#(since I've been on all the same meds for 2 years except for my own emergency intervention.)

[kirby-the-gorb]

[crucipuzzled]

About Loid Forger's therapy in SxF manga chapter 77 (Spoilers ahead)

There's a Freudian text for everything. Today's all about The Question of Lay Analysis (1926), also known as Wild Analysis.

Endo did what I have been planning to do for a comic of my own: depict Loid actually working as a Psychiatrist. While I'm glad he took this path, sadly I can't say he did a good job on it.

As some of you know, I'm a therapist grounded in Psychoanalitic Theory. Yes, I like Freud and Lacan, and no, Oedipus Complex is not what you heard it is. I did a brief analysis of Psychiatry stuff in SxF in the past, and today I feel compelled to repeat that exercise.

Let's go in order.

1. The importance of being a third party

What's the reason for which people ask a therapist for help, and not their families or friends? What do we have that they don't?

The answer is pretty simple: neutrality. We don't have a side other than rationality and ethics. A good therapist should be able to listen to his patient without losing objectivity.

When you and your patient have a shared, unique shared experience, it's preferable, even ethical, to refer him to another therapist, in order to preserve the higher interest of the patient. The more neutrality you can muster, the better for the curing process. Otherwise, it's really hard to listen to someone else without being constantly reminded of yourself. It turns into a blind spot.

Now, there are exceptions to this rule, but you must handle them carefully, and always putting the patient at the center. Loid openly talking here about how close he is to the hijacking incident doesn't help much.

In short, you have to ensure that your position in the therapeutic process remains an impartial, neutral Other, and avoid becoming a fellow. It's good to create trust, but not too much, just enough to work.

2. Chronic condition (?)

The biggest difference between a Psychiatrist and a Psychologist is that the first went to Med School. Hence, chronicity is a term that applies mostly for organic conditions, but it's rare in the field of subjectivity.

In my short experience, I've met cases labeled as "chronic depression" being cured. I, myself, cured a case of "compulsive suicide attempts since 15 years old, chronic depression, started hearing evil voices 2 weeks ago". You might think that I'm a great therapist, but it's not the case; it's just that, in order to tackle subjective problems, you ought to go to the root of the symptoms and deal with the subjectivity you find there. Psychoanalitic therapy has proven to be wonderful to treat many conditions that didn't get a cure in other types of psychotherapy.

Of course, it's not a panacea. There are things that we can't figure out yet. But bear in mind that chronicity, in the field of the mind, is more complex than just the passage of time and only a bunch of mental conditions truly admit it.

Jacques Lacan, the most important psychoanalist after Freud, said that the unconscious's track of time is not chronological, but logical. You don't just jump out of adolescence because you turned 18; other things need to happen for you to finally feel like an adult. It's a logical progression. The same can be said about some "chronic" conditions.

3. Explicit Reason of Consultation vs Latent Reason of Consultation

A.K.A Everybody lies.

Psychotherapy is a really weird thing to learn and master. In Psychology School they teach you that you must trust what your patient tells you, but at the same time, distrust him enough. How to conceal both things?

Well, everything is easier when you take Dr. House's words to heart.

Everyone states a reason for consultation, but that first reason is never the real reason, no matter how reasonable it might sound. The trick to discern what the latent, real reason for consultation is, is to determine what the subjective conflict hiding in plain sight is. Sometimes there isn't any and therefore, a full psychotherapy is not necessary (maybe just assisting someone with some things, being there just in case, etc), but most cases are built upon a conflict.

I'm glad that Loid here decided to act like a good Psychiatrist and took a mental note on the oddities.

WELL SAID MY BOY, I'M PROUD OF YOU

I want to remark this, because it's discouraging how many therapists oversee this to simplify their job to an extreme. Believe it or not, there are therapists out there that act upon what their patients tell them first. "Hi doc. I came here today because I got an accident and I think I have PTSD". "Ok, I'll have you practice these mindfulness excercises and you should be ok within a month, see ya". DUDE.

4. The place of truth in the context of Psychotherapy

Ah, the classic temptation of knowing the 'real' truth. Is this patient in front of me bullshitting his way out? Is he in a delirium? Is she telling the truth, or just embellishing her story to make it more believable?

You don't have this struggle once you are certain of your role as a psychotherapist. And your role is to help your patients to deal with their subjective struggles.

In short: Psychoterapy deals with the patient's truth, not with the 'real' truth.

You know who deals with 'real' truth in the field of Mental Health? Social Workers.

We psychotherapists don't need to ascertain our patient's claims. Confronting them with reality usually proves to be fruitless, just like Loid did here ("But you're a respected educator!"). It's way more useful to open the topic by asking more questions such as "How did you reach that conclussion?" "What made you think that way?", or giving a specular answer ("You speak like someone else said that about you", "You're too hard with yourself. Where does that come from?", "It sounds like you're belittling your fear for what your wife could say", etc etc etc).

Whenever you're with a neurotic patient, their own personal truth is the only truth you need to work with. Leave the 'real' truth for people who actually needs it, like Social Workers, Doctors or Judges. Your role with a patient is to make sure that his personal truth can turn into something less painful. No need to talk with their friends and family for info, unless your patient is a child or a teenager; just ask him and stick to what he says word by word.

There's a huge topic about the place of reality in therapy, specially in the field of Psychoanalysis, but if I start this train of thought I'm afraid I'll go down to Hell. If you're interested, I've reblogged some Lacanian pills on this Tumblr, check them out by searching the tag #lacan.

PS: NO LOID, DON'T DO THAT. DON'T BREAK THE TRUST YOU ACHIEVED WITH MR AUSTIN! CONFIDENTIALITY IS A MUST!!

5. Counceling = Psychotherapy?

Loid is a (fake) Psychiatrist, not a psychotherapist, so I can't be too hard on him. Also I stan this man. I'm painfully well aware that councelling and coaching is an alternative to psychotherapy in other parts of the world, mostly in the US. But let's not forget one thing:

Psychotherapists DON'T GIVE ADVICES.

At least, not the ones that take this job seriously.

Everyone can give advices. Do you want an advice? Ask your family or friends, or post something in social media, or ask a complete stranger in the street what to do. You'll get plenty of answers and advices. Maybe a bunch of them will be really useful. Good!

The thing with advices is that: -They act like a universal recipe for a problem -There's no universal recipe to sort a problem -They don't tackle the subjective root of a problem -They assume that the problem can be solved by something you can do upon your surroundings, when the real struggle stems from subjective problems Some advices do help with real struggles, but when you have a subjective conflict, they barely help; hell, sometimes they make everything worse.

Like Loid here.

Remember when I mentioned that the unconscious mind's track of time is not chronological, but logical? This is a great example. Mr Austin won't be able to properly talk with his wife just because Loid adviced him to; he must solve other issues before that.

I'm glad we're on the same page on this one

6. Your therapist is not your friend

Sad but true.

If your therapist is good enough, you won't know many things about his private life. You won't know about his lover, his hobbies, where does he live, what does he fear.

Why the secretism? Because it's useless for the patient. Also because disclosing personal information has the effect of becoming a model for the patient, who would start to imitate you. And finally, because you need to mantain a semblance of neutrality and not getting emotionally close with the patient more than necessary.

PS: It's kinda cute how aware Loid is about Yor's every movement. Kinda. KISS HER ALREADY, GODDAMNIT

7. Talking cure and (how not to use) the divan

I talked a bit about divans here.

There, I mentioned that you should NEVER PUT A PSYCHOTIC PATIENT IN A DIVAN. NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE. Well, we can amplify this rule a bit and say that you should avoid the divan with any patient that has a risk of getting seriously upset, like in severe trauma.

The divan is not the only thing that could play against you if badly used. There are cases in Psychiatric Hospitals of patients getting upset because their therapists used the same clothes and hairstyle every single day for months. The point here is that, with psychotic patients and fragile psychic structures (like what happens in traumatized people), you can't use methods that require too much projection.

Also, Lottie here is not performing a Talking Cure.

The divan has been used since Freud to facilitate transference through the Free Association Method. You lay down on it and your therapist ask for whatever crosses your mind first. You don't put a content there beforehand.

(On the same line, if you're a therapist, please refrain from decorating your consultation room with motivational phrases. You're putting words in your patient's mouth before he even starts to speak)

So, it's useless to make Mr Austin lay down on a divan, only to ask him to remember a specific memory. I'd advice (Ha! The irony!) against using the divan here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To finish my Two Cents, I'd like to point some positive aspects of this chapter. It's nice that a troubled person decides to seek for help. There's still a huge stigma about men requiring mental health help, and it's a nice example to settle to portray one actually going to a Psychiatrist. Men usually struggle with their problems alone and they have it rough.

It's also nice that, in the end, Loid could help his patient. I wonder how (How?!), but it probably means that, at some point of the process, he changed his methods for the better.

And yes. Sometimes, helping one single person can change many lives. I'm honored to be able to attest to that :D

As everyone, I'd expect the logical sucession of events that could follow this chapter: Loid realizing he's got a heck of a wife compared to other marriages, appreciating Yor more, and giving us heavy smut cute TwiYor moments. But Endo has proven to be an author that doesn't like to follow logic. So, let's brace for whatever will come in two weeks.

Thank you for reading!

[mosraev]

Lyrics through the decade 9/11

I've decided to collect all the songs I've made through the last decade and share my favourite snippets with you guys. The pictures for the backgrounds will (as much as possible) be pictures I've taken the same year as the lyrics were written. The full lyrics may or may not be made official someday.

Part 9; 2021

Now we've arrived at what I can call the personal era which started with me coming out to myself as nonbinary within the first three months of the year. After that a lot of the songs I started to make became a therapeutic tool getting to reflect over my thoughts and feelings about different topics.

More info under the line

Stay creative, my fellow foxes 🦊💚

Song 1 (pic1); Marco

This is not as much a song as it is 2-3 pages of me in lyrical form thinking through my newly out feelings as a nonbinary person. The 'song' is named after my middlename that on this time I believed would be my new name. Also, to fit with the very personal meaning of this song this is indeed a picture of me having gender euphoria looking in the mirror (although 9 months after the song was written)

Featured lyric:

Starring at the mirror softly repeating the name.

Trying to repeat the rush of joy hearing it for the first time.

Song2 (pic2); Aromantica

A song where I tried to reflect over my feelings as being an aromantic person since I also around this time has been coming to terms with being aro more and more (although I had come out to myself as aro one or two years prior).

Featured lyric:

((Extendend)) I held you and I kissed you

Because I thought that was what I had to.

And it’s funny how pathetic I was playing the part.

I’m not lovedrunk, I’m sober.

I realise that, now it’s over.

This is not who I am.

Song3 (pic 3+4); Altid Nat

This song is the exception to the rule I guess since it is less about my own personal identity explorations but again it is still about me and my feelings getting to be close to people with the loser covid-19 restrictions. You can hear the song here btw.

Featured lyric:

Original (pic3); Jordens trolde, de danser foxtrot over Danmarks bøgetage

((Extended)) så er det nu, vi sprinder guld af alt det som der kan ske i drømmeland.

For det er altid nat et sted på verdensplan.

Translated to English (pic4):

the trolls of the earth dance foxtrot in Denmark's treetops.

((Extended)) It is now we weave gold of all

that can happen in dreamland

cause it's always night somewhere in the world.

