is too personal please ignore me if it is but i saw your post just at the right time and im just, im struggling in my twenties at the thought of possibly having did right now. And you say you "used to", can i ask how you healed?

A lot of therapy, anon.

It does tend to show up in someone's 20s, and I went the path of Internal Family Systems Therapy (also known as IFS or IFST) which is extremely useful alongside the three C's (Compassion, Communication, Co-Consciousness).

I wasn't aiming to eliminate any alters, and anyone who wanted to stay as a separate alter could, but I taught myself through the help of other/s to be self-compassionate, to open up opportunities and methods for communication (which also included art, writing, journalling, etc. in fact the very first tumblr that 'I' ever made was actually made by an alter, and was originally called artforartists - it's now renamed and run by 'me' because Dani has absorbed back into the system, but you can still go to the earliest entries and see her in them.

It took a few years and I didn't rush things. The main thing to know is that while it feels extreme, it usually comes about as a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation, and it usually becomes very manageable with self-compassion (to all yourselves), impartial judgement, open communication, compromise (i.e. if you have an alter that wants to play video games 24/7 to the point that you're losing weeks of memory, find out small areas of compromise where they can be given something in exchange for something), and sharing consciousness where possible (co-consciousness).

It's very scary at first but imho for me personally, it has been the 'easiest' of all of my diagnosed disorders to deal with. I still have severe treatment-resistant depression and I still have severe treatment-resistant PTSD/C-PTSD, but my DID went into remission after about 4 targeted years of therapy. It's now DDNOS (Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) which means I don't have the symptoms enough to qualify for DID anymore, but I still have a system prone to dissociation / derealisation / depersonalisation and I have days where some alters are fronting a bit more than the central self, but I usually just use it as a sign that I'm really stressed and overwhelmed, rather than a sign that there's something wrong with me.

I'm extremely zen about it, tbh. And look, I didn't have the goal of 'absorbing' my alters (or them dying or w/e), I didn't set out with the idea of getting rid of it so much as learning how to live with different people who have different opinions about things in my head. But through the course of IFST and giving everyone a voice, that started to happen anyway. Healing doesn't always mean 'getting rid of alters' it mostly just means getting a handle on the memory loss (which is the most severe part of the disorder for me) and the polarisation so that it becomes regular dissonance and not so distressing it causes someone to switch. A person can be fully healed from DID and still have alters that front, if there's co-consciousness and communication for example. This was actually what I was aiming for, it just didn't end up being my outcome.

You may not be able to access therapy or IFST, and it can be hard to find DID-friendly therapists who know what they're doing, but you can actually look up and explore IFST on places like Instagram and in books like No Bad Parts and start doing the work gently already. (IFST isn't just or only for DID patients, but it is uniquely very well suited to them).

It can be very scary at first, anon, to think you might have this. Because it's a highly stigmatised and misunderstood disorder. At its root it can be understood as 'a child who didn't understand how to cope with something, at the time of personality formation, just developed a new personality to deal with it. But as a result of this, their brain got so good at developing new personalities that it became a maladapted coping strategy, and as an adult they can learn ways to cope that aren't splitting, switching, or losing memory with compassion and self-understanding.'

And honestly we all have a lot of maladapted coping mechanisms and the whole journey of life is learning to unpack them, and repack some healthier coping mechanisms into the lunchbox. And that's really about it. Still very scary and upsetting to go through, but also not a mysterious, "insane" thing. <3333 If you can reach out for help, please consider it, but otherwise do look into IFST. I started working on those strategies long before I found a suitable therapist and I honestly feel like just the mindset of radical self-acceptance and self-compromise and self-compassion was - while extremely hard to do often - the key for me, and some of those things will at the very least be helpful for you.

#asks and answers #personal #there's a lot more resources now for DID than their used to be #but there's also a lot more self-exploitation for likes and clout #just admitting you're worried something dissociative might be going on #is very brave and you're already on the path to healing anon #even though it doesn't feel like it yet

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deargravity · 2 months

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Akashi for the ask thing: 2,4,5 and 26:What's your opinion of Bokushi and his integration during extra game?

that's an interesting question, i'm so excited to answer.

questions from this

2. favourite canon thing about this character?

uh where to begin. i'm so endeared by his inability to make jokes. i think he's tried and he's always seemed awkward, so he doesn't attempt to make any jokes unless he's around the rest of teiko gang. it's just so cute to me for obvious reasons. i like that he's bad at making jokes but i also like the idea of him trying to crack one around his closest friends because he's not afraid of being viewed as awkward. (i don't know about anyone else but i'm very obsessed with him having the privilege to be his honest and messy self around those in his intimate circle. everyone is also endeared by his jokes, or lack thereof.)

also the fact that he looks like his mother. devastating. i love it and hate it. imagine growing up with the face in the mirror and learning to look yourself in the eye and see everything you've lost and can't get back.

everything about him is incredibly endearing to me. i just chose the one at the forefront of my mind.

4. if you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

SHERLOCK HOLMES. i'm a big fan of everything sherlock holmes and akashi's intelligence and history match very well with someone who could either be a great detective or a criminal mastermind. i do want to see him in detective fiction of literally any kind. a cozy mystery, specifically, i think he'd be such a beloved narrator or protagonist (i may be biased because i love him but i still think he's the kind of character who grows on the audience very fast). i'd want him written in a 21st century mystery novel though, maybe pepper in a little bit of espionage to keep things interesting.

i'd also love to put him in a Jekyll and Hyde narrative because it would be fun to experiment with. i think it would be a nice way to dive into oreshi and bokushi's separate world views & concepts of morality and self. of course, i'd change up the script because i'm not a fan of Jekyll and Hyde being used as a reference for any kind of dissociative disorder, but i think i'd like to use the setting to assess akashi's psychology on a deeper, more technical level. i want to access his headspace and watch oreshi & bokushi's internal exchanges and characters more than anything else, so it might not even have a plot. i just need to poke around his brain a little. if that makes sense.

i think at this point i should just attempt to write an academic paper on him.

5. what's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

buy 1 get 2 free.

26. what's your opinion on bokushi and his integration during extra game?

i love bokushi. my little guy. he is the embodiment of akashi's maladaptive mechanisms. he's grandiose because he can't afford to admit his own faults or weaknesses - akashi has never been allowed to fail or be vulnerable growing up - because he's associated it with abandonment. he has to command deference because he feels unworthy of love, or incapable of being loved, because akashi has grown up being praised by his father without ever feeling like he was loved. that expression on his face when murasakibara offered him a hand to stand up during extra game, how unexpected it was that anyone would want to care for him after he's fallen, after they've seen the cause of his shame in that moment. he does care for his team and he is protective but he doesn't know how to express it. at his core, he's struggling with a lot of shame and fear that he doesn't know how to handle. i love him.

as for the integration, i'm overall indifferent to it. and i'll explain why. i'll try to keep my narrative and technical analysis separate but i can't insulate them completely from each other.

firstly, i guess it worked in the narrative sense. akashi had to accept himself in his entirety to perform his best, even the parts of him that he's afraid / ashamed of. it's also symbolic of how bokushi and oreshi had to accept each other to create a cohesive, skilled player, and how, despite bokushi's past mistakes, he is still essential to akashi's function. also i don't feel much for extra game sorry, so this is the extent to which i can care about it.

in the technical sense, i don't think bokushi would have disappeared like that so instantly and definitively. akashi's osdd clearly stems from the trauma of his childhood which, in large part, seems to go unaddressed most of the time and the progress he's made (as bokushi and oreshi) can be credited to his own efforts in isolation. i like to think of that bit in extra game as bokushi and oreshi co-fronting or, basically, working together with their specific skill sets to achieve victory, which again is symbolic of the concept of teamwork that is central to knb's theme. the scene specifically illustrates the necessity of interpersonal and intrapersonal cohesion to achieve victory. which i thought was nice. though i don't think bokushi would have simply disappeared after that. he's shown a lot of growth himself and might appear occasionally during times of akashi's distress or when his fear of abandonment becomes salient & unmanageable. i think in the future, bokushi and oreshi definitely either work together or they take turns, depending on the situations that specifically trigger each of them to the front. i think akashi is doing his best, and so are his two selves, and they're getting better and better at becoming a cohesive whole but that's more of a long-term vision i have for akashi.

i hope that makes some kind of sense. thank you so much for this interesting question, i really enjoyed thinking about it and answering it.

