#I went through a shitty depression episode

[rii-bows]

Going through my old posts to catch up on what I posted last like I’m rewatching an old show to remember what happened before watching a new episode

[littlebirdy0301]

note to self: there are many ways to remind yourself of what u love. so maybe try out a couple different ways before u decide u just feel like a garbage fire that can’t be put out. if u can. ok I love u bye <3

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for breaking up with my kind-of girlfriend to have a chance with my childhood sweetheart?

So I (25 bisexual M) was with my childhood sweetheart, X, (25 gay M) for about ten years, so 14-24 years old. X was a massive part of my life and we always used to say that we’d be together forever and everything, and that we’d get married someday.

Around a year ago X got offered the job of his dreams, like this would be the pinnacle of his career, and long story short he was adamant that long distance wouldn’t work for us and so we broke up and X left.

I went through a depressive episode and had some issues with alcohol but ultimately I recovered and that was mainly thanks to a girl that I’ve known since childhood as well, I’ll call her A (24F). There was an instance when X and I decided to explore our sexualities while still dating at around 16 and I slept with A as an experiment (I’m aware this was a shitty thing to do but I was 16 and wasn’t thinking). She’s also wedding-obsessed and wants to get married asap so she can have kids. So A and I dated casually for a bit after my recovery and throughout I made it clear to her that X was still my priority and that if he came back I would leave her for him. She wasn’t happy about this but dated me anyway.

After about six months I decided I wanted to commit to A and I proposed to her, promising that even if X returned I would never cheat on her because she’d be my wife. She said no because she’d still be “emotionally second place” and told me that another friend of hers had offered to marry her, and that they’d been flirting for a bit. She confessed that she’d initially done it to make me jealous (because I HATE this guy, we have history of fights and homophobia towards me and X and just a lot of drama) but she’d slowly fallen for him. A left me for him and they got married.

I dated a bit, etc etc, then one night I got a message from X that fucked me up, not even really saying anything but it just reminded me. I drank, even though I’d been clean for months, and I called A and one thing led to another and we had sex. (A is still married by the way, her husband had no clue.)

She realises she’s pregnant just over a month later and we have a discussion and she tells me she’s always wanted me and she’s deciding to leave her husband for me. It’s all lovey dovey and seems a bit naive and not very well thought out but hey I might get a wife out of it.

Couple of weeks later when A has just started to discuss divorce with her lawyer (but not mentioned it to her husband), X comes back, and I tell A that our plans are off. Even if I can’t be with X again, I realised that I feel like triple what I feel for A when I look at X. It’s just not fair to her. She has a husband and a stable family to raise the kid, and I’ll help as much as she’ll let me, but I can’t be with her. We had a screaming argument and she called me an asshole, so… what do you think??

What are these acronyms?

[dumplingsjinson]

Long post ahead, read if you want.

tw: mental health, mention of depression

So I've been very inactive these days, and it's because I am Dealing With My Issues irl, which is sucky and shitty and I'd really rather be living on Tumblr and writing prompts all day but sometimes... Life just doesn't allow that luxury. Especially when you're feeling stuck and your mental health is getting in the way of you functioning properly without feeling stuck in the same vicious cycles of your own brain's doing.

In all honesty, I haven't been feeling the best for the past few months, and I feel like my mental state has been on a decline, and I feel like it's gotten worse now that I'm in a relationship.

This is not to blame my partner or anything but to say that getting into a relationship involves your issues, that have always been there, surfacing properly. And when I mean surfacing properly, I mean you become so much more acutely aware of shit you've been able to suppress for a long time and never bothered addressing. You become aware of yourself as a person, you start to realise all of your flaws in such a vicious and cutting manner, and that shit hurts like a bitch.

You finally get to see a reflection of you, plus the issues you've been carrying on your shoulders for way too long.

I've been crying so much these days, I've been overthinking a lot, and feeling like complete and utter shit. I've been getting into more frequent fights with my mum, I feel like a failure in basically all aspects of my life, and like I'm not good enough, and like my insecurities are eating my alive, which isn't helping my mental state at all. My mood has just been on the low most days. I need constant distractions, otherwise I will have to sit with my own thoughts, and that scares the living shit out of me.

Because what do you mean I have to sit there and process my feelings? Eugh, brother, eugh! Fuck no!

But on a more serious note, all of this shit has finally got me up on my feet, so I'd do something about them and get the help I've needed for quite a long while now. My partner encouraged me to finally make this step, even though I have thought of seeking help for quite a while now but just never did so. It's mostly for reasons and the fact that I was scared 'cause I didn't know what it would be like to actually reach out and spill my guts out to some stranger.

I saw a counsellor at my university for the first time this week and it went better than expected. For one, I didn't cry during the appointment! He's a very nice dude, and it felt nice talking to someone who could put my thoughts in order and give me actual solutions. Venting to friends is nice, but it gets to a point where even that doesn't help, or you feel like you're bitching too much.

I did get told I could be heading into a depressive episode (fucking fun, I know) and my depression/stress score was pretty high, although my anxiety score isn't too high (which is surprise considering my overthinking), so we're trying to work through that.

Next appointment is in around two weeks' time, and until then, I live in my head once more and have to deal with my emotions without going into breakdowns every two business days.

I don't know when I'll be properly active on here. I've kind of just abandoned everything (this blog, my Discord server, my social medias) in the midst of it all, but I'll try to come back and post more often.

But yeah. That's where I'm at.

[kafus]

watching haibane renmei has me thinking about a very specific childhood memory.

when i was around 12, i was visiting my cousin around the same age as me who was part of a very, very religious and conservative part of my family, and i noticed a thought web she had written and put up on her wall of various sins she wasn't supposed to commit. apparently, one of those sins was suicide.

this hurt me very severely at the time. age 12 is when i was most suicidal in my life, the most detailed my ideation has ever been, and it is also the age that i got involuntarily admitted to a psych ward because my suicide plans were discovered. i am not and was not religious, but i asked her about it, like, "if i died you think i'd go to hell?" and without skipping a beat, she went, "yeah, it's a sin so if you kill yourself you go to hell." i didn't argue with her for long but i couldn't stop thinking that one of my relatives who i loved thought i deserved to suffer for eternity if i killed myself, and it did not make me want to kill myself less, but it did make everything hurt more.

it is difficult to interpret reki any other way than as a victim of suicide, and personally i also interpret rakka as a suicide victim, the difference between them being that reki was truly alone in her pre-haibane life, and rakka was not. and for me, it was comforting in a way to see that suicide did not end up in eternal suffering like the stereotypical idea of Hell for these girls that my cousin suggested over a decade ago, but i also really, really appreciated the nuance of having it not be... easy. it's not like these girls were rewarded with a paradise for dying, they still had to come to terms with their inner demons... just while not alive anymore. it is not a repeat of shitty suicide romanticization posts i saw as a young person that suicidal people are just angels that want to go home - it's a difficult and emotionally tough take on the subject, but one that is very grounded to me. and, in the end, genuinely hopeful and healing.

learning that you aren't alone, or learning that you have to trust in others to not be alone anymore, are two essential lessons that any suicidal or depressed person has to learn in real life while alive, speaking from personal experience as well. haibane renmei did not emotionally destroy me because any of these lessons were new for me, frankly i've spent the past four years learning joy in community and love and how to not be alone anymore. i'm not perfect at it, but i'm way better than i used to be. and i've also thoroughly confronted the idea of what happens when i die, what would have happened if i did go through with suicide when i was 12, and a whole lot of trauma processing that i continue to work on now. so the themes and messages haibane renmei presents didn't feel like they opened some new door for me, but it was weirdly familiar. it felt like a warm hug in some ways, and it was cathartic to cry so much over a genuine work of art that represents so many of my own emotions. the spiritual imagery was also utilized in a way that i found personally refreshing and provoking.

i'm rambling this directly after binging the whole anime in one sitting the same night i wrote it so apologies if this is a bit nonsensical or anything. i literally still have a headache from crying over the final episode so much. but i had to talk some about it because it was really good and really moved me

[stendysolos]

silly rant about wendy and stan :3

but like the rants are seperate

so to whoever wants to read this shit i think wendy doesnt work with anyone else besides stan. if you say "kyle can treat her better!" first of all stfu u kyndy shippers are annoying asf and second of all no he would not. he would clearly get jealous of other guys and he would be really controlling (not in earlier seasons) and lets just be fr for a sec... wendy would either fall out of love or get back with stan again because yknow they always go back to eachother. and plus an arguement between wendy and kyle would be ugly especially if theyre together, they both can get mad asf and the arguement would last ATLEAST a few days. and atleast stan can handle her disagreeing and yelling at him. now lets see who else shes paired with. i wanna talk abt wendy and token. first of all i dont believe wendy ever loved token because we never see theyre relationship outside of raisins. what i believe is that wendy only dated token to try and get stans attention because he did neglect the relationship and maybe she was attention-hungry. and now the final one i wanna talk to about is cartman. i hate wendy x cartman (more than i hate kyndy) because we know it would never work. she even said that she lost all feelings towards cartman after chef goes nanners. and even if you argue and say that they had good chemestry in that episode let me remind you that she ran back to stan at the end of the episode. she clearly hates cartman and clearly would rather killherself than date cartman. i dont think cartman deserves to be with anyone (except maybe yentl) because he's pretty much unlovable.

now onto stan, i dont think he works with anyone but wendy. lets take a look at style. first of all kyle has left stan several times before. he left him for token and he also never helped him with his depression in your getting old. but guess who was there to cheer him up? wendy was. wendy was one of the only people that didnt get sick of him in that episode and it really shows how much she cares for stan. and in you have 0 friends even though wendy was kinda being... weird, stan did listen to her and tried to edit his settings on his facebook.

also i wanna bring up... best friends doesnt = dating.