Song4 (pic5+6); Forstadsfabeldyr

This is an interesting one since I had less than a week to write and produce it on summer camp where I wasn't out yet so I wanted to make it somewhat mystical about what in the world I was referring to (thereby not outing myself before time) but also I really felt like getting out my hurt feelings about becoming the represent queer whenever people learned about my identity. (hint the swearing is back)

Featured lyric:

Original (pic6); Verden er så satans monokrom

for alle farverne er vasket ud med hvidt.

Translated to English (pic5); The world is fucking monochrome.

All the colours has been washed out.

Song5 (pic6+7); Glas v.2

Quite an interesting one that shows how my way of making songs has shifted since I originally made myself the challenge to make a song inspired by a poem on a playing card about rocks wanting to be glass and then the first version was meant to be about eating disorders (not told from my own pov) but that didn't connect with me so instead I told about nonbinary gender dysphoria (that is way more my own pov and so a therapeutic song instead)

Featured lyric:

Original (pic7): Når svaret for dem er hverken "han" eller "hende"

kommer de nemt til kort.

De ville så gerne kunne passe ind,

men kabalen går ikke op.

Translated to English (pic8): When their answer is not "he" or "she",

they'll easily come up short.

they'd love to fit in, but

the patience doesn't come up.

[dear--charlie]

Dear Charlie,

It's been a while. A big while. I don't remember the last time I wrote to you and as much as I wish I could say I am happy to see you, I'm really not. It's been a rough two years. Beatuiful years in which I have made friends in a way I never thought I could, but at the same time I feel like I will never get myself out of this whole I've been stuck in ever since the first time I wrote to you. I think that's 6 years ago. I am 24. I am finishing my masters degree and writing my thesis and I have no idea what I want to do next. What I wanted to do, what had been so clear to me all my life, suddenly seems like something I don't want anymore. I wanted to be a teacher. That life feels as far back as the times I felt admiration rather than second hand embarrassment when looking at my father.  If I do a PhD, then it's only because I want to prove to myself that I am capable of doing it, it's because my OCD tells me that I will not, cannot have a happy life if I don't finish school. And finishing school means PhD. From preschool to primary school to bacherlor's to master's...the missing piece of the puzzle would be a PhD. It's only logical, no? But do I want it? I don't know. Then again, I really don't know what I want anymore. I feel like over the past years I have lost touch with who I am, what I want, where I belong and what the future holds.  Then again, if I don't do a PhD, what else would I do? Go teach? Not sure? I'd like to work at a library. But I don't have the degree. But would I really want that? Or have books become my identity the way dance was, even though by now I feel like throwing up every time I see words written on paper, and the dance thing is more of a hobby than anything I would ever have wanted it to be.  I live at home again. With my parents. They are making so much noise right now that I can't sleep. I think they forgot that I live here and that I really don't want to hear them having the night of their lives.  What do I want? I don't know.

Either way, I am so anxious about my thesis that I don't sleep most nights and that I work all day, but I hate it, so I don't do it well, I'm not productive enough. My friend has ADHD and recently shifted her meds and she left me some of hers, and they help me focus. They calm the brain fog but I don't want to abuse the medicine. I should probably just get myself a diagnosis, but by now I don't even know what I have or don't have or might have. It might be ADHD but then my brain would feel foggier, wouldn't it? It might be depression? It might be anxiety? I might be somewhere on the spectrum? I might have OCD? It might be all of them or nothing, some more or some less. I'm scared. I want to know. But I don't, because ignoring it makes it disappear, tells me it's not as bad and not as real and that I am completely normal. A diagnosis would mean the demons are real. And that there might be ways to tame them. But who am I without the dark and jittery mind that sees patterns where there are none.  I lost touch with myself and my surroundings. I feel detached from the friends I had here and since moving back to where my parents live I feel estranged from my own home. I miss my friends, the ones I made in the last 2 years. I miss the smiling eyes of 4 year old me, the dreams, the ambitions. It's all gone.  I feel like I've settled for where I am and moving on is scary. I idolise people after people, try to find my community but time after time I fuck up. When I have to talk to somebody about something other than academics my mind shuts down. Except for commenting on the weather I am uncapable of smalltalk. I'm just quiet. And everybody feels awkward. And I notice. But I don't know what to say or how to act or where to look. 1 on 1 conversations scare me and in a group I feel uncomfortable. And I feel lonely by myself. It's so tricky. And I managed to make friends who for some weird reason like me, but they live far away and I've been there before. 5 years and it changes, 6 and it's over. You cannot stay this close somebody you don't share a life with anymore. Not like this.

I feel like I'm dying alive. Those thoughts come more and more often.  And then there are all the bans. The don't say gay bills in America, some Germans praising the approach, there are all the hurdles of a queer life that I am aware of. The not holding hands, the questions, the looks. I would love to say I don't care, that I am proud and don't give a shit about what people think. And honestly, I don't. But I am sacred. That they will hurt me. That instead of throwing comments at me and insulting me with the worst of words (because that has happened a lot) they start throwing stones and hurting me or A and I don't want that.  I feel like I want to hide away. From myself, from the world, from life, from them.  I long for her to reciprocate my feelings. She calls me a friend. Says I remind her so much of herself. I feel like we are that, friends I mean. And she reminds me of the things I could be if I were a little more like her. We are so similar and yet we are so different. She is the things I strive to reach but don't know how to. I don't want to disappoint her. I dreamt about her. About the disappointment. She is who she is and I am who I am and we are in a setting where the word "friendship" comes with power imbalance and hierarchy and that is why our weekly calls happen during her working hours most days. We cannot cross that line. Questions would pop up. And things would get weird. But I want more. I want friendship without that boarder, without the working hours, without the censoring ourselves and weighing our words trying to keep a line of professionalism that remains on paper but has long dissolved. I want to erase it. But I cannot. Because she grades me. And I am a student. And that's not how those things work. She told me so far she avoided grading me as far as she could because she is biased. In a good way and yet... biased. Now she has to grade me. Sometimes there are text messages instead of emails. Our "professional" talks resemble coffee dates more than anything else. But we have to keep the guise. So I stopped answering the texts and she stopped sending them. Back to email.

Back to working hours. Back to, I have an available time slot for a zoom call on Wednesday at 10:30. That's how it has to be but I don't like it. Because it's easy to talk to her and she feels the same. We know things about each other I am sure we both don't tell random colleagues. But oh well. It has to be like this. One more thing that has to be the way it is and that makes me miserable. I long for connection. It's so hard for me to build it. With her it was so easy. I have it. But I have to ignore it.  Anyway. This is long. And messy. Like always really. I'm not doing very well. I'm trying. Really. But my thesis subject gets to me and the books I read hold mirrors in my face of past selves that I have tried to forget or overcome or both and it is just being hard. I'll try to stay safe. Say hi to all our common friends please. I don't know who is still here. I hope they are well. And safe. And happy. We'll get there. 

[bringerofworlds]

rant on american healthcare under the readmore

so let's imagine you're me / a regular american person and you pay like $200-$300 monthly to have health insurance (like you're legally required to). it's bigger than any of your other bills as a single person and, if you don't have a car payment, it's prolly the most expensive monthly bill after rent and groceries. (you know, the big stuff, food and shelter.)

So you pay your $200-$300 cuz it's the plan you can afford. So you only pay for doctor copays (if they're in-network and they won't tell you who is) and small fees for medication, like, $10.

except every single fucking time you go to get a prescription - not even a NEW one, one you've been filling every month for your whole life – a doctor has to send a "prior authorization" to some poor fucker who works for your health insurance company who gets to say whether or not you need the medication. and they DENY IT. ALL THE TIME.

That's the reason I haven't been on my asthma inhaler for over 2 years, for the medical condition I've had since i was a fucking BABY. some asshat decided I didn't need it and that they wouldn't pay for it, even tho we PAY FOR HEALTH INSURANCE EVERY SINGLE MONTH.

Now i can't even get my fucking ADHD medication because that same fucker has just decided that even though I've been evaluated by two different psychiatrists, I don't need the medication they both say I do. And now I have to pay $50-$100 for those 30 pills WITH A COUPON because the insurance that costs like $250 a month won't do shit about it. And to make matters worse, every pharmacy doesn't have it because the FDA has decided I'm an addict and to punish me for the brain they gave me by not regulating shit that gives everybody and their mother an attention deficit disorder. Can't deal with lead in the lunchables but you can ban people from getting the meds they need to take care of their own lives.

all health insurance executives should be [redacted] in the [redacted] and their [redacted] should be [redacted] through the [redacted] as a fucking warning to anyone who aspires to break society this badly with their profiteering.

[carronpatrick]

Had typed a large reply to someone and accidently closed the app so the last 30 minutes was wasted and 😭💀💀💀 why is my brain like this?! 😭😭😭

**per tags, added video, literally of me, daily, constantly, always

Wait this got even better/worse. (below cut because I have to explain just how fucking dumb I can be, lmao. It's just funny rambling, completely SFW except 4 Fbombs because it's just my favorite word ig, idk, but also idk who has the shorten post setting enabled and don't wanna clog y'alls feeds.

But enjoy the chaos of my 'ADHD despite my meds having kicked in today, forgetful because I have a BAD object permanence/constancy deficit, unorganized but organized in that disorganization at the same time, can't delete things because what if I need it in 2 years LIKE THIS VIDEO' brain.

I opened up the attachment option like this

BECAUSE I HAVE OVER 18,000 (EIGHTTEEN THOUSAND, YES) PHOTOS/VIDEOS. 💀 I literally just took the 2 days and transferred them all over to my hard drive like the week of Mom's brain surgery, I just haven't taken the days to go through and delete each I don't need on my phone anymore because, well, Mom had brain surgery and that was only a week after her arm nerve surgery and I've needed to take care of her and then we both now have some kind of respiratory infection so we've been taking medicine and sleeping for the past week and a half basically, while the weather goes from 87f one day to 28f the next night back to 78f the next day.

(The weather description is added because the yoyo weather typically causes the start of sinus infections for me, happens every single damn year at this time, and has since I was like 2 or 3, and no doctor wants to prescribe antibiotics because they don't want to risk me becoming immune to them ((?????! 😭 Once a year would not do that, especially if they alternate between amoxicillin, augmentin, azythromyacin/z-pack, clindamyacin, cefdinir, etc each year... All things I've taken over my 30 years of many, many sicknesses and all still 100% effective for my body at normal doses! I already take daily allergy/sinus nasal spray that used to be $400 a bottle when I was like 10 and is now otc and is like $12-15, I take an anxiety /allergy rx also, like? Give me the fucking antibiotics I've had an infection according to my white blood cell count for the past 3 years almost constantly.)) but yeah, yoyo weather, it's harsh on a body, lmao.)

But I'm searching, and I have my gallery generally organized. I have a reactions set that all start with 'R-' and then what emotions they convey, have video folders and all my celeb pics are by group/member/individual, I have individual friend and family folders, i have mood boards for each original song I'm going to record and release eventually and they each have their own folder til I make them into one image, etc. It took like idk, in total probably a week or 2 to do all of this. So twenty minutes pass and I CANNOT FIND this video I randomly remembered while adding tags to this post. So I'm laying here like

I've checked @anxiousgirl and @thevampywolf 's folders, I've checked each video folder, every reaction folder, I checked my personal folders cause maybe I put it there because it so accurately describes how fucking dumb I am - nothing.

