#so I’m going to preface this by saying eating disorders in any form are so hard and life changing often in the worst way | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dilfbane · 3 years

Text

It Gets Better(A Silky Pearl)

Summary: It’s been a long time since things have gotten this bad. Loki, returned from his latest mission, lets you know that, with help and support, you can overcome the worst of things, and makes sure you know that he’ll be there with you to get you through it, each and every day.

Pairing: Loki/Female Reader

Warnings: Reader in this fic struggles with eating disorders. Thoughts and feelings related to these(specifically to anorexia and bulimia), are made throughout the fic, especially those that, in my personal experience, people with these disorders experience. I cannot stress enough that this will be discussed/referenced/talked about, sometimes explicitly(Though not graphically) and sometimes implicitly, so please be aware of that and know that it’s OK to take care of yourself and skip this one if that would be triggering to you!

Word Count: 3.1k

A/N: I want to preface this by saying that there are a LOT of people, both here and on AO3, who have made some amazing Loki/reader oneshots where the reader is struggling with mental health and/or physical health issues, that really provide a sense of warmth and fluff and support to people who may be going through those things themselves, and I’ve taken a lot of comfort in those fics over the course of the pandemic(I’ll be shouting out a couple of them in the tags!). I want to acknowledge that these exist, and that they’re awesome and have partly inspired my own writing, before talking about this little project I’m embarking on.

Because, while I have gotten a lot of comfort out of many of those pieces of writing, there are definitely some things which I feel like aren’t talked about as much in pieces like these which I have gone through, and which a lot of other people have gone/are going through, and…. I figured that maybe I could take a crack at trying to provide that hit of fluff for people dealing with those things, if I can, and hopefully use my own experience with them to do it in as respecful and accurate a way as possible.

All that being said, the first oneshot in this little project is going to be dealing with a pretty heavy subject, that being eating disorders. The reader in this fic does struggle with eating disorders - specifically anorexia and bulimia. I will not be actively describing anything too graphic about these disorders in this fic, except to highlight through implication and some sparse details that this is what’s happening here, as well as show some of the inner thought processes of the reader, but there definitely is enough in here to show that that’s what’s going on, so if anyone would be triggered by that, please take care of yourselves and give this one a pass! Also, I will further disclaim that there are many types of eating disorders, and everyone’s experience with them is different. In this oneshot, I wrote based off what I know to have been true during the time in my life when I struggled with the same conditions, and I really tried to make the fluff and support as kind and encouraging as I possibly could. If for ANY REASON there’s something that I did badly at, or something that’s disrespectful, anyone reading this may feel more than free to let me know and I’ll do my best to fix it! I don’t want this fic to be a place where anyone feels hurt or disrespected, that isn’t my intention at all, and if I make a mistake in that regard for any reason whatsoever, I would really appreciate knowing so that I can correct it!

Anyways, after that extremely lengthy A/N, just… please know, if you’re going through something like this, that you’re not alone, that help does exist and is out there, and that you are seen and heard. And take this Loki fluff, because honestly, there can never be too much of that in the world!

You know that he worries about you. Even before his latest, three-week mission, you know that he worried about you. In the mornings, as you pour your coffee, you watch him watch you with careful nonchalance, gaze boring into the back of your head, slight furrow creasing his eyebrows, frown pulling small at his lips. He dresses early, because he wakes early; it is a battle, most mornings, for you to get out of bed. And so what, if you take your coffee with more creamer than is necessarily normal - it has to last you a long time, this coffee. You need the sugar of it, to get you to that clean pain. It is sharper, more real, than any scalpel, any knife that Loki keeps concealed by his armor; all that fine Asgardian leather, green and supple and him. It gives you back the control that you lack. Lets you be the person that you would be.

It’s not that you’re afraid of your body, but you are ashamed by it; cannot fathom, even now with his gaze on you, that Loki could love somebody so dreadfully overweight.

Today, though - Today, you had thought, you had hoped, that it might be different. You don’t know why you have that hope, but it brims up in you; a physical need, a visible yearning, for you to be enough for once. Someone that Loki can stand to look at. Someone that Loki can love. He is looking at you now like he’s seeing you for the first time, and you flinch from the frown that creases his piercing gaze, unable to bear how it roves up the planes of your body; silhoutted in the light coming in through the window, you can feel each ounce of fat that stretches over your sinew, cartilage. (You know that Loki hates your body - He traces it sometimes like he’s probing you, trying to find where your bones are. You wish that you could call him on it, and know that you never could).

You stand at the counter, and turn from him; rummage in the cabinet for your coffee mug with shaking fingers; you almost feel like they’re rubber. Blue and cold, like his Jotun skin, but you know that it isn’t enough. Pins and needles prick at them - you can almost convince yourself that it’s only your guilt and shame, but you cannot hide from the pain suffusing Loki’s voice when he speaks.

“Darling,” He says, on a shaky breath, “We need to talk about this.”

“I know -” You tell him - you know that you can’t run from this, anymore. He knows how you look, how nothing you do is fixing it. And now, he’s going to leave you. “I know, Loki - I tried, Loki, I’m so sorry -“

The agony that wells up in you threatens to overwhelm your ability to speak, and you feel your knees buckle the second before you fall. Your kneecaps slam against the cupboard underneath the sink, your head hitting the edge of the counter as you slide down hard to the floor. It hurts. But every part of your body hurts, these days. It’s as constant as your worthlessness. And something else, too -

He is there, on the floor with you, in less time than it takes place to blink, pulling you hard and desperate into his arms; you don’t understand why, and you try to wrench yourself from him, sobs bubbling up and spilling out from your tightly shut eyes. You can feel the bruises starting to form on you, a lump throbbing at your temple.

“Love,” He is saying, “Y/N, sweetheart, come back to me. Come back to me, darling, please.” He is stroking your hair; you feel his fingers at its strands, thin and brittle. God, you think, how pathetic you are - you can’t even keep yourself pretty for him, for this god and all the sacrifices that he’s made. You cry harder, unable to stop your own wailing. When you finally do, you’re exhausted - it takes everything out of you.

“Loki,” You say, on a wretched whine, “I’m so cold.”

“Hush,” He says, “You’re alright. You’ll be warm soon - We’ll sort it, darling, I promise.”

You don’t know how to tell him that it isn’t something you can sort, but somehow you know, deep in your heart, that Loki understands. Still, his voice is so sweet, and the shudders that wrack you begin to halt in the steady hold of his embrace; the tender brush of his fingers over your skin. You feel like you can look at him, now, so you do it, sucking your bottom lip into your teeth to steel yourself for the cruel things you’re certain he’ll start with. But Loki’s gaze isn’t angry at you, not full of fury or disgust. They sparkle with unshed tears and concern, emerald in the daylight. It takes you a moment too long to realize all that pain, all that worry, is for you; when you do, though, you flinch away. Feel Loki’s fingers drop from your hairline to your cheek, then your chin, tilting your head up so that you can’t run and hide.

“I’m losing you, love,” Loki says. His voice is low, and steeped in sorrow. It is his turn to look down, with guilt and shame, and you feel a pang blossom, raw and red, in your heart. He sighs, and straightens his shoulders. He is filled with some new resolution, some new determination you can’t wince away from.

“I need to know,” Loki tells you, “How long this has been going on. I need to - I need you to tell me why, love. I can’t bear to see you like this.”

“I can’t,” You say, blinking back a fresh torrent of tears, “Tell you why. It’s not - I can’t - I don’t know.”

But you know, and Loki does, too. It’s the god of lies, holding you - of course he can tell that you’re lying. It is something other, and runs deep, this bone-y reluctance. A complex game of mental gymnastics. How could you ever tell Loki about the control that it gives you, the desperation with which you used all your calorie-counting and aching restraint to regain the love that you lost? The nights bent over toilet bowls; the way that, sometimes, you empty stomach made you dig your nails hard into your palms ’til they bled, to stop yourself from crying out at the pain. And he loves you - the part of you that craves his affection, that yearns to burrow fast and fierce into Loki’s embrace and spill all your secrets to him, makes sure to remind you of that.

“Y/N,” Says Loki, soft and tender, yet infused with a note so harsh that you would wince, if you could. “You can tell me anything. You need to.”

You notice things, now, in the face of his determination. You notice that Loki is looking at you like he’s in physical pain, and that there’s something sticky and red on the pads of the fingers that brushed up against your head.

“I’m bleeding,” You say. It comes out soft, horrified.

The frown that creases Loki’s face would bring you to your knees, if you weren’t there already.

“It’s just - a thing that I do,” You tell him, too ashamed to look at his face as you reveal it. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

“That’s not enough for me, love.”

Loki’s lips are pursed tight, and the wound in his eyes has hardened to steel. The you part of your body - the fleeing part, the one who knows how to survive - seizes its’ chance and you duck out of his embrace, with far more strength than you had possessed in what felt like, potentially, years. Scrambles, backwards, like a cornered animal, over the tile floor, before heaving itself up to standing. It faces Loki, and its’ breath comes in stabbing-sharp. It is hard to remember that you have to call it ‘myself’. You feel older than you were, yesterday, and you cannot, quite, get air to come into your lungs. That’s not enough for me, you hear your lover say, ringing in your ears like a hyena’s howl.

You’re not enough for me, love. Your fingers spasm, clutching the sides of the kitchen table white-knuckled. You wonder, fleetingly, what Loki would do if you died. The thought makes you cry out in pain, a whimper ripping out from a throat rubbed fingernail-raw, but Loki does not move to stand.

“Come back to me,” He tells you, spiked with sorrow and need. And, perhaps for the first time, you admit it - to yourself, as much as to him.

“I don’t - I don’t think I know how.”

He smiles the smiole of someone who’s seen his own pain, faced his own lashing demons, and you pause to take him in fully, this god who says that he loves you, the man he is trying to be. You catch on hixs eyes, those bright emerald coins, his hair like the feathers of crows. His high, pale cheekbones, and his silver-tongue cut like glass. The pads of his fingertips, slender and cold, tender and fierce on your skin or the hilt of a dagger. You breathe in the smell of him, parchment and iron; peppermint tea and the smoke from a lorn, crimson fire. Wet leaves, after a rain. You feel your resolve start to waver.

“Well,” He says, all thoughtful, all trickster, “Sitting down, I believe, would be a good place to begin.”

The teasing lilt of his voice - an act that he is putting on, and all for you, always for you - cajoles you, coaxing you to lever your elbows and slide back down onto the floor, your weary legs feeling unimaginably grateful. Loki shoots you a new smile now, light and proud. He beckons you, with a cock of his head and a slim, fond gesture, to him - Of a sudden, the tiles beneath you seem like a desert, an ocean. You feel the weight of your emptiness. It laughs at you, its’ white teeth filed and barred. In your head, your failure is heavy; a hot and cackling creature with seven-foot claws pressing down on your chest, restricting your matchstick limbs. You are lost to the unyielding insistence of it, trapped in the maw of its cage, and Loki’s words, when they come, sound as far away as the shores of a country ancient and foreign.

“I was hardly gone,” He is saying, but you cannot answer him. “How could it have gotten this bad?”

It is that - that sadness, that fear in your lover - that breaks you, and you take the thing at a clumsy, terror-steeped sprint, not caring how wretched you look, so long as you can reach him - So long, you finally let yourself think, as there is something left of you for Loki to hold in his arms. Your body hurts worse than anything. You feel every scrape and bruise and chill on it; the pins and knives working at oxygen-starved nerves, and the gnawing clamp of your hunger, a brand pressing into your gut; and you know that Loki can’t save you. But maybe, just maybe, you can find some way to save yourself. And his fingers are there, going up to your hair, thumb rubbing at a hollow cheek and catching the salty dirge of an errant tear.

“It gets better, you know,” Loki tells you. He gets you onto his lap; you feel his heartbeat under your palms where you clutch tightly at his shirt to hold yourself up. A steady, thrumming proof that he is alive. And when he says it, you get the sense that, somehow, you’ve always know it, this whispered secret he’s weaving into your soul. “If you get proper help for it. If you want it to.”

He speaks casually, but there is a weight to his words. Miraculously - you’re not quite so sure how - you find yourself able to meet them.

“I want it to,” You tell him. “I didn’t, before - “ And here his eyes widen, and he shakes his head like you’ve shot him - “But I do. I want to -“

“Alright, love,” He tells you, running a soothing hand down over your side, past the hard planes of your collarbone, “Alright. It’s okay. You’re such a strong person- It’s going to be hard, for awhile, but I know that you can get through this. I’ll be right here with you, darling. Right here, by your side.”

“You will?” You ask him, voice cracking, hardly daring to hope that despite all this, he would stay. He chuckles, sadly, as if your thinking it hurts him, and he is deadly serious when he tells you,

“Y/N, of course I will.”

Somehow, though he’s the god of lies, you don’t doubt his words for an instant. You nod, and the nodding takes effort. Yet you are certain he understands what you mean.

“So,” Says Loki, “Can you - Tell me about this?”

You have to think, for a minute. Can you tell Loki about this? You know that he’s telling the truth, that he isn’t going to leave you. Still, you’ve never been this vulnerable with him before, not even in bed, and the fear in you won’t be put to rest so easily. You shake in his hold, and realize, with a frigid shock, how you must look to him - how badly you are hurting him, and how badly you’re hurting yourself, by keeping your feelings inside yourself and leaving your body to rot. You know, now, that Loki will help you through this - that he will be there, kind touches skirting the bad days; warm, mischevious smirks smoothing the wrinkles of your persistent self-doubts. There was a time when you needed to do this - there will, probably, still be days when you feel like you need to do this, to get a firm hold over your life, and keep the jackals at bay. There are other words to keep yourself safe, though. Loki’s breath in the dark is more home to you than anything you’ve ever had, and his open waiting, here in the daylight, makes you brave enough to speak.

“Maybe… Over lunch?” You offer. You bite your lip and hold out the query, a silky pearl in your hand. For one moment, Loki seems to consider; after all, he is the trickster, and a man not given to acting rashly, or stripping the drama from his complicated schemes. If this is a scheme, you think that you might forgive him - Later, when his lips are on your frame, when you’re there with him, again. His lips twitch into a grin so affectionate and proud that you know- you know - that if you seek proper care and really want to get better, you’ll get through the days that feel like walking on broken glass. You’ve done so much for me, that grin tells you. Let me do this for you.

He reaches out, and takes the pearl. You hardly recognize the man who rained hell down on New York, who snorts and jabs with sarcasm at every word that comes out of Iron Man’s mouth.

“Breakfast?” He counters, shooting a pointed glance at the microwave clock. It is a dare and a promise - a challenge, but never a trick. It tastes like honey on your tongue.

“Fine,” You say, “But you’ll have to cook.” Some kind of joy is creeping its way into you. Your voice, you find, barely trembles.

“Midgardians,” Lok says, with an eye-roll - a friendly, loving glint in his eyes that refuses to fade. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who burns water.” The joke prods your tender, new understanding, reassures you that he is still Loki; that he isn’t going to treat you differently, like a child, just because you’re suffering. The smile comes full onto you, and you wriggle, stretching your arms over your head and yawning, exaggerated for effect to add to the banter.

“I never said that I couldn’t cook,” You tell Loki, “Just wanted you to do it.”

“Mm,” He says, “And what will you be doing, then, while I cook?”

You chew at your lip, and choose to answer before your nerves make you panic.

“Finding the right words,” You admit, laying the truth bare to him.

His hands are wending through your hair now, and his lips are unberarably gentle on yours. He tastes like embers and ink. That sweet, slightly metalic tang that you’ve come to associate with his magic; cinnamon, tinged with steel. He kisses you for a second or two, before pulling away, but you could live in those seconds - Unfold it, like a blanket, and let the care of it warm your thin, freezing bones, if Loki weren’t here to show you that, with the right help, you can learn how to do it yourself.

“Finding the right words,” Loki muses, vaulting himself up to stand in a movement that’s unfairly graceful. “I’d much prefer yours, to be honest.”

He holds a hand out, and you take it, letting him pull you up. The floor, underneath you, feels solid. The sun is coming through the clouds, and out there in the wide world you can hear bird-song, the low, sugared sway of the breeze. There is something else there, too:

You let it wrap its tendrils around you, and you decide that it’s hope.