#i really had to think abt these #these were fun #wasnt expecting that last question but it's something i've always thought about #i tried to keep technical language to a minimum and used my lived experience with osdd to explain #i hope it makes sense #anyone else feel free to ask me literally anything abt any character #knb #kuroko no basket #akashi seijuro

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milimeters-morales · 24 hours

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chapter 2 of my transfem miles fic under the readmore, and our fav spidey's undiagnosed anxiety disorder is more prevalent here too

Wordcount: 4k+

Warnings: Piercing ears, but nothing graphic, just Miles being sensitive to the pain.

Gwen places a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, take a deep breath, it’ll be over before you know it,” she tells him in a calm and soft voice. “The worst part will be the itching. That’s it.”

“But what if-”

“Whatever your brain is telling you will happen is 100 times worse than what could happen. Lay it on me, lighting round style,” she moves to grab the needle and sits next to him on her bed, “and then we’ll do a countdown.”

“What if my earlobe rips?” He asks.

“That won’t happen, the earring isn’t strong enough, and your body is extra durable from our powers.” She answers easily, turning the earring in her fingers.

“What if I toss in my sleep, and pierce my face or neck? What if the holes close up from that too?” His fingers start to stick to his jeans, and he tightens his fist against the material. The scratch makes him focus on his leg rather than Gwen cleaning the needle.

Gwen frowns and nudges his leg with her foot a bit roughly. “Well, that won’t happen as long as you keep the backs on, and if that ever did, you’d feel it enough to wake up and handle it. It’ll heal up nice and easy, and you could take medicine for the pain if you get a headache. If the earrings come out completely, and the holes close, we can just do this again.”

Miles tries to get his thoughts in order to ask his final question. He turns to her and meets her eyes. “It’s… it won’t be stupid-looking, right?”

Gwen smiles, the warmth flooding her features and the colors of her room, and says, “Miles, you are literally one of the only people who I can say, with my whole heart: you could rock any piercing. We’re going to be using some different earrings that I know how to clean though, these look really expensive and I can’t really tell what they're made of.”

She finishes cleaning her needle and grabs the earrings she intends to use. “Ready? Three,”

“ SSS —” Miles sucks in a breath through his teeth as a sharp stinging pain hits him, “hhuhh…”

“Does it still hurt?” Gwen asks.

“About an eight out of ten… I thought you said you were doing a countdown.” He grumbles, roughly gripping his wrist to stop his hand from reaching up and cupping his throbbing ear.

“Yeah, but then you’d be too tense. Sorry.” She admits a bit sheepishly. “I really didn’t think it’d hurt that bad. I’ll numb your other ear with some ice.”

Gwen gets up and leaves the room, presumably heading to the kitchen.

Won’t that mess up the marker, he wants to point out, but he really just wants to rest his head on something cold. He can probably use the ice when she’s done and put it on his forehead or something. Would Ganke like it? How’s he even going to explain this to his parents?

What is he talking about— he’s worrying about nothing again. Both Uncle Aaron and his dad had pierced ears when they were kids, and his mom wears earrings almost every day, and Ganke literally has double piercings in each ear. Stop it, Morales.

He will need to explain how Gwen pierced his ears, though. He can always just lie about that, say she dragged him to an actual professional and paid for it. Or he can pull his, “At least it wasn’t with Hobie” card, but he’s felt really bad the last few times he’s used it.

God, he wants to scratch his ear so bad. He uncurls his fist and harshly scratches his hand to try and redirect the feeling.

“Okay, hold this to your ear for a minute,” Gwen says as she re-enters the room with a bag of ice, quickly shoving it in his hands. “Where’d you get those earrings anyway? That looks like diamonds.”

“Oh, some lady. She gave them to me after I found her dog,” he says, very carefully not mentioning the dog’s name because he knows Gwen would find it hilarious rather than anything else.

“So what made you want to keep them? Coulda gave them to your mom,” Gwen asks.

Miles looks away. “I don’t know. Guys sometimes have earrings.”

Gwen holds her hands up, “Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply anything else, it was just a bit out of nowhere. We should give you a piercing like mine next.” She snickers and Miles rolls his eyes.

“Oh toootally, because my parents would love that. No heart attacks and disappointment at all,” he laughs.

“Hey, better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Gwen said with a shrug. “We can ask Hobie if he knows anybody who can tell if this is real diamond.”

Hobie seemed to always know a guy who knows a guy, and that guy happens to know a few other guys. Nobody really asked how he knew all these people because as a spider-person you’re bound to run into all types of them, but it didn’t stop Miles from wondering.

“Alright, time to countdown. For real this time,” Gwen says, grabbing her needle and pulling his hand and ice pack away, “Three,”

Miles takes a deep breath.

“Two,”

The pain is the most obvious answer, but why does this feel so much bigger than it actually is?

“One.”

That same stinging pain happens again, making tears prick at his eyes as he grits his teeth and tenses up.

“You’re done! Do you think you’ll need some painkillers?” Gwen says, quickly moving everything and herself away from him so he can stand up.

“Nah,” Miles shakes his head and tries to open his eyes, but the pain is dialing all of his senses to a hundred. Squinting, he shoves his twitchy hands into his jacket pockets. “I’m cool. Thanks though.”

“You are cool,” Gwen laughs, “Alright, get out, I gotta get ready to go out tonight.”

——

Miles isn’t nervous about what people will think about him with earrings. It’s more about them knowing he doesn’t really know how to take full care of them, and sensing his fear about them falling out, stabbing him, stabbing someone else, melting in his ear if there’s a fire, being yanked by a giant magnet a villain has and tearing his ear, the holes closing, the usual fears people have when they get a new piercing.

He’s kidding.

He knows his anxiety is pretty irrational, he looked up what the actual usual fears were for this just to calm himself down, but it didn’t really help. He trusts Gwen’s reassurances, but he just can’t help himself from double, triple, and quadruple-checking.

At least a few girls actually complimented his earrings, saying how they liked how “elegant yet chic” they were, whatever that meant. They were simple studs with no special shape or color, just a shiny silver. But Ganke liked it, he made that very clear when Miles stepped into their dorm and the boy stood up and started turning his head in his hands, smile growing bigger and bigger the longer he observed the earrings.

“Ganke,” Miles laughs, “let me put my stuff down man.”

Ganke turns his head to the left, and Miles sighs as he lets the other boy manipulate his head. “Who did these?”

“Gwen did. I was gonna use some other ones, but she said she didn’t know how to clean ‘em, I think,” Miles answers as Ganke then turns his head to the right, “we’re gonna go to Hobie’s soon to get them checked out.”

“They make you look even more beautiful,” Ganke says, not seeing Miles’s bashful smile but knowing what his compliments do, letting go and walking back to resume his homework, “you should totally keep them.”

Miles laughs shyly, tapping one of his earrings. Beautiful, huh? Ganke hasn’t used that one before.

——

“Miles? What’s— you got your ears pierced?!” His mom exclaims, nearly dropping the plate she was washing. “Jeff!”

Oh, great.

His dad walks into the kitchen, “What’s wrong? Hey Miles—“ his dad does a double take, “—WHAT are those?!”