So then I realized - I sent it to both Rachel and Ash like a year ago. Now, we both send a fuck ton of videos, memes, gifs, random pics, etc all the time. But I KNOW that Ash and I send more back and forth because we both get on our ADHD bullshit on Tiktok and Instagram and send mass spams randomly. So I'm going through Rachie's WhatsApp chat. And the only kind of search query I can think of is 'stupid' because that's the video basically. So I'm going through ALL 'Media, Links, and Docs'.

Y'all I thought I was bad at sending pics and vids to Ash, but Rach, I am so sorry, lmfao. Like one time in May I sent maybe 50 fucking things in one convo because I was introducing you to Monsta X a bit and. 😭🥴 I'm a visual teacher/learner, y'all, okay?!

Anyway. It's now been about an hour and a half since I started this and I finally found this dumb 6 second video that I sent her last April. Also, very succinctly sums up the whole fucking post, lmfaoooo.

It's me. 😂

[dzpenumbra]

2/1/23

Alright, here's how today went. Last day of the 30 day yoga thing, the woman who was doing the challenge decided to like... let you do your own thing and just look at what she's doing if you run out of ideas. It was surprisingly easy. Kinda liberating actually. I could just listen to what my body needed today (mostly hips and lower back) and focus on that. It inspired me a lot, honestly. I know what I'm doing. And I can always look up reference for more poses if I want to add them. I don't really need to be dependent on being guided with that, I have a good idea of what I'm looking for and honestly... I usually ended the session wanting to keep going. So now, I can just go as long as I like and just close it out whenever. I was unsure how things were going to end as recently as yesterday, but now I feel pretty confident in my ability to keep this habit going. I just need to get myself to the mat and light the incense and the rest will come together.

My mom wanted to follow up after our talk last night. I requested a conversation earlier in the day, so I wouldn't get caught in the middle when my dad is freaking out about getting home and eating food or whatever... that he has decided to be completely dependent on my mom for... for 40 years... for whatever reason... It was weird because last night my mom freaked out about "being caught in the middle" because I was on the phone with her and my dad was pressuring her and interrupting her call even though she was very obviously in a serious conversation and on the fucking phone. But he just... does what he wants. So, I kinda opened by saying... in a sense she absolutely is caught in the middle of two stressful forces... but I am caught in the middle of a marital dispute. And all that stress, all the blame, everything from that interaction gets dumped on me. And he gets whatever he wants. Beyond the "fairness" of that... it's just... super unhealthy. Like, I really don't deserve (at any age) to have my parents' marital problems dumped and blamed on me. And I just addressed that directly, but tried to be gentle with it. And I think it went over okay. There was no conflict in our 2 hour conversation today.

We ironed out a plan for furniture, I'm not going to go all-in on it, but it's good to hear positive thinking from her. She asked about Max, so I filled her in on the insanely complex web of bullshit that's been going down. After today, I am pretty much 100% certain she is just sick of this prescription diet and refusing to eat this shitty food anymore. She was circling my legs and loudly meowing and begging me for food when I was cooking tonight. A cat that "needs meds to stimulate hunger" doesn't fucking act like that. And if she's that ravenous that she's going to yell at me? She'd eat the food I gave her. I mean... last week, on wednesday, she ate the same exact food gladly. No problem at all. Even when it was dosed with joint supplements and a big dose of Gabapentin. Then she got the blood draw. Since then, she will barely eat more than one or two bites of the shit. Something. Fucking. Happened. I'm convinced of it. There's no other logical reason. Either it's a trauma thing and she has associated the food taste/smell with the effects of Gabapentin or the act of a blood draw, which might make sense... except... she's not eating the new bland GI prescription diet food either, and that's a very different taste. So... it's possible, but doesn't seem likely. Or... someone gave her treats, she was reminded of what real food tastes like... and now she's just basically on a hunger strike until she gets better food.

I'm really hoping I'm not reading into this, but for fuck's sake, I've already gotten her ultrasounds, xrays and blood work. She's not fucking sick. She had a little bit of an elevated temperature, that was it. The vets gave her GI diet food, an anti-nausea medication and a hunger stimulant. Those aren't remedies for an illness, those are to make her eat the damn food.

So here's the new twist to this clusterfuck, in case anyone actually gives a shit about this. It's kinda fucked up. So... I got a text this morning from the vet, they said that the distributer is sold out of the prescription food. Like everyone is sold out of this food. So... the only food my cat is supposed to eat... is not available anywhere on the internet, even for animal hospitals. And it's prescription only. Figure that shit out. Maybe because it's fucking $75 a case, and these fucking online warehouse companies are buying up every damn crate available to upcharge it, so even medical services can't get it. How fucked is that? So I called my vet back, got the woman who places the orders and started trying to explain the super complex nature of what's going on the simplest I can without losing people. I offered to look online to see if I can track it down (even though I can't fucking order it) and really tried to double underline for her that I don't know if my cat even needs to be on this diet anymore because the vet hasn't talked to me about her blood test results, which came in on fucking Saturday. The worst part? I know the results. I know her thyroid levels have leveled out. I've known since the day those results came in. I've know the test results pertaining to dietary restrictions for my cat who has been refusing to eat a full meal for going on 6 days now... for 4 entire days. And my vet does not. Figure that one out. She better be on vacation or something.

So... given that information... do I take it into my own hands and just say "she's done with the diet, her thyroxine leveled out, she's good now, we're going back to the chicken and fish diet." Do I risk sending her back into hyperthyroidism? Do I risk kidney problems? Just so she will eat a damn meal and not be miserable laying around sleeping all day, visibly exhausted? Or do I continue to wait for an indeterminate amount of time to hear back from my vet, while throwing entire cans of this food that I CAN'T GET MORE OF literally in the trash because my cat is refusing to eat it, even with the hunger stimulant med. Even with praise and celebration. Even after a 2 day hunger strike. Even when I leave it by the bed all night for 2 days. How long do I wait for this call back? How long do I let her starve?

I think at some point, I'm going to have to set a time. Like... if I don't hear back by... 6PM tomorrow, I'm going to mix some chicken into her food so that she'll eat it. I'll get some chicken broth and give her that or something. Like literally anything I can to make sure she's not starving, she's like... visibly losing weight. I think that's fair.

And when I finally get to talk to a vet person, whoever it might be, I'm getting a goddamn menu of thyroid friendly meals. I'm just going to cook for her if I have to. I can't put my cat's life on one fucking brand of one canned food that is literally sold out world-wide, that she is "not allowed" to eat anything other than. I just can't do it. I need options here. And I'm not getting options, I'm just getting, "Yeah, she should call you back soon. Yeah, we'll let her know. Yeah, I'll send a message along." It's a damn shame because I liked this vet, she was chill, but now I'm getting pretty... unhappy. Like... these test results have been sitting on her desk for 4 days, I brought my cat to urgent care directly related to those results, and I haven't even had anyone call to check in and follow up on how she's doing. At all. I have had to call back and check in with them. And I get a different person every time. UGH. It's just... I get if they're busy or whatever, just say that and schedule a time for me to talk to someone. Don't just tell me to kick fucking rocks. Don't just put me on hold for a fucking week.

Okay, that's out of my system for now. I finally stopped the rock tumbler. I'm pretty sure the problem with the tumble was the grit. Cheap grit from National Geographic. My last tumble was better, but still not like... the mirror shine it should be. I took them all out, cleaned the barrels a bit... (I need to clean them even more, it's such a bitch when you can't dump the water...) And got all the grit off that I could. They've lost a lot of mass, but there are still some good pieces in there. I took some of the softer ones out and polished them with the glass polish I have. It's not a perfect mirror shine, but it's pretty good. I have no idea how the quartz will take, but it's promising. I ordered some better quality grit for future and general use. And a string of multiple colored tigers eyes too, just... cuz. And then spent most of the night hand-polishing those samples while watching Twitch. And... here I am.

I don't know what else to say about that. This vet thing is just... fucked up. 4 days ago they were treating it like my cat was gonna die and I need to go to urgent care asap. Now, I couldn't pay them to just review her blood levels and advise me on what to do about a diet they put my cat on over a month ago that they know for a fact is OUT OF STOCK. Kinda getting mixed messages, tbh. Like... do they expect me to just let my cat starve? I'm certain this starvation is not good for her organs. I do not like sitting here powerless and watching her suffer, it really upsets me. So yeah, I think that plan I came up with earlier is a good compromise. If I don't hear from them by 6PM tomorrow, I guess I break my cat's diet and risk sending her thyroid levels out of balance. Because at least one nurse already did that, so... fuck it. I can't just let her starve.

I'm getting really upset. But there's nothing I can do about this now. I need to just rest for now and take it up with the vets tomorrow. Wish me luck.

[beelorax]

tw: pet death

Today my dog, Jeannie, died. She was a 14yo mutt (a pitbull or boxer x something????), she had 3 legs and she was perfect.

Jeannie could no longer walk around easily, because she couldn't carry her own weight anymore. She couldn't hear or see much anymore. She had been getting worse for a while, but there was nothing we could do. It was just her age catching up to her. And to us.

A few days ago she started feeling pain.

Today we noticed the meds weren't working anymore.

Today we decided we couldn't let her suffer anymore.

So

It is what it is.

Jeannie led a good life. She had many friends, many toys, many treats. She was active up until she couldn't be. She ate many sausages today. She was happy.

I, on the other hand, was devastated.

I spent the whole day with her and I cried the whole day. I cried so much, so hard and for so long, that I gave myself a migraine by the time it was all over.

She has been with me since I was 8 years old. I love her with all my heart and knowing I'll never see her again will be excruciating. Having to decide that today was to be her last day was the most horrible, gutting thing I've ever had to do.

But it was the right thing to do.

I was devastated. I still am terrible sad, but I am also relieved.

In the past few days, getting up was challenging to her. If she was ever alone, even for a little bit, she would cry non-stop.

In 14 years I had never seen that dog cry.

She was so strong. She was there for me and my mom in ways no human could have been, when we needed her the most. Jeannie was amazing. And, truth is

I feel like Jeannie was tired

Last year Jeannie's best friend passed, also from age. 2 months ago so did her daughter, from the same emergency surgery that took Jeannie's leg. Ironic.

I consider myself agnostic, I don't believe in a God, or "heaven". For the most part I don't believe in an afterlife. I do however, hold an exception for pets. I can't help it.

Jeannie was a strong, magnificent, lovely dog. This can't be all there is for her. I refuse to believe it.

I hope she can now rest. I hope she can be happy, peaceful, I hope out there, wherever she is, that she never fears being alone again. Because I choose to believe that she is back with her pack. Happy. As she always was.

I hope to have made her life just a little as fantastic as she made mine. And I hope I'll see her again, even if for a moment before the curtains close for me too

[icemankazansky]

Hey! first off thank you for the post on the casket wings. I'm working my way through your Storm series (late to the party I know).

I was wondering since you've shipped Icemav pre-TGM, how the new movie changed or confirmed your Icemav head canons.

I never really shipped them before TGM except as a passing thought of "they should have kissed" after TG86 but now I'm on the bullet train lol.

You're welcome.

Also, you're the second person this week to say "sorry I'm late" re: Storm, and I have two thoughts about that:

Stories are forever. There's no right time to read them for the first, second, or hundredth time. That's the beauty of them.

I was late to my own damn party. I think a lot of people new to the fandom since TGM do not realize this, but I took an eight year break between writing Storm 1 and 2 and writing Storm 3 and 4.

Oooookay, this is going to be a long one, buckle up.