also i wanna talk abt stendy as a relationship. i think that they might be able to work as friends but as partners is when theyre dynamic works best. girlboss and loser bf. in all honesty stan and wendy might have the best dynamic/healthiest relationship out of everyone. theyve been shown to care about eachother lots of times and in the older seasons was when they really had their cutest moments. modern stendy isnt bad either, wendy is able to forgive stan at the end of the chat gpt episode because she loves him. and stan really cares for wendy too. he went with wendy to see shitty movies just to spend time with her and he also wrote a song for her. stendy is my absolute favorite ship and i hate when ppl make them cheat on eachother. stan would never and wendy wouldnt either. and one thing i noticed is that stan is loyal to wendy, sure he may have had a few crushes on other girls but, he never actually tried to make a move on any of them (except ms ellen) but through out all their break ups, stan never dating anyone besides wendy, which shows he really does love her enough to the point where he would hit on anyone while she was gone

also this section is just random but i wanted to put it here:

would stan work with other girls?

theres 3 main people i wanted to pair stan with. heidi, bebe, and red. first i want to talk abt is red and stan. i feel like they would be more friends than lovers. we dont really see much of reds personality but we do know that she acts like the other girls. stan doesnt really interact with girls that much so we dont really see a certain dynamic between them. another girl i want to talk abt is bebe. bebe is an interstening character, she can be nice, outgoing and funny but she can switch up to be sassy and rude. stan and bebe are like the listeners/jocks of their groups. they both have their hobbys that go on the field (stan plays football and bebe is a cheerleader). i feel like stan and bebe would be besties shit talking everybody. and lastly i want to move onto heidi. i feel like they could work as an alternate incase stan and wendy have a permenant break up (lets be honest thats never happening). i feel like heidi likes/ is fond of stan. she went up to him for advice abt cartman and he's probably the one that knows cartman the least. and in the bracelets episode he asked her for glue which i find funny. and i feel like their love of animals would help them bond.

ok i think im done with this rant

so basically:

wendy and kyle dont get along prob, stendy is a healthy relationship, cartman and wendy hate eachother, stan and red are mutuals, stan and bebe are prob besties, and stan and heidi could work but like... stendy solos.

ok bye yall

[lostintheclouds-stuff]

Just a stupid vent ab my stupid mental health <3

I am ruining my life to put it plainly...

I have a loving partner, pets, a few friends and I do have my family (although they aren't always the best) they do care, but as awful as it sounds, I don't care. I love all of them but my head just doesn't work the way it's supposed to. Like I love and care deeply for all of them and genuinely I would walk to the ends of the earth just to make them happy, but the fact they care about me doesn't stick long enough for me to care if I'm destroying myself or not.

Earlier this year I had 2 sewerslide attempts, 1 put me in h0spital and the other was minor because it got caught whilst I was doing it and I started getting better after that, I went to therapy and spoke things out, I was getting back into a routine, I was 3ating and looking after myself, still getting episodes but I was medicated so it was okay, then idk when it happened but everything started falling apart, I started r3stricting and thinking about wanting to d1e far more often and now I'm at a point where every single day I'm considering if i should go through with it again, I'm thinking about wanting to s/h constantly and trying to think of the best ways to do it without being caught, I'm not taking my antidepressants im hardly looking after myself

All while I tell everyone I'm doing much better now. My episodes are starting to get worse and worse again too, looking at old photos and videos of myself not even recognising who it is because I just don't even know what I look like, I'm so detached from myself I don't have a clue who I am or what I look like or what I'm even supposed to be doing with myself.

I know there's lots of reasons to live bla bla, but it's just hopeless honestly. I have no goals (ik being sk1nny is a goal but lets be real b1nging and restr1cting doesn't last eventually I will be caught and stopped or get sick enough to be hospitalised) no aspirations, no plans, I'm just sick and the rest of my life is just going to be a constant cycle of get better, relapse, get better, relapse. So what's the point... I genuinely feel like they would all be much better off without me here.

When I say I aggressively hate myself, I mean it with all the might I've got. I fucking despise myself, every single part of me. I had planned to end everything when I hit 16 but I'm 24 now and idk what to do with myself, I didn't plan anything because I wasn't meant to be here... I'm just exhausted, I'm tired.

I'm sorry if you read this whole thing ik it's shitty and depressing. stay safe loves <3

[nicistrying]

Sun 8th Sep

Nothing really to report, I just want to put my thoughts and feelings into the void to look back on later.

Woke up this morning feeling better than yesterday. Lay cuddling Maggie, went downstairs and watched the last episode of Bly Manor with a cup of tea. Did some housework. Got a little moody while doing it bc I remembered shitty comments my sister in law makes about the house a lot when we see her. I just think she's so fucking rude, we have a black long haired dog how are we going to have a spotless house. I clean it every fucking weekend but it literally lasts 10 minutes and everything is dirty again either from the man or the dog I live with. Anyway put my earphones in to drown out those thoughts, had a sing and dance while hoovering. Got dressed to go out to visit a load of family and got sad and overwhelmed. My mam told my nanna I would go visit her today too so we had 4 visits to do instead of 3 which would already have been tiring. So we visited step-grandma who is a pain in the arse like EVERYTHING is a drama with her she's so negative and it's exhausting (ik I can't talk atm I'm no better). Then Nanna Mary which did cheer me up a lot to be fair. She told us about her trip out to the museum with the blind society she goes out with 🥹 she's my hero. She's not blind or even partially blind, she just goes along for fun with her friend who is partially sighted. Then we went to Matt's parents' and that went pretty much how we expected it to. They were okay, it was just hard work. Then we went to see my mams and had a nice little catch up with them.

When we finally got home I was so exhausted I just crawled into bed. Had a cuddle with Maggie and got a bit sad, because I was lying in bed at 6pm duh. In hindsight I could have stretched or even just watched tv and I probably would have felt better but I just felt exposed downstairs and wanted to hide in my duvet. But I just keep thinking I still haven't had a 'day off' since before our honeymoon. Not one day where I haven't had to work, or visit someone, or go somewhere or do something. For like 3 weeks at least, and before that was the wedding. So yeah I think I'm just really tired and overwhelmed and I think that's okay. I just have to push through the work week and try to take care of myself gently, and next weekend I can relax. Matt is working all weekend so he'll have the car so I won't physically be able to go out to visit anyone lol. Anyway that's what's happening. Yo-yoing between 'I feel quite depressed and overwhelmed and shit so I must be lazy and shit' to 'it's okay that I feel shit and I just need to be nice to myself through it and try to do some things that will help'. I feel like I'm walking a veeeery thin line 😂

[meraki-yao]

1 💕

8 for Can I Have This Dance

2 Which scene was your favorite to write in I Need Comfort (But I Hate Being Comfortable)

Thank you for the ask dear!

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favourite and why?

Honestly the fic I'm the proudest of is not an RWRB fic, it's a shadowhunters/malec song fic: Achilles Come Down

My best works and best creativities come from me projecting myself and putting my actual feelings into the fic. What happened with this fic is I had a really shitty day, went out for a run while listening to Achilles Come Down, thought of the fic and proceeded to dump all my feelings, spend the next entire day writing the fic, finishing it within 24 hours. Till this day I think it's the best thing I've ever written, ever.

But for RWRB, I'm gonna say I’d Hang the Moon for It to Shine on Him Sleeping. It's also partially me venting through both Henry and Catherine, but there's also this part where I wish we could see more or less what I wrote on screen, hopefully in the sequel. Writing in Catherine's pov was really fun. I'm really proud of that one.

2. Which scene was your favourite to write in I Need Comfort (But I Hate Being Comfortable)?

Oh, this was pure vent and very raw. I was going through a depressive episode those couple of days, so I kind of wrote down what I did for Henry and copied a couple of lines from my own diary for Henry's inner monologue. So my favourite scene to write was actually taking what's my own feelings and reframing it to fit Henry's narrative. So this part:

He’s kind of frustrated at himself. He’s in a much better place than he was in the past: he’s away from the palace, he’s writing his own book, he has a boyfriend who he loves and who loves him. It’s what he always wanted, he’s what he thought he would never get. The constant fear and despair of hiding his sexuality for his entire life, the thought of pretending to be straight and getting married to some noblewoman, the feeling that he doesn’t fit in the space, the dread that sticks to his skin and dyes his blood a dull shade of black like some toxic, viscous tar, that’s truly gone for good.

I'm kind of happy something so negative inside me can be translated into some sort of creative outlet.

8. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in Can I Have This Dance?

I'm not sure if this counts as cutting because I didn't actually write it, but I considered putting the Paris scene for the first section instead of DNC night, but 1, I ended up deciding I wanted actual dancing, in the traditional sense of the word 2, I wasn't really ready to write smut at the time and felt like Paris was too heavy for me just to stuff it as a quarter of a fic. So I wrote DNC instead.

As for what scene was added, Alex and Henry dancing to their playlist was a later decision. I initially kind of just thought of them slow dancing in the kitchen or something, but then I remembered that playlist exist and added it in.

[olympushit]

Keeping up with the Olympians

#kuwto

Episode 1:

Preview: While everything seems normal, things on Mount Olympus have escalated quite too far. Zeus once again cheats on Hera, while saving Dionysos from embarrassing drunk moments becomes a struggle for his siblings. And many more to follow....

Scene 1: (Zeus' grand palace)

Hera: Zeus!

Zeus: Yes honey!

Hera: Honey? Don't you honey me you piece of shit!

Zeus: Don't you piece of shit me!

Hera: You cheated on me again!

Zeus confessional:

Sometimes Hera overreacts about my infidelities! They say that sex is the best way to burn calories while you do something you enjoy! Women! They never understand!

Hera's confessional with a beauty face mask:

Having to put up with such drama is annoying! Can't he see that all this situation is harmful for the ecosystem? Who's gonna clean all the bacteria he spreads?

Zeus: Stop making something out of nothing!

Hera: I saw you!

Zeus: Oh, you were eavesdropping my dirty little queen! You should have joined us!

Hera: I WANT A DIVORCE!