Better to ask for forgiveness than permission my ass, Miles thinks. “Um… they’re… earrings?”

“And where did you get those? When did you get those? Huh?” His dad’s voice slowly got louder as he put his hands on his hips.

“Uh, Gwen took me to get them done yesterday,” he mumbles, shrinking under the gaze of his parents. Sweat starts to coat his palms. “...Sorry?”

“Ohhhh, he’s sorry,” his mom says, dramatically widening her eyes and turning drying her hands on a towel.

“Why didn’t you ask us?” his dad demands to know.

“I…” Shoot, he doesn’t actually have an answer for that!

His mom slaps down the towel and turns to face him fully. With her pursed lips and narrowed eyes, and his dad’s piercing glare, they make a furious duo that could rival the villains Miles fights any day.

“I… I can take them out—” he begins weakly, shoulders slumping in defeat, but then his mother raises a hand.

“Ah ah ah! No, you got them, you take care of them. You’re gonna do everything you have to do, since you can obviously handle it,” his mom says with her eyes closed as if she couldn’t stand seeing the piercings.

“Exactly what your mother said,” his dad agreed.

“They’re just earrings—”

“Aht!”

“—and I heal easily—”

“Miles,” his dad warns.

“—I’m just saying, it’s not that big of a deal.”

His mom huffs frustratedly, “Miles, this conversation is over. You’ll keep those earrings in and take complete responsibility, ¿entendistes?”

Miles looked between his mom and dad, mouth open as he fumbled for an answer. After he could think of nothing he just turned his gaze to the floor. “Yes, mami.”

——

Pavitr toyed with his own earring as Miles recounts yesterday.

“They were pissed,” he groans. “I’m never listening to Gwen again.”

“Dude, it was your idea!” Gwen exclaimed from upstairs.

Miles flopped back onto the basement floor, grunting as his head met hard concrete.

“I don’t know bro, they sounded more mad that you didn’t ask before you did it. That’s what some kids at my school complain about all the time,” Pavitr suggests, “did you sleep okay with them?”

“Yeah, it was fine. I don’t know why I was so worried.”

“Oh, that’s good! I was a baby when I got mines pierced, so I never had to really worry about that,” the other boy laughs, “so how long before you can switch them out?”

Hobie chooses that moment to stomp down the stairs with a small shoebox tucked under one arm and a bucket in his hand. “Might take six months. That’s how long this one took,” he said while tilting his head up and flaring his nostrils. Gwen followed down the stairs soon after. “But you heal faster than anybody I know.”

“Let me see those earrings,” he offered a free(?) hand to Miles, who pulled the black box out of his pocket and handed it over.

Hobie whistled as he put everything down, bringing the earrings under a small lamp he had in the corner. “These don’t look like real diamond.”

“Aren’t they heavy?” Pavitr asked, twirling a finger in his hair.

“Well, we wouldn’t know if they were,” he responded.

Gwen sat down next to Miles. “I’m sorry I got you yelled at by your parents, I genuinely didn’t think they’d be that mad.”

Hobie made a noise of intrigue. “Mad?”

Oh no, Miles can already tell what Hobie was thinking. Escape plans. Extra food. An extra room wherever he lives right now. “They didn’t yell at me, Dad just got a little loud, and I just have to take full responsibility, which I was already gonna do,” he explains with a roll of his eyes.

“Well, at least they were fine with it,” Hobie said with a click of his tongue, “not that you’d care if they weren’t, right mate?”

Miles nods before remembering that Hobie can’t see him. “Yeah, yeah.”

He wouldn’t care.

——

“But yeah, he was such an asshole, you’d think dying once would teach him to appreciate me a little,” Peter says to him on the balcony of an office building that they were most definitely not allowed to be at. He said it’s not illegal if they weren’t actually doing anything other than sitting and eating, and Miles didn’t feel like pointing out how that wasn’t true because Peter definitely knew that already, and how Peter was the only one eating. He honestly wasn’t listening to a word of what the man was complaining about, he had more pressing matters on his mind that caused him to visit in the first place. “Peter, if Mayday got earrings without asking you, would you be mad?”

“No? What? What does that have to do with this?” Peter’s brows furrowed as he dug around in a bag of McDonalds. “See, they forgot my nuggets. They always do this. Can you go down there and ask for some? Here, take this in case you need to pay,” he said as he handed over slightly damp dollar bills (ew). Miles was grateful for the suit gloves protecting him from the no doubt highly radioactive Washingtons the older man decided was okay to spread to others.

“Oh you’re being dramatic, it’s just sweat. You’ll get over it bud.”

Miles huffs and jumps off the balcony, scaring a few citizens who were trudging along the sidewalk, and walks into the McDonalds. It’s when he’s finally at the register that something peculiar happens.

“Hello ma’am, what can I get for you today?” The cashier mumbled, before yawning into her fist.

Maybe it’s because he’s wearing a pretty oversized hoodie and baggy pants on top of the suit, and maybe it’s because his mask is hiding his face, but could she really not tell? He’s never gotten called ma’am, not even as a joke or tease, but he feels like he should… feel. Something. Anything about it.

“Yeah, I’ll just take a four-piece nugget, thank you,” he says.

The cashier simply nods (or maybe she was just trying to pick her head up from falling asleep) and walks off. Is she supposed to do that? Isn’t there supposed to be someone at the register at all times, or is that just a thing in his universe?

She comes back quickly, handing over the little carton and accepting the cash. “Have a nice day, uh…” for the first time since Miles has stepped in here, her eyes focused on him.

She doesn’t know which word to use, he realized, nice.

“…sorry. Cosplayer,” she finally decided on, which somehow left him feeling more confused than her for a second. She really couldn't tell, even after he spoke?

Hey, hold on, he thought, nice? You mean funny?

“You too!” he said happily before exiting and returning to Peter. “You owe me eight dollars,” he told the man.

“That’s not how that works, you know that— ah. Well, I guess I should have specified how many nuggets,” Peter sighed annoyedly, “did you make any new friends down there?”

Miles ignores the question and asks his own from earlier. “So, if Mayday got earrings—”

“I already said no—”

“Okay, but what if she was a boy, and she came home with earrings? Would you be mad?”

Peter stops chewing, “No, what kind of— kid, if you got earrings and your parents are mad, then it’s probably—”

Miles waved his hands. “No no no! I know why they’re mad at me. Probably. I’m just asking because you know you’re like… their age and all.”

“Ohhh, you just wanted a different perspective. Well, I’d be disappointed in myself if she felt like she had to hide it from me, obviously. Buuuttt, if it was like, a belly button piercing or a nose ring when she’s… 16? Is that the age you can get them alone? Whatever,” Peter waved a hand, “I’d at least like to know beforehand. Any younger than that is… I’ll admit, I didn’t really ever think about this. But our healing doesn’t really make that a problem with a ton of sh— stuff.”

“You can curse around me.”

“I’m practicing for Mayday, have you considered that not everything is about you?”

“Aaaanywayyy,” Miles says pretty loudly, scaring away pigeons that were getting closer and closer to the bag, “the cashier called me ma’am a few minutes ago.”

“We’ve all been there,” Peter says quietly, as if laughing at some sort of inside joke. “Honest mistake, they must’ve been tired.”

“Well,” Miles picked at his shoelace, “even after she kinda woke up, she still didn’t know what to say, so she just called me a cosplayer.”

Peter hummed, waving Miles on to continue.

“And that was it,” Miles says. “I thought it was kind of…”

He thought nice earlier, and he felt happy when he told her bye, but now he doesn’t really feel anything. It’s like it never even happened, and the only proof he went down there at all is the now empty carton of nuggets balancing on Peter’s knee.

“… I mean, it wasn’t a big deal.”

Peter hummed again, wiping his mouth on some napkins.