When I first heard they were making a sequel to Top Gun, I was not excited. I kind of dreaded it, actually. I'm going to give you a little backstory, because it explains a lot of things.

I started my Val Kilmer fixation and my relationship with his work, including Top Gun, right about the same time I started grad school. I was further away from home than I had ever been before—no safety net. And I lost my health insurance because I stopped working to go to school. I have suffered from a little mental illness cocktail since about seventh grade, primarily depression-heavy bipolar II, and when I moved to Savannah, I had to go off all my meds. I did not have any sort of mental health care. So here I am unmedicated, untreated, completely on my own, and going through this rigorous program.

I needed something to hold onto. I needed a distraction; I needed a way to self-soothe.

I got Val Kilmer.

It became a hyperfixation, I guess. I watched dozens of his movies; I started creating fan content for those movies, first Thunderheart, primarily, a few smaller things for other films, and then Top Gun and Icemav specifically not long after. I deep dove this shit. I ended up writing my MFA thesis on Val Kilmer movies, okay? That's how important this became to me. I am not being hyperbolic when I say: He saved my life.

And even after I graduated and got back into treatment, these movies and these characters and these ships were incredibly important to me. I had a personal, emotional connection to them, and I was really afraid, when I heard they were making TGM, that the movie would damage Ice or Maverick or—and this was my specific fear more than anything—Icemav for me. And I needed them. Storm is basically my preferred canon post-Top Gun OG, and it supposes a lot of things that I was sure an action film by a major studio would never give me. I knew they were not going to end up happily married, okay? Like, I knew I wasn't going to get that. That didn't mean I didn't want it, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I was just afraid that the movie would do more than that, and, like, definitively say in some way or another that their relationship was not important, or that it was absolutely not romantic, that they didn't love each other the way I knew they did, etc.

I saw Top Gun: Maverick on Top Gun Tuesday, a special showing on the Tuesday before the movie opened everywhere. As I've said, I was already very emotionally invested in what happened in this film, and you know, I have a mood disorder, and I'm also an empath and I cry pretty easily when I'm experiencing media, especially if it's a visual media like television or film. I know this about myself. I can't help it. I packed tissues in my purse on Top Gun Tuesday because I fully expected to cry a lot.

And I didn't. I loved the movie, and I thought what they had done with Icemav was the best that we were ever going to get from an action movie made by a major studio. It was evident that the relationship was integral to both characters, that it pretty much started in 1986 and never stopped, was a continuous presence throughout both their lives for 36 years. It showed deep affection between Ice and Maverick and incredible respect without losing the playfulness that their competitiveness would have mellowed into over that time. And it was open-ended, mostly. It's suggested that Ice got married, but it's never stated (Sarah could be his sister), and the nature of the relationship is never defined. I'm currently running on a Sarah is aroace and Ice is gay and in love with Maverick and Ice and Sarah have a platonic marriage and maybe even children, but it has not in any way stopped Ice and Maverick from having a romantic and sexual relationship for 30+ years model, and it's not exactly what I hoped for, but it's enough room for me to retcon it, to fit the pieces together so I can keep Icemav, because it's important to me and I need it.

I did eventually break down and cry about it about three days later. I was heartbroken over Ice, and it was really hard for me to watch Ice die of the same thing that had made Val so sick, and it was really hard for me that Ice dies—depending upon when you decide the movie takes place—before he's 60 years old, or just north of 60, and it was really hard for me to not get a happily ever after for Icemav.

I have been working on a fic that kind of explains how 1986 - 2022 worked for Icemav within the frame given to us by TGM, but I've been working on it since May 24th (incidentally the same day I saw the movie for the first time), so I don't know when it'll be complete. It's just shy of 25,000 words at the moment, and it's helping me work through some of the feelings that Icemav in TGM gave me, but for me, it's just going to be one version of what could have happened. I don't ... I don't see Storm as any less valid because of TGM, and I'm not going to stop loving that version of things and I'm not going to stop writing for it, and I'm not going to stop thinking of other endings for them, and other middles, because I love them and they deserve happily ever afters, and so do I.

I hope that answers your question. I know this was a lot, but it's been 12 years for me, and a lot has gone into my relationship with Icemav, so there's a lot to say.

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hi slug! I'm quite new to your blog, but I couldn't help but be curious about the answer to doing your bachelor's in 2 years while working full time. It just blows my mind! As someone who is hardworking but stresses over stuff constantly, it really amazes me that you managed to do that. You said u are the exception to the rule of taking time off and all that, but I'm curious to know what your mindset is. Like, for me, I stress more about the idea of what I have to do and the result of what I'm doing, and I have a lot of anxious subconscious thoughts about not having enough time, or that I'm not doing as much as I could be doing (I've been dealing with some serious burnout for a while now too). I was wondering if you could explain how you approach your workload? Idk maybe this is too personal and abstract, but I'd love to know about your mindset.

🌸Anon

Hello, flower anon! I'll put this under another cut for length since I kind of rambled.

Sure, I don't mind talking about it. For starters, it's not that I don't take time off, but that I don't usually schedule full days off. I deal with anhedonia - the inability to feel pleasure from "fun" activities - pretty frequently, and because of that, it's often hard for me to find downtime activities enjoyable. However, I still get a little kick of satisfaction every time I finish a job, so I usually try to frame downtime activities in terms of tasks. For example, I might assign myself the task of reading a chapter in a favorite book or completing a quest in a video game. That way, even if anhedonia is kicking my ass, I'll still feel good about it when it's done. I try to picture my day as a constant string of activities, so when my energy is low, I'll give myself an easy, low-priority task. This could be something legitimately productive - folding laundry while listening to music, sorting files, alphabetizing books to be put away, reading background knowledge material for a translation job, etc - or a "fun" task like talking to a friend, reading a book, or playing a game.

In terms of work itself, I try to approach it as a structure that I can use to prop my life up with. I try to be careful to avoid workaholic thought patterns, since I've struggled with that before and ended up extremely distressed. Instead, I treat it as a low-stress, flexible grid with lots of little pieces whenever possible. I know hard deadlines stress me out, so I make guidelines for myself that can be shifted around if need be. (Granted, there are hard deadlines for certain things, such as job assignments, but I always set the guidelines to have them completed well before the employer appointed due date, giving me that wiggle room if I need it.) I also know that I don't usually do well when I try to do the same thing for hours on end or when approaching huge tasks, so instead I break things down into lots of small chunks and do a little each day. For instance, every day this week, I'll make sure that I do one or two things from each of the following task items:

Translation assignment 1

Translation assignment 2

Translation assignment 3

Japanese self-studying

Errand (could be grocery, getting meds, tutoring a student, whatever)

Personal chore (tidying my room, laundry, cooking for myself, washing my own dishes, etc)

Household chore (cleaning the floors, cleaning a bathroom, etc)

Exercise

Daily hygiene requirements

Hypmic (answering asks, TLing miscellaneous crap, cleaning up blog, etc.)

Fun/social (chatting with friend, reading, going out to get a cold drink or a snack, etc)

The order these things happen in and the time they take can totally vary from day to day depending on what particular needs I have and how much energy I have. Today it went like this:

Translation assignment 3 (5:30 am - 7:00)

Breakfast (7:00 - 7:15)

Translation assignment 1 (7:30 [I was talking with someone for a couple of minutes before I got back to work] - 11:00) This one went on for longer since I was editing a big chunk of text, but it doesn't always take this long. Again, it varies!

Run (11:00 am - 11:45 am)

Hygiene stuff + misc exercise (11:45 am - 12:15 pm)

Went out to get lunch and a caffeinated tea since I wanted to make sure I had enough energy for an appointment in the afternoon. Also read during lunch (12:15 pm - 1:00 pm)

Japanese self-study (1:00 pm - 2:00 pm)

Cancelled the appointment [long story] and instead worked on translation assignment 2 (2:00 pm - 4:00 pm). At the moment, I'm just doing reading for it, so I saved it for later in the day when I tend to be more tired. Also did laundry here since that's another easy task.

Went to the store to buy more cleaning supplies and other household crap (4:15 pm - 6:00 pm)

Made dinner and cleaned the kitchen (6:00 pm - 7:00 pm)

Translation assignment 2 (7:00 pm - 8:30 pm)

Answering asks and talking with friends (8:30 pm - 10:00 pm)

If you're counting the hours I spent working on job assignments themselves, this would be 8.5 hours which I think is somewhat longer than what's typical. But again, it's not sitting down for 8.5 hours straight because I struggle with that and don't like doing it. Instead, I break tasks up and move things around so I can accomplish enough that I feel fulfilled while still enjoying my time here. Also, even if that looks like just a little bit of each thing, at the end of the week I'll have:

Translated and edited between 40,000 - 50,000 Japanese characters

Completed 10+ chapters of textbook work for Japanese self-study

Kept on top of my household errands and chores

Ran between 1.5 - 2 hours

Managed my daily body upkeep

Probably called friends a couple of times, read all or most of a book, and played a few hours of a game

I do these kinds of things and approach things in this task-based mindset because it's what I've found works best for me. Since I know I struggle with a lot of basic things like executive function, feeling pleasure from downtime activities, speaking out loud, etc - I build systems for myself to let me live a happy, healthy lifestyle on my own terms. I don't think this sort of lifestyle is necessarily applicable to everyone, but it doesn't have to be. It's something I created within the definitions of my disability and my capabilities.

So with all that being said, I can't prescribe something that will magically apply to your life, but I highly encourage you to experiment to find things that work best for you. Obviously, when I was working full-time while in school, the tasks I had were usually much more important, but I still followed the same general format of treating each day as a series of small, movable tasks. Whatever frameworks you choose to create can apply to the busiest or the most relaxed of lives.

In your situation in particular, flower anon, I understand how you feel with those anxieties. If you're stressing over what you have to do and find it overwhelming on a daily basis, you probably need to find a way to reduce your workload. Chunking - the process of breaking big assignments into smaller tasks - tends to help with anxieties when assignments seem too large and unapproachable.

It's challenging to fight back against the thoughts that you could be doing more than what you're already doing. But at the core of it, isn't this a silly argument? Every minute of your life, you're doing something. You're working, or you're learning, or you're sleeping, or you're eating, or you're playing with your friends. How are you supposed to do more than that? What, are you supposed to pull a 25th hour of the day out of your ass? Value your time, especially the time you spend resting and taking care of yourself. It's good to enjoy resting, and it's good to enjoy working as well. These are all parts productive elements of life. When you sleep, you are producing a rested mind to give yourself a better day tomorrow. When you talk with your friends, you are producing happiness and fulfilling social needs for yourself and other people. Physically reminding yourself - I mean saying out loud, "I am being productive as I do x" or "Y is a valuable use of my time" - for every thing you do can help you mentally reinforce this concept. And what happens if you discover non-valuable uses of your time? Engaging in petty arguments that don't bring yourself or anyone else any value, spending time scrolling on your phone without enjoying it, taking a class or activity just because you feel like you should but not enjoying it or earning anything from it - then drop it from your life, because your time is much too precious for you to spend it unhappily and unproductively. Produce for yourself a better life whenever you can, as long as the definition of "better life" is one that you decide for yourself.

This is a very rambling, abstract answer, but I hope it is some help to you. Best of luck.