-----------

Scene 2: (Apollo's grand mansion on Mount Olympus)

Apollo's confessional:

I was having a nice little orgy with my nine beautiful Muses when Hermes decided to so rudely interrupt my fun!

Apollo: What's going on?

Hermes: I know it may sound normal, but someone gotta save Dionysus ass outta the club! Ariadne called me to tell me that she can't find him!

Apollo: Can I have a nice time without someone interrupting my fun!

Hermes: This is serious business, and for Zeus' sake dress up!

Hermes' confessional:

I love all my siblings and I always wanna help them. So when we are done saving Dionysus' ass, I'm gonna take Apollo to a strip club!

-----------

Scene 3: (Mount Olympus, Ares and Athena in some crazy conflict)

Athena: Again?

Ares: I'm not surprised anymore. All my childhood years were filled with this shitty matter.

Ares confessional:

Dad cheating on mum is the most common thing on this Mountain. It is like saying "good morning". When I was younger I always took some pop corn and listened to them fight! Man! This was even more exhilarating than a football game!

Athena: I'm too mind-elevated to care about such stuff! I use my smartness for dumb things!

Ares: Will you stop bragging about your wits? It is too egotistical!

Athena: You are jealous!

Ares: No, I am right! And you don't wanna admit it because you are a selfish bitch!

Athena: Who did you call a bitch?

Ares: You of course! Do you see anyone else here to call bitch?

Athena: Yes! You!

Ares: How mature of you!

Athena: You dare talk back to me!

Ares: This is how a conversation is done you smartarse!

Hestia confessional:

I am really depressed by Ares' and Athena's behavior! They had a fight and Ares' spear went through my favorite vase!

Athena: Wait! You don't care about our well-beings?

Hestia: I would, if you didn't smash the whole palace!

Ares: As usual I'll be the one to be blamed!

___________

Scene 4: (Apollo and Hermes find Dionysus)

Hermes: What is he doing inside the fountain?

Dionysus: And my heart will go on and on!

Apollo's confessional:

Watching Dionysus perform Celine Dion inside a fountain is disgusting! He sings awfully and he is full of germs!

Hermes: Let's get him out!

Apollo: You're kidding, right?

Hermes: Will you get serious!

Apollo: I AM SERIOUS! My beautiful face isn't going to be ruined like that! This beauty must remain untouched!

Hermes: You untouched beauty, he's falling!

Apollo: OH MY GOSH!

Hermes confessional:

Thanks goodness we caught him on time before slipping on the ground! I have second thoughts about making it up on Apollo though! He was a bad boy!

________________

WELL GUYS THAT'S THE FIRST EPISODE! I PROMISED TO DO IT AND I DID IT!

What do you think so far? Tell me in the comments!

I'm thinking about making 10 episodes of this, and I have some ridiculous ideas!

One episode per week it is, and of course I'll add more scenes!

Also, I think I may steal some KUWTK ikonik phrases and scenes here and there, of course a little modified!

✌️😛😝

[brandnewhuman]

I'm having big brain thoughts again AND YOU ALL ARE GONNA LISTEN;

I never thought I would get so far in life to see the day I WOULD GET HEADCANON SHAMED BY THE TICKTACK ASS APP.

And since mischaracterization and shitty takes are my passion AND my purpose, here are some thoughts about Simon. LET'S BEGIN

I was part of the "ghost has the emotional capacity of a rock" team. But upon thinking about it I've come to the conclusion that maybe that's not it. Simon has obviously gone through so much in life and while I still believe his trauma makes it hard for him to fit in and feel comfortable just by existing, I think he's the type of person who quietly enjoys to compensate himself for the things he has never been able to enjoy in life. LIKE NO ONE IS GONNA EVER SAY SORRY TO HIM OR REPAY HIM FOR ALL THE PAIN AND HORRIBLE STUFF HE HAS ENDURE, SO WHY NOT DOING IT HIMSELF?

No, he's not an abusive and dysfunctional man who's broken beyond repair STOP TURNING THIS POOR GUY INTO A FUCKING MONSTER, HE'S JUST A SILLY SAD MAN. Besides, he's fucking scared of the "the abused becomes the abuser" thing and works very hard to avoid it.

HE GOES TO THERAPY BITCHES, HE REALLY DOES. He deals with extreme guilt, with PTSD and a shitton of stuff that has made his life a living hell for so long and probably will keep making it difficult forever so in the end, although it's hard, he just caves in and gets help.

No, I don't think he has anger issues and he's not straight up rude. He feels uncomfortable with the idea of getting too angry, he prefers to just talk things out. AND TALKING ABOUT ANGER; I do believe he finds some sort of relief in his work but not because he likes to take out his emotions on others and kill mindlessly or stuff. I genuinely believe he likes the idea of being something good, of his actions having a positive impact. He feels like he has failed his family and friends but every time he manages to successfully complete a mission he feels like his existence is not just about the pain and the failures. When a mission goes bad he does have a hard time and gets physically ill.

BACK TO ENJOYING THINGS THO: during his childhood and throughout most of his life he has always denied himself so much for one reason or another. He's hellbent on trying to treat himself with things he has missed out. At first it was part of the therapy; watch movies you would've liked to watch, go and try food you have thought about trying etc... then as time went on, and he started to deal with the guilt better, he kept doing all that stuff just because he wanted to. And maybe because he wants to understand stuff and references better when he's hanging out with the 141.

That's another thing, he initially was reluctant at the idea of hanging out and stuff but then he manages to feel comfortable enough. He's very quiet but not downright antisocial.

He likes to read better and TV shows better than movies. I CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH BUT HE'S A SHITTY COOK, HE COULD AND WILL BURN EVEN WATER.

There's the HC of him not eating enough and while I agree it's unrealistic I think there's some sort of truth. This man gets through depressive episodes where he can't sleep, can't eat and even breathing it's a chore. It usually happens when he's not at the base and he's having a difficult time with the leave time at home. He does however force himself to eat at least enough to not lose all the muscle and strength he has worked hard on. It's hard, but he tries to take care of himself as best as possible. THAT BEING SAID, THIS MAN EATS ONLY PREMADE THINGS CAUSE HE CAN'T COOK. Every single fucking meal, even the healthy one, has been bought and there's not a single time where he even attempts at cooking anything. After almost burning down his whole damn apartment he has banned himself from the kitchen. the way he maintains without necessarily eating when he doesn't feel like it's by keeping a whole fucking stock of snacks in his house.

OKAY THAT'S IT, THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK.

[everythingwasnormalhere]

Stan Marsh headcanons?

first i love my main au stan because he's so !! and because he goes thru lots of changes as he grows up,,

Tw for alcoholism, depression, s/h, attempted sewerslide, hospitalization...its stan what did you expect

Most popular stan hc ever: he's an alcoholic. But like,,, till he's like, 12-13, he only drinks in the mornings so it helps him get through the day, like antidepressants but bad 💀

When he's 12-13 some people his age start drinking for fun, and so he sees it's socially ok so he starts doing it too

Yeah everything is way less shitty in the moment, but when he's sober it's even worse than before. Oops

Well anyway his friends don't really notice he's doing this, sure they're kinda concerned when they hang out and he's getting drunk, but yk,, typical Stan it's not that bad

This is an obvious one but he's depressed asf

And btw. All sp kids have gotten something misdiagnosed in their lives, like this is canon the medical system in that town sucks

So Stan has anxiety, but it was misdiagnosed as asthma (haha not me projecting)

He didn't get it diagnosed right until he was in his teens

But he doesn't have it anymore

He also has insomnia and BPD

The amount of times he's split on Kyle is insane

Anyway about his depression !!

It remained undiagnosed for a Long while

It got better and worse and better and worse and yeah you get it

On the worst episodes he would spend weeks not getting out of bed

At the beginning he'd say he's sick but at some point he gave up and stopped with excuses

His friends (Kyle mostly) would check on him but he wouldn't really talk to them much (on another episode of: stan giving up on life!)

Also he would spend time with the goth kids sometimes, mainly when he was at the worst points

The goths were kinda pissed he would leave them every time he felt better, but Stan's kinda their adopted kid lmao they have a soft spot for him<3

Welp anyway he starts s/h-ing at 11-12

At first it's not really noticeable but soon it gets worse

He covers it with wristbands but eventually the wristbands don't cover it all

And so, after his parents find out, at 13 he goes to the psych ward for the 1st time

It's only for a couple weeks, but it gets him to get so much worse

Nobody at school knows what he was doing for those weeks, besides Kyle because Stan went to him first thing after he got let out

Kyle is Worried. btw.

He gets hospitalized 2 more times after that

Once at 15 after he attempts

And another at 16, after a huge ass breakdown in which he asked his parents to take him there because he was scared of what he'd do otherwise

People in town only know about the one of when he was 15 (it was big news)

Besides Kyle and Kenny, Kyle because Stan tells him every time and Kenny because,,,he's Kenny he just Knows

After the 2nd hospitalization, he starts taking actual antidepressants

They don't do That Much but they still work better than nothing

Short after the 3rd time he goes to the psych ward, he finally manages to stop s/h

And slowly he stops covering his scars, as they're a reminder of how he's healing :)

Since he's 14, he starts bleaching his hair every few months

Now it's closer to straw than to hair but whatever issok

It's also incredibly greasy, so much it's insane

When it's really really bad he wears a dark blue beanie with some pins of obscure bands and some his friends gave him

His clothes are mostly black, and the ones that aren't are still alt

He wears eyeshadow all the time

And his parents don't allow him to get tattoos so he and his friends draw on himself instead

He's still in Crimson Dawn, he's the main singer and guitarist :)

His guitar is red and he takes so much care of it

The same can't be said about its case, that thing's fucked up

He's also the one who writes most songs, it's become kind of a coping mechanism for him<3

They're not famous, but they're not completely unknown either - they've played in some cities besides South Park, and they have a bunch of listeners on Spotify

They're the kind of band that almost nobody knows but the ones who do are the most loyal fans ever

"wHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW CD??? You gotta listen to them Right Now"