“It wasn’t,” Miles felt the need to defend, “she looked super tired anyway, and she left the front counter. Is she allowed to do that?”

“Bud, they could spit in my food and I wouldn’t give a dam- darn. And I wasn’t saying it was a big deal. I even used to get called ma’am a lot when I was younger.”

Miles didn’t really believe him.

“Did you hate it?”

“Hate’s a uh, a pretty strong word for it… Sometimes I did, sometimes I just didn’t care, sometimes it felt only a little uncomfortable. Once I started growing facial hair though, that all stopped,” Peter explained, stroking his chin. “God, I need to shave.”

“I shaved. My um— my legs. A few days ago.”

Miles had no idea why he told Peter that. Peter didn’t care about Miles shaving for the first time, he didn’t care about how smooth and light he felt.

“Ooh, any cuts?”

“Nope,” Miles replied, a smirk tugging on his lips.

“Heck yeah bud, that’s what I’m talking about,” Peter replied and high-fived him.

They sit in silence for a bit on the balcony, watching people mill about to their destinations and birds fly by hoping to sneak a fry Peter hadn’t managed to inhale. Time always felt like it passed so much quicker in Peter’s dimension than anyone else’s, even Pavitr, and he was an entire day ahead of Miles.

Miles was going to shave his legs again tonight.

——

As Miles cleans his ear and piercings with some saltwater spray (the one from Gwen’s dimension was probably currently glitching out of existence under his bed), his dad passes by the open bathroom door.

“Good on keeping them clean,” he told him with a nod, suddenly stopping to ask, “…did you shave your legs?”

Miles felt like a few rocks were suddenly in his stomach and growing heavier with each nanosecond that passed with his father still in the doorway. “Um,” he swallowed hard and kept reminding himself why he did it in the first place. Nobody would care, he was curious, and it would grow back anyway. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t look to see what his dad’s expression is. He keeps staring at the mirror, willing for the rocks to go away.

Why are you so nervous, his reflection asks him.

Nobody would care, he was curious, and it would grow back anyway.

“You didn’t cut yourself at all?” his dad asks.

Nobody would care.

“Nope,” Miles said, popping the p to add to the faux-casualness. Because he was just curious.

“Huh. Good job. But we can get you your own razor, you don’t have to use ours.”

“Thanks, Dad.” It would grow back anyway.

“Oh, Miles?”

“Yeah?”

Nobody would care. He’s just curious. It would grow back anyway.

It’s just Dad, his reflection pointed out. He loves us. Why are you so scared?

“Don’t be lying to me about those cuts. I know you heal fast, but infections can happen faster.”

“Yeah Dad, I hear you.”

“I’m serious Miles. Don’t believe me? Ask your mother!”

His mom passes by the door as his dad says that. “Don’t drag me into this, I’ve already got my gown on,” she tells Jeff.

His dad huffs with a fond smile on his face, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. Before he leaves to also go to bed, he turns to Miles one last time. “Miles, you know you can tell us anything right? We were just upset that you didn’t tell us about the earrings. I need you to know that,” he says softly.

Miles stops cleaning his ears and looks down at his legs. Bare legs. He can tell his parents anything. He knows that. He has always known that. But there’s nothing to say. He’s confessed to being Spider-Man, he’s confessed to going to different dimensions and his friends being from different dimensions, he’s confessed to how depressed he got after Uncle Aaron died and the true extent to how complicated those feelings got— basically he’s confessed a lot. There’s nothing else to really say.

Looking back into the mirror, his reflection doesn’t seem convinced. Nothing else? But you’re so hesitant about something, it points out.

“Yeah, I know Dad. Thanks,” he says, giving his dad a small smile.

——

He lies awake later that night, after a short patrol to try and calm his nerves, and stares at the ceiling. It’s normal for boys to shave. His dad shaves. Uncle Aaron shaved. Peter said he needed to shave earlier today. The boys at school shave. Almost everyone shaves at some point in their life.

There are still rocks in his stomach, and he doesn’t even know why. He could possibly blame the feeling earlier being caused by his dad questioning him so soon after he got in trouble, but that doesn’t explain now. He knows his anxiety tends to linger and be worse than others about things that aren’t really serious, but this is just ridiculous.

Some people shave. Some people don’t. Nobody cares. It’ll just keep growing back, and you can keep doing whatever you want to it, Miles tells himself, curling up and squeezing his eyes shut. Nobody cares, you shouldn’t either. You didn’t care before, don’t ruin it now.

——

Come Saturday morning, Miles is ready to throw himself out a window if it meant the constant stream of anxiety going off in the back of his head would shut the hell up.

He barely slept, and he’s sure it shows, because when he gets up to go get an apple for breakfast, his mom gives him a questioning look.

“Itching kept you up, baby?” She asks him, quickly putting her hair into a tight bun.

“Yeah,” he sighs. There’s no need to tell her about all… that, when she’s rushing to get to work.

“Don’t worry, it won’t last forever. Just don’t scratch, and keep cleaning them!” She calls out as she leaves through the front door.

His dad must have already been outside waiting for her. They usually drive to work together, with his dad dropping his mom off at the hospital and going to work himself, and then picking her up if his shift ended before hers. It’s a bit like how he and Ganke go to class— Miles will drop him off at his homeroom and scurry back to his own (almost always directly at the bell), go and grab him for lunch in the courtyard (or Miles would sneak them out to go get actual good food) and they’d grab the other at the end of class, depending on who got let out first. Of course, there’s the issue with the teachers not letting students from different classes in the room when the dismissal bell hadn’t actually rung yet, but that was an argument for Monday that Miles would inevitably have with Ganke’s history teacher.

Miles opens his eyes, not even realizing he closed them. Then he noticed the quiet, the lack of worries that plagued his mind, and how empty the house was.

Ganke probably wouldn’t mind coming over just to fall asleep again. Hopefully.

A/N: i hope i got across that Miles loves Ganke a lot and gets ramble-y when it comes to him because you will see it often #yaoiyodeler. Anyway when I wrote this it was a bit hard to capture the awkwardness that comes with an overly anxious Miles interacting with Peter, especially when he's unknowingly seeking validation for what he'd subconsciously deem non-masculine, without giving too much information so it could still fit once BTSV comes out (fuck that movie already), if you get what I mean? I hope it got across though

#my writing #transfem miles #miles morales #spider man #spiderman #atsv fanfiction #atsv #spiderverse #fanfic #trans miles morales #m&m posts #can't wait to get home later and eat and forget to actually update my fic today #should i tag the others that have an impact in this chapter? that would be fine i think?#gwen stacy #jefferson morales #peter b parker #peter parker #not beta read

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aspd-culture · 7 months

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Hello, I hope you’re doing okay and great! I have some serious questions on ASPD and therapy I need your opinion on it.

-what do you think of the therapy with pwASPD? also have you been in therapy? how was it for you (if that’s okay to answer)

-do you think therapy works for pwASPD?

( I personally have aspd i’m diagnosed by psychiatrist)

I really need an answer. I’m giving up on therapy. which i don’t mind anymore.

I have been in therapy with 3 therapists so far, and have talked to a few pwASPD who have been in therapy as well. For me, so far, I don't think I've found a therapist I click well with ASPD-wise, so we tend to stick to talking about PTSD. I am protective of my mask, and letting it slip enough to discuss my ASPD symptoms is hard because I learned I *have* to keep this mask up at all times or be in danger.

That said, my therapists have not been specialists in any form. They are all your basic therapist without any specialization at all and have openly told me this. Most are much more used to basic depression, anxiety, and one was used to OCD as well. Even so, therapy has still been very helpful for my ASPD, if only because it gives me a place to work through trauma which enables me to handle my ASPD responses from said trauma by myself.