#loki/reader #loki/female reader #established relationship #eating disorders #mental health struggles #not me writing 3k plus words of loki helping the reader come to terms with the fact that they can recover from their eating disorders #because that's what I wanted to have when I was going through it #soft loki #i mean seriously #yeah there's angst #BUT #also just an unrepentant amount of loki fluff #he says it in the fic but i'll mention it here too:#if you're going through anything like this #know that you don't have to do it alone!#and that not only is it okay to get professional help #it's a good and positive thing that can be a very important part of recovery!#you have so much love and support in your life #because you're a beautiful amazing strong person and it's NOT YOUR FAULT that you're struggling with a mental illness #fics mentioned in the beginning as inspirations for writing this(and the next couple oneshots I have lined up) include:#The 'Loki's Lullabies' series by kaoerin on AO3 #and the 'As You Are' series by hopeless_romantic_spoonie/yespolkadot_kitty #also on AO3 #if any of you are on tumblr i'm so sorry i don't know your url's #but y'all should go show these fics love

120 notes · View notes

lmanberg · 3 years

Text

Is Dream using a body double?

This post will include references to leaked images of both Dream and his brother and discussion of his old Reddit account, if you’re uncomfortable with that then do not read

TW/CW: weight & weight loss, dieting, eating disorder, scar mention, fatphobia, Dream’s ex (Sam), (verbal) abuse from a significant other

So before I get into it, I’m going to be talking about both a doxxing forum and Dream’s brother. I don’t want to say the name of either of them, so the forum will simply be called F and Dream’s brother will be called B.

There are five very different thought processes you can go through which will draw you to two very different conclusions, I’ll be talking about all of them and you can decide which you believe. I’d like to preface with the fact that I do not believe all of these theories and I’m just trying to explain all possibilities in this situation.

I will attach TLDRs at the end of every theory for convenience.

1. Dream is using his brother as a body double

So this is probably the theory you have seen discussed the most, but I’ll go into more detail as to why people believe this.

Firstly we start with Dream as a kid. We’ve already been shown an image of him by Dream:

Now there’s also a leaked image of “him”, in which he’s fat, fatter than he is in the image above. However his facial structure, smile, and hair are all the same. We can tell that Dream is 16 in the Facebook post that the image was found on. In the caption of the photo, Dream is called “Clay” and his father is in the image with him.

If we follow the theory, this would lead you to assume that Dream is still fat, and is using his brother as a body double for his merch photos. But why his brother?

There have been photos of Dream’s brother from his Instagram leaked on F, in one of these he’s holding a gun. The hand holding the gun has the exact same markings and scar as the hands in the unboxing video.

To continue talking about the unboxing video, the way he holds the objects and moves them off camera is also very suspicious. Just the audio quality already is weird, but then the way he moves items off camera and almost seems like he’s handing it to someone next to him, not to mention the obscene amount of cuts in the ending, it all extremely damning.

It’s pretty much undeniable that B is the person in the unboxing video, the scar being the most damning evidence. But what about the merch photos?

Firstly I will say that in the “face reveal” photos, Dream has the same markings on his arms as B and as he does in the unboxing video. But we can also talk about the hands in general:

As we can see, the hand in the bottom left has the same fingers as the one in the merch video, however the one in the bottom right (one of the more recent images of Dream) looks slightly different, in fact his hands look a lot more veiny and red. But we see his hand has similar veins in the image below, so it’s probably just lighting. The lack of tan is also to be expected, as the first image was pre-covid and the second was post, he hasn’t been able to see half as much sunlight as he used to.

TLDR: Dream is still fat and is using his brother as a body double

2. Dream is using his brother as a body double (V2)

So this theory has a similar thought process but deviates slightly.

In this theory, we assume that the leaked photo of Dream at 16 is him, but also that he has actually lost the weight.

Now at first you may think that’s a very drastic weight loss, however his old Reddit account had multiple posts on r/keto and even now he talks about how he has a very strict diet. A new piece of evidence came out during the recent podcast with George on his Discord, where they discuss whether or not a food had carbs in it. Dream gets audibly uncomfortable and changes the subject, whether to avoid triggering listeners or himself, we don’t know.

If Dream lost all the weight, why would he be using a body double? This I can’t explain, however the evidence of the merch photos being him is undeniable at this point. It’s possible he was in the process of losing weight and didn’t want people to see his weight loss, or maybe he weighs a little more than he feels confident in and feels more comfortable having his brother pose as him, but the weight difference isn’t so drastic that people would point it out when he face reveals.

Speaking of the face reveal; Dream vehemently denies that the kid in the photo is him, but if it is him and he didn’t lose that weight, he will be proven as a liar whenever he face reveals. This is the biggest flaw of Theory 1 in my opinion. At first Dream vagued the situation but never explicitly stated whether that specific picture was him or not, but now he has. There’s no logical explanation for Dream to deny that the kid is him, even though it is without a doubt him, unless he looks nothing like him anymore.

TLDR: Dream is using his brother as a body double, however he has lost weight

3. Dream is using his brother as a body double (V3)

This theory is the weakest in my opinion and is similar to Theory 2, with one deviation. There is a picture of Dream out there, and it’s a merch photo. In this theory we actually assume that the red merch photos are Dream, however the rest are B. Why?

First of all, this is (I believe) the first image we’ve ever seen of Dream (if I’m incorrect this theory is most likely void and you can stop reading now). In it, Dream weighs a slight bit more than he does in current photos, something we can see mainly in his thighs/hips, which I’ll attach below.

The date that the red merch photos released was 9/26/19, the date of his white merch photos was 7/21/20, and the release of the unboxing video was 6/4/20, giving Dream plenty of time to switch from taking the photos himself to then using his brother.

But why would he switch? We can guess it has something to do with Sam. According to Dream, Sam has tried to spread “false” info about him being obese before (which I would like to highlight, why obese? Why is that what she says, out of all insults? Most likely because he was, and just isn’t anymore).

This could have also intruded into their relationship as well as their breakup in the form of verbal abuse. Assuming that Dream was fat as a kid and later developed an unhealthy reliance on dieting and possible eating disorders to lose weight, it would make sense for him to be sensitive to rejection, especially from his girlfriend at the time, and stopped showing his body to the public.

We also know Dream and Sam’s relationship was very rocky in early 2020, therefore he may have had his brother pose for him on impulse to disprove the “slander” Sam was attempting to spread about his weight, and then decided that he preferred having B pose for him for one reason or another, most likely anonymity.

TLDR: Dream is using his brother as a body double in all photos except the red merch, he started using his brother after losing confidence in himself and his appearance.

4. Dream is NOT using a body double (V1)

From here on out, we become more critical of the images and information leaked by F. F is a forum known for their dislike of Dream. There are hundreds of people who use it for the sole purpose to hate Dream. The people in F are also generally homophobic, racist, sexist, etc., therefore it’s not a far reach to assume they’re fatphobic as well, and assumed that by spreading info that Dream is fat, they would cause him to lose support.

In this theory, we assume that the gun photo that I mentioned in Theory 1 is Dream, not B. We also assume that the photo of Dream at 16 is, in fact, Dream, but like Theory 2 states, he lost the weight.

By eliminating the hand evidence, there is almost no proof that the merch photos are not Dream. This would explain why Dream was so confident in denying that the kid in the photo was not him, because he looks nothing like him anymore.

In fact, this would also explain the weight loss between the red merch photos and the most recent photos of Dream. Dream was still dieting (or more) and therefore still losing weight. We all saw how much weight Sapnap lost by living with him for only a handful of months. Dream at 16 and Dream at 21 has a lot of weight to cover in only five years, it’s not unreasonable to assume that he was still in the process of losing weight in 2019 only to reach his current weight in 2021.

TLDR: Dream isn’t using a body double, F lied about the gun picture and it’s actually Dream

5. Dream is NOT using a body double (V2)

I will preface this by saying this is the theory I believe is most likely as of right now.

This theory is basically Theory 4 word for word, except we assume the white merch photos are not Dream and in fact B. Even before there were any body double theories, stans didn’t believe those pictures were Dream at first, mainly because of how much scrawnier he looks as well as his hair (not wavy OR blond).

An anon also claimed that when the photos first dropped, both George and Sapnap were streaming. Most people were watching George because Dream was in vc on that stream. In George’s stream Dream was repeating to chat that it is him and that chat is being dumb for saying it’s not. However, in Sapnap’s stream, Sapnap says that it’s not Dream. Sapnap is one of the only people who have seen Dream’s face (allegedly), and if Dream was fat or had already used his brother as a body double in merch photos (the red photos were released before the white) then he would know not to say anything.

But why would Dream lie? Most likely, his brother wanted to be in a merch photo and Dream just assumed that his fans would think it’s him. However they instantly began to call him out, and in order to protect his brother’s identity, he impulsively lied and said it was him. At that point he had gone too far and couldn’t back down without admitting he had lied.

TLDR: Dream isn’t using a body double, F lied about the gun photo and it’s actually Dream, however the white merch photos are B

—

And that’s it!

I probably won’t answer asks about this post because I really wore myself out writing it. I’d appreciate if anyone with a visible blog/on mcytblr didn’t reblog this and please do not repost this on any sites.

ALSO: This was written before the Sam photos leaked, some info may be outdated and I scrapped Theory 6 because of it

37 notes · View notes

kozukenkitten · 4 years

Text

Reader with Dysnomia Headcanons - Shinsou, Bakugou, Kirishima

An Author's Note/Preface: Dysnomia is a learning disorder under the classification of processing deficits, the 5th most common form of learning disability (behind dyslexia, ADHD, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, in that order). It basically means that you struggle with specific memory recall- names of objects, places, feelings, people, etc. are often the largest struggle for people, despite being able to perfectly describe the visual aspects of the word you're trying to find- and that your brain is thinking too fast for the rest of you, particularly the muscles involved with speech, to properly process it and coherently express your thoughts through words, leading to an audibly severe stutter. (For example, US presidential nominee/former Vice President Joe Biden has dysnomia. And although you would probably never know it since I don't post audio memos and I've undergone years of speech therapy, I also have dysnomia.) If you have any further questions about dysnomia after reading this post, please reach out, and I'll do my best to provide you with information and resources!

Author's Note #2: I've been working on this one for the last 3 days or so, and I will admit it's a bit self indulgent because I'm v much in need of comfort because my dysnomia has been acting up especially terribly this week with all the stressful things cropping up in my life right now, but I hope y'all enjoy it nonetheless.

Shinsou Hitoshi

Hitoshi is very conscious of your disability.

He first notices it when you're studying together, as you're trying so desperately to say the name of the historical figure you know is the answer to his question, grasping for their name as you ramble on, describing literally everything you know about them to the sharpest detail, as if that might finally help you blurt the name out.

You're nearly in tears over it, stressed and anxious and frustrated by your brain's failure to do its job for you, over a piece of information you know that you knew.

His immediate response is to distract you for a bit, and let your brain take a break.

"I don't know about you, Kitten, but I need a break from studying for a bit. How about we grab a snack and relax for a few minutes, and we can come back to the question later?"

You feel heat rising to your cheeks, knowing what he's doing. He's obviously doing this for your sake and is trying to be subtle about it so he doesn't make you feel any more embarrassed than you already feel. But you appreciate his effort, if nothing else, so you agree. A break sounds nice, and more than anything, you need a nice long hug.

Hitoshi gets a couple of cups of water and your favorite snack, which he tends to keep around for you, and then settles you both on his bed, with you between his legs as his arms wrap around your midsection to hold you close against him.

He presses sweet little kisses to your cheeks and neck, comforting you. You can't help relaxing into his arms.

He's turned on his tv and set it to a lighthearted show. After a little while, you've completely forgotten about what you were struggling with, until the name finally pops into your head, completely unbidden.

"NAPOLEON BONAPARTE!" You exclaim excitedly, twisting around in Hitoshi's arms to face him. "Did I get it right, 'Toshi?!"

He lazily grins at you, the warmth of pride seeping into his expression. "Yes, Kitten, that's right. I knew you'd get there."

Bakugou Katsuki

Katsuki's kind of a jerk about it at first, because he finds it hard to understand what the issue is.

Like, why are you suddenly forgetting the name of the person who's been your best friend since you were three? Why are there times where you struggle to remember the names of your friends, including him?

Honestly that might be the straw that breaks his back. You can forget the names of all those extras all you want, but forgetting HIS name when you go to greet him one morning? No, no, no.

He confronts you from a place of frustration, and chances are, you break down and it makes the entire issue worse to the point where what you're trying to say has become incomprehensible between the stress aggravating your disorder and being furious at his lack of understanding, so you end up walking away from the situation and hole yourself up in your room for the rest of the day, asking Ochako or Momo to bring you your meals if it doesn't interfere with their schedules too much that day.

He only starts to understand when he overhears you in a meeting a couple of weeks later, with Aizawa-sensei and your speech therapist, going over how your disorder has been affecting your academics and your social life, and hearing you discussing how you three could work together to improve your situation.

That's how you end up with Katsuki begrudgingly apologizing to you and offering to tutor you, with a promise that he'll try to be patient and not get upset when you're struggling to process and communicate information.

Tbh, you're kind of pissed he listened in on such an intimate, private conversation, especially when you were still upset with him for being angry with you over something you couldn't control, but a large part of you is also glad that he's finally starting to understand your disorder, and is appreciative of his offer to try and help you. (Although you won't hold your breath on avoiding a temper flare the next time you can't remember his name. That's a sore subject for him, it seems, after all.)

You'd never know it, because he'd try to hide it for the sake of his ego, but he spends a week nonstop researching dysnomia after he overhears the conversation with Aizawa and your speech therapist. He wants to understand how and why it happens, and what signs to look for so he can try to help you when you're struggling (and so he can brace himself and stay calm when he starts to get frustrated).

He would try really hard to help you, but would likely need to step away at times to avoid going off on you in his frustration, and would likely send Mina, Kiri, and/or Kaminari to help instead if it got to be too much. (This probably leads to them playing guessing games with you to try and figure it out, which may lead into a game of charades somehow, and may drive him up the wall even worse, but it eventually gets the job done, if only because they distract you until you finally remember what you were trying to say.)

Ultimately, it takes Katsuki a while to adjust, but while he's not the most openly compassionate person, he works hard at controlling his temper when it comes to your memory lapses, and really does try hard to help you or find someone who can.

Will probably panic and be super awkward if/when you start crying in frustration. Awkward side hug will almost definitely happen. Eventually figures out that if he wraps you in a blanket and reads to you or watches something with you, you'll stop worrying about focusing on remembering, and it will come to you after a little bit.

Kirishima Eijirou

You were pretty up front with Eijirou about your dysnomia, because he seemed like a really sweet guy who would be willing to help you through an episode.

Eijirou notices pretty quickly when your first episode in his presence starts, because you start to get visibly frustrated and a bit prickly. You were literally just about to say something as you went on excitedly about a success you'd had in class, the occasional stammer slipping through your speech as your pace increased, but suddenly can't remember what you were going to say.

"You okay, Pebble?" He asks, an expression of confusion and concern crossing his face as tears prickle your eyes.

"I- I'm okay, just- just really, really frustrated, that's- that's all." You ramble out, shaking your head as he pulls you to him.

"Hey, it's okay, you know. Whatever's going on, you'll be okay. C'mere, baby. Let me take care of you?"

You nod your consent, letting yourself melt against him and burying your face in his shoulder, the salty tears falling as you let him comfort you.

You can't help feeling frustrated, but at the same time, Eijirou knows you well enough to know that you'll be okay with time, so he immediately jumps to whispering little jokes and stories in your ear as he rubs your back with one palm.

"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Suneater accidentally challenged Fatgum to an eating contest at the BBQ joint outside the agency?" He asks with a grin, regaling you with the tale when you shake your head no, a small, barely noticable curious gleam in your eyes.

"... and that's how Suneater almost beat Fatgum at an eating contest! Can you believe it, Pebble?"

You giggle and snort a bit. "I don't think I can, a-are you sure you're not making it up, Eiji?"

He laughs boisterously, jostling you as he pulls you into his lap. "Not a chance, I'm completely serious! Want to ask Suneater yourself? I'll call him right now, if you want?"