By the way Stan is late to every practice

The days when he's not arrived at least 10 minutes late are almost non-existent

Same for school

At school his worst subject is definitely math

(He probably has dyscalculia but he doesn't have it diagnosed)

He likes music best obviously

He's also pretty good at history and English

Btw he has a musicals phase for a year or two

His favorites are the historical ones, like Hamilton and Les Miserables

His family life isn't the best

He stays at Tedrigri farms on weekends, the rest of the time he spends it at his mother's

Shelly's kinda physically abusive still, but not as much as when they were kids

Btw he fucking hates staying at Tedigri so most nights he cycles to Kyle's or Kenny's instead

Fun fact he has a scar on his side from when he was 13

The m4 were jumping a fence to get to this one abandoned house (Butters was grounded)

And when it was Stan's turn he got cut with the fence and fell

That scar is huge and he's super insecure about it

Another fun fact he plays Brawl Stars

His favorite brawlers are Brock and Kit

And in general also the ones with attacks like Shelly's and Bull's

He's bisexual :) and ultimately broke up with Wendy when he was 16

(one of the things that triggered that huge breakdown btw)

He also had so many gender crisis, finally he decided he's just non-binary (he/him) because everything else was way too confusing

Aaaand i think that's it? Tell me what you think :D

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I’m about halfway through the audiobook of The Holy Vible, the book that Elis James and John Robins published in 2018. It’s really varied, with each chapter being on an entirely different subject (they went with one chapter for each letter of the alphabet, which was a gimmick I thought I’d find annoying, but in fact find myself looking forward to seeing what they get into next every time they finish one). John wrote some of the chapters and Elis wrote others, but they both jump in on each other's chapters with little commentary.

A lot of it is, to be honest, not objectively great literature. Listening to Elis spend an entire chapter talk about how great his favourite band is is only interesting if you’ve listened to a lot of Elis James already, and you happen to really really enjoying hearing people tell you why they like their favourite thing so much. Luckily both those things are true of me so I’ve enjoyed this. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s not already really invested in their radio show.

Anyway, I’ve managed to hold off for a while on doing another post about how listening to John Robins is bringing up mental health-related stuff for me, but then I got to chapter L in this book, which they have rather convolutedly titled “Living – Grief Is” (because they couldn’t make “Grief Is Living” Chapter G, as they had to use G for Elis’ favourite band, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci). It’s a reference to episode 191 of their Radio X show, the time in October 2017 when John Robins came on the radio to explain how the night before, he got drunk alone in his house, ate ten bags of something called Space Raiders (I’ve Googled them, they’re like chips – crisps – I think), and decided he’d do some writing, but due to being too drunk just wrote the words “Grief is living” in a notebook and then found it in the morning next to the chips wrappers. This story caught on with listeners and led to a bunch of people emailing in with their stories of vaguely harrowing shit they’d done in the middle of the night after drinking too much.

I liked how many people connected with the story, because that’s pretty high up on my list of experiences I’ve had frequently but never tell anyone about (or wouldn’t have – now that I’m making an actual effort to stop drinking, I feel like I don’t have to try as hard to minimize how much I was drinking, and being freed of those mental gymnastics is one of the few upsides to what’s been a mostly shitty process so far). When I’m drinking I’ll hit a point where I’ll start feeling things more and think I need to share this, but also be conscious of how much I will fucking hate myself if I start sending anyone drunk messages (not that I never have done the drunk messaging thing – I used to do it a lot when I was young enough for it to be almost acceptable, like early twenties – but especially in the last five years or so, I’ve started getting so paralyzingly mortified at realizing that anyone could ever hear or read my drunk thoughts that I’ve started avoiding getting too drunk around other people and definitely avoiding sending any messages while drunk), so I’ll open a Word document and just type out whatever I’m thinking. And figure that if any of it makes sense in the morning, I can do something with it.

I also have the quite common habit of eating terrible food in the middle of the night while drunk, so that image – of waking up and finding wrappers from the shitty food you ate and something you wrote that’s harrowingly depressing but also cringe-inducingly stupid – is an experience I’ve had many times, leading me to immediately delete everything and throw everything in the garbage and try to forget I ever did that because I hate the person who did that. Somehow, waking up to find something I wrote in a Word doc about something that was making me sad – I somehow find that almost as mortifying as waking up to find I’d sent those thoughts to someone in a message, even though obviously writing stuff in a Word doc that I don’t send anywhere should be no big deal. But it’s always something I wrote about some emotional thing that’s there when I’m sober and that I try to be an adult and ignore, and then I see how horribly I laid it out when drunk, and I can’t stand to look at it. And obviously I also feel guilty for ordering Subway at 1 AM or whatever I did.

Like I said, pretty high on the list of things I have done regularly but don’t even let myself think about, much less share with anyone else. And it was kind of cool to hear John Robins recount a similar story, and then get all those other people writing in to say “Oh yeah I do that too.” I mean, obviously it’s a bad thing to do and all of those people should stop, and John Robins has stopped, and that’s good. But it is nice to hear it’s not just me. It’s up there with that one chapter from Michael Legge’s book, which described the specifics of a post-drinking morning in harrowing detail – for the most painfully accurate description of this that I’ve heard in comedy. And what do we look for in comedy, if not painfully accurate descriptions of substance abuse problems?

Anyway, John Robins named The Mental Health Chapter in his and Elis’ book Grief Is Living, because he explained that that story resonating with other people is an example of why it is worth sharing these things. I got to this chapter while on a break at work, listened to the first five minutes or so, quickly realized that this was far too emotionally heavy a thing to listen to while being at work, but by the time I worked that out it was too late, it had made me feel too many things. I did even really feel in a place to put on some other more lighthearted podcast, so I tried music instead, played the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album that was referenced in the chapter, which was a terrible way to try to make myself feel less emotional and more ready to work. The last session I had to run that day was a rather tough.

John Robins acknowledges early in the chapter that he feels awkward and a bit cringe-worthy doing a “Mental Health Chapter”, and I feel similarly about picking out “The Mental Health Chapter” as the one to make a Tumblr post about. Feels like it’s saying “This chapter is the really significant one in the book, because they Talk About Mental Health”, and I feel weird saying that. If it helps at all, this isn’t the first post I’ve written about that book. I actually wrote a really quite long post rebutting all of Elis’ points in Chapter F – Football, because he spends so long explaining why football is better than other sports and all he does is list things that can apply to any sport, football is not special because it has drama and excitement, that’s just what sports are, and listening to him explain the justification for Popular Team Sport Playing With a Ball And a Net Supremacy did make me feel a bit like I was back in high school having my objectively much bigger athletic accomplishments in a much less popular sport superseded on the announcements for the junior boys basketball team making the regional semi-finals or whatever. I wrote a long and detailed post explaining point-by-point why Elis’ argument is not specific to football and actually lots of other sports do that better, and then I looked at it, said “This is overly defensive high school bullshit”, and deleted it all without posting it.

So here’s my second post about the audiobook I’m listening to, and it is on The Mental Health Chapter, though I’m going to touch on the couple of chapters around it as well, because honestly the best cure for listening to something that makes you feel too many things is to write them down and say them into a void and then they’re gone and you can move on with your life.

When I got home from work, I re-listened to the first few minutes of that chapter, and I started transcribing as I listened because I thought I'd include some of it in this post. I didn't go in with a plan for how much to transcribe, and ended just continuing to write until I'd covered the whole introduction. So here's that:

When Elis and I began broadcasting together, it never occurred to me to be anything other than as honest with him on air as I was in person. If he asked me how I was, and I was sad, I would say so. If he asked me, “How was your week, John?” and I’d had a tough time, I might exclaim, “Awful!” before playing Green Day. It soon became clear that this wasn’t very common in the world of commercial radio. And, as a result, over the years, our Radio X show has contained many references to, stories about, correspondence concerning, all kinds of things one might place under the broad heading of mental health.

I must admit I’m even slightly uneasy using terms like “mental health”, or depression, maybe because I worry that other people – whether rightly or wrongly – might cringe, or tense up, or think, “Oh, this isn’t about me,” or, “I don’t want to hear someone being all open about stuff.” So thank the Lord for our old friend Elis James, who, with a common touch like no other, coined the term “the darkness of Robins”. Little did that man on the street know that not only was he predicting the title of the 2017 Perrier Award-winning show (sorry Fosters, if.com, lastminute.com – that’s what I’m calling it) – and, by extension, predicting that one day I would be crowned the funniest comedian on Earth (plus Australian support) – but he had found the only word I felt totally comfortable using to describe my vibe. (Note to self: potential game show title. Get Elis to pitch it to one of his TV friends?)

I was reluctant to write about darkness. I’m far more comfortable describing how it manifests itself, and then having a laugh about it. I would never want to suggest that my experience was in any way unique, or that my take on it was in any way authoritative. I think perhaps, what I feel most acutely is a fear that anyone suffering from any form of mental health problem may read what I write and think, “That’s not my experience. Maybe I’m even more unusual or alone or weird than I thought.” What I have learned is that the more subjectively one talks about such things – eg. “I ate ten bags of Space Raiders before writing ‘grief is living’ in a notebook” – the more people can see themselves in those stories. Yet, when you try to speak generally – eg. “Depression is like running up a hill through treacle” – you immediately exclude most people. Because our experience of mental health is as varied and individual as our experience of physical health. Just because I get pains in my left hamstring after long drives doesn’t mean your eczema isn’t real. (The sole downside of being one of the world’s most accomplished clutch balancers.)

I wouldn’t say I’m depressed, or suffer from depression – I don’t think I do. However, I do feel dark at times, and my general outlook and baseline mood is often one of darkness. I felt a connection to the word when I first heard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s masterpiece: I See a Darkness. It’s a flawless album, and the title track speaks to me very personally, as I’m sure it does to everyone who has heard it. Have a listen, and then a read of the lyrics. It’s not as bleak as it first sounds. It’s a song of honesty, friendship, and hope. But it’s still sad, mournful, and dark. I love that balance. There is light in the darkness, but also darkness in the light.