My friends with ASPD have directly benefited from therapy, however, as they had therapists who were more open to talking about those symptoms. Someone I knew went from being stuck in a loop of self-destructive behaviors (including sh and alcoholism, amongst others) and very violent outbursts that caused hospital visits and many, many cop calls to being able to function well enough that they actually were able to adjust (under the care of a psychiatrist) their meds down significantly and functioned far better than before. They went from having cops called on them at least once a month to going a couple months at a time without even having the urge to do anything violent, and only acted on it in ways that hurt no one (such as stepping away from the situation and breaking their own unused computer parts in a controlled manner, then returning to the interaction when they were calm). Cases like theirs aren't uncommon, and of course pwASPD symptoms that don't manifest the same way theirs did still find benefit from therapy. Not everyone will, but I think overall there is nothing about ASPD that would stop therapy from being effective if you find the right person and type.

I do think some research has to be done into the right specialist (I prefer trauma specialists vs cluster b specialists because trauma specialists have much less stigma about us in my experience). Also, as with anyone with any disorder going into therapy, you will have to try it out and do research to find the best types of therapy for you.

There is some research suggesting that MBT/Mentalization therapy may be beneficial to pwASPD, as it has shown to be very helpful for pwBPD. As I (a non-professional) understand it, MBT focuses on teaching you (very slowly) to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, actions, etc. and that of other people's. Especially for pwASPD who are not willing to open up about their past (very common as that makes us feel vulnerable), MBT can be a great option, as it does not address the past at all. Instead it focuses on how things are going for you right now, in the moment using the interactions with your therapist as a guide. So if you show signs of anxiety while talking to your therapist, they would point that out to you and help you recognize it and adjust for it in the moment. Over time, this can help train your brain to do this outside of the therapy session as well.

Schema therapy is another one that is commonly thought to be helpful for pwASPD, as it focuses on the behavioral and thought patterns taught to us in childhood and works to identify ones that basically aren't helping us anymore. It seems very Marie Kondo to me, but for mental health. If that process isn't serving you anymore, then it should be gotten rid of (which takes time and effort and is part of what the therapist helps with) to make room for new, healthier responses that make more sense in the context of your current life.

For example, if, as a child, you had to steal to get the things you needed because you were being neglected, your brain may have taken in that that is what one does to survive. However, if you are an adult who is capable of taking care of themselves and can get what they need without stealing to do so, schema therapy would help to address the emotions and trauma that led to the former belief and help to replace it with the understanding that you can support yourself without it.

Both of these, actually, are commonly recommended for pwBPD, which is why they are being researched for ASPD. I haven't been to anyone who specifically uses these forms, but they sound similar to the ways I taught myself to avoid destructive behaviors and I can see how they may help keep pwASPD from feeling unsafe in therapy and quitting.

No type of therapy works for everyone, nor everyone with a specific disorder, but if these sound like they might help I would advise you to research them and speak to a therapist who specializes in one of them. If not, I would research other kinds. Yes, therapy does not work for everyone, but there are so many methods and approaches that I would say a vast majority of people can find a method that works for them. The process of trying new methods and therapists out is usually where people give up.

If you're able, I'd advise you to keep trying. At the end of the day, though, I am just someone on the internet who does not know your situation anywhere near as well as you and/or your professionals and/or your loved ones do. I can't say for sure that it will work.

What I can say is that I do believe there is a solid chance therapy can help if you're willing to keep trying.

Plain text below the cut:

What I can say is that I do believe there is a solid chance therapy can help if you're willing to keep trying.

#tw alcohol mention #tw sh mention #cw therapy #aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

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thethistlegirlwrites · 3 days

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What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

Does your OC have a faceclaim? If so, who?

Does your OC have any illnesses or disorders? How do they handle it?

What is an alternative life path your OC might have gone down? How different would their life be if they'd made those decisions?

For (drum roll, please) Emmett

Thank you for the asks! You know how to hit where it hurts with my characters...

2. What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

How young he actually is. Given all the white in his hair and the stress lines in his face, people would be shocked Emmett's only in his early thirties.

7. What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

It took me quite a while to decide Emmett’s family actually came from a different part of the world the story is set in than the country where Rime is located. Giving him that backstory let me expand the world quite a bit and also slip in some lore specific to that area, especially a couple legends his people would tell, as well as another language.

15. Does your OC have a faceclaim? If so, who?

Given this whole thing got started almost a decade ago when my brain latched onto the plot of a Criminal Minds episode...yes he does!

So basically this would be Emmett, just with a lot more grey hair!

21. Does your OC have any illnesses or disorders? How do they handle it?

Stealing hearts for anyone other than himself has taken a definite toll on Emmett's own. He gets tired more easily than he should, and he gets debilitating headaches especially in the first few days after he steals a heart. He's mostly dealing with it by ignoring it, knowing it's an inevitable consequence of using his Gift the way he does.

24. What is an alternative life path your OC might have gone down? How different would their life be if they'd made those decisions?

Honestly, if he'd stolen a heart other than Rory’s, he might not have had nearly as good a chance of getting out from under Marcus’s control. Rory has the connections and the sheer reckless determination to take on an untouchable crime lord, and without her heart, nothing left to lose by doing it. She never would have challenged Marcus without the incentive, but she's also the person best suited to help take him down. Without her, Emmett would probably have continued stealing hearts for Marcus until Carlo’s own Gift manifested.

#asks #thief of hearts #emmett santos

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 8 months

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hey it's high-fructose-jay-syrup again. I sent the original question off anon because it's not something I'd feel particularly awkward about anyone connecting to me, but then sent the followup ask on anon because I figured the ask not having gone through had something to do with me sending it off anon lmao (which apparently it did, since you did get the anon ask)

anyhoo. wondering if you have any insight on the line between masochism and self harm? I am realizing that a lot of my prior exploration of that area of kink had more to do with a desire to Feel Something than pure enjoyment of pain (which often resulted in me continuing despite being unsure about my comforts) and I think most of it was not a good idea to be doing and may even have been somewhat traumatizing. so now I'm understandably pretty wary about exploring that field again (I mean I'm wary of sex in general thanks to Trauma TM but yk, someday when that's no longer the case), and wondering if you have any thoughts on how to tell the difference between something that involves pain but is completely safe and enjoyable, and something that is actively damaging and needs to stop, *especially* given the phenomenon of sub drop.

thanke! happy late birthday!

hi not-anon,

this is a very interesting question, and I'm afraid it's not one that I'll be able to offer a very solid answer on. the line between masochism and self-harm that you're seeking is a thin and wavering one, and exactly where it lands varies heavily depending on the individual. there's a pretty excellent book called Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose that I thought of immediately while reading your question; in it, author Leigh Cowart examines their own experiences with ballet, eating disorders, and kink as well as people who partake in pain-seeking activities like eating record-setting amounts of painfully hot peppers, taking part in body-breaking ultramarathons, and flinging themselves into frigid waters on purpose. I think it's very notable that many of the people they talk to discuss former addictions that were much more actively detrimental to their quality of life than their current pain fix; sometimes it's not a matter of "I'm not hurting myself at all," but "hurting myself eating peppers will fuck me up a lot less than hurting myself with alcohol."

if you think about it there are dozens of activities that can simultaneously get a brain pumping dopamine and set off our pain receptions. pulling from just two of my own experiences, I love the pain of a needle when getting a new tattoo, and I love how wrecked my body feels after a couple hours of bouldering - and yes, both of those come with a drop afterwards! does that mean they qualify as self-harm? I don't think so, no, but I can also easily see how either could slip into that, if I were to start pushing my body regularly beyond the threshold of acceptable pain into something more than I can comfortable handle. the problem is that, as I said, that line isn't universal, and sometimes the only way to find out for sure is to push a little too far and see what happens.

it's also worth pointing out that, in terms of sexual masochism specifically, the idea of anything being "completely safe" is a discouraged by a lot of people within the community. this is a large part of RACK, or risk-aware consensual kink; substituting the "safe" in "safe, sane, and consensual" with an acknowledgement that sex involving acts of physical violence, no matter how well-negotiated, cannot ever be 100% perfectly risk free, and that this is a risk that participants must either be willing to accept or not engage with. to my thinking, at least, being risk-aware also means knowing the emotional harm that you would be making yourself vulnerable to by participating, and taking responsibility for that by not seeking out potentially harmful situations.

