chloe-creating

[chloe-creating]

“Maybe a part of love is wanting someone badly enough to forfeit everything they’ll never be.”

- Unthinkable Things, Chloe Henkel

[chloe-creating]

when someone calls me pretty, but the love interest in my wlw BPD novel said

“It’s like the gravitational center of the universe isn’t nothing after all: it’s heaven. It’s her.” 💞💘💓🌈🌈

-chloe henkel

[chloe-creating]

a poem on the end

the doomsday clock is at

89 seconds to midnight.

i am feeding my dog & making jelly toast.

printing out my georgeaphy syllabus.

because until the world really ends,

these things need to be done.

i wonder if this is how my story ends.

no character arc after the struggle.

no perfect kiss after a life of longing.

one second: making jelly toast

and the next secon

[chloe-creating]

gary brought you UNTHINKABLE THINGS 🤭 say thank u gary !!

[chloe-creating]

finally published the book i started writing in the psych ward, 3 years ago today ❤️‍🩹

[chloe-creating]

i want what the kissing valentines daschund statues at tjmaxx have

[chloe-creating]

Doll artist Anne Aeves made a blythe doll of me, with my bald spot. I love her. 🥺❤️

[chloe-creating]

life update..

[chloe-creating]

“Someone who writes about being saved wouldn’t think that it won’t get better” - HOLDING THE MOON WITH LAVENDER HANDS by Kai McCarthy ���💔

[chloe-creating]

POV i offer you a tarot reading, then pull out this deck 🤩🤩

[chloe-creating]

just a tumblr girl

[chloe-creating]

UNTHINKABLE THINGS (YA novel) Chloe Henkel - chapter 1

⚠️TW OCD, anxiety, mild gore⚠️

The first time I knew something was really, undeniably, wrong with me, I was sitting on the floor outside the biology room, hyperventilating and trying to remove myself from the organ donor registry.

A few minutes before this, I’d been in my Biology class watching my best friend cut open a dead frog. My first thought as I watched Bethany push her scalpel through the frog’s chest was of my own chest. My own skin. Soft, thin, fragile. My second thought, as the frog’s insides spilled out, was of my organs. My organs. I don’t want to be dissected when I die. My scalpel clattered to the table as images flashed across my mind: my own skin / heart / lungs pouring out.

“I need to go,” I whispered.

“Squeamish already?” Bethany asked, sticking her tongue out at me before turning back to the corpse and giving its heart a nudge with the blade. I nodded. It was easier to let her think I was squeamish about the dead frog than try to explain what I was really thinking. I don’t want to be an organ donor anymore.

I walked up to the professor’s desk to let him know I needed to step out for a minute, but before I could say anything he handed me a trash can and motioned towards the door. I must look sick. Am I sick? No, I’m fine. I just need to fix this.

And that’s how I ended up on the floor of the Science hallway, sitting next to a mini trash can, and searching ‘How to stop being an organ donor’ on my phone.

When I’d made the choice to be an organ donor two years before, I hadn’t thought much of it. I was over-the-moon to be getting my driver’s license. So when the bored-looking woman at the DMV counter said “Organ donor?” I shrugged and said “sure.”

Now, two years later, all I could think was how horrifying it’d be to die and end up splayed out on a table like a frog and pulled to pieces. I had to get my name off that list. What if I die before I have the chance to do it? I tried to steady my hands and focus, but I was starting to get dizzy. My hands kept shaking.

How to stop being an organ donor.

Search.

Results: Update your status here.

After spending what felt like an hour entering my information and updating my status, I was done. Officially removed from the list.

Then, I read the fine print:

Note that if you have an organ donor symbol on your driver’s license, updating your status won’t change that.

My palms, face, and pits were starting to sweat. I need antiperspirant. No, that can wait. I need my license. I fumbled for my wallet and pulled it out. Then, I uncapped a pen and blacked out the organ donor mark. Finally, I let out a sigh and leaned back against the wall, covered in sweat: the aftermath of a hurricane.

*****

I actually went back to class after the frog-dissection incident. I watched Bethany pull apart the frog and took notes, trying very hard NOT to think about organs, dead organs, organs being pulled out of bodies, feeling my pulse in my fingertips, the soft ripe-fruit skin of my chest / breasts / stomach / throat. I blinked hard, then shook my head.

Enough of that. It’s not happening. And with that thought, I was reassured.