There’s an interview with Will Oldham – aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – on music website Pitchfork. It’s a characteristically stupid interview, where, hilariously, the interviewer begins by asking why Will Oldham doesn’t like interviews. And, having heard his reasons – nuance impossible, detail glossed over, interesting topics rushed or edited, complex topics not pursed – he then spends the rest of the interview proving Will’s point. There’s a great bit where he asks if Will Oldham has had much experience of karma. He answers, “Tons and tons.” To which the interviewer simply responds, “Johnny Cash played I See a Darkness on his last album. What was that like?” I mean, come on! Maybe dig a little deeper into the interesting thing he just said. It’s like that bit in Knowing Me, Knowing You where Alan Partridge asks the racing driver if he gets bored of the same old questions, before asking, “When did you first want to be a racing driver?” Anyway. If you don’t want to be annoyed, don’t go on Pitchfork.

But there’s one really cool thing Will Oldham says in the interview. He’s asked, “Do you think that you’re more depressed than most people?” Which, speaking as someone who has given a few interviews over the last year, is a really horrid question – and I’ve had some stinkers. (No, it’s not about her and she’s not seen the show and yes, we do speak.) There’s no way out of that question without A) your answer becoming the story – eg. “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy has depression!”, or “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s melancholic persona all a lie” – or, B) sounding self-important. Answering either yes or no would make him sound like he thinks he’s somehow special, and separates him from his audience. If you fudge it, it sounds like you don’t want to engage with depression or mental health. And, in fact, it’s impossible to answer, because how do you know how everyone else feels? Such a dumb, unanswerable question.

However, somehow, the brilliant Will Oldham finds the perfect answer: “Not today.” I absolutely love that answer. I love it so God damn much. Because in one exchange, something of the experience of mental health is captured, without anyone claiming ownership of what that experience is like. Everyone has mental health – both positive and negative experiences of it. And everyone’s experience is not only different, but different day to day. In that answer, we have a world where everyone is depressed and not depressed. We’re all experiencing emotions in different ways, at different times.

First of all, I need to acknowledge that in the first part of that, John Robins says much more clearly and precisely something I took way too long to try to explain in a post I made last month, after I listened to him and Elis on the Comedian’s Comedian podcast, about why I like their term “darkness” so much. I like that they don’t set out to explicitly “talk about mental health”; they just tell stories about their lives, and those stories often (this mainly applies to John) involve things that indicate deviation from the platonic ideal of a psychologically healthy person. In 2014, Elis James made an offhanded comment about how John should someday write a show called The Darkness of Robins, cataloguing all these deviations because clearly they resonate with people.

The term grew from there, John started referring to his issues with the vague term “darkness” (ie. “Pretty tired this morning because I couldn’t sleep last night, woke up at 2 AM with a case of the darkness”), listeners started writing in to say this show has helped them with “the darkness”, and nobody has to actually say the words “mental health”. And as John acknowledges in that chapter, that can be a good and a bad thing – maybe in some ways bad because properly naming mental health issues can be important, in some circumstances. But I don’t think a commercial digital indie radio show has to be one of those circumstances where that’s required. “Darkness” is a word that makes it so much easier. It’s a word that can be used to include people who have a whole range of different mental health diagnoses, or multiple diagnoses, and who don’t want to get into all the specifics but do want to be included. And it includes people who are undiagnosed, and people who wouldn’t be diagnosed because their issues don’t meet clinical diagnostic criteria, but they still lay awake feeling terrible and would like a word to describe that.

It’s also a word that strikes the perfect tone. Obviously naming a show “The Darkness of Robins” is ironically grandiose, and there’s something just slightly ironic about it every time they use that word. Obviously they’re being a bit intentionally silly by calling day-to-day psychological struggles something as dramatic as “darkness”. But it’s only a very small touch of irony – just enough irony to take the edge off and make you feel like you’re not formally Talking About Mental Health, but not so much irony that it starts mocking or minimizing the struggles.

I said basically all of that in a post I made last month, and now I’ve said it all again here, and I enjoyed listening to John Robins say pretty much the same thing, but say it much better than I have, and confirm that I was reading it right. They really did hit on a good thing with that word.

I also find that last bit of the above quote really interesting, about the impossible interview question. I’m pretty sure a really difficult part of life is figuring out what bits of your experience are normal and what you should assume is an exception. I’ve gone through phases where I was convinced that everyone’s basically depressed, I don’t think anyone identifies as being “normal” or “happy”. And I’ve gone through other phases where I’ve thought everyone except me is basically normal and I have nothing in common with anyone.

I think during most of my twenties, I leaned more toward the former way of thinking, possibly because I spent most of my time around people who all had something so wrong with them that they felt best when doing a sport where they could literally throw themselves at other people and either physically overpower them or be physically overpowered and being able to do this five or so times a week is all that kept them functioning. If you spend all your time around people like that, you start to think any issues you have are probably normal, everyone has issues, I’m no more messed up than anyone else. On the other hand, last year I started an in-person job for the first time in ages, and either my coworkers are a lot better than I am at being normal and functioning humans, or they’re a lot better than I am at pretending to be normal and functioning humans. I suspect it’s a bit of both.

One time in 2019, my best friend and I had been in an argument for a while about something that does not matter now, and I went over to his house and we ended up getting into it again. He told me this was upsetting, and if I hadn’t come over we’d have avoided all this and would have both have enjoyed our evenings much more, so there was no point to doing this. I said that as shitty as this was, if I’d stayed home, I’d have just spent all evening feeling bad about how we were fighting and worrying about the issue at hand, so for me, this was an improvement on if I’d just stayed home. And he told me “Well that’s the different between us, because my default state isn’t sad. If we didn’t have this argument, I’d have spent the evening feeling fine, because I don’t just feel bad all the time the way you do.” We resolved that fairly unimportant argument pretty quickly, but that sentiment’s stayed with me. Most people’s default state is not sad. It’s possible that I am, in fact, more depressed than most people. Most days.

Not knowing whether you’re “normal” compared to other people isn’t just an issue when it comes to issues of darkness, either. I’m in that cycle of “I’m pretty sure no one is like me” and “I’m pretty sure no one is special and everyone is pretty much the same” with everything. Like people who identify as being really nerdy – we joke about that, but surely we know everyone jokes about how very nerdy they are, so no one is really more nerdy than anyone else, right? Everyone has the thing that they’re a big nerd about, and they think it makes them different from other people, but it doesn’t, because everyone else also has a thing. I mostly thought that, but in fall 2022, I got stuck in a meeting at work where they had an “icebreaker game” of saying your name and a topic on which you could easily give a 30-minute speech. You didn’t have to give the speech or anything, you just had to say what topic you could easily do. There were eight people besides me in that meeting, and seven of them said this was a really difficult question and they struggled to think of anything. One person said Taylor Swift, and that is fine because I am a very non-judgemental person who has no opinion on that (the last clause of this sentence was of course sarcasm, though to be honest, I do genuinely have more respect for someone who could take for 30 minutes about a subject I think is stupid than I do for the people who didn’t have that strong an interest in anything). Maybe that’s a sign that my level of nerdiness does significantly set me apart from most people. Or maybe all those other people were just doing the same thing I was, which is going through the massive list in their minds of subjects they could explain for half and hour, and trying to find one that wouldn’t sound too weird or niche, and not coming up with anything. I hope it was the latter.

I’m thinking of that Daniel Kitson bit where he said you assume other people’s mentalities are basically the same as yours, but then you remember that some people hang their coats up on a train, and the illusion of shared experience shattered. I really like that one because it’s such a specific thing, but he did nail it. I cannot imagine hanging my coat up on a train. It’s such a small, insignificant thing, it’s not against my moral principles or anything – it’s just something it would never occur to me to do. And yet, I have been on trains and seen coats hung up on those little hooks. Some people just go through the world differently from me.

I think the smallest, least important thing in my life that gives me that feeling Kitson was describing – that “Oh shit, the baseline assumption I made that we approach life in basically the same way is incorrect” – is when someone recommends some media to me, and then lets me know what paid streaming site it’s on, as though that will have any bearing on how I watch and/or listen to it. I think the biggest, most important thing that gives me that feeling is that some people have children on purpose. Some people out there think “I find getting out of bed in the morning and tending to my responsibilities so easy that I could probably still do it even if you added a lot more noise and stress, as well as a huge number of additional responsibilities, and raised the stakes to the point where an innocent child's life depends on me getting it right every single day for many years, even at this higher level of difficulty.” They don't just think they're mentally and physically functional and will likely stay that way for the next eighteen years - they're so sure of this that they think it would be fine for a child's life to depend on it. The massive gulf between my mentality and the mentality of a person who could do that – the deep fundamental level on which that gulf exists – makes me sometimes think I don’t have any common experience with almost anyone. And then I listen to a story about someone getting drunk alone and writing something stupid like “Grief is living” in a notebook, and I say “Okay, there are some common experiences.”

The chapter before “L: Living – Grief Is” is “K: Keeping it Session”. This is John Robins’ expression that means sticking to session ales when drinking, which means under 4.5% (basically, weak beer). He goes into great detail about how this improves both the experience of drinking, and your life in general. It’s another thing I’ve described before on this blog, which is that it’s a sneaky thing that seems like it promotes responsible drinking, but actually it’s just a sign of a drinking problem, someone who loves the act of drinking alcohol so much that he’s found a way to make it last longer, because if each drink is weaker then you can have more of it, all else equal. That chapter made so much sense as I listened to it, and I was thinking, once again, that maybe I could try this as a way to satisfy alcohol cravings. Until I got to the very end of the chapter, which I’ve also transcribed:

Having banned spirits in my house from April 2017 – due to factors – the power of my moral hangovers has lessened. Yes, I still have the odd cloudy day that I have to write off, and spend ignoring the self-doubt and seeking emergency crying nooks in central London. (Unused studios at Radio X HQ are an absolute Godsend for any tearful digital DJ caught short welling up in public – for example, after watching the film Arrival at a central London cinema in Jan. 2017). But these days are rare. I have had to admit that spirits, rum especially, had a large part to play in the end of every relationship I’ve ever been in, numerous shame wells, and all my major career failures/plateaus, 2007-14. But I’ve now reached a happy medium where, by sticking to session ale and having the odd day off booze, marked in red Sharpie on my official Queen calendar, I’m genuinely able to enjoy my drinking and my life. So, go forth, dear friends. Spread your alcohol over longer nights, extended chats, and deeper nooks. Forgo wasteful units, erase shame from your mornings, and keep it session.