(safe, sane, and consensual has been reevaluated and contested in other ways in recent years; I wrote more about that and its history here for the curious.)

it seems clear that you're aware of which side of that line you've fallen on in the past, and I'm glad it's something you've been able to recognize and change your behavior around, as it sounds like avoiding SM situations entirely is great for you right now. I don't know if you're on a break from sex altogether, but if you are feeling wary about it, then it certainly couldn't hurt. it bears mentioning that even the most vanilla sex on earth can be (and often is) a form of self harm as much as kinky sex; as always, the thing that matters in the context and the experience of the individual involved.

in regards to any kind of sex, my advice is generally pretty blunt: if you're not sure whether or not something will fuck you up, don't do it. why would you take that risk? there are plenty of spaces in our lives where we have to put up with things that suck, but when it comes to your sex life that shit's completely customizable. skip the things that you're unsure about, focus on what you know works for you, whether that's vanilla sex, kinky sex, or no sex at all.

#sex edventures 2023

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levmada · 1 year

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adding to the levi/food thing

(tw// ed)

physiologically, children who aren’t fed well at a very young age (a couple of months and older) develop the need to feed themselves, even if that means stealing food. it’s sort of rooted in their brain that this is what they need to do to survive. that they’ll always have to fend for themselves if that means eating. given levi had to do that for most of his life, going above ground where there’s food just wouldn’t feel right. it’s likely he stole food even when he knew they’d be getting fed regularly. because his mind and body is set on survival, because he subconsciously thinks he won’t be fed. even if HE himself knows there will be food tomorrow. that’s something someone cannot grow out of because it’s planted in their heads at a young age. it takes incredible therapy and work to get that mindset out of your head, and given therapy is something levi definitely did not get, he probably had that habit for a long time :(

making myself sad with the thought of erwin catching him stealing food in the middle of the night and asking if he was hungry/didn’t eat enough and levi’s just like “i don’t know.. i just feel like i’d need this.”

goddd thank u for sharing!!! this is so interesting. rly makes me believe in my hc even more fifjfkakfksk AND that scenario at the end is so :’)) erwin catching levi stealing food at night sksksks i had to expand on it. (mostly unedited)

//disordered eating

“I don’t understand… Was there not enough to eat? That can easily be settled, Levi. All you’d need to do is inform me, and extra rations would be made available to you.”

“Are you serious…”

“Yes,” he answers confidently. “You’re my most important soldier. As well as… important.”

Erwin looks at him meaningfully, silently pleading for an answer. But that’s not it. That’s not it at all. He made himself sick and heavy from how much he ate tonight.

Erwin, by looking at him, can tell that Levi is gathering words to say, and doesn’t interrupt.

“No, it’s fine. Don’t know why I did it.”

“Does this happen often?”

Levi averts his eyes, his silence as confirmation.

Erwin steps forward then, and touches Levi’s shoulder, all despite what he did. No matter what, Erwin doesn’t touch him like he’s handling a loaded gun. He completely trusts him, which both scares and comforts Levi to a startling degree.

“Come to mine. We can discuss this in private.”

Not his office. If Erwin said his office, they’d be going there. This is something just between them.

Levi follows.

Attached to Erwin’s office, ironically, is the rest of his quarters. Erwin goes straight to the bedroom, which is as private as it gets. Besides the bathroom of course, the bedroom is a contained room with a door Levi can close, which he does with a whispered click, and then sits at the small round table near the bed itself.

Erwin sits there, on the side, and unsurprisingly speaks first. “I want you to feel comfortable expressing any concerns you might have.”

That’s it?

Levi narrows his eyes. “Do you not remember when I complained about our pants? Our white uniform pants?” Then he grumbles, “You can’t get grass stains out of ‘em. Let alone blood.”

“Hm,” Erwin chuckles. “I meant personal concerns.”

This stumps him. “…I haven’t found a solution. There’s no point asking for help. There’s nothin’ you can do, so why would I?”

“There’s no ‘solution’ to grief, either, is there, Levi… Or to nightmares? And yet…”

And yet they confide in each other about shit like that. Levi himself is shitty at giving comfort, let alone seeking it, but he admits being held after one of them—just burying himself in Erwin’s arms—is a kind of way to solve it. He thinks he does a pretty good job at doing the same for him.

But how, with this? Is Erwin supposed to spoon-feed him or something? Starving seems so normal to him, it’s hard to think of it as suffering, as from death or a nightmare. Erwin didn’t understand, once, how Levi could see prostitution as just another job, like woodworking.

“You can talk to me,” Erwin says. “At times, that in of itself can be a solution.”

“Hm.” He stares at nothing in particular as he thinks. “…It just don’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right,” he corrects himself. “I know there’s plenty of food, Blondie. I know we’re not gonna run out.

“But you don’t… You don’t get it. I still see it as a luxury. Tch, I see enough food in a day now that I’d probably get in about a week, back down there. That’s how it always was—it didn’t matter how much power I had over everyone else… Food just wasn’t there.

“You know that now that I’ve said it, but you don’t get it.” Levi glares, unsure of what or who he’s angry at. “You’ll never get it.”

Erwin listened quietly, intently as Levi explained. Admittedly, it’s rare that he shares about his past, even in vague terms like this. It’s difficult to put those feelings into words, no matter how much he trusts Erwin with that information. It drudges up a bunch of shit Levi wants to leave down there, in the darkness. It’s difficult.

“I see.”

Surprising him, Erwin scoots backwards, and lays down, seemingly pondering something at the ceiling.

Not liking the sudden space between them, Levi realizes Erwin’s trying to make him come closer, which he does begrudgingly. He sits himself on the edge of the bed, where Erwin just was.

Levi shrugs. “So… I just don’t think I can… quit it.”

“I have an idea.”

Erwin and his ideas. There’s a charming glint in his blue eyes.

Levi crawls onto the bed, closing the space between them more, and sits cross-legged beside him. “Hm.”

“It’s simply a matter of numbers, which I’m entrusted with. The Survey Corps is fed improperly in comparison to the others,” Erwin explains. “It’ll no longer be considered a loss if less food subsidies are reported. In fact, we’d benefit from being more low-cost.”

Levi, tight-lipped, stares at him. It’s to keep from smiling. He likes when Erwin talks like this, excited-like. “So fraud. Like the tea.”

Erwin is smirking. “In blatant terms.”

Erwin falsifies black tea shipments in a similar way, and again, for Levi, since it’s a luxury item.

Even so, it can’t be the only time Erwin had done shit like that. That’s how he took down Lovof all that time ago, and screwed with Levi’s job. Erwin knows how not to get caught.

With Erwin’s sanctity preserved, Levi allows himself to relax, and consider the offer. Even though he just can’t seem to stop, he doesn’t waste any morsel, ever, and this way, the Survey Corps won’t suffer either. Like Erwin said, it would benefit.

He feels a strange sickness in his heart that moves him. Erwin would do that for him. Erwin knows how.

“Okay,” he mumbles simply. “That’d be fine, then. Good idea.”

Erwin smiles then, one of his soft, genuine smiles only Levi sees. He uncrosses his ankles and opens his arms, and wordlessly Levi fills that empty space, closing it completely, and sealing it with a soft kiss.