He has his phone out in a flash, and presses dial before you can even reply, asking Tamaki to confirm that he really did almost beat Fatgum at an eating contest.

You're stunned at his determination to make you believe him, but can't help busting up laughing when Tamaki confirms Eijirou was telling the truth, before asking why he needed to hear it from him when he was there too.

"Y/N here didn't believe me when I said you did, so I had to prove it! Thanks senpai! See you on patrol tomorrow!"

He hung up before Tamaki could get a word in edgewise, grinning at you cheekily. "See? What did I tell you?"

"Eiji, you just hung up on Tamaki-senpai before he could even say goodbye!! That was so rude of you!" You're just starting to come down from your fit of laughter as Eijirou sputters and rushes to message an apology to Tamaki, when suddenly, you grip his arm and excitedly tell him, "Sensei told me today that I scored the highest grade in class on that one quirk studies project, you know, the one I put in three weeks' work in to get just how I wanted it? That's what I was trying to tell you earlier!"

Eijirou beams at you and kisses your forehead. "That's awesome, Pebble! I'm so proud of you, you know that? I knew you'd do great! All your hard work paid off!"

He's elated to see you smiling again, all the stress melting away from your face as he peppers your face with kisses and praises you for your hard work.

100/10 best at easing your anxieties and helping you take it easy when you get too worked up. Best storyteller, very engaging, very comforting.

#shinsou hitoshi #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #bnha headcanons #mha headcanons #headcanons #dysnomia headcanons #reader headcanons #bnha x reader #mha x reader

14 notes · View notes

isa-ly · 3 years

Text

THE TRUTH UNTOLD

TW: mental illness, eating disorders, depression, anxiety

I know the title might be a fun little hint to a certain k-pop song (which is a reference about three people will understand) but despite that little quirky pun, this post I’m about to write and that you’re about to read, is not gonna be easy. Or witty, or funny like some of the previous posts were. It’s most definitely going to be the longest one, though.

Because, in all honesty, this is the one post I have been absolutely dreading to make. However, it’s also the post that I kind of started this blog for because, unlike my depression, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia and quarter-life crisis, this is something only my closer circle and those who happened to ask, really know about.

And, once again in all honesty, this is the actual reason I started therapy almost a year ago. Because in every way possible, shit had hit the fan so hard that there had been nothing left but to step on the emergency breaks. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. So, let’s try and start from the beginning.

I’ve talked about my more or less mental breakdown and burn out during my last year of university a few times now. Didn’t spare any details either. However, there is one thing that I’ve been mindfully avoiding that actually took up a pretty big part of that time of my life. The reason I avoided it, was because in my head, I kept running in circles on how I would phrase it and explain it in a way that would a) not sound too shocking and b) not make me look like a complete stranger to people who, until now, had no idea of what I’m about to say.

Eventually, though, I realized that I was doing the exact same thing I’ve always been doing. Which was searching for excuses to not talk about the biggest struggle in my life and make myself vulnerable. And I don’t want to make these excuses anymore because, really, all they ever did was harm me. So, here goes nothing.

Hello. My name is Isa. And for over a year now, I have been suffering from an eating disorder called anorexia nervosa.

The sheer act of just having typed this sentence out on virtual paper, threw me so hard that I spent a good 15 minutes simply staring at my laptop screen just now. I told you, this wasn’t going to be easy.

Since the only place I’m really “promoting” this blog on is Instagram, I’m just going to try and somehow use that as a segue to this post. Over the last year, I’ve received quite a few messages from friends, family and sometimes also random acquaintances, whenever I posted a picture of myself on my story or feed. Some of them were jokey, some of them interested and a very select few were concerned, too. All of them were about my apparent change of appearance, however. Of course, I didn’t only receive those messages online. The people who know and see me in real life, the above mentioned inner circle, have known for a while and some of them, as much as I wish they hadn’t had to, saw all of it happen in real life.

I know I included it in the trigger warnings already, but I want to point it out one more time here because I know how incredibly triggering these things can be – especially to people who have struggled or are struggling with similar issues. So, if reading about body image, dieting, weight loss and eating disorders makes you uncomfortable or could trigger bad memories and behaviour, this post might not be the one for you. I don’t want to be patronizing, you know what’s best for you, just wanted to make sure to highlight it before I continued.

I also want to preface this by saying that I can and only will talk about my own experience here. I am in no way, shape or form an expert on mental health and eating disorders and what I’m going to say and talk about, is purely a narration of what happened in my own life. Eating disorders, just like any other mental illness, are very individual and I do not want to come off as blurting out generalizations about them. Just so that we’re clear here.

Therapy taught me that the psychological, biological and/or societal origin of eating disorders is still almost completely scientifically unknown. It is for that exact reason, that the various EDs are some of the most stereotyped and stigmatized mental illnesses there are – which is also why it took me so long to actually pluck up the courage and energy to talk about it. I imagined people reading about my anorexia and thinking: “Oh, I bet it’s because she was bullied for her weight when she was a kid”, or: “Well, just another one of those girls who wanted to be skinnier”. Possibly also: “I never would have thought that someone like her would end up with an eating disorder. She always seemed so confident!”

So, to combat the fear of coming off like a cliché or sob story, I knew simply had to tell my whole and honest story. Because even if I’m worried about being put in a box or labelled as something I’m not, it still happened. And it’s still my story. And to move on from it, or better, with it, I have to tell it. And I have to tell it right.

So, here it goes.

Ever since I can remember, I have disliked my body. Growing up as a Human Person™ in this society, I realize that’s not really something that makes me stand out (which, if you think about it, is actually incredibly fucking sad). Apart from my own self, however, no one ever really shamed for the way that I looked and I was also never bullied or teased by others because of it. So, that’s a no for the “Oh, I bet it’s because she was bullied for her weight when she was a kid”-stereotype. It makes me want to gauge the patriarchal beauty standard’s eyes out, to think that never actively having been shamed for my body or weight, is something that I can consider a “privilege” in this world. I’m aware that a lot of kids and adults don’t have that twisted privilege, which, again, just makes me want to set the world of body ideals on fire, but I don’t want to diverge too much from the point of this post.

Remember that society I was talking about? Yeah, with that around, having someone point out or shame you for how your body looks different from what’s considered the ideal, isn’t really something that’s necessary in order for you to still notice it and develop massive insecurities. So, even though I was “lucky” and “privileged” enough to have avoided being bullied for my body by real-life people, I still grew up not liking the way I looked, always noticing that my stomach, my thighs, my arms, my boobs, my butt, were different to those of the girls everyone called pretty. Which inevitably led to me harbouring a contained, yet undeniably significant amount of self-hatred for the way my body looked over time.

Now, I might have been one of many body-conscious teenagers, but, in quite stark contrast to that, I was also a seemingly self-confident one. Or at least I really, really wanted to be. It’s what everyone always told me I came across as. The loud, opinionated and self-assured girl, who didn’t care what people thought of her. Maybe that was to compensate for my own insecurities, maybe it was for protection, or maybe it was also because I just knew, or hoped, it was the right way to go. I believed and preached that how I looked, what I weighed and what I ate didn’t matter, both to myself and to all of my friends and family. I knew I was absolutely fine the way that I was, as long as I was physically and mentally healthy. I’ve always known that, and I fully believe in it too. And yet, here I am. About to tell you what both you and me are already suspecting: The story of how that knowledge didn’t end up protecting me as well as I thought it would.

Despite me always having believed in not giving a shit about beauty standards, ideal body types and the obsession with whatever the fuck “skinny”, “slim thick” and “lean” are supposed to be, it undeniably had an effect on me. Just like it has an effect on literally every other person, regardless of gender or age. It’s pretty much passed onto us the minute we’re born, like a part of our literal DNA. It makes me sick to my very core, but I always knew that this insecurity, no matter how much I knew it shouldn’t have ever been one and no matter how much I fought to stand above it, was woven into the very fabric of my being. The very minute we learn to interact with others and the world around us, the clear, limited and completely unrealistic image of how we’re supposed to look in order to meet societal expectations, is indoctrinated into our innocent brains – consciously, subconsciously and in literally every other way possible.

I don’t want to give a lecture on how society, media, and peers make us believe it’s necessary and right to chase bodies that, realistically, no one can ever outrun, but I felt like saying at least this much about it to set the base for what’s about to come. Certainly, this almost innate, underlying dislike for my body – or most parts of it – wasn’t the sole reason for developing an eating disorder in my early twenties. But it was most definitely a cruel predisposition that played a big part in how my anorexia unfolded and the leverage it had and still has on me.

I mentioned in the beginning how, despite it being one of the most common mental health disorders, there’s barely any scientific explanations as to how eating disorders really come to be. Which is why assuming that being unhappy with my body and the way it looked was the only reason I slipped into disordered eating, would simply be false. After all, I lived twenty-one years of my life being more or less fine with it. It was an insecurity, yes, but it didn’t dictate my every day life, it didn’t influence how I lived it. So, the “Well, just another one of those girls who wanted to be skinnier”-stereotype, doesn’t really prove to be fully true either.

Which leaves the last assumption: “I never would have thought that someone like her would end up with an eating disorder. She always seemed so confident!”

To which I can only say: Yeah, uh ... same? I mean, do you really think there’s anyone who found themselves developing an eating disorder only to think: “Oh, yeah, that makes sense, I always knew I’d end up like that!” Sorry, that was a bit dark. I know that this assumption is something that mostly I myself am worried about and that there’s no reason for me to actually get defensive. However, while most reactions to me talking about my eating disorder have been very comforting and caring, I’ve also had a few quite unpleasant experiences and well, those tend to have the harsher impact. So, please forgive my mildly cynical reasoning here.

Right, then. If I didn’t ever get bullied for my body or weight, didn’t just want to “be skinny” and really am that confident – how did this happen?

Well, I’ve already given part of the explanation just now, when I told you about my unfortunate predisposition of never really having fully loved or accepted my body. The other part of the explanation, lies in pretty much every other post I have written so far. Most of all the latest one: Control.

It was a real challenge to have written that last entry without ever mentioning my anorexia with even one word. Because really, for me personally, control is literally all it ever was and will be about. My therapist told me that it’s quite common in other eating disordered people too. But again, I’m not here to talk about anyone else, I’m here to talk about my own experience. And it starts just like I said in my last post: With losing control. And in many ways, the combination of always having disliked my body and suddenly having slithered into a massive life-crisis where I felt like I had lost all power and control over everything, was the very dangerous mixture that started it all.

I don’t want to make it about that too much, but it’s still worth mentioning that after my semester abroad, which had ended in January of 2018, I had gained some weight. Weight that, having changed up my diet a few years prior, I had actually lost and that all of a sudden, was now back on again. It had just been a very wonderful yet also stressful time abroad and well, heaps of uni work, very little sleep and the general student lifestyle, just caused me to pile on a few kilos. The part of me that genuinely never gave a fuck about body standards, once again did genuinely not give a fuck about that. And yeah, when I came back, there were the occasional family remarks of “Look at you, gained quite a bit of weight there, didn’t you?” (which I know are made with no malicious intent, by the way, but, forgive me if I say this: just shut up) and I had also obviously started noticing that none of my old clothes fit anymore and I did indeed look a lot larger than in any of my older pictures. Was that a blow to my self-built confidence because we live in a society that rewards weight loss and punishes weight gain? Sure. Was that when I developed anorexia? Nope.

Because, if you’ve been following the timeline of my mental health issues that I have oh so passionately been crafting in the last few posts, it wasn’t until autumn of 2018 that I first started struggling with my back then still undiscovered control issues, which lead to my anxiety, depression, insomnia and – now that I’m telling my whole story – my eating disorder. Or, to be fully correct, disordered eating, back then. Because just like the rest of my mental health issues, this too, crept up on me slowly at first.

I remember the first time I had this very simple thought. At least, it felt simple. Simple, but so deeply wrong and dangerous. And yet once I had had it, it wouldn’t leave anymore. It should have rang all the alarm bells in my head. It really should have. But I understand now, that the reason I had this very simple, deeply wrong and dangerous thought, was because I was desperate to control something, anything at all. Regain power over just one part of my life, whatever that might be.

So, that thought kept coming back. Over and over again:

What if I just stopped eating?

I would snap out of it and tell myself: “What the fuck, Isa? That’s ridiculous. Also, what does that even mean, are you crazy? You love food, you love eating it and you need it to survive.” And I’d ignore it again. But it would come back. Every now and then, usually in the moments where I felt worst about myself, it would echo stronger in my own head and ignoring it would become harder and harder. It was a thought so insane and so ridiculous, I told nobody about it. My rational mind knew that it was totally stupid to even consider something like that, and so I felt stupid for doing it. Which is why talking about it was off the table for me, back then. It was my dirty, little, silly secret and I was going to keep it that way.

I was smarter than that, I knew better than that.

It didn’t change the fact that I felt so lost in university though, and even more lost in life, and so that shitty thought just wouldn’t leave me alone. Until eventually, I budged. And that’s the part where it really stops being witty and smart-assy.

Because that’s the part where I made the decision to only eat once a day. And it was a decision that I fought for with an iron will. A decision that gave me control. Over all the wrong things.

I said I would tell my whole and honest story, but in case you were wondering: No, I’m not gonna give any numbers, not when it comes to weight and not when it comes to calories. Mainly because the only thing they do is create competition and shock value. Even to people who don’t struggle with eating disorders. And apart from that, they’re also triggering to me, even if it’s my own story. So, all I’ll say is that I limited myself to one meal a day. For an entire year. It didn’t always work, thank God for that in hindsight. But I tried to do it every day nonetheless, and even though it wasn’t a by-the-books eating disorder yet (which is a whole other rant I have but that’s not for now), it completely ruined my relationship with food, my body image and my own self-worth.

Every time I ate, I would feel guilty, it made me feel like a failure. I had never experienced this kind of shame before, the idea of feeling accomplished whenever I managed to go without eating for almost an entire day. It was this sick sense of pride and, you guessed it: Control. And yet it wasn’t enough, because my body would obviously fight back, demanding food with every bit of power and rage it had over me. I felt awful. On top of university stress, panic attacks, anxiety, depression and insomnia, I was now also hungry almost all the time. And when I had my one meal a day, I wouldn’t enjoy it. I would simply gorge on it because I was so depleted and ravenous. And then I would feel guilty and hate myself for it.

This went on for many months. I hid it as best as I could and in most social situations, I would make exceptions so that people wouldn’t notice. Exceptions I would hate myself for, but they had to be made to keep this habit my aforementioned dirty, little secret. It was like an entire new personality was starting to form inside my own. A dark and hateful one that chipped away at all that confidence and rational I had built over the years. A few close friends suspected eventually that something was off, and some of them asked about it but I would immediately play it off as just not feeling well because of all my other mental struggles, the ones they already knew about. It was an excuse that made sense, so no one really dug any deeper. And I couldn’t really have given another explanation back then anyway. Because again, I didn’t know yet why any of this was happening. I didn’t know that not eating was a twisted and horrible coping mechanism, that I had developed to gain back some sense of control in my life.

At that point, I had started weighing myself too. Something that had given me a big, bad shock when I first saw the number on the scale. In my mind, it was big and bad too. I knew how much I had weighed pre-semester-abroad. And so I knew how much I must have gained and by now also lost again. And yet that number was still way too big. It crushed me. And sadly, only spurred me on more. I would try not to eat. I would “fail”. I would hate myself. Rinse and repeat.

And no one knew what was going on. Least of all me.

It got a little bit better over the summer of 2019, just like the rest of my mental health did. That was around the time I had finally made the decision to take a gap year and figure out all my issues. And that included the very bad eating habits I had developed over the last year. In a way, that decision was also a way of me gaining back control, which was presumably why all my other bad coping strategies, including the not eating, faded away a little. No more nightly panic attacks. No more insomnia. And a lot more breakfast, lunch and dinner. I still didn’t like my body, I was still scared of the number on the scale. But I was ready to turn my life around again, get therapy and fight that nasty, dangerous habit I had let myself fall into.