That bit reminded me that – oh right, this is all bullshit. That is a man who, since writing that, has admitted he had a significant alcohol addiction that was not, in fact, resolved in 2018. That man just explained to me, in 2018, that he has now figured out his drinking habits and is able to do it in a healthy and responsible way and it’s all fine. That’s just lying, I’ve done it too. I don’t know how many years in a row I’ve said “I think my drinking was reached problem levels last year, I’m glad I have it under control now.” Don’t take alcohol advice from people who are lying. (I mean, obviously cutting back is better than not cutting back and drinking weaker alcohol is better than drinking stronger alcohol. I just mean, if you’re having ten drinks in a night on a regular basis, there isn’t a way to make that a good idea, no matter how much I – and apparently John Robins – would like there to be. And if an alcoholic tells you there is a good way to do that, they're probably lying.)

Later in the Grief Is Living chapter, John Robins gets more into discussing how mental health problems manifest and what he’s learned about how to deal with them. To his credit he is very careful about this, he keeps saying he’s not an expert, his experiences will not necessarily apply to anyone else, and the vast majority of his actual advice consisted of referring people to experts, or relaying things he’s learned from experts.

He breaks down lifestyle things into categories that he tries to take care of for the sake of mental health – food, sleep, drink, exercise. And then goes into detail on each one, acknowledging that sometimes you can’t get it all right and sometimes people aren’t capable of following advice on this and sometimes it’s not enough, but it tends to help. He then added that while this doesn’t apply to him, the other big everyday lifestyle factor in mental health for half the population is menstruation, as a huge number of people find their mental health fluctuates significantly with that cycle. And then he talks about how many women he’s known who suffer horribly from this and how they try to manage it, and gives some advice about taking it to a doctor if it’s bad and demanding to see a specialist if you get brushed off or told there’s nothing they can do because it’s not right that women are expected to just “live with it” when there are medical treatments that can help with that.

This of course made me think of the routine in his 2014 Edinburgh show, about his girlfriend’s PMS/PMT. I wrote about this before too, how I do see where he was going with that. The routine is less bad than any one-sentence summary (like the one I just wrote) could make it sound, because he was clearly trying to be more nuanced than just “women be crazy on their periods”. He was approaching it with sympathy for how frustrating those feelings are for the woman experiencing them – but at the same time, he was also making a joke about how those symptoms look odd from the outside. Sara Pascoe did almost the same thing in her show LadsLadsLads – said she suffers from clinically bad PMT and then told some stories about times that led to getting emotional in ways that were amusingly disproportionate and that looks odd.

Obviously, the giant, glaring difference between the two situations is she gets to make that joke because it’s her experience. I guess it’s a double standard, but it seems fair enough given the trade-off of who has to actually live with it, that people who get periods are allowed to make the joke and people who don’t should be very, very careful if they try doing the same thing. John Robins was more careful than most cis men throughout the history of stand-up have been, when it comes to writing a “women be crazy on their periods” routine. But still, not careful enough. That routine is the bit of Robins stand-up that I think is least defensible (aside from that other bit about Sara Pascoe at the end of Darkness of Robins – it’s fine, she hasn’t seen the show and they do speak, it’s hopefully fine and he hopefully ran it past her), I cringed through it when I re-listened to his 2014 show recently and I think including it was a bad call. However, I do like that hearing this bit in the book confirmed the way I read that routine, which is that he doesn’t actually think the primary victims of people suffering from PMT are their male partners. That he was trying to talk about how it’s a genuine issue that people suffer from and that sucks for them, but also, we can make lighthearted fun about it! He just… didn’t do it nearly well enough to justify touching a subject that has such a terrible history of cis male stand-up comedians being dicks about that.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into detail here (or anywhere, talking about it makes me extremely uncomfortable and that sort of thing is why destigmatizing and normalizing discussions about it are good, ie. a cis man including it on a list of lifestyle factors that affect mental health because it’s a huge one even though it doesn’t apply to him – normalizing it through jokes in stand-up sets is also good, but probably best to leave that to the people who experience it), but the fact that I have this cycle every month has a significant detrimental effect on my mental and sometimes physical health, as well as in some ways my overall quality of life, and I appreciate hearing it mentioned so casually. To be honest, that’s another situation where I used to think I’m worse off than most people, but now think I’m not. Every person I’ve ever known well enough for them to have told me about their experience with that cycle has had horror stories that should not be normal, but given how common they are, I think that is normal. My ex-girlfriend had that issue described in the book, of doctors brushing off her terrible, abnormal symptoms because this is just what women are expected to go through. My mother had an emergency hysterectomy at age 48 after experiencing so much blood loss over so many years that it gave her permanent disability issues, and it took until that point for anything to get done because women bleeding a lot is assumed to be normal. It is a good thing to talk about and differentiate between common and normal, I think. Sorry about the tangent, I just figured I’ll package all my oversharing in this one post and then we can move on.

I need to get into another part from later in the Grief Is Living chapter of the book, when John Robins talks about the gambling addiction he used to have, and relays some things he learned from the Gambler’s Anonymous meetings he attended for a while. He explained: “I haven’t gambled since the sixth of December 2002. If you’d told me, on the fifth of December, 2002, that I would go sixteen years without gambling, I would have thrown up at the horror of that idea. Slash burst into tears, slash started gambling.” I wrote out that quote just because I found it helpful. Thinking about giving something up forever is overwhelming and impossible and will immediately make you turn to that thing just to cope with the thought of living without it forever. But you can do it a little at a time and someday it’ll add up.

I’m going transcribe one more quote from that chapter:

My point here is this: You are enough. You did something. Too often, we feel like we aren’t in control, aren’t capable of things. And it doesn’t matter whether it was writing a symphony or emptying the dishwasher, you did it. And hold onto that for dear life, because when it’s all you can do not to bang your had against the wall, or stay in bed all day, or drink into oblivion, emptying the dishwasher is a symphony. And it’s with these small, seemingly insignificant handholds that we can begin to pull ourselves out of the swamp.

I included that because it made me think of that blog he wrote for Chortle (which John and Elis' book described as "comedy's Bible/menu/tabloid", which I found quite funny), during the 2007 Edinburgh Festival, that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. I made fun of one particular entry in it, which I mostly stand by, because it was so fucking pointlessly intense in such a Classic Robins way. Firstly, he writes glowingly about a Phil Kay show he saw:

It does begin, however, with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve heard in a comedy show. So much so that I have to take out my notebook to write down the statement “the law of love says ‘you are enough’”. Unfortunately Phil sees me do this and takes me for a reviewer. “He might be a journalist” I look up “bang, you’ve missed a bit of the show” he says. I’m wearing headphones round my neck and he riffs on that for a while then moves on. But by now my face is burning and I become his point of focus after delivering set pieces. I feel terrible for the pressure he now seems to think he’s under when there is no need, “I’m not a reviewer Phil! I’m a fan! I’m a worshipper!” but I stay quiet, sit back, and enjoy his remarkable talent. I was going to give him a review, just for neatness, but I don’t think you can really review his shows, just him. He walks a line of personal confession that any self proclaimed storyteller, myself included, is simply miles away from. Of course it’s an intensely personal thing, but for me, as nice as it is to make badges, this style of comedy is where i find hope for the new wave, or whatever you want to call it. The amazing thing is that Phil’s been doing it for nearly 20 years.

So adorable, so annoying, so pointlessly intense, so pretentious but earnest, so sweet – a 25-year-old inexperienced comedian taking out a physical notebook during a show because he was so moved by the line “The law of love says you are enough” that he just had to write it down. But then, he writes about how the night unfolded later on:

After the Zone, which pretty much sold out and was really good, (a high point was Carl telling a woman with an annoying laugh ‘it’s like being heckled by the Lilt ladies’), we went to the Brooke’s Bar. It was rammed and hot. I met a person I’ve not met before, and it was he who made me realise that Phil Kay is not the only one off up here this year. I won’t mention his name because of what transpires later, but he’s like a cross between Chris Morris and Peter Cook circa ‘Derek and Clive get the horn’, drunk, breakdown era, vitriolic Peter Cook. He’s bounding about the bar vomiting all forms of obscenity out onto an unexpecting audience, save those who know him, who reliably inform me that this is normal behaviour. It’s ‘what’s the worst thing you can say to a stranger’ stuff, captivating as much as it is abhorrent. When it crosses the line into straightforward assault I keep my distance. But he reminds me of me, in a way. Not the assault, but the tractor beam of desperation to perform that throws you round a room of strangers and leads you to ruin their evening.

First of all, I need to acknowledge that this does not sound anything like Chris Morris. And I know Peter Cook had issues, but surely there’s a less dramatic simile than that, that John could have used to explain that some comedian was being a dick in a bar. Anyway, the story escalates very fast after that. Weirdly fast. The guy who is not Chris Morris or Peter Cook leaves, and then John and his friends leave, and they find the guy again in a chip show, where he's shouted verbal abuse at some locals and picked a fight with them.

He is chased out by 6 or 7 very rightly angry men, they knock him to the ground and begin to beat him. It’s the kind of thing you only imagine doing when you’re brain won’t sit still at night; “God, imagine if I shouted ‘Fuck you all’ at a funeral, or went to a Millwall game and called them all fags”. It’s not just social suicide, but increasingly physical suicide that I am watching. As the punches and kicks are thrown we wade in to stop the trouble, in the slightly awkward position of being totally sympathetic with the people who are kicking the shit out of him. One minute they were buying chips, the next being called “foreign cunts” and being told to “speak English” in their own country. He didn’t mean these things, but says them to achieve the desired effect: self destruction. As Burgess said, and never truer than now, “destruction’s our ode to joy”.