#tw disordered eating #tw eating issues #tw food #erwin x levi #levi x erwin #eruri fanfic #eruri fanfiction #aot eruri #erwin smith x levi ackerman #eruri #eruri.thoughts #eruri fluff

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mohs-aphmau-hcs · 6 months

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Ooooooo. Do you have any agere headcanons for Garroth, Laurence, Travis and Dante? I’m obsessed with your agere stuff :)

thank you anon!! ik I'm answering these, super late but still sbhdf

I love the idea of boy house sleepovers/playdates when they're regressed!! complete with blanket forts, video games, pizza, someone probably brought battery acid [the drink], everything you'd expect at a boy's sleepover

long analysis after read more, this ask got my brain turning sjdnf, might revise some other HC lists sometime too, and add more detail like in this one to make it fair ! [I definitely don't have a favorite group of characters and its definitely not the most basic favorite group of characters ever in this fandom pssh ]

I also want to clarify since I don't think I have before, while I post a lot about agere and everything is absolutely 100% SFW always, that does not always mean my HCs are safe to read when regressed!! I am someone who's experienced this for a long time and consider myself very well read/educated on this topic, so I talk about all parts of regression. including the messy/scary parts like trauma caused regression, involuntary and stress induced regression, innerchild care and healing, regression brought on by mental health disorders, everything. AgeRegression is a complex topic and mental state, a lot about it is fun, enjoyable, gives people a sense of community, and a safe space to heal. But its not always sunshine and rainbows especially for trauma survivors and I like giving representation to that side of it in my writing

Obviously regressors are 100% welcome on my blog! but when going through agere HCs pleasepleaseplease just keep in mind there might be some more heavy topics discussed if you are not able to handle those at that time !

I feel like Garroth would regress a few times a month on purpose to destress with loved ones. But I also feel like he would experience some forms of involuntary regression at certain points of his life, like the rest of the Ro'meaves, this is a trauma response

Garroth would probably regress from 3 - 10, lots of smiles, constantly needs to be hugging something or someone. He most likely has some type of security blanket or stuffie he carries around

Similar to Zane he might have some hang-ups at first with insecurities surrounding his coping mechanism, because of beliefs their father instilled in them. But he definitely learns to accept his childlike states a lot sooner than Zane despite Zane experiencing them more often

The person he'd trust most as a CG would most likely be Laurance, but he's also a very trusting and loving little guy so I think hed honestly go to anyone who knows about his regression and is willing/able to be with him and help in those moments

["...Dante?"

"Yeah bro- oh hey, Aww.. heyhey cmere, you alright little grizzly bear?"

"Mhm- jus..Wanted a hug"

"Aw, alright I got you bud. You want to go play legos until Laur and Travis get home?"

"Mhm!"]

Laurance would be a lot more reluctant to regress around people despite desperately needing care and guidance

He's a character whos used to taking care of others and being kind of like the ring leader, he often falls into a caregiver role, but feels wrong letting others care for him.

Obviously, if Laurance voices that he genuinely doesn't want to be regressed and needs help coming out of it, Garroth will respect this. But sometimes Laurance recognizes that he just needs a little nudge to help him not worry so much ab others and let himself relax and Garroth knows this too

He regresses between the ages of 4 - 13 normally and drops down younger when very stressed.

If he does let someone know he's regressing, it will most likely be Garroth. In my HCs the boys are poly and obviously, everyone is equally loved and trusted, But Laurance and Garroth have a specific bond, mainly through being together through many hard moments, that make them more likely to go to the other when they need emotional support in a more intense or constant way.

Sometimes stress becomes too much even for him and he struggles to hide his regressed states, usually, this is when Garroth picks up on this and goes full papa bear mode. Making sure not to overwhelm him, and help him ease into being more comfortable since being vulnerable or letting other people take care of him can be an anxiety trigger, even though he does need it sometimes

When he does let himself regress, he usually just wants to cuddle

Quiet nights spent on the couch or in bed, listening to music while being held or rocked to sleep, or watching tv with some popcorn and a blanket

Him and Garroth also have. So many petnames and nicknames for each other both regression-wise and just in general

Me and Squid both HC Laurance to be a meifwa, when he's small he loves having his ears scratched and pet! kind of like playing with somebodies hair

He normally becomes pretty quiet when regressed, even if he's older

Usually just communicating with points and gestures, or small noises

TLDR: Laur needs to regress more to handle stress, he doesn't let himself, Garroth makes sure he still has that time for himself to relax and get cuddles

Travis would probably be a near life-long regressor due to a mix of mental health and neurodiversity, and trauma from a young age.

I could imagine them regressing younger or older, but honestly usually 3 - 4

They'd make huge pillow forts and blanket nests all the time, partly for comfort, and partly because when small its harder for them to mask demon instincts!! So they like having a small cavelike place to hide

Sometimes their regression can be flashback or fear caused, they've be through a lot and most of what they've been though happened as a kid. So sometimes a flashback can put them back in the mindset

When this happens they really only have a very small group of people their able to turn to and feel safe with, one obviously being Dante

Dante is also who they go to the most when they need a caregiver

Unless their regressed a bit older and more energetic, space for them is very very quiet and relaxing. Usually ending up in big blanket piles watching cartoons with some snacks

When their regressed, it's also a lot harder for them to hide in their human form which is another reason they normally go to Dante (I hc that Dante was the only person to know Travis is a demon in seasons 1 - 5 besides them and Terry)

Dante would definitely regress to around 8 - 10, big kiddo ages and energy to match!

If he doesn't get to a park within the first 5 minutes he is bolting to the backyard to run around and play with whatever he can find

He loves swings and seesaws, definitely stims on swings !

Sometimes he does go a bit younger, around 3 or 4

When this happens he's usually just as excited, but probably not running around as much. He's more likly to be playing some toddler apps on his phone or kicking his feet and watching animewith some juice(specfically bug juice if you know what that is, loved that shit growing up)

He's honestly comfortable being with anyone as his caregiver, obviously happens with Travis a tiny bit more because I see them as inseparable. But he's just as happy cuddling up with laurance or garroth, or even Aphmau and Aaron, and in later seasons especially Zane

He's just a little guy that's happy to be here

I feel like his head would tilt a bit when confused

In my aus and headcanons where Gene redeems himself, as adults when they regress together they still keep that playful sibling dynamic! And a lot of times gene will step up as a platonic caregiver since he knows all of Dantes old favorite cartoons and games from childhood

It took me, so long to finish this post but I'm really happy with it and I hope you all still keep enjoying my agere content!

#mystreet #mystreet aphmau #aphmau #mystreet headcanons #age regression #sfw agere #danvis #poly mystreet boys #garrance #travis valkrum #dante shalashaska #laurance zvhal #garroth ro'meave #mystreet travis #mystreet dante #mystreet garroth #mystreet laurance

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sleepdeprivedsimp234 · 4 months

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NY headcanon post!! <3

Headcanons:

-scrawny sad angy cat man

-the tallest of their brothers, around 5'10

-he's also the youngest sibling cuz I said so <3

-he/him, they/them pronouns

-would absolutely be the biggest sweetheart if life for him wasn't the entire "r/f*ckyouinparticular" subreddit

-he's usually nice when he wants to be, which doesn't happen to often (it does but he doesn't know how to express it)

-it's pretty much agreed by the whole fandom that he's 10 cats in a trench coat right? Thought so.

-^loves headpats, head scratches, chin scratches, pets, and all that jazz and will lay in your lap and purr. (That sounds weird but oh well I am weird-)

-^climbs on everything. They're really good at it too. If theyre being chased by one of their brothers or friends (they have those??? 😨😱), theyll find the nearest tall object (like a tree. Or the fridge. Or the vents.) and climb it/into it.