Unfortunately, as I already mentioned in previous posts, the therapy I was so clearly in desperate need of, didn’t work out as quickly as I had wished (again, thanks for that, health care system). I had gone to my first ever assessment where they had diagnosed me with anxiety and depression disorder. And, actually, the psychiatrist that I had had my first ever session with, had also decided to diagnose me with anorexia nervosa because according to her, while I hadn’t ticked all of the eating disorder boxes yet, I definitely did show signs of eating disordered and anorexic behaviour. To me, that had sounded quite ridiculous and harsh at the time. Anorexia? Pft, no way, I didn’t look like the girls from the shocking posters and depressing documentaries, it was no where as serious as that. (Tip of the hat to those stigmas and stereotypes I was talking about earlier)

But of course, she was right. However, they didn’t have a free spot for one on one therapy and group sessions weren’t really what I was looking for either. So, I went on a waiting list and never heard back from them again.

The cold season crept back in and the wonderful, warm and sunny-safe bubble I had lived in all summer, burst as quickly as it had been blown into existence. Everyone went back to work, back to uni, back to life. And I ... well, I went back to being lost. To not knowing what to do. To having to write my thesis I still couldn’t write for some reason. To having panic attacks. To having insomnia.

To not eating.

Only that after a year of being so miserable whenever I ate food and still feeling so awful in my own body, I decided I would have to change the way I was going about it. In my extremely mentally fragile mind, I thought I had to step it up if I really wanted results. And, as I like to say it, that’s when shit really hit the fan. In a way, it felt like I had spent an entire year sitting on a roller coaster ride that was slowly climbing up the incline, getting closer and closer to the inevitable drop. And just like on any actual roller coaster, when that drop came, it came fast.

It was no longer about just eating one and any meal a day. In the matter of a week or two, it became about numbers, calories, measurements, grams, milliliters. All of a sudden, I found myself meticulously writing down every single thing I ate and when I had eaten it. The food groups kept shrinking and so did my portions and the amount of calories I would consume in a day. I would set a new limit on Monday and decrease it again by Wednesday, pushing myself harder, restricting more and more with every week. All I could think about was food. And all I could do was not eat it. In what felt like a matter of seconds, a worry, a fear, a habit had turned into a full-fledged obsession. An addiction. And that’s when anorexia entered my life.

I’ve re-written this part over and over again because I’m desperately trying not to make it sound like a pseudo-romantic and tastelessly dramatic young adult novel. But I realize that’s just my fear of sounding like a cliché again. So, I’ll stop scratching and writing everything anew now, and just keep going.

In the first few days and weeks of crashing into this new, horrible world, I remember yet again thinking another very simple, yet dangerous and devastating thought. The one beside “What if I just stopped eating?”. And this thought, to me personally, was even scarier than the last one.

It was the thought of: “What if I can never eat again?”

Because that’s exactly what anorexia felt like to me.

Many people describe it as a whole other person in their head. Almost like a foreign entity, taking over your life. And while I very strongly relate to these descriptions, I have learned that it’s best for me to not always manifest my eating disorder into a separate identity to my own, because in certain times, that gives it too much power and makes it seem undefeatable. Which it isn’t. So, I’m going to try and describe it in another way. The way I first described it to my therapist. With a metaphor, of course.

It felt like up until this point, I had been sitting in the car that was my own life, driving down the road of my present and future, looking in the rear view mirror at my past. I was the one with the foot on the gas and the breaks, I was the one that decided what turn or exit to take. Autumn of 2018 had felt like breaking down in that car, having to pull over and being lost in the middle of nowhere, without any signs to guide the way. My bad eating habits felt like someone stopping and pretending to help me, jump staring my car and having it tucker slowly again while following me at walking speed, with me still not really knowing where I was going. And finally, anorexia felt like that someone kicking me out of my car, buckling me into the passenger seat, taping my mouth shut and taking over the stirring wheel.

All of a sudden, it felt like I had no say in where I was heading, how fast I was driving or what road I was going down. For over a year, I had used this dangerous and awful habit of coping by not eating, to wield control and have power over something. And now, it had taken that power away again, like a pact with the god damn devil, and had started to use it over me instead. Which is exactly what eating disorders do, and what my anorexia did too. They give you a false sense of control because control is all you want, and yet all you can’t have. All you need to do is replace control with food. Because food is all you want, and yet all you can’t have. Anorexia gave me my own, fucked up metaphor for my control issues.

I knew that what I was doing was more than just dangerous. It was no longer just trying to eat once a day, not managing to and then hating myself. This was barely eating anything at all, setting the bar lower each day and starving myself. And not in the figurative way. I lost weight so rapidly, I could barely keep track. The scale became my second home, the calories my worst enemy and food, or more trying to avoid it, the entire purpose of my life. Nothing else mattered anymore.

Falling into anorexia has been the scariest and most horrible thing I have ever had to go through. It felt like I had lost myself. I was still there, in my own head, somewhere. Still strapped into the passenger seat. But I had no say in any of my actions. I just silently watched and witnessed, obeying everything my eating disorder told me to do. I know I said I usually avoid completely painting it as a separate person in my own head, but back then, back when I was still severely anorexic, that was just what it felt like. Like a literal parasite, that had latched onto me and was sucking me dry of any and every life force and fight I still had left.

All my days would consist of trying to navigate around food, doing my best to avoid it, lying to everyone, most of all myself. I would look up every single nutritional information of everything, every meal at a restaurant, every drink. I had lists where I wrote it all down, tracking my calorie intake and weight loss. Documents that contained all the calories from every single food and also non-food item imaginable. It would start with things like fruits, vegetables and condiments and end with things like tea, vitamins, chewing gum and toothpaste. I would google how many calories a panic attack burned. I would pace up and down my room at night to get my step count higher. I would walk around the city aimlessly for hours every single day to avoid eating, no matter the weather, no matter the time. I would work out at the gym like a maniac and almost pass out every single time afterwards. At family breakfast, I would hide food in my sleeves and socks to avoid eating it. It was more than just ridiculous. It was insanity. But it was an insanity I couldn’t let go of.

Anorexia was the most twisted and horrendous full-time commitment of my life. I had felt lost and without purpose for so long and in the most fucked up way, my eating disorder had given me a 9-to-5 – no, scratch that, a 24-god-damn-7 job to do. It had given me a new purpose and a painful illusion of the things I had craved for so long. Control, willpower, strength, endurance. Only that it was exactly that – just an illusion. Because at the end of the day, I would go to bed empty, both literally and figuratively, feeling nothing and hating everything. Because that’s what anorexia does. It strips you of everything you have in life. It takes away every joy, every pleasure, every interest, hobby, passion or relationship, and it isolates you. Completely. It worms its way into your life and fills out every single nook and crack until it’s the only thing that seems to be left. And therefore, the only thing you still care about.

It felt like losing my complete identity.

Mentally, I was at the worst state I had ever been in my life. This was around December of 2019. I had barely been keeping all of this up for over a month, but I was eating so little that I had lost an alarmingly large amount of weight very fast, which came at a high cost. I was always cold, I couldn’t sleep, I had awful headaches, I kept forgetting conversations and talks I had had with friends, I felt dizzy and nauseous all the time and worst of all, I was so cripplingly depressed that I didn’t even care about any of that. Because when you deprive your brain of nutrients this much, it just shuts down. And that’s what I did, too. I just went into standby mode, as I kept losing more weight and becoming more miserable with each day that passed.

Both my body and mind were running on nothing but adrenaline and thin air and I lived life in this absolutely isolated and horrible auto-pilot, where I continued on as if nothing was happening, as more of me, both physically and mentally, disappeared and was replaced with complete emptiness. I still struggle to find the right words to describe how I felt back then. The only thing that comes close is just complete nothingness. Like a fucking black hole inside of me that had swallowed everything and created a complete vacuum.

Writing about this makes me want to just close my laptop and stop. In a way, it feels like giving my eating disorder and the hardest time of my life a spot light. Like giving it attention and a stage to perform on, to flaunt its dramatic tragedy. I can feel that the anorexia loves that, relishes every word I’m typing about it, every second of attention I’m giving to it. And hate that, I fucking despise it. Because it doesn’t deserve its own stage. It never did and it never will. So, let’s try and move on to the part where things changed.

Back then, I might have become a master of lying and avoiding most people’s questions about me never seeming to be hungry or wanting to eat. But thankfully, there were a few of my close friends that had started to notice. Not gonna name any names, but you know who you are. And I cannot even begin to say how incredibly thankful and lucky I am to have had you there. Because even when I had given up on myself, you didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, oh no. I was still in a very, very bad place mentally, and my eating disorder was not planning on leaving any time soon.

But, with the help and intervention of said good friends and a few select, eye-opening experiences (that I won’t talk about because they really weren’t ideal but still ended up helping somehow), I finally realized the very obvious but up until then seemingly impossible thing: I had to start eating again. And I had to start now.

And I did.

Looking back, I cannot even express how glad I am about that. Because it had started to become really critical. And I consider myself to be very lucky that it didn’t have to get even worse. That I was still able to make my own decisions and finally get help. Finding therapy was once again not easy but eventually, I did find an outpatient clinic that offered immediate consultation, as well as an appointment with a psychiatrist for medication and an internist for physical check-ups. And, to maybe bring back a slight sense of cheerfulness: It was also when I finally got to meet my therapist Kerstin.

Again, none of this was as easy and swift as it might sound like with me narrating it in those few sentences, but this post can only go on for so much longer before I get too drained and decide to just delete all of it again, so I will try and come to a close, for now. There’s still so much more to tell when it comes to my journey with my eating disorder and my mental health, because it’s nowhere near finished. And worry not, I will tell it – not so much for the sake of those of you who read it, but more so for my own. But for now, I want to finish by saying this much – mainly to myself again, but also to anyone else who might need to hear it:

I know it might feel like you don’t care.

About yourself, about what happens to you, about the future, about happiness. I know it might feel like you’re faking everything, lying to everyone and just pretending all the time. I know you might feel so horribly and painfully empty that all you want to do is sit still in the void of your own head and let the misery wash over you in dreadful peace. I know you might think that the only sense of comfort you can find, lies in the things that hurt you most. I know your pain seems like an old friend, one that will never leave you and therefore is worth staying close to. I know that continuing to fight on and struggling through life and all the hardships it throws at you, sometimes feels so impossible, that it seems easier to just give in and give up.

The thing about that is, though: It’s fucking bullshit.

It’s nothing but a very mean and disgusting way of all your inner pain, trauma and warped coping mechanisms to try to pull you down to keep you “safe” from things that you can absolutely, completely and totally battle. And, yeah, it sure as shit ain’t easy. God, if I had a dollar for every time I had to pick myself back up after I stepped on a scale, after I ate something that scared me, after I looked in the mirror, after I relapsed, after I went back on track again, after I wished I could just melt into a formless blob and slowly whither away in peace– I would be a rich woman. But neither life nor capitalism work that way, unfortunately. So, why do I still bother?

Well, because after going through hell and back, it’s the only thing I have left. It’s the only option there is.

You might not know who you are. You might not know what you’re doing, where you’re going, if you’re ever going to get better, if you’ll ever feel happy and at home in your own mind, body and life again. But what you can and should know, is that you can always try. Even if it seems pointless, even if it seems like you’re running in circles, wanting to bash your head against the wall because of how senseless it all feels.

You can still try.

And try, and try, and try again. It’s a choice and it is a hard one. Maybe the hardest one you will ever have to make.

But I chose to make it, and I still continue to. Every day. With every morning I wake up, every therapy session I go to, every panic attack I breathe through, every depressive phase I crawl back out of, every meal I eat. I choose to do it, I choose to keep pushing because when it feels like all the bad and dark thoughts are more powerful than me and threaten to swallow me alive, making the choice to fight back as much as I can, is what proves that I am and always will be more powerful than them.

Because this is my life. My body. My head. My brain. My mind. And I’d be a god damn fool to give them up to those inner demons that would never know how to treat them right, how to cherish them and keep them happy, healthy and alive. Because I think we can all agree that, at the end of the day, being happy is a hell of a lot better than being sad and empty. And so, at the end of the day, I realized that nothing and no one, not even my mental health disorders and past traumas, can take away what will always, exclusively and fully belong to me and me only:

My choice, my happiness, my control – the right one, this time.

#mental illness #mental health #therapy #eating disorder #anorexia #depression #anxiety

4 notes · View notes

ecto-american · 4 years

Text

I think Ember’s entire self would have fit really well as being a deceased Kpop idol. Not just in terms of who she is as a character and it giving her more depth and personality that already matches her canon, but also give great social commentary on how toxic the music industry, especially Korea's, can be.

More detail explaining this under the cut.

Firstly a disclaimer: I was an absolute Kpop weeb in my high school years. I knew all the bands and dances and stuff, and thus I was somewhat exposed to the culture of Kpop. Since then, I kind of have gone back and done some researched and watched documentaries and the like (because I am a big sociology nerd), but I'm not that deeply invested in Kpop anymore. But this is a thought I've had for a long time, ever since I first began to hear some of the problems surrounding Kpop idols and such.

I also want to point out that I am not saying that Ember within canon is a deceased Kpop star. She clearly isn't, and I'm not trying to make a case as to why she is given canon evidence. I'm writing this because I really like this interpretation a lot better than what canon gave us. In my own personal headcanons and worldbuilding and rewrite fanfiction, Ember is a deceased Kpop star.

We got that squared away? Coolio. Let's start.

Now that “preface” or whatever is out of the way, I really want to begin this by giving some background on Korean pop, specifically the industry and the culture surrounding it, for those who don't know. This is going to give some much needed and important context behind what I'm about to say about Ember. I will also be providing as many sources as I can to this section, but a lot of this is really easy to find on google as well.

In Korea, to be a pop star: you basically have to be perfect. In your dance, music, appearance, your entire image is now basically the property of your manager. Plastic surgery is a massive deal in South Korea, and it's partly due to this.

When you get your contact, you basically have to go through a bootcamp, which involves: Limited contact with family and friends, dropping any romantic relationships or behaviors that would be deemed unwholesome (many companies even go as far as forbidding relationships so that fans can better “see” themselves as being with the idol, which increases sales), brutal training schedules and everything you do is so heavily monitored by your bosses. This has lead to many Kpop idols (especially women) to be dangerously underweight or to have eating disorders, 15 hour training days day after day, being fired for being in a relationship outside of their company's approval/against contract. It's caused literal deaths and mental breakdowns.

Of course, America has the eating disorder problem too, and long work days. But please take in mind: management in Korea actively pushes for these eating disorders and are almost applauded publicly for keeping their stars thin, while in America, it becomes an absolute scandal. And yes, America has long work days too, but in comparison to Korea, American musicians basically only release a single or two in a year, and an album about every three years or so. On average. Kpop groups are pressured to release one or two albums every year on top of regular singles. If you youtube Korean pop shows, there's so many examples of stars collapsing on stage due to exhaustion and hunger. And most of the time, they're forced to get back up and continue, compared to America where they're normally “hey show over”. There are some Americans who will go through with it, but it's normally stars who are determined to finish in spite. It's not a push by your boss to finish or be fired and blacklisted from the industry.

Kpop idols are often broke as fuck, so there’s not even that as compensations. Many literally don't get most of the proceeds from their music. Their contracts are often compared to being slave contracts by stars. One Kpop star even said that she and her group had to split one meal whenever they were on tour because they were in such poverty. Oh, a rising group, right? NO. It was one of the biggest fucking Kpop girl groups of the time, Stellar! But even if they were a brand spanking new group, what the fuck.

And why don't they leave? Because they wanna be famous and make music. It’s just that unfortunately, it’s a very saturated industry because the agencies literally just crank out so many idol groups every single year, thus leading to absolutely brutal competition. People are regularly rotated out and replaced within groups. Idol groups are regularly formed or disbanded There's lots of weekly programs and music competitions to see who's the best of the best. You're constantly ranked. You're constantly fighting for the top spot. Lots of Kpop idols have to really fight to get their name remembered or known. The best of the best get reknown internationally.

Okay I'm done with the background now, lol. But you get the jist! The Kpop industry is fucking brutal and needs a good social change. Though now that I've laid out a lot of this, you can kind of get the sense as to where I'm going with this.

Based on every appearance Ember has in the show, we can deduce two things: She hates adults and wants to be remembered.

What are two major problems within Kpop industries? Adults controlling these really young adults (normally freshly 18) trying to break into the industry that's hard to make a truly lasting impression on, that's trying to be remembered.