[orangefoxes]

Hey, so I've been trying to submit a prompt but it won't work so here it goes I know this will be sad but what if Neil gets really sad and depressed (the reason is up for interpretation ex: bullied by jack or is haunted by PTSD) and so he becomes full of self hate and becomes anorexic and cuts himself #andreil (this would mean so much since I've been through similar circumstances and was strong enough to pull through and keep living, this book and your Tumblr have helped me so much)

Hi @soph-ie21 I am so sorry this took a whopping 4 years for me to post. I’m terrible for not checking my inbox as my notifications have been turned off for tumblr since I was like 13. I’m so glad to hear that you recovered from your ED, you must be so strong and I’m so proud of you as I know how difficult that is to do. I’m hoping this is the sort of prompt you were looking for, if you’re even looking after this long, as it’s not very dialogue heavy, but here you go.

TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDER, SELF LOATHING, ANOREXIA.

When in high stress situations, to cope, the brain releases a hormone called cortisol. It’s alright in small doses, helpful even. It triggers your fight or flight response and readies the body to do something, fast. Constant exposure to the hormone however, has some not so good long term effects. Effects that include, but are not limited to: high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and, arguably the mildest, weight gain.

Cortisol results in weight gain for two reasons. The first is because it slows your metabolism, and the second is because the drop in blood sugar from constant high blood pressure means that you start craving fatty, sugary foods, which leads to overeating. Neil’s memory is not nearly good enough for him to recall what foods he had craved over the years, but he and his mother shied away from sweets and chocolate for dental reasons, it probably would have been a hardship for many kids growing up but Neil had never much cared for sugar anyway. However, what he and his mother did indulge in is a lot of fatty, fast food. Partly because it was cheap, partly because it was something they could eat while on the move, and partly because no one would look twice at two sketchy people in a Burger King or remember a beaten up old car briefly pausing in a drive thru.

While never giving much thought to how he looked (short of checking for ginger roots and the bruise on his cheek from where his mother had slapped that smile from his face), Neil does remember his weight fluctuating a lot when he was younger. The more stressful the months, the chubbier he got. It was in the quiet periods as he and his mother settled down and didn’t dare to venture into the supermarket too often that he began to lose it again. It was a cycle.

In Millport, Neil was at his lowest weight yet. There was only a solitary McDonald’s in town and Neil wasn’t about to become a regular. He stocked up on tinned food from the supermarket in his first week in town instead and meticulously made his way through them, heating the can up on the hot plate he had bought for four dollars from the thrift store in the high street.

He gained weight again once he started at Palmetto, he gained muscle mass too. This, of course, was thanks to three free meals a day and a new training regime with daily exercise. It was to be expected, but if, perhaps, he gained weight quicker than his teammates and muscle slower, well, he had bigger things to worry about.

Then he knew he was going to live.

Then everything with the Moriyamas was…well, not gone, but resolved.

That’s not to say there was nothing to stress about. There was the influx of reporters wanting to catch the Foxes’ attention to ask about Nathaniel Wesninski. There was Kevin’s impending break down as Riko’s funeral came and went. There was Aaron’s trial. Honestly it probably would have gone as stressful situations for Neil always go - here and gone just as quickly - except it turns out that Nicky cooks when he’s stressed, and Neil, well, he’s a stress eater.

After Aaron is declared innocent, Nicky resumes as normal. Neil…not quite. He’s constantly opening the cupboards to look for something to eat only to close them again when he finds nothing of interest. Without Nicky cooking, there’s nothing he can easily dig into and Neil, while accumulating many skills over the years, had never been a hand in the kitchen. The only things ready-eat that were consistently in the dorm were ramen and ice-cream. Even the thought of ramen makes Neil want to vomit and Neil wasn’t so desperate that he would resort to eating something as sweet as ice cream. Not that Andrew would let him if he did. (Andrew wasn’t a sharer).

He started to feel hungry.

He was always hungry.

The first few days he started to skip meals, he didn’t even notice he was doing it. Surely he didn’t notice he was doing it.

It’s just -

Here’s the thing.

Maybe he stress eats. Maybe his mother did too. They spent long car journeys with a family sized bag of potato chips resting by the gear stick and they spent half the time stuffing handfuls into their mouths and the other half checking the mirrors for cars that stayed behind them a touch to long. So maybe he stress ate, but it was never because of hunger: it was because of craving. It was because it gave him something to do with his hands. It was only when things quietened down, when the weeks turned long with the monotonous almost-existence that took up the majority of Neil’s life growing up (here’s something no one tells you about life on the run, in between the moments of sheer terror, it’s very very very boring), it was only then, that Neil actually began to feel things like hunger.

So when the hunger pangs began to curdle in his stomach, well, he didn’t mind. It meant he was safe enough to feel the hunger.

Maybe for the first couple of days he didn’t notice it. But then he noticed it.

He noticed enough to avoid things like rice and bread. Danger foods that packed on the calories and that made him bite the inside of his cheek until it bled at the mere thought. He noticed enough that he began to watch the others train and saw their muscles flex and couldn’t help but track their muscle growth and measure it up against his own. He always found himself lacking.

That’s when it started to get worse. If Allison spent 20 minutes on the treadmill. Then Neil would do 30. If Kevin did 40 push ups. Then Neil would do 50. If Renee had a salad for lunch, then Neil would just have a fruit pot.

The first time Andrew noticed that he skipped a meal, Neil just blinked. Being who he was, Neil didn’t do stupid things like stumble for lies and this time was no different. When Andrew asked about him not eating Neil just blinked like he hadn’t even noticed until Andrew brought it up.

He blinked and said “oh, you’re right. I got so caught up in watching exy reruns i didn’t even notice”

He said, “thanks, I’ll grab something in a sec”

Andrew breathed a scoffing breath down his nose, rolled his eyes and called him a junkie. He didn’t look at all surprised, as though Neil was only confirming what he had already guessed. Which of course is the trick all good liars employ.

Neil wondered if he would be surprised if he were to find out how impossible it would be for Neil to forget a meal time. He could never forget. All he thought about was food. It was all he thought about.

Food began to feel like it was all he cared about. Cared about more than school. Cared about more than exy. Is it terrible of him that that more than anything else feels like the worst thing?

And then, as things do, it got worse.

It turned into Neil stood in front of the mirror (looking at his body but not his eyes, never his eyes) and pinching the flesh between his fingers. Noticing every part of him that didn’t harden into muscle like the others. Noticing all the scars that had stretched strangely over a waist and thighs that are no longer as small.

He begins to peck at his food. Rip it into tiny pieces. Andrew looks down at his plate and glowers at him. Neil gives him a cheeky grin. He knows what he’s thinking. That this is just another one of those Andrew-mannerisms that Neil is taking on for himself. Like the sarcastic salutes and the blank, waiting stares. It’s so much easier to hide how little you’ve eaten when it’s all in pieces.

He didn’t know how to explain it. He just knows he needs to be thinner. He needs to weigh less. It’s not about looks. It’s never been about looks. He just needs to do this. He needs to be smaller. It will be alright then. Because then…then…

Well it will be alright then.

So here’s the thing about guilt and self loathing: they’re useless emotions. Andrew would be quick to agree. (Though Andrew is a hypocrite and is chock full of the both of them). His mother would agree too. How many times had Neil slipped poison into someone’s drink, stole from someone just as desperate, shot someone who maybe or maybe-not deserved it? And how many times after that did his mother pinch and prod at him and repeat the same mantra of “don’t you dare let guilt slow you down, you slow down and you’re dead”

Well, Mum, he’s slowed down. He slowed down so much that he’s stopped altogether and guess what? He fucking hates himself.

He replays it all in his head like a terrible loop. The boy in Switzerland that he tricked into taking his jacket so His fathers men would go after him instead. The old women he and his mother tricked into housing them and then slipped something in her tea until she slept and never woke up again. The homeless man who had broken into the house they were squatting in that Neil had shot on instinct. Seth.

Seth. Seth. Seth.

He fucking hates himself. Honestly the hunger pains kind of feel like the best thing he’s ever felt after that. The pain, the ache, he deserves it.

Then it gets worse. Then comes the worst part.

Andrew’s meds change again. The others had begun to make him irritable and he always had an energy crash by about 5pm and a terrible headache. The new ones wouldn’t be of much note as they did nothing groundbreakingly different, short of getting rid of the headaches and not sapping so much of his energy.

Except for one key side effect of the meds.

They suppressed Andrew’s appetite.

More and more Andrew is missing meals. He won’t even eat more than a tablespoon of ice cream. Neil watches him and adjusts himself to suit. He doesn’t know why, but he just can’t be eating more than him, he can’t.

The frustration he feels about Andrew’s meds soon turn to resentment. He hates that he has to watch Andrew not eat and not seem affected by it at all. Andrew lessens his exercise under Betsy’s advice and yet nothing changes. His weight stays the same. He probably even loses some thanks to the loss of muscle. Neil watches and Neil hates. He hates that if he skipped out on training he would pack on the pounds, he hates that his stomach hurt and hurts and Andrew doesn’t spare a thought on food at all.

He starts to avoid the roof. He starts to dodge Andrew’s gaze the same way he does his own in the mirror.

The next time they’re alone and Andrew leans in, more hesitant than he’s been in months, Neil jerks back and snaps “No.”

It isn’t even completely because of the resentment. The majority of it is because he feels disgusting and fat and he can’t bare Andrew touching him right now. Can’t bare him looking at him.

Andrew’s face closes off and he slides back to the other side of the couch. He’s searching Neil’s face, trying to find the misstep, trying to find what he did wrong.

Good, let him think he did something wrong.

Now that’s the resentment.

It’s immediately one of the worst things Neil has ever thought. He remembers sitting, trembling, on the roof, Andrew refusing to touch him saying “I wont be like them, I wont let you let me be”

And Neil’s trying to make him think, wants to make him feel -

Jesus Christ. He’s a piece of fucking shit.

He slams his way out of the dorm and runs and runs and runs.

He sleeps in the locker room and slumps out in the morning so he’s first in the main room for the meeting with Wymack. He sits on a chair that’s as far away from every other seat as it can get while still completing the make do semi-circle around where Wymack usually stands. When the others begin to filter in they take in his new seat, but don’t comment when they see his storming expression.

When Andrew sees him he pauses for a beat in the doorway before continuing to his usual seat on the couch. He stares at Neil blankly, but his hands are clenching and unclenching in his lap. Wymack hesitates but doesn’t say anything. The others play at being uninterested and only Aaron openly looks between Neil and Andrew with a steadyingly darkening expression.

Neil slams his locker and gets changed in the cubicles for the first time in months. He’s vicious in practice. Throwing in as many dirty moves as he can. Andrew stands in the goal and does nothing. When it’s only Wymack’s sharp whistle that stops Neil bringing his racket down on Matt’s arm when he attempts to steal the ball, Neil is benched.

He yanks off his helmet and slumps down on the bench and tries to remember how to breathe through rage.

He’s sat, pinching at the skin on his thigh, for ten minutes before Allison joins him. She holds out a breakfast bar and Neil stiffens.

“Eat, it might help you stop being such a raging asshole,” she says.

Neil takes the breakfast bar and when she doesn’t immediately leave he opens it and snaps a bit off with his fingers.

He stares down the rolled oats and nuts and grimaces at the sticky feeling of the syrup that holds them together. He feels sick.

“Are you going to eat?” Allison says.

Neil looks at her and huffs a bitter breath through his nose. A wry smile pulls at the corner of his lips.

He remembers that Allison battled bulimia for years.

You can’t lie to a liar.

She looks at his face. Concern trying to become anger that she’s trying to force to stay concern. She looks at his face and then over at Andrew, who is stood in his goal watching them as Kevin shouts at him to fucking do something already. She looks back at Neil.