-^is always protecting their stomach like a damn cat. If he's fully relaxed and laying down around you and not tense and curled up, consider getting a lottery ticket cuz you sir/ma'am/Mx. are lucky as hell.

-^has claws, but has almost no idea how to use them. He just knows to swing and hope they hit their target.

-^✨fangs✨

-he's actually very good at cooking and loves cooking for people! Though as for themself, it's either nothing, a cup of coffee, or some random thing he finds.

-*points* AUTISM. ADHD. PTSD. DPD. BPD. DEPRESSION. ANXIETY. PANIC DISORDER. GO TAKE YOUR MEDS NEW YORK BEFORE I BEAT YOUR A-

-I'm very nice to them and I've given him: anemia, insomnia, an iron deficiency, and asthma, as well as misaligned leg bones (courtesy of England and my f*cked up brain) and chronic bodily pains (courtesy of me projecting)

-doesn't know what sleep is.

-will sleep when hell freezes over

-sunbathes in the sunlight like a damn cat tho.

-cannot handle being pinned down in any circumstance. It gives him BAD flashbacks.

-will snuggle up to the OG13 and Main 6 any day, but ESPECIALLY when it's a bad day with his ptsd. They feel safe around the others. And the others will protect him at any cost.

-He has a very hard time figuring out whether or not all the BAD stuff is over :(

————————

@misery-has-no-company-now @almostangrything @alaskashigh @stawpny <— professional NY simps /lh/silly

#welcome to the table #welcome to the statehouse #ben brainard #wttt #wttsh #wttt new york #wttsh new york

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hellsvestibule · 2 months

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It makes me think of how disappointing it is that the way varying thought processes have been conceptualized for so much of modern history is as “disease” or “disorder” rather than studying these things in a less limited and derogatory framework. Bc in so many ways it’s just like yeah idk, it’s clearly, just the way your brain handles various processes and works around your various skills or deficits. Theres obviously going to be pros and cons to any type of thinking style, and if yours is one which is poorly understood i think there’s a greater tendency for “disorder” to form around you attempting to compensate for all the ways you are being forced to bend to match the most readily understood array of thought processes. In this case ability to visualize. and people’s disbelief that you genuinely struggle with things they find easy. I.e. these, “no chicken scratch” teachers who think only unprofessional artists do that, but it’s like, nah, I can work up to professional quality clean looking work with careful application and layering, because I have literally been drawing for decades and know what decent art looks like, my brain simply does not innately understand where lines go, and so while I appreciate gestural work, for me making a nice line is sometimes just fucking frustrating bc it’s probably still in the wrong place and will just have to be redone later, so why would I bother wasting time on things I’m just going to destroy. This is, to my understanding, not something people at my skill level generally struggle with, which makes it frustrating to explain to people who don’t believe me, bc I don’t think it’s ever occurred to a lot of artists that some people can’t visualize well, or that some of us might actually work around this to make art as compensation for lack of inner vision rather than as an expression of a clear and distinct inner vision. Wild!

#I also think this is why I’m obsessive about art to the degree I am #bc otherwise there’s a meaningless void within me lmao

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actuallyadhd · 1 year

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So, I recently got diagnosed, but absolutely nothing has changed-like my parents now gaslight me even more, get annoyed when I have sensory overload, get mad if I can't sit still, and tell me I shouldn't need "special things" like basic accommodations(fidgets, extra time, etc). I've also tried meds and they didn't work. Any tips?

Sent April 22, 2022

This is a tough one. Parents are supposed to support us, not make everything harder!

I can’t give you any really good tips without more information on what specifically you’re struggling with, but I’m going to try and at least offer some suggestions for the issues you mentioned here. If you can let me know what in particular is causing you problems and how you’ve tried to deal so far, I am happy to offer what help I can.

Diagnosis

Congratulations on getting diagnosed! It can be a difficult fight, but you persevered and here you are. Welcome to the community; I hope we are all able to support you well.

Parents

Sometimes people think that a diagnosis gives us the problems, but sometimes they think naming the disorder eliminates them. It’s so weird; like, no, having the right label just tells me where to look for solutions that will *actually* help! I don’t know if that’s what’s going on with your parents, obviously, but it is a possibility.

I don’t know what kind of relationship you have with your parents, but it sounds like they aren’t really very safe for you. That really sucks. I don’t know how old you are, but I’m going to assume you are a minor. Do you have any adults in your life who are safe, who you can trust to support you?

Assuming that you have to continue living with your parents, I’ll offer a few suggestions for how to talk to them about the particular things you mentioned when I get to those things. For now, I just want to suggest that you approach them about the possibility of getting talk therapy/counselling. A good counsellor will be able to help you work out some of the things that are causing you difficulty in your relationship with your parents, and they aren’t allowed to discuss your sessions with your parents (or they shouldn’t be; do check their policies and the laws in your area to be sure).

Sensory Overload

Sensory processing stuff can be hard to manage because it’s all about how your brain handles things, so it’s invisible. If you can, I highly recommend taking note of what sends you into overload so that you can find ways to mitigate it. I have a sheet to help you figure this out up on the Actually ADHD web site (http://actuallyadhd.org), in the Resources section under Printables. I am working on turning all of my InfoSheets into fillable PDFs so that people don’t have to print them in order to use them.

Sitting Still

Sitting still can be really hard for us! It took me a while to realize that I am actually always moving some part of my body, and that is how I express hyperactivity. It’s not as blatant as my son’s hyperactivity; he is 7 years old and uses full-body movement to express it!

I don’t know what kind of options you have available to you, but you might look at getting a cushion that will let you sit mostly still while wiggling just a little bit. I’ll try to get an Amazon storefront set up this weekend and make sure to include this sort of thing in it.

If you’re finding that you’re mostly having trouble after a specific length of time—like, you can sit still for a while but then you get fidgety—try taking a bathroom break when you can’t sit still anymore. You don’t need to actually use the facilities, just go in and close the door, and then take some time to get a bunch of that energy out. (Tip: bring your phone and earphones in with you and dance to an awesome high-energy song.)

Another great thing that’s more proactive is to try and get regular exercise, especially cardio. Not only does this help your brain function better (not immediately; it’s more of a long-term investment thing), it helps get some of that energy out and gives you proprioceptive input (physical body sensations). Both of these can be contributing factors in physical hyperactivity.

Accommodations

As we all know, accommodations are most definitely not “special things”; they are necessary modifications to our environment and/or expectations that are based on the specific difficulties we have due to our disability. If you live in the US, appropriate accommodations are required to be provided at work and at school. (I’m pretty sure this is accurate; if anyone out there knows more than I do about the ADA, please feel free to chime in!)

I don’t think the ADA applies to your home life when you’re a minor (could be wrong!), but if you are in school and you do not have an IEP or a 504 plan, please talk to your school—either the counsellor or a trusted teacher—and ask for one. I have heard that a 504 plan is better for ADHDers; we do have some posts with that information here, too. Basically, if you need accommodations at school, you should have a plan in place and your teachers are legally required to follow that plan… and while your parents have to agree to the plan, they really need to be educated by your teachers on this since they obviously don’t care to learn on their own.

Medication

I’m so sorry that medication didn’t help. I want to check in about this briefly because there are a lot of misconceptions about medication and ADHD. So I’m going to address the most common ones here, just in case the information is helpful for you or for someone else reading this post.

Medication isn't going to make you not-ADHD. It just makes your ADHD easier to manage.

Medication usually has side effects; the main question is whether you're willing to put up with them.

There are a lot of different types of medication out there, so don't let anyone stop at just one. The odds are actually really good that there's something out there that will help.

I'm sorry this took so long to post; I started answering it AGES AGO and since it was nearly finished I figured I'd post it now.

-J

#adhd #actually adhd #asks #anonymous #parents #meds #accommodations #diagnosis #fidgeting

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