Ember, if we take her canonical song and the background information provided by interviews, is meant to have died in a fire after being stood up. But I think that she would much better fit as a character who died from the intense social, physical and mental pressures of being a Kpop star. Perhaps a Kpop star that was left forgotten in the crowd of idols, whether it's dying in an accident or suicide.

It’s just me, but I really personally don’t like the canon that she died in a fire because of a boy. It’s just really weak imo, and idk. I don’t like backstories based around a romantic interest like that, especially when it’s so bland. Ember is a fucking dead musician and rock star within canon, and that’s the best you can come up with? She died in a damn fire after a boy stood her up? No mentions that she was into music or something?

Of course, she likely wasn’t famous she died. She likely rose to fame post her death, but that’s still just really? Kind of a headscratcher in a sense? Ember deserves more. The given backstory of her death is literally so? Random imo? Given who she is in death? Unless her entire thing is about how she changed so much in death for a guy, which is kinda Hmm for me. But that’s most of canon lmao.

I feel like this Kpop idol angle would have been a much stronger backstory potential for her. It could paint her as this really hardworking idol, this incredibly talented musician and vocalist who just couldn't make the cut. Maybe she got fired for loving another idol. Perhaps she just wasn't up to the brutal industry standards of being a Kpop idol. It’s a backstory that clearly incorporates her musical talents within her life, and kind of gives her death more of an impact, that gives her more character depth. Whether she’s a perfectionist because of this or has such strong self esteem issues due to the pressures she experienced in life. All of this motivating her to work solely towards her goal, or making her realize that she just really wants to have a more relaxed life and do things like date freely and enjoy the peace and privacy she now likely can have.

Ember's powers would fit really well with this Kpop backstory too She can hypnotize people. Besides Kpop kind of literally hypnotizing a lot of people, it could be shown as a legitimate skill of hers, or something she gained in death as she hoped that she could truly charm an audience into remembering her. She wants to be remembered within canon. No matter the cost or sacrifice. The same kind of sacrifice and price many Kpop idols are forced to make and pay.

It gives her stronger motivations other than just being famous for the sake of being famous or to possibly get that one boy’s attention (? It really depends on your personal take). She wants to be famous to prove herself to a company that worked her to literal death or that basically rejected her, or as a personal dream finally achieved. She now has the power to destroy the adults that likely exploited her as slave labor that maybe made her die in poverty or after being another abuse victim.

To me, it’d help pack a better emotional punch and reasoning as to why she does what she does. Fame has much more meaning to her, it’s personal, losing it again would devastate her. At the end of Fanning the Flames, can you imagine how hysterical she might be if the entire sequence was an unintentional repeat of the events that lead her to her death? Why she’s so specifically disgruntled against adults other than the typical “teenage rebellion” to the point of turning them into slaves in Pirate Radio (which is? fucking wack considering how much better it’d be to use something else). Turning them into slaves just like they would have done to her for years, especially since it’s on exercise equipment. It’d bring personal satisfaction to possibly watch them run or bike or work out until they literally collapse like she might have done before. Then forced back on and continue. Hell, you can even explain as to why she kept her relationship with Skulker an apparent secret: she’s used to have to hiding a boyfriend or risk losing everything.

I would have loved to see her being used as a good social commentary on that industry specifically, but also as a hot take for the abuse that just happens in general too much within the music (and many other fame based industries).

If we're going by canon show airing date, Ember would have popped up right around the time Kpop was really making it's mark on American culture. America got really into Kpop in the mid-2000s and, as you can tell by BTS's popularity, is still going really strong. There's even an entire Wikipedia page about it, the Korean Wave. Whether you want to “modernize” DP or keep it in it's canon air date roots, this would still be a relevant possibility no matter where you personally like DP to fall on the IRL timeline.

While many Kpop stars are in groups, given her possible circumstances, she likely broke off to be a solo artist. If you've ever seen Kpop idol fashion, they're also very colorful! Very fashionable and interesting, and it'd be really cool to see more of that kind of fashion for her. The dances are very good too, well choreographed, and it'd just lead to really interesting possibilities as to how she looks and behaves on her stage.

I dunno man, I just feel like this is a really cool take. My personal take tbh, and I just think more people should think about deceased Kpop idol Ember.

#nick talks #headcanons #hcs #ember mclain

110 notes · View notes

magdaclaire · 5 years

Text

primekent’s winteriron fic recs

PREFACE: This is the 30k to 75k version! If y’all want a less than 30k rec list and/or an over 75k list, let me know!

Also: these are in no particular order!

Four Strings and Second Chances by Vashoth

Summary: It was reluctance to let one of his finest inventions ever out of his grasp that made him take a couple days over a week to send the arm to Pepper’s office. But all things considered, Tony figured that sending finest prosthetic that had ever come into existence--literally grasping an olive branch--was one of the classiest gifts he’d ever given. He’d included a note and everything. ‘Barnes,

Can help with installation. Or not. Up to you.

--Stark'

Personal Review: The softness. The quality choice of making Bucky Barnes a ukulele gay. Preserving Steve and Bucky’s friendship while still making it clear that Bucky loves Tony. The iconicism of this fic. I love it.

Like a Goddamn Katy Perry Song by tisfan

Summary: Tony is chased into the woods during his first heat, where the status-poor alpha, Bucky, lives. Running off the pack of heat-taggers, Bucky takes the young Tony home for recovery, to discover there’s not much time before the omega goes into full heat. Well… now what?

Personal Review: I don’t normally go for A/B/O. However. The writing of tisfan brought me in. I came for the tisfan and stayed for the cute dynamic! Bucky being protective while trying to be detached, Tony trying to stay distant but getting more and more entrenched.... love that.

my light (smell) will guide you home by winterbitch (WinterLadyy)

Summary: After escaping from HYDRA and dealing with Captain America, Bucky goes to New York. He can get lost there and figure out who he is. But something huge is missing from his memory and when the full moon comes, Bucky figures out what, but it's too late. The Wolf takes over, snooping around New York and looking for what's pulling him. Then he meets Tony Stark, who just can't leave the huge, fluffy dog starving on the streets.

Only the huge dog is weirdly protective and definitely smarter than average...

Personal Review: WHERE WOLF? THERE WOLF! BUCKY BARNES! Okay, sorry, I just love werewolves. Magic tattoos, protective wolfmen, CUDDLING? We’re hitting all of my favorite things.

Forms of Love by bear_bell

Summary: Months after the Avengers' dispute in Germany, the team returns to the US and moves back into the tower. As always, everyone pretends that nothing happened. Tony is just fine with this. He's used to pretending, and he'll be damned if he lets any of them see him flinch.

Tony's the bad guy, after all. He's used to it. He's fine with it. He's good at it.

Only now, there's something far worse loitering around the tower - The Winter Soldier. No one notices the guy at first, but when they do, Tony figures that he should have the soldier's back.

Birds of a feather should flock together, and the bad guys should start a book club.

Personal Review: This. This fic. I love. This fic. Separate People!Winter and Bucky is like my favorite thing. The writing. The characterization. The development. C’est magnifique.

Cat Nipped by Akira_of_the_Twilight

Summary: “Steve,” a bit of anger leaked into Bucky’s voice, so he paused to cull it back. “Tony is a werecat, and you really want the two of us to meet?”

Steve sighed, his shoulder dropping. “Bucky…”

“No!” Bucky bit back a bark. “Steve, I’m a werewolf, in case you have forgotten. Canine weres and feline weres do not get along well.”

“I’m a werecanine and Tony and I get along fine.”

“That’s not what you were saying last week.”

When cats and dogs collide there is bound to be trouble.

Personal Review: Protective Bucky! Angry Bucky! Kitty!Tony! Wolf!Bucky! It’s very character driven and I think that’s beautiful.

Fractures (Filled With Liquid Gold) by itsallAvengers

Summary: Ultron happened. The Avengers left.

Tony is fine with being alone again. He always worked better as a Lone Wolf than a team player anyway. He's not sleeping or eating or resting or... living, but it's fine. It's good. It's okay.

And then there's James.

Personal Review: *clenches fist* It’s about the loneliness. I love protectiveness, and this fic is so heavy with it. The PACING. I just. Includes the dialogue line “I’m gonna launch it into the fucking sun,” and I think that’s very cash money.

Strong enough to trust by Enmuse (Scifiroots)

Summary: Steve makes a life-altering choice, and Bucky wakes up from cryostasis to better circumstances than he could anticipate: Mind free of triggers, name cleared, fully pardoned, and a ticket back to the USA. It's far more than he deserves, but with no other plans or ties, he finds himself relocating to the Avengers Initiative Compound alongside Stevie's rogue superheroes.

He begins establishing a new life - friends, work, maybe even love - but doesn't realize that the castles he is painstakingly building are ones in the sky.

---

“I... don't understand," Bucky admits in a murmur.

Stark's gaze drops to the silver-plated shoulder. "I fix things," he says. His fingers drum restlessly against his chest. "And this is something I broke. You shouldn't have to just live with the consequences when something can be done about it."

Personal Review: I thrive on Steve Rogers related anger. It’s what I live off of. This is a great characterization of Bucky, of Tony, even of Steve, even as it’s very angry at Steve. I just love this fic.

Measure of a Man by JasperMoar

Summary: Tony is so. damn. tired of losing control. He gave it away freely before, and that got him stuck with some sharp metal and a magnet in his chest. He tried taking it back, and that got his heart ripped out of his goddamn chest. He pours his heart and soul into a system to protect the people he can’t save, tries to take control of his own flaws, and nearly destroys the world via genocidal robot. He realizes that hey, he’s one man. One terribly-human, incredibly-fallible man, and tries to make himself more accountable. Tries to give the control to people who might actually know what the fuck they’re doing. He tries to stop being the one to condemn young kids with bright futures.

He ends up half-dead in Siberia, as one of his best friends walks away. Leaves him there. Tony had never possessed an ounce of control over that situation to begin with.

The only one who’s going to get hurt in this little game is Tony, and that’s fine. At least he’ll be in control.

---In which Tony Stark develops an eating disorder. This does not glorify eating disorders, and in fact will focus mainly on the consequences and recovery.

Personal Review: This does have a heavy trigger warning for eating disorders and negative self talk/esteem. But, it’s a really good fic. The triggering content is well done, well written and non-offensive, as someone who struggles with disordered eating. It’s mostly about Tony’s personal development rather than the ship, but it is also still fulfilling on that front.

and of course

tell me no by halfwheeze

Summary: Barnes, 107th Infantry 32557038.

Barnes is not Bucky. Barnes is not the Winter Soldier. Barnes doesn't know who he is, or even sometimes, what he is.

Maybe Tony Stark can help him figure that out. Or maybe, if he just gets all the tools, he can fix Tony along the way too.

Personal Review: this is my own fic it’s garbage but i have to rec it

#winteriron #buckytony #tonybucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #fic rec #mine

113 notes · View notes

downspiral · 4 years

Text

* / BPD ( borderline personality damon )

lil talk about damon’s behaviour, emotional patterns and mental health! i’m categorising this as a headcanon for simplicity’s sake but this is all based on canon material, whether unintentional or not i do genuinely think he has it in canon and will sort of be elaborating on why that’s clear to me. as a disclaimer none of this is meant to excuse any of his behaviour and hopefully it won’t come off that way either, but bpd and its associated stigma is a personal topic to me, so please go in with sympathy and an open mind. under the cut bc this could get lengthy!

so to start off with i’ll just briefly explain borderline personality disorder (BPD) for people unfamiliar with it— it’s a mood disorder that has many associated symptoms with various mental illnesses like depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder, as well as substance issues, eating disorders and other personality disorders eg. antisocial or narcissistic personality disorder. it’s classed by four groups of symptoms:

emotional instability

disturbed patterns of thinking or perception

impulsive behaviour

intense but unstable relationships with others

( obviously this definition is too broad for any specific diagnosis, since everyone is different, and can’t be used alone to diagnose someone without ruling out other disorders and subjective opinion of a professional who knows enough about your behaviours to make an assessment, so from here on out i’m going to be drawing on my own experiences, and hopefully i’ll be able to articulate it in a way that makes sense, but please let me know if it doesn’t. )

***

the first and most glaringly obvious identifiers of this where damon is concerned in my opinion is a), his tendency to spiral very suddenly and abruptly after even minor triggers, such as failure, rejection or even just feeling insulted by someone he cares about, and b) his frequent impulsive behaviour, and what might be termed a lack of self-control in following those impulses - the first examples that come to mind would be his leaving for a road trip with katherine despite hating her, or killing jeremy because he was the first person he saw after feeling rejected by elena - and as he later admitted honestly, not knowing that it wouldn’t be permanent.

so starting with a), his irrational spiralling — i’ll preface this by saying that in my own experience, my initial diagnosis where my therapist suggested BPD as a possibility was immediately after i told her that i felt my emotions were just more severe than most people’s, which is why i always felt i was overreacting to things, both bad and good, alternating with feelings of extreme numbness and dissociation which would follow immediately after as a coping method. bouncing between extremes of emotion is also something we see damon do constantly; not regarding the humanity switch detail and focusing solely on his ‘humanity-on’ behaviour, we still see him go between extremely cold, numb and uncaring (albeit often this is hidden behind deflection and humor) to deeply hurt, loving, and willing to make huge sacrifices for causes or for people.

this is also a little muddled by the in-world lore of vampires having very heightened emotions. if you consider that damon already had BPD while a human, which is highly plausible given what we see of the decisions he made even then, then it follows that as a vampire those already-dysfunctional behaviours would be driven to extremes. this isn’t only obvious to the person watching; other characters comment on it constantly, e.g. almost any time katherine shows up, everyone immediately starts worrying if damon’s going to snap, having learned that the tiniest of things can send him into extreme behaviour, harmful to both himself - picking a fight with julian out in the open, described as having a death wish, and various suicide missions - and other people - e.g. attempting to kill jeremy and bonnie, despite it being abundantly clear that those two murders would make everything worse for him, and logically, make no sense, and serve no benefit to him. they were not thought-out decisions, not premeditated, and not something he would do in a sound state of mind, which is part of why they’re so painful to watch - they’re stupid, unjustified decisions, and seem irrational and disproportionate to whatever triggered him to make them. this also falls into the category of ‘lashing out’, something damon is frequently noted to do - often in the form of destroying or severing relationships, which may be done via simple purposeful negative interaction with someone, or doing more, genuine harm so that those relationships are ended regardless.

this ties in both with the impulsive behaviour aspect, but also a comment elena once made which struck a huge chord with me as an identifier of BPD - she said he felt that everyone hated him, and in an attempt to face those perceptions or correct them as someone of sound mind would do, he instead tries to come to terms with the pain of that by making himself believe that they were right - ‘proving’ both to others and to himself that they were right to hate him, via doing bad things. while this particular incident was partially due to enzo’s influence and damon seeking approval from the only person he felt he could still get it from, he still had the agency to make that decision, and this wasn’t the only time where that behavioural pattern could be observed.

the depth to which those thought processes go can sort of be seen when you consider season 8, where enzo and damon were both under the mind control of a siren, leaving only their subconscious with free will to resist. enzo’s instinct was to try and weave messages into the things that the siren had him do, knowing that bonnie would recognise them and be able to save him from doing more harm. on the other hand, damon’s instinct was to sever those relationships so completely that none of them would ever attempt to save him again, thus keeping them, in his eyes, out of harm’s way.

i don’t wanna make this so long it’s unreadable so i’ll try and end it with this last point, which is that another symptom of BPD is latching on to one particular person - whoever might feel most significant to them at the time, whether a friend or romantic interest, though often those feelings can combine and become confused when that emotional connection is made (most obvious example being elena, who damon had a relatively good and stable friendship with, that seemingly functioned fine as it was, yet progressed into romance anyway and became destructive). when that said person is found, the intensity of your emotion leads to a usually unhealthy amount of attachment on your part - often leading to possessive, manipulative or even emotionally abusive elements of relationships that more often than not become toxic. this person becomes the sole way that you feel validation/love/approval/happiness, any good emotion at all - in a way, your brain compensates for previous and more significant traumas, e.g. parental abuse/neglect, by channelling all this emotion into the nearest outlet of love and acceptance you can find. as a result even the tiniest fraction of attention or approval from that person can completely brighten your mental state for weeks, while the tiniest perception of disapproval or neglect from them - note perception, this could be something as miniscule as a misunderstanding, a tone being read wrong in a text, a genuine mistake being interpreted as a deliberate attempt to separate - can be enough to drive you to suicidal ideation.