“You know, relationships are hard enough without mental health problems in the mix. Seth and I were a terrible combination for many reasons and that was one them. I’m not saying it can’t be done or that it shouldn’t be done, I’m just saying it makes it so much harder. He used to try to make me eat. I hated him for that. Hated that I had to hide my own habits in my own room. One day, after he stopped me from going to purge one too many times we got into an argument. I said some disgusting things to him. The next day he was in the hospital because of an overdose. He had to get his stomach pumped. You know what the worst thing is? I don’t even remember what it is I said. I don’t know if what I did triggered him or if it would have happened anyway, but it couldn’t have helped. You’re always going to trigger each other at one point or another, it’s unavoidable. But if you know that and you don’t do anything to help yourself…well that’s when every shit thing you think about yourself starts to become true. So tell me, are you a piece of shit that’s going to drag everyone down with you, or are you better than that?”

Neil looks down at the breakfast bar. He still can’t make himself eat it.

He swallows harshly against the lump in his throat. He has to swallow two more times until he’s sure he can talk without crying.

“What’s betsy’s number?” He asks.

Allison doesn’t smile, but she nods like he’s done the right thing and pulls out her phone.

SIDE NOTE: I’d like to point out that Neil is very flawed and toxic in his thinking and Allison is harsh in what she says to him just because she’s a harsh person. If you have an eating disorder I know sometimes help and recovery seems like the worst thing in world and something you really don’t want, but please, please seek help. You can do it.

[samtheflamingomain]

25.21%

I've been sober for 3 months today. 92 days. 25.21% of 2021.

I could've posted more updates, more milestones (it took a LOT not to post on Day 69) but I wanted to kind of save it up for a Big Day. It was also a decent way to continue to incentivize my continued sobriety: a full pass to do a shameless, hardcore bragging sesh.

Anyway, this post comes in 2 parts: the TL;DR for those who only want the gist, then more in depth on my ability to stay sober, the lasting effects of rehab, etc.

I tried my damnedest to pare this absolute novel down, but it's long, so feel free to dip out if you just get bored. Onward!

TL;DR: I went to rehab the beginning of July for 3 weeks and haven't had a drop of alcohol since. I've lost weight, I'm more healthy, my daily anxiety level went from 8 to 2, I haven't had an anxiety attack in 3 months, and everything generally just seems... easier. My memory and concentration have improved. I've been productive and I've been meditating every day. I'm saving money, and while I sometimes fantasize about getting drunk, that's usually all it is.

Honestly, it's been much easier than I expected, but I think a lot of that is because for the first 3 weeks, the time in which I would usually break down and start drinking again when trying to get sober myself, was spent behind a locked door. So far I haven't had any days where I was close to giving in. I haven't had many days where I've been depressed about it, missing it or really tempted. Maybe 3-4. I've basically just gotten on with my life as if alcohol doesn't exist.

To wrap up the short version for those ready to peace out, I'll leave it with a bit of advice.

I don't feel qualified to give any specific advice, because my story feels very unique to me, and I honestly don't think what worked for me will work for MOST people. Sometimes people spend a year in rehab and still drive straight to the liquor store on their way home.

That said, there's one thing that I've found pretty universally true: you have to really want it. For a while, I floated about without much of a "reason" to stay sober. I don't have a spouse, kids or a job I've been fired from, so I didn't see the point.

It's taken me a while, but after not being "convinced" by a few superficial "reasons" like weight loss and saving money, I thought I needed something more... permanent? Consequential? I now realize that my "reason" for getting sober at a young age after only a few years of alcoholism is that I don't want it to get to a point where I'm hurting other people, drinking myself into multiple lasting health problems... I don't want it to become permanent or consequential.

Anyway, that's my two cents. If you do have something like kids or trouble keeping a job, definitely use that as your reason. But for anyone who's a pretty "functional" alcoholic like I was, "not letting it go on long enough to become disfunctional" is a good enough reason.

This is going to get stupid long, so feel free to walk away now, just glad you read this much and it really does mean the world when people listen to what I have to say.

Now some more things in depth. I'll go in chronological order: what made me get sober, what I took from rehab (and what I left), and how it's been the past few months.

I started drinking when I got kicked out, manic out of my mind and homeless unable to sleep. It took a while until I was able to sleep without alcohol, but by then the addict brain had taken over. I'd tried a few times to get sober myself, but I never made it more than a week without, and always got back to daily drinking after a few months maximum.

Some people need a "wake up call", a "last straw" or a "rock bottom". Something external to make them realize they can't go on as they are. For me, the catalyst was my health, which is more of an internal reason I suppose. I didn't have a heart attack or liver failure, but my anxiety was getting uncontrollable and I knew it was directly tied to my drinking.

My life had been starting to feel tolerable, and I was more financially secure than ever before. Things were looking up... except for the alcoholism. This is a weird analogy but the only one that makes sense to express why, if I was doing so well on paper, I decided to go to rehab: you have to sweep before you mop. If I hadn't been in the place I was, I don't think I would've been successful at rehab. I had to sweep up the cat turds from the floor of my life before I was able to mop up the shit stains with sobriety. I know, I'm a true wordsmith.

When I finally called the hotline that hooked me up with a bunch of different rehabs, I knew I was in for a wait. It was about 5 months from that call to checking in, which isn't too bad considering I've been on the waitlist for a neuropsychiatrist in ALL OF CANADA for 4 years.

That brings us to July 12th, Rehab Day One. I've gone in depth in multiple other posts but to touch on it briefly, if I had to describe my experience in a sentence I'd say "the place I went to got very lucky with me".

What this means is that, of the 5 people in my group, I think this exact program was only ever going to help me. At the same time, I didn't even know what I would need, but this exact program was 90% of it. I didn't think 3 weeks would be long enough, but for me it was. The hours-long, repetitive, basic-ass CBT groups held 5 times a day 7 days a week was absolute torture for everyone but myself. While it was a drag to spend an hour on defining what a cognitive distortion is, the routine and repetition, something I've never gotten out of any outpatient program, helped me to really absorb the information and let it rewire my brain.

I've always said that I'm someone who should be spending an hour a day with a therapist for the rest of my life, and while that's not even remotely feasible, this was as close as it's ever gotten, and it proved me right, because it worked. I've done biweekly therapy for a short time but even that didn't come close to the way my brain changed in those 3 short weeks.

This program required absolute commitment and open-mindedness. This isn't because it was hard work or difficult concepts, but quite the opposite. While I hate the entire concept of art therapy being used as a cure-all for mental illness, I willingly got out of my bed, went downstairs and tried doing a dot mandala for an hour because I'm willing to try anything to get better. A lot of people might think they are, but really aren't. To use the mandala as an example, one guy was really into it, I wasn't, but we both finished. The other 3 tried, messed up a few times, and then scrolled through their phones. When I say this program necessitates complete engagement, that's not a compliment. It shouldn't be a chore to engage with the program. It shouldn't take me actively saying "I know I've known this basic concept since 4th grade, but maybe hearing it again will help" to get something out of a rehab program. So again, in every way, I got lucky, and so did they.

Before I finish with the rehab section, having had a few months to reflect on the whole thing, I now have an endless list of things wrong with it. I arrived, greeted by the most jaded and disillusioned of staff, and quickly became disturbed and at points concerned with just how negligent the staff are.

Maybe it's because I've been on the psych ward where they won't even let you have shoelaces and shine a flashlight on your face every half hour through the night, but it could've been so incredibly easy to sneak in alcohol. I brought 2 full water bottles, fully expecting to have to dump them out upon arrival, but they said "nah it's fine". Is it though?

Then there were actual counsellors there who were... okay. I recall one, the one I thought was the smartest, reading a handout aloud and coming across the word "delve" as in "let's delve into..." and stumbled, then said she doesn't know that word. The room was silent. As she pulled up Google on the screen I said, "it means to dive into it". She Googled it anyway. Synonyms include "dive in". If that was the only example I wouldn't mention it, but this was the first of at least 10 words she had do Google, none past a 10th grade level, from HER OWN MATERIAL. From that point on it became clear that they had no fucking idea what they were doing.

We had one last one-on-one counselling session before we left and the counsellor just filled in boxes to questions on her computer, rephrasing everything I said to fit into the buzzwords and "lessons" we'd "learned". Example. Me: I do think I'm better able to catch myself thinking 'oh I can just have one drink' and say 'no I can't'." Her: "Okay, so would you say that you can recognize negative cognitive distortions like permission-giving thoughts and counter them with a more rational and less emotional mind?" Like girl, blink twice if your boss is holding your family hostage. She gave me some papers, detailing all the online courses they were signing me up for and options for more treatment they'd be sending me, a phone number to call and a phone appointment for the next Monday. I never got that call, the phone number is a hotline, I never got a single email from them, and given how shitty they really are at their jobs, I didn't feel the inclination to try and get those resources. If they even exist in the first place.

In summation, it was a place where it was physically impossible to get alcohol. That's really all I can say in its favor. Oh, and they let you have your cell phone.

Now on our timeline I'm back home. I want to kind of analyze why it's been easy for me.

I often said that my main goal of going to rehab was to lock me away from alcohol long enough for it to reset my brain. Most people thought that was naïve, but that's exactly what happened. But I'm well aware that my experience of "instantly became sober and literally hasn't had a single hard day in 3 months" is absurdly unusual.

I put this down to a few things. Firstly, I'm on seven different meds for my mental health. Almost all of them have their effects dulled or even eliminated when you drink. So when I noticed my mood, fatigue, memory, concentration etc all getting better at once - right about as I left rehab, I don't think it would be a stretch to say that all those meds started working properly.

Secondly, I've been keeping myself busy, but that's something I've always been good at. Now I specifically choose to undertake projects that will eat up a lot my time and put me in a state of flow. I recently made an entire card game from scratch, and let me tell you, I didn't think of alcohol for a week.

Thirdly, my other goals now get in the way of alcohol. I'm getting old and my body is deteriorating. But I've always wanted to do just one last season of gymnastics. Well, I need to lose weight for that to happen. I've already lost 35 pounds, and after another 20 I'll be ready to go. Also, I used to spend more on alcohol per month than rent. Even though I've done a few shopping sprees lately, I haven't come remotely close to how much I was spending before.

I want it more than anything. I want to be sober more than I want one night of "fun" that will more likely than not lead me back to where I was a year ago. I never want to need anything as much as I needed alcohol.

Lastly, just a few more random thoughts.

A lot of people, myself included, worried about the fact that I work at a bar as a cook, but honestly the entire time I'm there I'm thinking about food, not alcohol. If I'm hanging out with some regulars before/after, I can watch them drink and be perfectly fine with my coffee, because the coffee is $2, and I used to spend $20 after every work shift.

I also decided in rehab to start taking better care of myself as best I could. This started with getting my second vax which I'd been putting off, then an eye appointment, then new glasses, then a dentist appointment where I was informed I need to do $3000 worth of work on my implant that's erroding my bone matter, so that sucks, but I caught it early. I've also been meditating every day. In just 3 months, I've made pretty big improvements to my self-care and my daily routine.

One of my fears about sobriety was "missing out" on "having fun". A few days ago, all my housemates got together to play Mario Party, and it was kind of my first night doing something social while sober. It was a breath of fresh air - I wasn't constantly running to piss, I didn't worry about running out of alcohol, I didn't get sloppy and obnoxious as I can sometimes do. I even came very very close to winning my first game of MP. When I reflected on the night, I realized that, if I'd been getting drunk the whole time, I would've sucked at the minigames, been a hindrance to anyone unfortunate enough to be teamed with me, and likely would've stopped caring about the game itself after the first few turns.