As we break it up, and shelter our colleague away from the gathering crowd, tears fall from his battered face, and now I properly see myself in his little boy lost eyes. I know that burning need to feel something, anything, other than what you’re feeling inside. In a former life I’d have put my fist through a door, or smashed a bottle or jumped through a shop window, something more controlled than letting half a dozen drunk Scots administer the punishment. “We need to get on top of this”, I say to him, and beating in my head is that statement, like a fucking beacon; “the law of love says ‘you are enough’” to be honest this guy is more than enough. But somehow I need to show him that like Phil suggests, he himself, is all he needs to do whatever he wants. That release, the blessed release that comes from being half killed by an angry mob can be found inside you, the law of love says so.

You definitely should not shout racist abuse at people who have graciously allowed thousands of annoying performers and tourists to take over their city for an entire month (though you also shouldn't beat people up in the street even if they deserve it, and if you see other people beating someone up in the street you should try to stop it if you can, even if they deserve it). And it's pretty fucking intense to quote the likes of Anthony Burgess to Phil Kay while describing the tear-stained face of a man who just picked a fight in a chip shop. I certainly wouldn't call it pointlessly intense this time - that situation got pretty fucking dramatic. But John Robins' narration also got pretty fucking dramatic, and I made of fun of that in another post a few weeks ago, and I mostly stand by that.

But I have to admit I did feel a bit bad after writing that, because of course I know exactly what he's talking about, I spent over ten years of my life unable to function unless I could go into a small room and physically throw myself against people until I knocked them down or they knocked me down and something hurt enough to stop me feeling anything else. And I realize that is also a pretty dramatic thing to write, it's the sort of thing I'd wake up to find written in a Word doc on my laptop next to a Subway wrapper and an almost empty whiskey bottle (which is, obviously, also a way to achieve that feeling of catharsis), but it is an experience I know well and is probably worth talking about. Maybe if more people wrote their feelings down in overly dramatic blog entries, fewer people would feel the need to go pick fights in the street.

And I thought of that old Chortle blog entry when I heard that line in The Mental Health Chapter of his audiobook written 11 years later: "My point here is this: You are enough." He remembered that line. Or he forgot it and it's a coincidence that he repeated it, that's probably more likely. But it did make me think I should be less of a dick about a twenty-five-year-old comedian contributing even more spelling errors to Chortle, while trying to express the way he connected to someone's emotional experience, in the hopes that it might turn out this one doesn't set him too far apart from other people. After all this, I really don't have grounds to make fun of someone else for doing that (although, in my defence, I at least keep my spelling errors/convoluted connections to an emotional experience on this website/gremlin network, and don't sully the highly respectable Bible/menu/tabloid of comedy with them).

Okay I'm done the dramatic parts now. The next chapter is "M: Mind Scenarios", which is much more lighthearted as it looks at the things he thinks about when trying to sleep, although that chapter does contain the line: "I find falling asleep sober so difficult that I’ve twice called NHS Direct because I thought I was having a heart attack," because it's John Robins, so even the fun little ones can get fairly dark. But that chapter is mainly not un-acknowledged alcoholism, it's mainly Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. That is not a joke, it's not something I'm taking out of context to make it sound weird. It's a very literal description of the chapter.

He explains to us that he likes to invent Sherlock Holmes mysteries while falling asleep, and then he spends quite a bit of time - a significant portion of the chapter - reading out an example. I kept waiting for there to be some twist or double meaning that would connect to other things from the book, but no, he just wanted to read us his Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. When he finished the Sherlock story, he didn't add any analysis or explanation of why he'd done that, he just immediately moved on to discussing the cognitive benefits of fantasizing about a nuclear apocalypse.

...Like I said, I'm enjoying the book, but I recommend it to people who are already on board with James and Robins and their whole thing, and I recommend it no one else. I'm having fun though. The vast majority of the book is much more fun than this post.

[narrycherries]

we’ll be alright

Harry battles an exhausting mental disorder and the only thing that helps him is you, but even sometimes you aren’t enough..

masterlist // join the tag list

word count: 2.9k

warnings: harry x reader, mention of mental disorder, bipolar depression, mature situation, fluff, smut implied, needy h

The weather was gloomy again. A heavy thunderstorm was falling from the sky. The dark clouds were thick and the lightning was bright as it snapped every few seconds. A weighted sigh slipped out of your mouth as you closed the curtain, not wanting to be reminded of it. You hated this sort of weather because it was just another thing for him to be sad about. As a remedy, you always would take him for walks under the sunshine, and force him to make shapes out of the fluffy white clouds. He would pick any small wildflowers he came across and give them to you, knowing that you loved flowers. The sun made him happy, just enough to be noticeable at least. But there hasn’t been any sunshine in four days. It’s been overcast and storming non stop.

Your heart skipped a beat when you shut the bedroom door and turned to look in his direction. He was sitting in the chair that he moved to face the window. You didn’t want him watching the rain, but it was too late to stop him. There was no telling how long he was like that.

He breathed out heavily as you came behind him, gentle hands resting on his shoulders. Harry suffered with bipolar disorder, the true manic and depressive stages. It was heartbreaking every time he had to face this. You wished you could force it away.

Despite the struggles he had, he never once neglected you or made you feel guilty. If anything, he was the one who was guilty. He hated that you waited on him, and that you took such good care of him. Of course he’s grateful, he’ll never under appreciate you. But it’s a challenge, he should be taking care of you.

You smiled softly when he reached up and grabbed your wrist. He gave you a tug, silently wanting you to move in front of him. So you do, with no hesitation. He tilts his head back, dull eyes looking into yours. You could easily see the depressive episode in his eyes.

“I missed you.” He mumbled as he grabbed your waist.

“I missed you..” You whispered back, hand pressing against his warm cheek.

He guided you onto his lap, wanting to have you all to himself. He needed to be close to you, needed to feel you. You chuckled faintly as he wrapped his arms around your body and pushed the side of his face against your chest - squeezing you tight. You were like medicine to him, it only worked for a while..

“How are we feeling?” You asked in a voice that was barely audible.

He groaned. “Shitty.”

A smile spread over your lips as you thought about how to fix it. You put your hand on his nape, holding his face against you, and let the other one run through his hair. He hummed as your nails scratched his scalp. He was having a bad headache, and he liked the release of pressure.

“Do you want me to draw up a warm bath, honey?”

He nodded, strong arms gently moving you from side to side. “Wan’ you to get in.”

“I will.” You assured him, lips pressing a few kisses to his hairline.

“M’sorry.”

You were unsure as to why he said that, and when you tugged on his hair to pull his face out of your chest, you immediately matched his frown. “For what, baby?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting you to see the sadness. “Cus.. m’always.. ruinin’ everythin’.. you should’ve went with your friend.”

You huffed. “Harry.. I’d much rather be here with you, my love.”

“Baby.” His eyes slowly peeled open, and your heart dropped as you watched a few tears come down his cheeks.

“Harry, please don’t get upset.” You pressed a hand to his cheek and used your thumb to rub the tears away.

“I h-have t-to be upset.” He stammered, eyes shifting to stare at your neck. He was too embarrassed to look you in the eye. “You’re al-always.. havin’ to take care of me.. like a fuckin’ child.”

“I take care of you because you get better when I do.” You wrapped your fingers around his hair, not pulling too hard just in case he had a headache like usual. “And you feel better when I’m with you, don’t you? Why would I want to leave and make you feel worse?”

“You always make me feel better..” He mumbled, eyes closing again.

“No, no. Look at me, honey.”

He frowned, shaking his head against your wishes.

“Harry, look at me.. now.”

He never wanted to upset you, so he quickly moved his eyes back to you. “Baby.. m’sorry.”

A sigh came from you, it was heavier than you thought it would be. “Stop apologizing. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“But-“

“Shhh.” Your thumb finger pressed against his lips, keeping them closed. “I’ll go get the bath ready.. wan’ bubbles?” He nodded lightly, making you smile a tad. “Stay here.. I’ll be back.”

You kissed his forehead a few soft times before pinching his warm cheek and hopping off his lap. He wanted you to stay on him and never leave, but he knew the bath would be relaxing for you both.

It pained you to leave him all alone. Despite how he can be at times, he hated being alone. No matter how difficult the depression became, he never wanted to be all alone. He needed you, and wanted you at all times. Even though he hated to feel like a burden, he always wanted you with him. It was easier to walk away this time because the end result would be better. You will be with him, and everything will be fine.

You made sure to cut on the hot water, knowing how much he liked a flaming bath. You poured the bubble bath soap into the water and watched quietly as the bubbles formed on the water's surface. It smelt like strawberries, and added a soft pink tint to the water. He never reminded the color of the water or the scent of the soap - as long as you were with him, nothing else mattered.

Once the tub was filled to the desired amount, you cut off the water and draped the washcloth over the edge. You placed two towels on the rack before walking back to the bedroom. Harry hadn’t moved at all, which didn’t shock you. He looked over when he heard your feet shuffle on the carpet. You smiled and held your hand out. He stood up and gladly closed the distance between you. His big hand engulfed yours and he pulled you close, his arm sliding around you.

“Thank you.” He muttered quietly.

You pecked the corner of his mouth, the tip of your toes digging into the carpet to push you up. “Don’t thank me, baby.”

The smile slowly growing on his pink lips made your heart melt, a nice warmth filled your body. “Can I.. undress you?”

“Of course.. you don’t have to ask.” You gave him a wink and he chuckled. The sound truly made you smile, maybe he was reaching the end of this very long depressive episode. Despite the joy of the assumption, you feared what would come next. “C’mon.”