obviously, whether it’s known to them or not, all this puts an unrealistic amount of expectation on the other person - one individual cannot possibly be responsible for the entire mental state of another, and will often - quite rightly - lead to the decision to end the relationship out of self-preservation. this is observed very frequently with damon’s close relationships; at some point, most of the people he’s been closest to have, with some degree of regret, been forced to write him off, because he puts too much strain on their own mental state. without significant effort to change on the part of the disordered person, sadly, this situation doesn’t usually have a resolution, because one’s own mental health is never the sole responsibility of others. it’s worth saying that most of these behaviours are done unintentionally and instinctively, as what seems the first logical conclusion in a brain that has been wired - physically, neurons and pathways in the brain have been grown by trauma that leads to those paths becoming the ‘right’ ones, rather than the healthy alternatives, which is usually what therapy’s end goal is - minimising the disordered pathways while reinforcing the positive ones, via practice of healthy behaviours and identifying bad thought processes so they can be stopped with the hope that those ones will take priority eventually. that being said, decisions that are motivated by and followed by, self-hatred, doesn’t excuse them from the harm they may cause other people. and it’s not fair - none of it is, because immediately what that situation seems to become is, ‘i didn’t ask to be this way, i don’t want to be harmful, but because i have been traumatised this is how i turned out, and now if i want healthy and good relationships, i have to work twice as hard against all my natural instincts just to ensure i come off as a person worth caring about’.

this is getting a little off-topic, but to say - there is a stigma about BPD, often associated with emotional abuse and manipulation, and it’s too complex a topic to sum up in one paragraph, but the gist of it is that sadly in my experience there is truth to it. i feel as though my disorder increases the likelihood of me being harmful, which means i have to work twice as hard to stop it - things that seem like common sense, basic decency, human logic that comes naturally and as first instinct to many, have to be actively strived for by people with this particular disorder. so while failing to do so may happen more for those people, and thus lead to them coming off as a worse person, there is some explanation as to why - and of course that doesn’t mean excusing that behaviour, never! but, there is a grey area between ‘excusing and enabling unhealthy behaviour’ and ‘your disability grants you no leeway whatsoever’. there is a middle ground and it’s hard to find the right place to walk it, and probably differs for everyone, but for me that’s why damon is relatable, and why i think i have more tolerance for things that he’s done.

i’ll just end this by saying that this is all one person’s experience of bpd and what i’ve observed from a few others i’ve known. i don’t speak for everyone with bpd, it’s not my call to make, mental disorder is overwhelmingly complex and hotly debated even in medical circles. but all that being said, i have recognised a lot of my own emotional experiences in damon’s and how the characters around him react to it (without the murder, obviously) and to me it is slightly more complex than ‘this is a shitty person’. thank you for reading all this if you did, it’s kind of hard to talk about, but hopefully for some this adds a little more insight into my portrayal and attachment to the character.

#I WAS. WORKING ON REPLIES I HAVE A FEW HALF DONE BUT thinking abt therapy got me thinking abt this so. i'm dumping this out first #apologies. but *points at him* he's got bpd #you've ruined a perfectly good vampire is what you did look at him hes g #sorry. anyway #HEADCANON.#CHARADEV.#i'm saying headcanon but this is literally his canon portrayal and as a person with bpd i'm diagnosing him so there. periodt #right. adding this tag after i just finished writing this thing. sorry it got long and now i'm emo shun al so i'm gonna go do replies #watch no one read this. it's fine

10 notes · View notes

dirtyallodyke · 5 years

Text

On self-harm via going through the ace discourse tag

CW: discussion of self-injury, mental illness

Okay, regardless about your stance on ace discourse and whether you're an exclusionist or an inclusionist, we need to leave that behind right now and have a conversation about the concept of looking through the ace discourse tag as a form of self-harm. Because there are some serious, harmful issues around this. I'm going to preface this post by saying that I am literally a self-injury researcher who is part of a research group on youth mental health, with a specialty in self-injury and LGBT youth mental health, so I know what I'm talking about.

Firstly, let's talk about what self-harm is, and what it is not. In order for a behaviour to be considered self-harm, it needs to satisfy these conditions:

Intentional / deliberate,

Not an unintended side-effect of another behaviour (e.g. smoking, eating disorders, drug use),

Not part of a socially- or culturally-sanctioned behaviour (e.g. body modifications, tattoos, some cultural rituals that involve damage to the body),

Results in, or is intended to result in, damage to bodily tissue.

That last one is the most important here, because it specifies that self-harm must be physical in nature. It doesn't specify the extent, so this can include anything from scratching oneself with pins through cutting or burning oneself to more extreme forms such as breaking one's bones or ingesting poisonous substances.

A lot of people insist that what I'm talking about is actually self-injury, whereas they're referring to self-harm, which doesn't have to be physical and can include deliberately exposing oneself to material that will make them experience negative feelings. This is perhaps a misunderstanding more than a deliberate attempt to deny facts – maybe where people get confused is the difference between what is known as Deliberate Self-Harm (DSH) and what is known as Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI).

The above definition refers to DSH, and the defining characteristic of this versus NSSI is that DSH may include behaviours that are intended to result in death, i.e. suicidal behaviour. This is why it includes things such as taking large overdoses or ingesting poison or any other behaviour that we might not conceive of as being self-injury because the person is attempting to take their own life. What we usually think of as self-injury is, in fact, NSSI, where there is an additional condition: the behaviour is NOT intended to cause death (hence the "non-suicidal" part of the name). It may possibly still result in death, but this would be accidental and not the intention of the person doing the behaviour. NSSI often predicts suicidal behaviour in that people who start off engaging in self-injury are at a higher risk of later attempting suicide, so they are related but distinct concepts.

So, the difference between the two is subtle, and there is overlap, but both still require the act of deliberately causing physical harm to one's body. When people talk about self-harming via ace discourse (i.e. deliberately generating feelings of distress), what they're talking about is not actually self-harm in any form … instead, what they may be doing is deliberately triggering themselves. This is not a value judgement, as in, I'm not making light of this behaviour or suggesting that it is frivolous or anything like that. But it is not self-harm.

Let me explain. Self-triggering is, again, often related to self-injury, but it is a completely separate phenomenon. For example, people who don't self-injure but may have other issues can self-trigger. The most obvious, and probably most common, example is people with eating disorders. Most people, whether or not they have lived experience with eating disorders, know about "thinspo" or "pro-ana". As someone who has struggled with eating disorders for 16 years, I am very familiar with this concept and have definitely engaged in it myself when I was younger and unwell. For those that don't know, "thinspo" or "pro-ana" involves viewing material that triggers or reinforces existing disordered thoughts and feelings, in order to "inspire" continued adherence to eating disordered behaviours. You might say, "That's stupid, they're basically giving themselves an eating disorder, why don't they just not do that?" but remember that people who do this are already unwell and the way they think and behave makes sense to them even if it doesn't make sense to people who don't have that illness. I am oversimplifying, there is a lot more to it than this, but I'm just using this as an example to illustrate my point.

This has also been observed in people with addictions, and people with depression, often in the form of attentional bias – they tend to pay more attention to stimuli that are related to the substance they are addicted to (for people with addiction) or with negative undertones (for people with depression) than non-related or neutral/positive stimuli. This isn't deliberate and they usually aren't aware they are doing this, but it is one of the many ways in which their mental illness maintains itself.

This self-triggering is very often a precursor to physically harming behaviours – but notice I am talking about people with eating disorders or addictions, and the definition of self-harm specifically excludes side-effects of illnesses like these because physically harming oneself is the main goal of self-injury, but not of eating disorders or addictions.

However, self-triggering is also very common in people who struggle with self-injury. This is something I have witnessed first-hand (and participated in) when I was younger and struggling with self-injury. There is a lot of material online that is the self-harm equivalent of thinspo/pro-ana: people sharing photos of their self-injury, sharing "tips" on how to self-injure more effectively or how to hide self-injury from others in order to continue doing it undetected, etc. It's awful and dangerous, but it is something done by people who are unwell and should not be judged negatively. The reasons we do these behaviours are numerous and complex and not relevant to the discussion.

The point is, self-triggering is a PRECURSOR to self-harm, but is NOT self-harm in itself. Now, when I have argued with inclusionists about the concept of self-harm via discourse tags, and how this trivialises actual self-harm, many have said "Uhhh I actually physically self-harm as well as this kind of self-harm so stfu you nasty aphobe!" And, you know, it's really sad when ANYONE is in enough distress that they resort to self-injury to cope with this – but just because you also self-injure, it still does not make self-triggering the same as self-harm. You may self-trigger which may then lead on to you self-harming, but it also may not lead to you self-harming. The act of self-triggering alone is NOT sufficient to be called self-harm.

You might say, "Who cares? This is just semantics! I still self-harm!" but it DOES matter because it trivialises self-harm. There are many people who also consider themselves self-harmers because they self-trigger by going into the ace discourse tag but don't actually physically self-injure – do you REALLY think their experience of self-injury is the same as someone who cuts themselves???? As someone who also started self-harming 16 years ago, I think the fuck not! I can tell you that the way I have been treated as a self-injurer has been horrific in the past, and the negative consequences of my self-injury are still impacting my life today, years after I stopped self-injuring. The pain and the mistreatment and the stigma I have been subjected to is not even in the same ballpark as someone who deliberately makes themselves sad because a bunch of mean aphobes are saying that cishet aces aren't lgbt, and it is deeply insulting to any person who has ever self-injured.

It is also pathologising what is actually a normal behaviour – most people seek out stimuli that reflect how they are feeling (think of listening to sad music when you are sad as an example), and this is very common. By perpetuating the idea that looking through ace discourse to make yourself sad is actually self-harm, and not a completely normal and human behaviour, you are causing people to self-pathologise/self-stigmatise, and that has been shown in research to have deleterious effects on mental health that would likely not occur otherwise. So, not only does it harm actual self-injurers by trivialising their experiences, it harms non-self-injurers by pathologising their behaviour.

There is also the problem of whether or not you can actually say that ace-discourse-tag-viewing counts as self-triggering, because I feel like that is pretty trivialising of especially PTSD, but also other mental illnesses in which triggers may be a component. I'm not going to discuss that here because that is an entirely different conversation, but I think it bears thinking about – is being "triggered" by ace discourse anywhere near the same as being triggered by reminders of severe trauma? I don't think so. But again, that's another conversation.

TLDR: looking through ace discourse tags in order to feel worse is not self-harm. It may be a precursor to self-harm, but it is not self-harm itself, and calling it such is harmful to both actual self-harmers, and non-self-harmers. Regardless of your take on the discourse, stop spreading this harmful idea! Ableism and minimisation of the experience of mental illness is NOT relevant to ace discourse!

[Edit: breaking up paragraphs for increased readability ]

#ace discourse #inclusionist #exclusionist #exclusionist discourse #inclusionist discourse #aphobia #acecourse #lgbt discourse #self-harm #self-injury #ableism #long post

41 notes · View notes

someonefromseoul · 4 years

Text

Fuck Me.

Hello. I don’t know who or what I’m directing this to but I’ll just pretend there’s someone actually reading this. Temptation is a strong fundamental desire that doesn’t always have our best interest. Like that time you look in the mirror wishing you haven't had that donut for lunch, or that other time when you turn and toss, only to find yourself not being able to sleep at 4am from the nap you had earlier that day.

I feel like shit right now. I had oily ass bacon for breakfast, cup noodles for brunch, pepperoni pizza for lunch, ice cream cone for dessert, almond soy bean milk as my “work drink”, only to transition my day into a nap.

I feel bloated as fuck and my pimples are having the time of their lives, meeting new friends and such.

So this only leads me to my usual routine of self hatred and disgust for a solid hour, drotting down what the rest of my day will look like just to fool myself to thinking I’m productive, and get on Tumblr to waste more time complaining about my day!

Okay, but here’s the deal. I really do want to get better again. I stopped working out ever since my gym closed down from that fucking coronavirus (yes, I am that spoiled and self centered only to be complaining about my gym closing during this time of crisis) which has been a couple of months now.

I had diet fillers on my chin area to get rid of my chin fat right before the quarantine. That was a fucking waste of money since my double chin is back.

Anyway, my point is that I want to be somewhat sane again. My mind is literally going crazy over being stuck at home and I clearly don’t love my body enough judging by how I’ve been treating it.

I put a face mask earlier today. That’s a change. I’m going to work out starting NOW. In like a few hours. And I’m going to document the progress and process because I want to see the change and actually hold myself accountable if I don’t go through with this.

So this is the plan.

1. I am 51.8kg (114.2 pounds) right now. My goal weight is 48kg (105 pounds). Okay, so basically my goal is to lose around 10 pounds.

2. I just started an art instagram. Try to post three times a week. I want to have 10 followers by the end of May. And NOT by asking my limited amount of friends to follow. I want to connect with real strangers who are really there for my art.

3. My fucked up skin. Let’s try to clear that out as soon as possible as well. I know I have oily skin and a huge part of that comes down to what I consume. Let’s fucking please stay away from oily and salty food. Drinks permitted is only water, tea, and sometimes alcohol.

4. Speaking of alcohol, try to stay away from that. Which I’m doing a good job of these days because I’m “social distancing” (no friends). I’m going out tomorrow though but let’s really try to keep it like max 3 drinking nights per month. MAX. preferably once to none.

5. You can never single out alcohol when you’re a smoker. Hi, hello, I’m a smoker. I’ll write a post going more in depth about my smoking journey. Long story short, I’ve been smoking since August of 2013. So like 7 years already. I genuinely don’t know why I started it. Actually that’s a lie, I got into it because I thought it looked cool and I wanted to fit in. Sad, sad weakling I was. Anyway, I’m going to QUIT. I literally say this like merry Christmas to the point my friends just roll their eyes at me whenever I say this. Like, let’s really try to make this a reality instead of this having to be that time I cried wolf again. LIKE PLEASE. For yourself, man. You know you’re getting old and it’s not like you have any more health to spare.

6. Work on my art project. You know which one I mean. I want to keep it on the down low. To roughly plan, I want to work on my portfolio around June July and August. but by June, let’s focus on instagram, enhancing my drawing skills from proko, and this personal art project I’m not going to specifically go into because it’s confidential. Let’s call it Arty. So yeah, finish Arty.

7. My relationships. Mind you, I’ve never seen a therapist because I’m not financially independent and it’s a taboo subject to bring up in Asian culture. At least with my family. So no, I haven’t been professionally diagnosed, but who needs a doctor when we have google, right? So to preface, this is not a legitimate claim I’m making. But I strongly think and believe that I have anxiety; especially social anxiety and an avoidant personality disorder. I definitely deal with SOMETHING-I do plan on going to a therapist the moment I get the chance to, which is hopefully, soon. Anyway, getting back on topic. I want to work on my relationships with my friends and family because I’ve literally been in my shell for the past couple of months. Avoiding people at all costs. Not healthy at all.

8. My mental health. Probably the most important one. If this was a meat house and I could grade my health, I would give it a B+. Definitely not a S, not exactly an A either-but on the fence between A and B. Not quite A- but more of a B+. I don't have any serious health issues but I’m not great either. I feel slightly uncomfortable when breathing, my mind is foggy, and I think I might have hemorrhoids soon. Literally keeps me up at night because it frightens me-I constantly flex my butthole just in case things might peep out (sorry for the TMI but this is my fucking blog so deal) (me still pretending like someone’s actually still reading this shit post) I lose sleep over it, don’t even get me started. Anyway, if my body health is a B+, my mental health is probably around a B-. I don’t think it’s around the C level, but it’s definitely below average (average being a B). It’s at the verge of either becoming average or enter into the C level. A or S is obviously out of reach with my potential right now. But I want to get to an A; possibly to a S some day. Some day. A girl can dream. Anyway, how I want to go about this is to keep writing on this blog. Because I have a fake ass personality, I literally hide my real self to everybody. Kinda psycho like that. At least this little spot can be my safe space where I can get all my genuine shit out. To be serious for 2 seconds, I think I’m fake to people these days because I don’t feel comfortable being completely myself. My self esteem really plummeted after I graduated high school. I’ve been shushing myself internally too-shaming myself about how stupid and weird I sound. I’ve been trying to press down all my negative judgements and thoughts because I didn't want to spread that kind of energy to other people which made me be fake positive all the time. That can be really fucking suffocating, guys. Those of you who know what I mean say I.