Yesterday I was making my 4th pot of coffee of the day when I realized there was a full glass of wine just sitting on the counter. I had absolutely no idea where the hell it came from - nobody in my house drinks wine. I shrugged and poured that sweet sweet bean juice. It was only when I sat down and took a sip of coffee did I find myself thinking automatically, "this tastes so much better than wine". I only realized then that it had been rose wine, the only kind I've ever been able to tolerate. It was the ultimate moment of possible temptation, and the thought of just chugging that glass - as I may've done in the past - didn't even cross my mind.

I'm so glad to be where I am. I'm about to undergo some serious financial changes - i.e. going absolutely broke - but drinking isn't gonna help that, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Stay Greater, Flamingos.

[stonertransdad]

Life Update since I hadn't been on here in forever

The pandemic was/is wild! Lockdowns started literally around the time we were going to the fertility specialist to get her pregnant. I lost my job to COVID in March shortly before we did the procedure, but we decided there's never really a good time to have a kid. Why not during a global pandemic when one of us in unemployed? (BTW, I don't recommend having a kid during a pandemic. Not being able to go to all of the appointments and having to sit in the parking lot was brutal.)

Let's talk about May friends...it was rough. (TW for mention of suicide btw. I'll post a gif where it's safe to start again if you wanna skip over it.)

So May 1st is the anniversary of my father's suicide. It had been 4 years. I found his body and since he wasn't married, I had to handle his affairs and arrange his funeral. May 1st, 2020 my wife and I had a Zoom game night with our friends and I got drunk because everyone was drinking (except my wife because she was pregnant). After our game night at like 2am, I had a psychotic break. I threatened to kill myself numerous times. My wife tried to talk me down, but eventually called the cops to take me. I thank her for that because looking back, that was the moment I knew something needed to change. I was convinced the cops were gonna kill me because I'm a trans dude in rural West Texas. I legit took the phone out of my wife's hand, hung up on 911, and yeeted her phone across the backyard and tried to hop the fence. Eventually the cops came and talked me down. They took me to the hospital an hour away in handcuffs (for their protection I did nothing wrong). They took me to the religious hospital that I was born in. So when they looked up my info by my name and date of birth from my driver's license (I only changed my middle name) literally all my paperwork and my bracelet had my deadname and wrong gender despite all of my legal stuff saying male with my new middle name. I mentioned it to them and they didn't care. They misgendered me the entire time I was there. I had hit my head hella hard on the bath tub when my wife was trying to snap me out of it, did the hospital even check me for concussion? Nope. I had punched so many things and my hand and wrist were swollen and discolored. Did they check out my hand and wrist? Nope. I was there for over 10 hours before I was able to convince them I was okay and that it was just the alcohol. Did I mention during that 10 hours I was literally out in the hall on a gurney with no mask and this was when COVID was running rampant in Texas (the first time)? I heard people die that night. I had nothing to distract me because they took away all of my personal items and clothes. My wife picked me up and we went home and I have been sober ever since. It's not the first psychotic break I've had with alcohol in my system. Alcohol just doesn't agree with me, but I'm finding new things to replace it with.

TW has been lifted...it's safe now.

A couple of weeks after that I began teletherapy because I had been on the same mood stabilizer and anti-depressant for almost a decade. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that I felt like it hadn't been working for at least a year. This is a reminder to check in with your doctor if you feel like your meds aren't working. You may just need a different dose or a new med. There's no shame in that. I bounced around on various medications trying to find the right combo, some side effects scarier than others, but we got there. Before this, I had been diagnosed with ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. My therapist threw out my Borderline diagnosis and said it was CPTSD instead, which made sense.

Fast forward to December because my wife was pregnant, I was unemployed still, and we did absolutely fuck-all because the global panini was still raging.

Our son was born on December 3, 2020. He weighed 5lbs 9oz and scared the ever loving shit out of us. He wasn't breathing when he was born so they called NICU in ASAP. I'm freaking out because I can hear and see what's going on while my wife was asking if he was okay as they put her guts back in place to sew her up. 5 or so minutes pass and a nurse asks if I want her to take some pictures. I'm like is he okay, he still hasn't cried. She's like "oh yeah, he's chillin." This goon was being held by a nurse and was just looking around not crying or anything. Chillest baby ever (he still is btw). I held him next to my wife's head until it was time to go back to the room. Little dude did have to spend 4 nights in the NICU because he couldn't keep his sugars or temperature regulated, but he was healthy otherwise. He's now 4 months old and is starting to sit up on his own a little bit and he's OBSESSED with standing. He's still a little guy, but very healthy and growing like a weed. He saves my life daily.

So after being unemployed for over 9 months, I started a new job working in a call center. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. It gives me anxiety and throws me into panic attacks, but I had been putting out hundreds of job applications since I lost my last job and this was the first offer I got. I wasn't really in a position to turn it down since my unemployment had ran out 2 months prior. It was 2 months of training, then we'd be on our own. I got thru the training and thought I could handle it...until they started putting us on live calls with someone helping us if we got stuck. My mental health hit the lowest point it had in a few years and my wife was terrified she was going to lose me. She convinced me to quit on February 28th (not because I didn't want to, but because I'm a stubborn ass who felt guilty). My meds got tweaked a little bit more dosage wise during this mess.

Starting about mid-February, I was experiencing severe shakiness, tremors, and spasms. I've always been a shaky person and never really thought too much about it, but at some points I could barely feed myself, or get a drink, or hold my son. On March 7th, I tried to make an appointment with my doctor about the weird symptoms I was experiencing, but she was out of town and her next opening wasn't until the 31st. My body said that won't work and my wife rushed me to the ER on the 9th...I had begun having seizures that day. I had no previous history of seizures. Got to the ER and had a seizure literally as I was walking thru the door, so they rushed me straight back. They took some blood and that was literally it. No MRI. No CT. They pumped me full of Ativan and said it was just a panic attack and to go home and chill.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't just anxiety. I was having 20+ seizures a day. On the 10th, my wife rushed me to a different hospital...the good hospital over an hour away. First we had to drop off our gremlin with my mom to make things a little easier. Yet again, I had a seizure as I walked in the door and was taken back immediately. I don't really remember much because they kept pumping me full of Ativan and morphine because I had been in excruciating pain from the number of seizures I'd had. I do remember them doing a CT pretty quickly after I got there. Then they weren't happy with the results of the CT, so they took me to get an MRI, which showed possible signs of Multiple Sclerosis (but I didn't find that out until AFTER the notes showed up in my patient portal after being home a few days, so I raised hell...more on that later.) They did a 24 hour EEG on me and it showed nothing abnormal. Also, EEG glue is a bitch on your hair and scalp. After looking at everything and given my previous mental health history, they diagnosed me with Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, or PNES. It is a subset of Functional Neurologic Disorder, or FND. I couldn't walk well anymore and had to use a walker when I was discharged. I was in the hospital for 3 days.

When I had my follow-up appointment on the 23rd, I asked why the possibility of MS was never mentioned to me since it was very clearly in the notes. The doctor didn't have an explanation. He called in a referral to neurology so I could get a 2nd MRI to confirm MS and marked it as high priority. He also didn't take my pain seriously. My pain levels had been at a 5 or higher every single minute since they took me off of the morphine in the hospital. He told me to keep taking prescription strength doses of ibuprofen and Tylenol, which I had been. I let him know I had been and it didn't even take the edge off the pain. He ignored me. Leading up to this appointment, I had also added urinary incontinence to my growing list of symptoms and was forced to wear diapers so I didn't have to do laundry all the time. The doctor also took me off my ADHD meds because they were lowering my seizure threshold. He also took me off of my sleeping meds and nightmare meds for the same reason I'm assuming.

I kept my appointment on the 31st with my primary doctor because she's been my doctor for 5 years now and I knew she'd take my pain seriously. She did. She immediately wrote me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and Tylenol 4. She also told me that my referral had been rejected by neuro. She said my case wasn't a good one for what she called a "wallet biopsy" and the doctors in neurology could be real assholes. She immediately sent the referral to other locations to get an approval. I am still waiting on that despite it being marked as high priority. She wrote me a prescription for a wheelchair because we both agreed my wheelchair was not enough for particular days.

Yesterday my wheelchair was finally ready for pickup, so my wife drove me to go get it. I'm still unable to drive due to my seizures and my tremors and twitches as it's predominantly in my legs and arms. I am an ambulatory wheelchair user now. Some days I can go short distances without my walker, some days I can't go without my walker, some days I can't even get out of bed, and some days I will be using my wheelchair. Don't judge a book by its cover, not all disabilities are visible. I have managed to keep my daily seizure count down in single digits and have even had a few seizure free days. They are still incredibly taxing on my body. I feel like I can't ever replenish my spoons fast enough to keep up with anything in my life.

So all in all, life has been chaotic. We are moving from Texas to New Mexico in the next few weeks, which should be interesting considering I can't overdo it without throwing myself into seizures. We will be closer to my mother-in-law so she can help us with our son and I can start resting a bit more on the more difficult days. Being a stay-at-home dad with an invisible illness has been one of the most challenging things I've done in my life, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Sorry this is so long. I just wanted to update my followers since it's been over a year since I posted before a few days ago.

[coinofstone]

5x12 The Diamond of the Day pt 1

Final two episodes! Big finale! Why am I making myself cry in the middle of the afternoon! Both eps in this post.

I do love that they made Arthur a sore loser

Enter treacherous white woman #2. Srsly it was lazy writing when they did it for Mordred, it's worse now with Gwaine.

I do love the actual Round Table war room discussion but a) why isn't Merlin seated at the round table and b) why does Leon have so much goddamn faith in Camelot's walls? Like??? You literally said the same thing last year and yet Camelot *did* fall when Agravaine brought an army through the tunnels!

Poor Aithusa. Kid's had a rough life.

I do love Arthur responding to Merlin presenting him with all his supplies ready - which he prepared without his magic mind you - with suspicion 😂

But then he calls Merlin a coward and it's sad

Katie has such a great voice. That entire thing in the cave from her taunting to her laughter to the spell, it just just beautifully played.

Whole ass battle to prepare for and Arthur is just walking around moping cuz Merlin isn't there

So, Merlin's father-vision telling him he's magic itself and he just needs to believe in himself to get his magic going again, does this mean he *didn't* need to go to the cave to get it back? Cuz it seems like he needed to recharge in the cave itself, his injuries were healed when he woke up. That seems like magic cave stuff to me.

Also that "always have been and always will be" - I'm taking to mean 'always have been' in the sense that since he's 'magic itself' even before he was born, his magic existed in other, intangible forms, like we are all stardust etc. But now that he is, he will always be, aka he will not die.

Arthur waking up with his wife in his arms and Merlin's name on his lips, jumping out of bed to act on dream-info.

Balinor telling Merlin to trust in what will be.... like bitch that is literally not how this ends.

5x13 The Diamond of the day pt 2

You know that gif of the cat knocking everything off the table? That's literally Merlin shooting lightning at everyone from his perch on the ridge.

I have a lot of snarky things to say about Merlin coming out of the cave in full Dragoon gear and riding a horse instead of teleporting like the other witches but I'ma keep that to myself.