It wasn’t until I crawled into bed that night, the smell of panicky sweat still lingering around me, that a new thought hit: What if they don’t check my card or my status? Or what if they get me mixed up with somebody else? My eyes shot open. I went cold. Shaking. Staring at the ceiling. I pictured Bethany’s scalpel peeling me open. And just like that, I stopped breathing. I sobbed into my pillow, hyperventilating desperately. I don’t want to be dissected!

When I finally managed to steady myself, I wiped my nose on my sleeve. My head pounded and my eyes burned but I was alive. I still had time.

That’s when the idea came to me. Once again, my pen came to the rescue. I pulled up my shirt, uncapped it, and wrote NOT AN ORGAN DONOR across the soft (organ holding) skin of my stomach in all-caps. With or without ID, everyone would know not to dissect me.

This became a routine. It felt like common-sense to me: the best way to avoid the catastrophic possibility of being pinned to a table and pulled apart if I happened to die—which could happen to anyone, any time. In fact, it probably would happen to me. It almost certainly would if I forgot to write on my stomach for a day.

So I traced over the big, black, letters on my stomach first thing in the morning, and every night before bed. NOT AN ORGAN DONOR. I knew, even then, that it was a weird thing to do, but it felt necessary. In fact, I couldn’t fathom how everyone else I knew seemed so unconcerned about the inevitability of dying and being carved open on a cold metal table. Of course, they hadn’t been there in biology dissecting frogs that day, so maybe they didn’t know. But I did. And I did what I had to do about it.

‼️ ABOUT THE BOOK // HELP ME GET IT PUBLISHED: My name is Chloe, and I’m a 21-yr-old author with OCD, BPD, and trichotillomania. This is my first novel, and it tells the story of a girl with severe OCD and intrusive thoughts. I’m still trying to get it published!!

If you enjoyed this snippet, please share it, and follow on here, and go to @UnthinkableThingsNovel on Instagram and TikTok for more updates. ‼️

[chloe-creating]

“I grew up with books that almost made me wish I had cystic fibrosis, cancer, depression […] I wish I felt the slightest bit romantic or loveable now that I’m sick.”

- @UnthinkableThingsNovel

[chloe-creating]

SOMEONE JUST COMMENTED on my posts saying i’m “autism-coded” 💀💀💀 BRO IM A REAL PERSON NOT A FICTIONAL CHARACTER!! u can’t just headcannon me as autistic 😭💀

[chloe-creating]

my FAVORITE SHIPS ✨as a YA Romance Author✨

[chloe-creating]

hi. i have sever ocd and my intrusive rhoughs have been exponentially distressing and disturbing, and i do not feel strong enough to bear them for much longer. ive also suffered from a few eating disorders and cutrently struggle w self harm addiction. i am weight my options and seriously considering voluntary admission into a psych ward or residential

i was wonderign ! was your psych ward admittance voluntary or involuntary? how did it help / hinder you, and have you gotten any better? if so, what are some ocd coping mechanisms you've found work for you that arent so harmful?

thank ykh & i hope you are staying safe ♡

Hey! I’m so sorry you’re struggling like this ❤️ I know how it feels, and you’re definitely not alon

I was voluntarily admitted to the psych ward— however, there are different types of psych wards and this was a “light” psych ward. It was a 100% voluntary 3-5 day treatment program at my community’s Crisis Center. It was a calm, supportive, environment, where I made friends and was connected with a psychiatrist and therapist who help me to this day!

That said, psych wards are really traumatic, or might not have people educated on OCD treatment. Others (like mine) save lives.

If you can— research your local mental health treatment options and find out which seems like the best for you.

But however you do it— please get help. ❤️ I know how you feel, and how insurmountable it all seems, but recovery IS possible. I— and so many other people— are living proof.

⭐️ For emergency crisis help, see the resources below. ⭐️

The Crisis Textline - CrisisTextline.org

The Su!cide Hotline - 988lifeline.org

⭐️ For more information and resources for OCD, see the resources below. ⭐️

The International OCD Foundation - IOCDF.org

NOCD - TreatMyOCD.com

I also post more about my experiences and resources I find helpful on my Instagram accounts @chloe.creating & @UnthinkableThingsNovel ❤️

I hope this helps. Sending you so much love <3

[chloe-creating]

I unironically like the song 1-800-miss-your-guts by the tramp stamps and y’all can’t shame me for that, if I’m wrong I don’t wanna be right.