Anyway, I want to find my color again. I think I’ve been shushing and shaming myself for so long, I don't even know who I am anymore. Hopefully writing like this helps. And apparently physically working out does as well. Let’s try to aim everyday, maybe a lazy day per week.

Side note-Kakaotalk keeps spamming me about the sakura flowers and how beautiful it is, suggesting me to go see it. Um, hello. Can you stop harassing me with these insensitive messages? Some people don’t have friends to go with. And it’s quarantine season? Are you dumb?

9. My looks. which goes under self care as well. I’m not gonna lie, I think I’m a fairly okay looking girl. I’m going to change my makeup style because after not putting on makeup for so long and looking back at my old photos, I’ve seen my bare face for so long, I grew fresh pair of eyes to see how I REALLY looked prior to this quarantine. And I finally got what people meant by “your makeup looks obnoxious.” Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE makeup. I’ve loved makeup ever since I was a sophomore in high school. I follow many of the beauty gurus (how they used to call it back in the days. I think people call them beauty influencers or makeup artists now) from youtube and Sephora was my second home. My broke ass owns like majority of the urban decay naked palettes in exchange for eating kimchi and eggs for weeks with my poor college student self in exchange. Poor college student with a BEAT makeup look though.

Anyway, the point I want to get across is that I respect and love ANY form of self expression. There is no such thing as too much or too less (is that even a word) makeup as long as YOU feel good in it. I personally did and I enjoyed my extra caked face. But not anymore. Maybe on some occasions, but I just don’t feel like that’s me anymore. So I need a new make up look, and I literally want new clothes. I hate my freaking outfits. Going to invest in some soon.

I can’t really think of anything else. I want to go in further with some of the topics I’ve tackled today but I think that’s enough journal writing for today. If I think of anything else, I can always update later. I just fucking pray I don't get hemorrhoids. I don’t have it now but I’m just so paranoid because I literally sit down 25/8 and apparently sitting for an extended period of time continuously can cause hemorrhoids. And for some reason I keep feeling like I’m going to get it soon. Like my butthole low-key feels a little weird at times. Hopefully I’m okay.

#journal #selfcare #goingcrazy #self reflection #hate myself #thoughts #plans #life

1 note · View note

heycasbutt · 5 years

Text

46 Million: My Story

May is mental health awareness month and I couldn’t let it pass me by before I got a chance to tell my own story.

However, before I begin I would like to preface this by saying that this was a dark time in my life, this was a time when I felt like I had no way out. Because of that, this story will address some incredibly dark and horrific circumstances such as self-harm, suicidal tendencies, and eating disorders. Please, if this bothers you in any way shape or form, I will not be offended should you choose to skip this post.

But with that in mind, if you would like, my story begins below the cut. I love you all, you are all worthy and beautiful and the world would not be the same without you. My inbox is always open, and there are always resources available if you or someone you know is struggling and needs help.

It’s estimated that 46.6 million American adults live with a mental illness, and an additional 11.2 million live with a chronic mental illness. One that has severely inhibited their participation in one or more life events within the last year. Mental Health, and Mental Illness are things that are talked about a lot and yet, not enough. There are still barriers and walls surrounding them. Stigmas and Associations that we can’t break through.

When I was about 6, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I got to high school, I would have said 3 things. I wanted to be a cheerleader, I wanted to be a dancer, and I wanted to be a Student Body Officer. I wanted to be loved and be popular, I was going to go to all the dances and have my closet filled to the brim with gorgeous princess dresses. I was going to have the best looking boyfriend, and have a car; I was going to have the perfect life. But unfortunately, it didn’t pan out that way. I wasn’t a dancer, or a cheerleader, or even a class officer. I had one dress in my closet from my senior cotillion, and I didn’t get my first real boyfriend until just before my 20th birthday. But I made it out alive, and given the mental state in which I went into high school with, that was a big enough accomplishment for me.

Let’s take it back to when I was 13. I started to feel different, isolated, and sad. When others wanted to go out, and go to movies, or hang out I got an overwhelming sense of urgency that I had to find an excuse to get out of it. When friends would ask me to sleep over, I couldn’t breathe, I would quickly make up an excuse to get out of it. I got to the point where I was almost repulsed by the good things in life, I got more and more self-deprecating and more and more apathetic about life.

This was when I took a turn for the worst, and when I started into something I never EVER thought that I would get into. I started self-mutilation. I had a friend who told me it was a great stress reliever and unfortunately, I believed her. She said that when she did it, her depression would melt away and she would feel like a new person.

I started with small cuts on my thighs so that it would hurt, but not bad, and so that I could easily hide it. When I was 14, I thought that I was never going to get rid of the emotional pain with the miniscule amount of physical pain that I was inflicting on myself. So I moved on to scissors, I would cut small pieces of skin on my stomach and breasts. I wanted the emotional pain I felt to be gone. And I thought that if I inflicted physical pain that it would all go away. By the time I reached 15, I had started down the path of disordered eating. For breakfast I would have a piece of toast, a granola bar was my lunch, and my dinner was a few cherry tomatoes. I would meticulously count my calories, and at the peak, I was eating maybe 300-400 calories a day. My nails were starting to peel off in layers, and my hair was limp, lifeless, and falling out in chunks.

When I tried to get help though, it wasn’t there. The counselors at my school were always too busy to help me. My friends told me to suck it up and move on with life because there were people who had it worse than me. When I tried to talk to teachers, they would tell me the same thing of “Just be glad you don’t have it as bad as some people”.

Things started to look up my junior year of high school. For the first time in my life, I had 2 teachers who completely understood me; they didn’t force me to talk about my problems. They didn’t force on me the help that I knew I needed, but that part of me was fighting against.

One day, after class I asked to talk to my one teacher after school and he explained that he wouldn’t be there after school but that he was more than happy to talk to me then as it was lunch time and he had a prep period. I politely declined, thinking that again I was being written off, said I was okay and that I would come back another day. He looked me in the eyes and said “no, you’re not,” and I broke down in tears. I never felt judged, I never felt like I was less. I only felt unconditional warmth and love.

In another instance, I had a teacher who made us write down what we wanted most in life and I was feeling particularly apathetic that day and so I wrote that I would like to be happy. I described that it had been a while since I had felt appreciated, loved, and happy. I turned the assignment in expecting to be passed off like most kids were; she was a teacher who had NO idea who I was. I was the quiet girl who sat in her desk and didn’t really talk to anyone. But she didn’t. When I got that paper back, it said “More people should tell you how great you are, because it’s true” and she became my favorite teacher.

These 2 teachers literally changed my life. They SAVED my life, when I started that junior year, I was doubtful that I would make it out alive. I didn’t think I would graduate, I didn’t think that I would ever find the love of my life, I didn’t think that I would ever be happy.

It’s a process, and one that I’m working on, but I have 2 incredible teachers who taught me more about life than they did about school. They taught me that life is tough, but so am I. They taught me that I’m going to have speed bumps in the road, but I shouldn’t let those stop me. But most importantly, they taught me that having a mental illness is NOTHING to be ashamed of. That I was okay, and that I wasn’t “crazy” or “weird” and that I most definitely was not alone.

I still have days where I’m not happy, days where it physically pains me to get out of bed, but I’m working on those days and that’s good enough. It’s a journey to happiness, not an overnight road trip.

#mental health #mental illness #mental health awareness #eating disorder tw #tw self harm #tw suicidal thoughts #depression #anxiety #mental health support #mental illness recovery #it's a journey not an overnight road trip

18 notes · View notes

hislittleflower-throughconcrete · 6 years

Text

I’m gonna rant about disability services at private Catholic schools for a second

I will preface this by saying that this is my experience at both of the Catholic schools I attended growing up. If I am generalizing please correct me, let me know, but I believe this problem is pervasive in most private Catholic schools (probably not just Catholic private schools, but all private schools, but I’m not touching on that right now.)

My brother’s kindergarten teacher was the first person to identify that he had ADHD. My parents took him to the necessary doctors/professionals so see what they could do. However, the school that he (and I, as well as all of my siblings) went to only had one lady who acted as a “resource” for kids who were struggling. She was a mom, I don’t know if she had any training at all to deal with learning disabilities - I honestly think she just took kids out of class to give them extra time to practice certain reading and math skills. Because none of the teachers were trained in dealing with kids who had ADHD (let alone learning disabilities or special needs, which my brother didn’t have) there was a point where I, a 5th grader, got called out of my math class to come into his 2nd grade classroom to comfort my crying brother as the teacher said impatiently, “you deal with him.” That was when my parents decided to put him in public school because they had the resources to actually accommodate my brother.

Fast forward to high school, this time concerning myself. I was in and out of high school due to depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and an eating disorder. After the first hospitalization, I get back to school and discover that I am required to make up all of my work. All of it. At the same time as trying to complete the current work being assigned. I was so stressed and already a perfectionist that I went back tot he hospital for anxiety-induced suicidal urges directly related to being so overwhelmed with my life. This happened at least three other times - where I was hospitalized due to my inability to cope with my own deteriorating mental health on top of all of that work. My mom and I repeatedly explained this to my high school’s “school counselor” (again, not sure if this lady had any training at all, my school was notorious for hiring unqualified people just because they were good-hearted and faith-filled individuals). She and all of my teachers maintained that I must make up all of my work, months and months of tests, papers, projects, and even busywork. When we asked why this was so even though it posed a serious risk to my, ya’know, life, they said that at that present moment, too or three other students had been out “sick” for months at a time (one had mono and one had had a concussion) and if I got an exception it wasn’t fair to them. In other words: Justice, not Mercy. The fact that I could die from “some stress” never seemed to penetrate their consciousness. I distinctly remember my “guidance counselor” (as I sat in her office weeks into my summer break catching up on work from the previous year) saying off-hand when I mentioned the stress, “well, we can’t all take a vacation every time life gets too hard.”

Fast forward to college. We heard about this “disability services” thing during orientation. I looked closely at whatever pamphlet I had been handed, and it listed mental health issues as disabilities. What? My mom and I decided to check it out, saying “it would be really cool if I could have someone at this big college to talk to and goto if I am struggling with work,” thinking that that was all she could offer me - things like tutors and advice. After providing the hospital and doctor records to disability services, I find out that I qualify for extension for assignments, excused absences, extended time on tests, modified or completely excused assignments, and more, because of my mental health issues, without any professor allowed to ask me why other than “a disability-related reason.” They also appointed a disability services advocate whose job was to go to bat with my professors for me if they did not comply.

To say that we were floored would have been incorrect. I wasn’t floored. I just didn’t understand. I felt I was cheating. I didn’t even know this was allowed. How was this fair to the other students? “You have a disability, this is to allow you to do as well as someone who doesn’t have this disability.” You mean I just don’t have to suck it up and deal with my problems on my own time? I have a disability? What?

Okay. There are two points to this post. One is the obvious: Catholic schools, you are losing the opportunity for children with disabilities to be formed in the faith. Like it or not, the majority of parents and families aren’t the ones who teach the faith to their kids - either they learn it at Catholic school, or just don’t learn it at all. I am aware this issue is heavily tied to funding, HOWEVER: disability services shouldn’t be this nifty add-on to a school, a novelty or a selling point. They should be a fundamental, integrated part of allowing students of all abilities to have the opportunity to be educated in their faith and a faith-filled environment. Parents should not have to choose, as my parents had to, between having their child grow up educated in the faith or actually being able to learn and be treated appropriately by teachers who understood him. (Yes, he still did CCD, but no, the CCD classes did not have disability-educated individuals teaching it - shocker. How much did he retain from it? A few weeks ago, he asked me what Pentecost was.)

The second issue is more tied to my experience. You are damaging people’s perception of God and His Love. You are saying that those of disabilities - those same people Jesus healed and released from their pain and struggles in the Gospels - aren’t important enough to be accommodated using a basic section of the school’s budget. This may be controversial, but part of me thinks that a school shouldn’t exist at all if it doesn’t have the ability to accommodate children with physical, intellectual, psychological, or developmental disabilities - yes, even and especially Catholic schools. I had a severely damaged faith as a result of the attitude of my school - yaknow, the ones who taught me about God and Jesus. I graduated high school hearing about “mercy,” and hating the whole concept. I seethed every time I heard the prodigal son bible reading, because I hated the fact that the wayward son was allowed to do that without any punishment. I didn’t understand mercy and it made me angry. Everyone deserves justice, I thought, and mercy is the opposite - a hall pass for the weak and undeserving. I punished myself through self harm every time I got less than an A on a test, every time I said something stupid and felt embarrassed. The self-harming and perfectionistic inclinations were mine, but the importance of justice was fed to me by them. Self harm and suicidal ideation were listed as sins against the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” without any mention about exceptions, or what to do if you felt that way. A teacher told us that the worst sin of all - above rape and murder of children - was desecration of the Eucharist by receiving it unfaithfully. I abstained from the Eucharist for years because I couldn’t stop cutting or disordered eating behaviors, and I was in a constant state of mortal sin (I thought) so I couldn’t receive. No one on staff was educated enough on mental health disabilities to point out that saying things like eating disorders, cutting, and suicidal ideation were sins could result from an illness, a disability, that was not being addressed. I told priest after priest that those were my sins, and to be fair, most asked if I was in therapy, but only one mentioned to me that he didn’t think that my cutting was “completely” a sin, that the guilt was reduced due to “addiction.” But I quickly disregarded that comment, because I was not giving myself a free pass. God deserves Justice - the least sin in His eyes breaks the whole Law. If an action hurts someone else or hurts God, the offended party deserves justice. Not excuses for weak people. Justice, not Mercy.

But college was also the same time I was actually introduced to having a personal relationship with Jesus. The first time I confessed to a priest who immediately said that I was so, so wrong in my understanding of who God was and what He wanted of me. He rejoiced in me. In me. His unconditional love did not excuse my sins, but heal them. His Mercy was not a free pass of pity at my weakness, but the bandages in which He used to bind up my wounds. If I had learned about Mercy before this, it was not in this way. I was taught through actions, if not the words themselves, that justice for others was worth more than mercy on me. And even now I am stunned every time I am “ given a break.” Because that’s what it feels like, bosses and professors who accommodate my disability - them being generous. Not my basic needs being met.

Love the least in the eyes of the world, Catholic schools. Do better. Don’t consider yourself inclusive after building some wheelchair ramps and asking a parish mom to come in on Wednesdays to help the kids who “just aren’t getting it.” Work with families. Hire trained staff members - plural - who are equipped to deal with a wide range of disabilities, including learning disabilities, mental health issues, autism, and Down syndrome. The souls of all children with disabilities whose parents want their child to grow to know Jesus through their schools hangs in the balance.

@patron-saint-of-smart-asses @catholicamputee @alwaysabeautifullife @hissaltandlight @tinycatholicbean and @ all other tumbler Catholics who either have a physical/mental disability or are parents of a child with one.

#catholic #disability #catholic school

252 notes · View notes

defectiverobot-blog · 5 years

Text

About a boy

Before I get into it, it’s important that I preface with the following- Just like anyone who gets sucked into any form of self-harm, I cannot blame anyone else. It isn’t anyone else’s fault- though there are definitely people in our lives who make the situation worse. The blame lies with that self-hatred that has been cultivated; the fault belongs to that voice in our heads that has convinced us, against all reason, that we don’t deserve a pain-free existence, that we somehow deserve the agony that we’re going through. That voice is not you.

Also possible triggers ahead- no specific numbers, but mentions of weight, calories, etc.