Mordred is a bitch and Aithusa has terrible aim. At least Aithusa's loyalty to Morgana makes sense.

Arthur said oh shit I'm magic - oh wait no it's that old man again

He also straight up "No! Bad dragon!"-ed Aithusa

Y'know, for all I've watched this episode and screamed about Arthur's death, I don't think I've ever focused on the exact moment he gets stabbed before.

Mordred catches him from behind and he meets it, no fault there. But as soon as he realizes his assailant is the knight who turned on him and joined Morgana, what does he do? HE LOWERS HIS FUCKING SWORD

He leaves himself wide fucking open and vulnerable and Mordred seizes the opportunity. I understand wanting the moment of recognition for Arthur, but on what planet is a trained warrior going to drop his sword mid-attack because he recognizes his attacker as a dude who only just recently decided to forsake him? It's soooooo dumb

There was a whole sequence a few episodes back where Mordred and Arthur are sparring, the point of it was to show that Mordred has become a skilled swordsman. So what exactly was the point in having Mordred run Arthur through as soon as Arthur idiotically lets his guard down? This should've been a meticulously choreographed sword fight, with Mordred getting the upper hand and sticking Arthur properly. Not this nonsense. Look at Arthur's FACE! Oh, Mordred... 👉👈 do you maybe wanna be friends again- STAB ... guess not

Uther's been rolling in his grave but he's taking an extra tumble watching Arthur forget all his skills and training in that moment.

I do appreciate Arthur getting Mordred back though. Like that moment of merciless anger followed by the hurt and regret playing on Arthur's face, warring with surety and responsibility. It was good.

I've rewatched the big confession scene about 16 times just now.

I don't quite understand why Merlin took Arthur to the woods to begin with. Instead of bringing him to the med tent in the battlefield or back to Camelot. What was the reason?

Merlin saying it feels strange (to use magic freely in front of Arthur) and him just going 'yeah' completely deadpan makes me laugh every time.

I really feel like Arthur's head should be elevated at a further incline if he's going to be fed.

Gaius refusing to outright expose Merlin as the sorcerer but nonetheless letting Gwen figure it out on her own warms my heart.

My God Arthur is sitting there dying, feeling betrayed about his best friend 'lying' to him, and still he can't stop himself from looking at Merlin's mouth.

Percival summoned MUSCLE POWER

Hey um random but why does Gwaine even know where Merlin and Arthur are headed? Why would Gaius tell him?

Arthur looks at Merlin so lovingly after he's killed Morgana 😭😭

And now he's literally grabbing at the man's hand 😭 "just hold me, please"

That's gotta be the gayest death scene in television history. If you can watch that without thinking Arthur puts his hand on the back of Merlin's head because some part of him wants to bring him down for a kiss, or that "just hold me, please" is in any way shape or form a 'bros' thing, and certainly not at all an intentional mirror/callback to Isolde dying in Tristan's arms, then I'm afraid you are what we professionals refer to as a dumb-as-nails fucknugget, more commonly phrased as 'willfully ignorant'.

"All that you have dreamt of building has come to pass" yeah except for the whole, y'know, magic still being illegal thing.

I've said this before, but, while I'm sure there was a determined intention to have Arthur die in his armor, probably in some kind of attempt to make sure the audience knows he's died a warrior's death, I *really* think it was kinda stupid that Merlin never removed it, despite Arthur being weak, despite the fact that there was something like five days between him getting stabbed and him actually dying, despite that for the duration of that time they were traveling or hiding out. Merlin managed to produce a cloak to put on Arthur, why did he need the full armor on that whole time? Like even if they left the chainmail on, those plates on his shoulder were just getting in the way, and it looked quite uncomfortable.

Also not for nothing but Lancelot got like, every flower in the forest surrounding lush verdant greens in his death boat, Arthur gets a bunch of sticks.

It suddenly occurs to me, watching this now, that the reason Leon/Percival is such a common side pairing in Merthur fics, is because these two motherfuckers are the only original Knights of the Round Table to survive the series. 🤦‍♀️ I dunno how I failed to notice that before now. My stupidity amazes me.

I'm *really* glad they decided to do this scene with Gwen wearing the Pendragon red dress instead of the black mourning dress. Yes she looks fabulous in it but it's more the symbolism than the 'reality' - with Gwen wearing her house's colors it represents a continuation rather than a finality. Camelot will go on, Gwen will undoubtedly end the war on magic and with Morgana dead (and frankly, I think by now she already brought about the death of all the angry incel type rulers in Albion) there stands to reason her reign will begin with a period of peace, possibly longer than Arthur's. We kind of have to assume that the 'time the poets speak of' is, inevitably, Gwen's reign - which only came about through Arthur's death. It's a little bit toooo subtle in my opinion, but at the same time, I understand the need for the focus on Merlin and Arthur - after all, this show was their journey - not leaving much time to focus on Gwen and Camelot in the aftermath of Arthur's death.

I will just say, the first time I watched this that fucking truck scared the ever living shit out of me. I also just immediately, viscerally hated that scene and declared it invalid - but I think it was because the truck made me jump out of my skin. It has since grown on me, particularly once I started reading 'Arthur Returns' fic.

Everything beyond this point is post-series spec and headcanon, so if that's not your jam you can exit safe in the knowledge that as usual, if there's anything worth commenting on in the S5 extras, I will create a separate post!

For those interested, my go-to post-series fic is We Begin Again by katherynefromphilly I fully headcanon this series as the continuation of the series.

I have a lot of thoughts about Gwen and Merlin post-Camlann.

For one, poor fucking Gwen. She's lost her father, her brother, and her husband, all by what, age 30? That's rough. And who knows what happened to her mom, that was pre-series and I don't think it was ever mentioned.

Merlin, dear god poor Merlin. First of all, I just wanna say straight off that my instinctive headcanon about Merlin was that he never returned to Camelot. I couldn't really say why exactly. I just don't think he could stand being there after Arthur's death. But practically speaking, Merlin's still got Aithusa to deal with, that dragon needs some godsdamned house training asap. He's still the last Dragonlord, it's reasonable to assume he'd immediately take that on considering Aithusa is partially responsible for Arthur's death (the sword Mordred killed Arthur with, only succeeded in killing Arthur because it had been forged in Aithusa's fire-breath) so he's either going to attempt to train the bad behaviors out of Aithusa, or...well...

The only thing is, I do not believe Merlin would abandon Gwen, or Gaius. So my hc is inherently flawed. I do think Merlin probably spend a couple months with his mum, and I do think he ultimately settled near lake Avalon waiting for Arthur's return.

But I do wonder, what must their relationship have been like? Gwen, surely, would've sought his guidance in establishing laws governing the use of magic. And surely, peace cannot last indefinitely, so Merlin absolutely would've defended Camelot and protected Gwen. There's just no way he could've completely turned his back on them, but I doubt he could bear living in Camelot. And Gwen is both strong and practical enough to get on without him there 24/7, even though I'm sure she'd miss him.

I also think she would've found love again. Whether with Leon, as many people hc, or someone else not in the series.

ANYWAY.

Thanks to everyone who came on this journey with me. I will post comments on the extras if I have anything worth saying - and I think I'll do a master post linking all these episode posts after I clean them up once I get time to sit at a computer and do so. Until then! 💙💚

(Gif source) (h/t @shut-up-merlin)

[getmemymicroscope]

Dreams are Weird, Yo

I'm not the type of person to have very vivid, very memorable dreams very often - when I do have dreams, I usually don't remember them; the few that I do remember are usually sorta out there (though, I guess that might be true for a lot of people?). But like, realistically, I only remember like one-to-two dreams/year, and by remember, I mean that like literally 2 seconds after waking up, it's all gone. Entirely. Like, I couldn't tell you who, what, when, where, why, how, anything. Anything at all.

Those dreams usually - the ones I do remember, I mean - feature a smorgasbord of people I know (plus, I guess, in the background, weird semi-real caricatures of people I don't?) - not necessarily people currently in my life, but people I've been thinking about or interacting with lately. There was quite a few back in undergrad, and right after that, where I had dreams involving my co-workers at the university bookstore; again, in medical school, with the same people and with med school friends. People who definitely had no reason to know each other but, in the dream, would get along super well.

Lately, it's been much less frequent - like, probably years: partially, I assume, because between my two fellowships and the pandemic, I haven't exactly interacted with people as much as I used to. I mean, clearly there's more to it - I've been interacting with people, to some extent, for years, and yet these dreams are once in a blue moon. Not sure what that other piece is that causes my brain to spazz out, but apparently that's been missing from my life too.

But then, a couple weeks back, it happened again. A crazy dream in which I saw people from the bookstore (whom I mostly haven't spoken to in years!), and a few friends from med school (who I speak to, and try to see, relatively frequently), and some people from like high school (who I definitely have not spoken to since like high school ended). And, the weirdest bit of it all...

So, I was playing basketball. No, no, that's a lie. I was shooting hoops. Not the same thing, I promise. Anyhow, I was shooting hoops (something that, at the time, I'd only done once in the past year - it's now up to twice in the past year-or-so, but that's probably maybe irrelevant to this) when who should appear and start shooting hoops except for ... Jennette McCurdy?!

Now, in case it isn't obvious - I do not know her. Like, at all. I've never seen anything she's in (I just double checked IMDb, which confirms this fact) and while, yes, she's been in the news because of her book, I hadn't at the time read it (I still haven't read it, though again, I don't think that's relevant to this). I have no idea if she plays basketball, or why in the hell she'd be playing wherever I was playing (it did not look like a fancy place; it was, in fact, vaguely similar to the basketball "court" I shot hoops at like 6 months back) - and if it was, in fact, that hotel/motel court in no-where, New Jersey, I have no idea why in the hell she'd even be there. She could definitely find a better place to stay. But hey - dreams are crazy, right?

It's more weird because, usually, celebrities don't factor into my dreams (the one's I remember, I mean) outside of maybe me watching a movie or show. So this was just another oddity (though, the cast of characters in the entire dream was weird enough to make it memorable just because it was constantly like "why are you here?" and I woke up very confused because there was a lot of people I hadn't even thought about in ages). And why, of all celebrities, it would be her, I have no idea.

But it's not just shooting hoops with her. After a bit, I'm like "hey, do you have a minute to sign a copy of your book" and she (mind you, I have no idea what she sounds like either, but apparently my brain came up with something?) agrees, so I go get the book (no, I did not own the book in reality) and she actually signs it. Eventually somehow we end up at like a Subway or something and I get the guts to ask her about how I, as someone with a bunch of half-completely story ideas but with a general unfortunate lack of motivation, time, energy, and 'complete the story you've started' skills might be able to get in on the publishing of stories ... and that's, of course, when I woke up, because even my brain can't make up that part of a conversation when I have no idea about it.

But it can, apparently, make Jennette McCurdy show up to shoot hoops at some not-great hotel in the middle of nowhere New Jersey, can get me the copy of a book that had just released, and can make her one hell of a basketball player (which she might be, but there is no reason in hell my brain would know that; I sure as hell don't know that).

...

The rest of the dream was a completely different scenario involving a bunch of people who I know but who don't really know each other (and me, of course - I was also there) in some sort of weird escape room, mystery sort of thing. It was interesting, but not as memorable because it wasn't a very good mystery. Also, because it stands out less than shooting hoops with someone I don't know.

...

Dreams are insane.

On the other hand - I do have the book now. So at least that part of the dream came true (not signed though, unfortunately).