The last time he kissed me or expressed any physical interest in me was around December of 2017. This was around the time he became obsessed with getting fit- or more accurately, losing weight. He hardly talked to me at all; what little he did say to me usually had to do with weight loss or nutrition. Always commenting on everyone’s weight- we couldn’t watch anything without him saying something about how great someone looked because they were so thin. He started commenting about the calorie content of everything that he was eating and began cutting out a lot of foods as “bad.” And though he didn’t know the extent of my disorder, he knew that I had been struggling with an eating disorder for some time. I tried to talk to him about it, almost begged him to please watch what he said around me, that all this calorie talk was making it really hard to hold onto the last shreds of sanity I had at the time (which I would later lose- and will write about in later posts). And how did that conversation go? He said that he wasn’t going to censor himself or pretend to be someone he’s not, that I was being unfair, as if he was the victim in this. He was actually offended that I would even suggest it. (?!$?!!) Seeing that he had no compassion or empathy for what I was going through, that he didn’t even want to try, that he obviously didn’t feel any attraction to me anymore… More and more I would come to see how ego-centric he is. It’s not that he’s intentionally malicious; he genuinely doesn’t consider how his words or actions might affect another human being. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t think they have anything to apologize for if they didn’t mean to offend you, no matter how it made you feel. And I don’t think you can teach empathy. After a few months, he fell off of the fitness obsession. He started interacting with me a little more, he became more of a human being again. He gained a little weight, he lost a little weight (all perfectly normal). But he made comments about it all the time, about how he needed to lose weight. Looking back, I can’t help but think “are you fucking insane?? How could you say something like that to someone who looked as malnourished as I did?!” A couple months ago he lost a lot of weight because he was anorexic. Not anorexia nervosa, just literally not eating (apparently no appetite from work-related stress). This was especially difficult for me to deal with. Though I knew better, I would play a one-sided chicken with him- “If he doesn’t need to eat then neither do I.” It isn’t an exaggeration to say that it felt like a recovering drug addict watching someone use in front of you and trying not to use yourself. And btw I’ve described my eating disorder to him as an addiction (which it is) in the hopes that he might better understand- he’s a recovered opiate addict himself. Alas..

As part of trying to take better care of myself this year, I’ve decided to try to be more assertive. I’m afraid to bring up the topic again because of how it went last time. I know it isn’t unreasonable to ask him to try to keep the calorie and weight comments to himself. I want to keep trying to give my body and my self what I need, and this is part of that. If I manage to gather the courage, I will let you know how it goes.

#relationships #ed struggles #addiction #recovery struggles #my triggers #lonely #doitforyourself #journal #personal #my story

5 notes · View notes

deadinsidedressage · 6 years

Note

Im very fascinated with your views on the "fat acceptance" movement. Ive seen you bring it up here and there over the years. Did you ever make a big post on it?

I’ve never like really made a post about it? I did at one point find a blog post from a heavier rider that dressagetoday or someone shared which I then added a critical commentary which is SOMEWHERE in my blog (where, who knows? what tags did I use, who knows? DID I EVEN USE TAGS???). Which I was at the time disappointed no one wanted to engage on. I can certainly share with you my thoughts though (which I will do below) and you can definitely hit me with the follow-up questions if anything isn’t clear or you want some elaboration or hell you want to start an internet fight:I’ll preface all of this with being perfectly candid about my own body, weight, and struggle both of those. I am currently overweight. I have lost about 25 pounds in the last few months and am on a trajectory to continue to lose weight until I reach something that is healthy, sustainable, and enables me to do all the stuff I want to do. I have been my “goal body” before, I have been a little heavy, and I have been fucking fat. Part of how I became “fucking fat” is related to my own deeply ingrained issues with my body and my weight (which I picked up from my mom!) leading to body dysmorphia— which as I explain to people: “I didn’t notice the weight gain because to me, I have always looked this heavy”. I also struggle with disordered eating, thankfully not a fully adopted eating disorder but still elements of restricting, binge eating, purging, and overall not at all having a healthy relationship with eating. I have been working on that! I have been doing a lot better too! So, blah blah in short on my own personal issues— I am fully and painfully aware of all the negatives that you face if you are even remotely “fat”. I am fully and painfully aware that my very unhealthy relationship with my body, with weight, and with eating probably is a great influencer on how I feel about the fat acceptance/body positive movement. I am fully and painfully aware of how a diet culture and an unhealthy emphasis on beauty standards can impact children for the rest of their life. I am fully and painfully aware that there is a great need for some sort of movement that focuses on body positivity and loving yourself. All that being said, I think the fat acceptance movement is in the same camp as radfems, TERFS, MRAs, militant atheism, militant veganism, PETA, and so on. Essentially, there was a good idea that got taken way too far. The idea that women (or men) shouldn’t be judge for their weight as it relates to their jobs or their social interactions is great and I am behind that. Yes, it’s ridiculous that overweight women are the least likely to be hired in a filed of job candidates because of assumptions about their laziness or tidiness. Yes, it’s ridiculous that overweight men are immediately rejected as potential love interests because people assume they must be unclean and unmotivated. Supporting a movement to stop those things? Good! Supporting the ideas that there’s zero effect on your health if you’re overweight and that if someone discounts you as a love interest because you weight an great deal more than that person means that person is the devil? Boo! Not good! I think body positivity is great. I think size inclusive fashion is great. What I don’t think is great is the encouragement to maintain very unhealthy weights because “you can be a fat goddess!”. The reality of it is, excess fat will impact your health to some degree (obviously depending on how overweight you are). Excess fat will also impact your ability to pursue hobbies (again, the degree to which is related to the degree of overweight). Excess fat can inhibit your ability to be successful in your job (again, depending on your specific weight and ALSO not related to desk jobs: i.e.— an overweight ER nurse is impeded by their weight because they are slower, an overweight preschool teacher can be impeded by their weight because it limits their ability to move around with kids; like clearly if there is any level of activity to your job and you are overweight you are likely impeded in SOME degree even if the level of impediment is only in how much pain or discomfort you are in when you go home). I just think it’s ballistic that there are people who will argue that being 400+ lbs isn’t related to their heart disease or their diabetes or their need for knee replacements— but that’s what this movement has created. It’s created a bunch of health deniers who choose to believe that the only negative impact of their weight comes from how people perceive them— which they in turn have done a great job of turning any form of unpleasant or less than ideal interaction with someone as an example of “fatphobia” or fat discrimination. My other main issue with the fat activism is the amount of entitlement it breeds. Men and women suddenly think they are entitled to being found attractive by someone and that if that person is not attracted to them it is FATPHOBIC! Of course a lot of these people also would deny any potential partner who is fat— because even though they love their body and their is nothing wrong with their weight, they’re still only attracted to fit guys BUT if those fit guys aren’t attracted to them it is because they are EVIL. Which, as someone who is getting married to the person I’ve been with for 7 years… if you whittle down relationships to just the aesthetic or the physical then you are too emotionally stunted to be in a healthy relationship. Plus, if you are incapable of realizing the degree to which mutual physical attraction IS a real part of relationships then you’re a fucking idiot. You simply cannot demand everyone find you attractive regardless of how you look— that’s just not how humans work. And I’m not saying fat people are automatically hideous, I’m saying “Some people want to fuck Brad Pitt and vomit at James Corden but some people want to fuck James Corden and vomit at Brad Pitt AND EVEN THEN some people vomit at both & some people want to fuck both.” There’s a lot of fake self-acceptance that goes on in that movement because if you do not love yourself enough to stop throwing yourself at people who are not interested in you then you are NOT accepting of your size. These people want to find love in spite of their size, not just find love— and that’s the fucking issue. When you paint your whole emotional identity around the thing that makes you feel less than, then you are not capable of honestly having healthy human interactions. Here’s a little fun anecdote for you to ponder as to what I mean about how these people act in very self-deceptive way and in a very scape-goat-everyone-else-for-your-own-unhappiness way: All of my bridesmaids are tall Amazonian goddesses (they’re all still shaped differently and they all have their own insecurities because they’re humans). My maid of honor though, is not. She is shorter than I am and heavier than I am by a good deal. Because I do not want anyone to feel like they don’t look good or whatever, I am trying to be as on top of making sure everyone feels as comfortable as possible (while still adhering to the aesthetic of my wedding). This means late night stress induced googling of “one of my bridesmaids is plus sized??” hoping to get some insights from other brides about how the fuck you manage that person’s feelings without it becoming a Thing. This has lead to the bemused reading of some absolute fucking horror stories including: a bridesmaid telling the bride that the bride is only losing weight to make her look bad, a bridesmaid purchasing a dress behind the bride’s back after the bride painstakingly found a designer that would make above 5X and would be flattering only to have the bridesmaid call the bride selfish for not letting her wear what she wants, OH AND— A BUNCH OF FUCKING ARTICLES FROM “FAT POSITIVE” WOMEN LAMENTING HOW MUCH OF A BITCH THEIR FRIEND WHO THEY WERE A BRIDESMAID FOR WAS FOR “MAKING THEM LOOK BAD” BY BEING A THIN BRIDE OR HAVING A LOT OF THE WEDDING PARTY BE “THIN” OR FOR GETTING ROBES AS GIFTS BUT APPARENTLY THE 3X ROBE DOESN’T FIT. All kinds of fucking garbage in which people who are very unhappy with themselves adopt such a defensive form of selfishness that they care more about how bad they feel than being supportive friends. Now, I am taking these all in and trying to do what I can to not have my MOH feel shitty. She’s also not a psychopath so I should be fine. But the point is— substituting a militant “anti-fitness” attitude for the crushing unhappiness you feel over your body doesn’t solve any issues. It just masks problems and enables you to continue to engage in unhealthy thought and action.

#baroqueesque #tw weight #cw weight #I'm being nice by adding these trigger tags but I know someone is going to get real riled up

23 notes · View notes

isayhellooxx · 6 years

Text

Donor Conception

(a response to questions on anonymousus.org)

Hello, I know that you both did not ask for a reply so I preface this response with a clear statement that my opinion is not, nor will it ever be, a fact. Neither of you have any obligation to listen to my opinion nor do you even need to read this. I simply found both of your perspectives intriguing and relative to my own thoughts and opinions on anonymous donor conception. However I will use your statements to frame my own experience, and I hope that is okay with you both. I will start with my personal childhood as a donor conceived child.

I am currently a 21 year old college student; a girl trying establish her career path and discover her passions. At 14 years old, my fully related sister (who was 20 at the time) and I were told of the origins of our conception. Our parents married very young at age 18 and decided to have children. Unfortunately, after years of trying, they remained unsuccessful and discovered that my dad was/is infertile. They chose to use an anonymous donor for the conception, and did not tell their family members as their initial discussion of the topic gained negative feedback. When I discovered what my parents chose to do to have both my sister and I, I have never been more grateful. My dad selflessly raised 2 daughters of no biological relation to him, yet I could not ever picture a man more worthy of the title, "best father in the world." I know it sounds corny, but this man gave up his entire life for his girls. He coached soccer teams, he went to dance practices, he spent every moment of his life that he could with us, as did our amazing mother. I will never be more grateful for the childhood I had with two incredible parents who devoted their entire lives to raising us. Finding out that I wasn't biologically related to my father made me sad only because he is such an extraordinary person and I was disappointed that I did not inherit his genetics. However, knowing of the selfless decision by my parents to conceive a child through sperm donation, made me realize how truly wanted and loved I was. My parents have given me everything in the world, every opportunity to succeed and I will forever be honored to be a part of such a loving family.

With that being said, a part of me always knew. I questioned whether I was adopted, whether I was a part of an affair, or something along those lines. I always buried those thoughts as I knew that my mother would never have an affair, and I looked like her spitting image so I was definitely her child, but something felt off. I pushed these thoughts far away, until the day my parents came to us with the origins of our conception. I actually sat there and guessed and said, "what, are we sperm donor babies?" and they replied with only a nod. This fact alone, I believe, proves that children are intuitive. Whether or not you tell them, a part of them knows. In my parents' day, sperm donation was not something that was openly discussed. Along with that and their parents' disapproval, their decision to remain anonymous was absolutely logical and comprehendible. I do not and will never fault them for their decision to choose an anonymous donor.

For future prospective parents, however, I encourage you to be open with your children and to choose a donor that is willing to have an open relationship. I may not have fully understood the dynamics as a child, but at 14 I was mature enough to understand that my father is and ALWAYS will be my father. He is an irreplaceable part of my life regardless of whether or not I am biologically related to him. I will always and forever be the child of the mother and father who raised me, and I love them more than I can ever describe in words.

Along with this deeply rooted connection and love for my parents, I also have a connection to my donor. It may not be a father-daughter connection (in fact I am certain that it is not). However there remains a biological connection to this person and it subconsciously eats away at me more than I would like to admit. I am mostly curious about my family history and my medical history. All 4 (so far) of my half siblings and my fully related sister from the same donor have struggled with some degree of mental health issues that my own parents don’t fully understand. Whether it’s depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or others, we all have experienced an uncontrollable sadness in our hearts. By finding each other, I believe that we have learned more about ourselves and revealed pieces of our own puzzles that create a more whole picture as to who we truly are.

Yet without our donor, there will always be one large puzzle piece that is missing. I don’t speak for all of my siblings but for me personally, I feel a bit lost and afraid of how my life will turn out without being able to consult someone who truly knows my personality, for they’ve experienced it themselves. I have an innate desire to know the full truth to every situation (hence why I am attracted to law as a profession) and because of this, I am troubled constantly by the possibility that I will never know my full genetic makeup. I understand that adopted children struggle with this as well, and their situation may be worse than my own, but I don’t believe that a system that monetizes my conception should be allowed to fabricate and/or withhold information that I believe I have a right to. The Cryobank that my parents used has been accused of fraudulent documentation, falsified medical and educational background information on donors, and deception when it pertains to contacting donors while representing donor offspring. I hope and pray that the system is more regulated now, but currently I live in constant anxiety, fearing that the cryobank never actually contacted my donor, that his medical information was false, and that I may be at risk for diseases that were not listed on my paperwork.

Although I am fearful of the industry, I would like to address the author of the passage, “It’s not easy- I agree!” I understand your struggles to decide whether or not to use either an embryonic donor. As a sperm-donor conceived child, I too struggle with my emotions towards my own conception. However, I would like you to know that I, as a DC child, understand and appreciate the decision my parents made so so much. Family is 100% who loves you and looks after you. My parents are and always will be my family through and through, and I don’t believe that your child, should you choose to go through with donor conception, will ever resent you or feel less like your family if they aren’t biologically related to you. However, I personally feel a desire to know my own biological information. I want to know the origins of my conception and to understand my genetic and family history, for my own purposes. Some people may not care about these bits of information, but I think the withholding of them creates an even more passionate and fierce desire to know. In this case, I think it would be beneficial to have an open relationship with the couple whose embryo is donated. They will not be the mother and father of your children, but they will be able to provide your child with information that they have a right to should your child choose to seek it. Pain will not be caused in your child as long as he/she has the option to know their own genetic information. Otherwise, he/she may feel (as I do) that it is unfair to withhold information from the person who has the most inherent right to it, especially when their life was actually monetized.

To address the author of the passage, “I’M GOING TO DO IT,” I agree with you almost entirely. You are correct in that a DC child not knowing their genetic information is almost equivalent to when a couple breaks up and a mother moves away before the child is born. This does happen, however that child likely will still search for his birth father, and on top of that his conception wasn’t the result of an industry that profited from his conception. This makes it seem a bit unfair to the child that someone outside of even his/her own family is in possession of information about him/herself, yet he/she is forbidden access to it. And yes, I recognize that parents who don’t share information with their adopted children likely have it way worse, which is why I feel guilty even feeling any type of negativity towards donor conception. I want to let the donors in this situation know that you are truly doing a wonderful thing, you are providing a life to a family that desperately wants to raise a child. That is the most beautiful gift you could ever give someone and I am eternally grateful for the life that my donor provided me. I only encourage you to think of the child who had no say in the situation that craves his/her own genetic information. They know it’s out there, they know that someone has possession of it, yet they can’t access it with anonymous donors. I know that it is scary to think that a child might consider you a father when that is not the role that you signed up for, and I truly hope that no one ever puts you in that position. An open relationship, I believe, will help you establish a relationship that is not father-daughter/father-son, but one that is still a form of family. I hope that potential donors do not feel discouraged by my experience, but feel increasingly comfortable with an open donor relationship with offspring, as I think that it could be a very special bond and one that benefits all involved.

#sperm donor #donor #conception #donorconception #sperm #adopted #adoptee #adopt #cryobank

2 notes · View notes