You drug him to the bathroom and close to the hamper, hoping the clothes you were both dressed in would end up there - though, that was doubtful.

“You look comfy.. What did you do while I was sleeping?” Harry asked as he messed with the hem of the big tshirt. You liked to wear loose things while at home. “Didn’t work yourself t’death.. did you?”

You smirked at his words. “No.. I cleaned the kitchen.. and I worked on that puzzle we started last week.. didn’t get far.. Mom called me.. we talked for a while.”

“I promise..” Harry slid his hand under your shirt and on to your waist, his brows furrowed as he spoke. “.. that I’ll do all the cleaning.. as soon as I can.. you won’t have to lift a little finger, angel.”

You licked your lips and put your hands on either side of his neck. “You’re the sweetest, you know.”

He lifted the right corner of his mouth higher than the left, displaying the cute dimple in his cheek. “You’re the sweetest thing on this earth.” Your eyes rolled and he grinned a bit bigger, leaning down to kiss the corner of your eye. “You’re my sweet, beautiful, incredible, stunning girl.”

You rubbed the end of your nose against his and let your lips gently brush his chin as you moved your head. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

“I dunno about that.” You bit your lip in attempt to push down your laugh but it slipped out anyways.

He hummed as your fingers worked to untie the strings of his sweatpants. You hadn’t seen him completely naked in a handful of days and you were dying to touch his warm skin. Sometimes he forgot to take off his clothes when he slept, especially during the bad days.

“M’sorry I’ve been distant.. I know you hate it.” He swallowed harshly as you gave the pants a gentle tug. They pooled around his ankles and he stepped out of them.

“You have your reasons.. and I don’t hate it.”

He softly grabbed your chin between two fingers and lifted your head up. “You mean absolutely everything to me.. I love you more than anyone could love anyone else.. I’m nothing without you.. I love you, okay? Please.. don’t ever forget that.”

You smiled sweetly and wrapped your arms around his torso. “I won’t. And I love you. You’re my favorite thing.”

He faintly smiled back, but you noticed it was indeed faint. He had always struggled with accepting the idea that he was enough for you. He constantly insisted that you deserved better, despite knowing he’d crumble away and die if you ever left his side.

“I miss you.. miss seeing you..” He mumbled while pulling your shirt up your body. You hold your arms up and let him take it all the way off. “You’re so perfect.”

His big hands grabbed your waist and guided you close. You decided to carry on, so you grabbed his shirt and he chuckled as he helped you take it off. As soon as his stomach was bare, you began to rub your hands down his abdomen. He smirked as he watched your lustful eyes stare at his skin.

“I missed you more.”

Harry gently touched your jaw, letting his thumb rub over your skin. “I shouldn’t neglect you.. should be worshipping your body every night.. every morning..”

You blushed hard and gave him a soft laugh. “Worship is a little intense, yeah?”

“No..” he kissed your forehead. “You deserve the praise.”

A breath hitched in your throat as his hands slid behind you to unclasp your bra. “The water’s gonna get cold.”

He smirked softly and dropped your bra to the floor. “We’re almost done.”

Despite how cheeky he was being with you, the sad demeanor didn’t go away. You could see it in his eyes, in the shape his lips made when he relaxed them, and even in his posture. You gave him a warm smile before removing your underwear. You wanted to speed up the process. He followed your actions, a little disappointed that he couldn’t do it for you.

“Do you want me in front or behind?” You asked with one foot submerged into the warm water.

He thought for a quick moment. “Behind.”

You nodded softly, glad that he chose that. It was always something you loved to do - holding him and making him feel safe. The comfort always made him relax, and you wanted nothing more than for him to feel better.

Harry didn’t say anything else as he watched you sink into the bath. He got in once you were situated and he sighed heavily as he leaned against your welcoming body. Your arms gladly slid around his torso, hands on his chest and stomach. His muscles were aching, and he was tense in places. You rubbed small circles into his skin as you waited patiently and quietly for him to say or do something. Sometimes you talked about your day because he was curious, other times you didn’t talk to each other at all. You always let him decide.

“S’nice.” He mumbled while picking up your hand.

You felt a warmth grow inside of your chest as he slotted his fingers with yours. “Mhm.. really warm.”

He let his body move in the water until his head laid against your shoulder and collar bone. Your back was pressed into the tub, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Harry sighed in relief as you brought your unoccupied hand up to his head to rub his scalp.

“Are the days getting better or worse?” You kept your voice soft.

He shrugged. “Hard to tell when.. when one day ends and another starts.”

You gulped quietly, hating that he constantly has to feel this way. “I’m sorry.. I wish I could help you.”

“You do help.” He huffed.

Even though he couldn’t see it, you rolled your eyes. “I wish I could change it.. I would change it and fix everything if I could.”

“Well you can’t.”

“Harry-“

“You help me more than you’ll ever know, baby.” Harry never once let you think you were useless. He’s never allowed you to take any blame. “M’not.. fixable. Every little thing you do for me helps.”

Your nails scratched at his scalp, but no words came from your mouth. A feeling of guilt was bubbling in your stomach. You would do anything to make him better, absolutely anything. He was aware of that, of course. He knew how much you loved him and how bad you desired to help him get better - but there was simply no getting better.. nothing could change.

“I don’t wan’ you t’ever think.. that i don’t love and appreciate everything you do, baby.” His voice wasn’t very loud as he spoke, but the tight grip he had on your hand assured you that he was being serious. “You make life worth living.. without you I have no reason to be alive.. no reason to be anything.”

“I love you, Harry.” You kissed his temple, your lips lingering on his skin. “I love you.”

He squeezed your hand. “I love you.”

A soft smile came to your lips as he shifted his head to press his mouth on yours. The kiss was soft and pure, nothing sloppy. You adored it, so you gave him another. He smiled back, and you felt complete. All you wanted was for him to smile.

“M’so glad I married you.” He said in a whisper as he ran his finger over the diamonds on your ring.

You chuckled lightly. “I’m glad you married me, too.”

He smiled. You absolutely loved his pretty smile.

•••

“You’re warm.” He muttered as you pulled the covers up to your shoulders.

“Someone’s being a cuddly bunny.” You chuckled as he nuzzled his face in your chest and wrapped his arms around your hips.

“Miss you.. love you.. so much.”

You ran your fingers through his slightly damp hair. “I love you, too, honey.”

“You’re m’ baby.”

“Always.” You smiled, wishing you could peck his pretty lips.

“Baby doll.. can I tell you some’?”

You hummed back, eyes closing as you began to feel very sleepy. His voice kept you alert though. He cleared his throat and gently kissed your covered breast. A heat rose to your skin as he stuffed his face further into your chest.

“‘Member we talked about babies?... I wanna have a baby..”

Your heart fluttered at the mention of a baby - a topic you’ve talked about a lot. You gulped quietly and moved your hand down to his cheek. You rubbed the corner of his mouth as you processed his words.

“A baby?.. You said you.. weren’t ready before..”

“M’ready now.. M’not gonna get any better.. so there’s no point in waiting for me to.. besides..” he lifted his head up, eyes finding yours in the dim bedroom light. “..I wanna have a family with you.”

“If that’s what you want, babe, then.. okay.” You smiled brightly as he suddenly flipped you over onto your back and got above you.

“I love you.” He quickly kissed your lips. “I want to have a baby with you.. and another.. and another.”

You giggled softly as his hair tickled your face, his lips sucking on your neck. “I assume you want to start now?”

He smirked against your warm skin. “If that’s okay.”

“That’s perfectly okay.”

His hand squeezed as much of your hip as he could as his lips pecked up your jaw. He reached your lips and plopped a few kisses down. “I love you.”

“Will you.. be able to? Sometimes you.. you can’t-“

He sighed. “I can now. I want you.. need you so bad.”

[kazooie]

I need to vent, I'm sure I've vented about this a lot here already but it's just the one thing that fucks me up still.

Tldr; venting about inability to own a house, unfair financial situations regarding family, and being the black sheep just for being mentally and chronically ill.

So, when we were selling my Nan's house, it was because she couldn't live at the nursing home if she still had assets or something, right? Except, she died the day after we sold it, and the buyer backed out. Now, my family has known for decades that I wanted to live there the rest of my life, it was going to be me and my family's home, but.. they sold it anyway? For what? The reason to sell it was no longer valid.

So we sold it, for not a lot but not too little either, howeverrr instead of the inheritance going to mum and her sisters, it also went to my two oldest cousins, which means when their mum dies they'll get her chunk of the inheritance too, even though out of everyone in our family me and my mum are the ONLY ones who don't own a house and live in a shitty community housing flat that's making us sicker, and that fucks me up!

Whenever I bring it up, looking for advice or sympathy, one of my aunts thinks I'm guilting her for owning a house, like, no, I'm not. But I'll tell you what I WILL guilt you for eventually, if I have to cut ties..

So, when I was a kid, said aunt got a loan of $250k from my grandparents, for a deposit for their house. A while later, my mum and dad got a loan of $10k, I forget what for, a business thing maybe? Idk. Anyway, so, my dad, he's an honest man,he will always pay back money he owes, and he did, every last can't. You can see where this is going I'm sure.

My aunt never paid her back. None of it. And my grandparents didn't even ask for it afaik, because she's the youngest sibling, and definitely the favourite. My aunt got $250k with no questions asked while my dad worked his ASS off to pay off his loan, and he still got treated like shit afterwards! I loved Pa, but he could be a real cunt sometimes.

My dad, my family in general, has always been treated as the black sheep(s), we're all disabled in some way, so we can't keep jobs and are on pensions. My grandpa especially was needlessly cruel to my parents and sometimes myself too, I never understood why, but I have a theory it's because mum had a psychotic episode in her 20s, and because her oldest sister is schizophrenic he might have seen that as a failure on his part? Idk the man was incredibly autistic but used his white male privilege to say whatever shit he wanted, he could say the meanest things and his defence would be "I'm just telling the truth."

If my cousins were left out of the will we'd have enough for a deposit, and they'd still get their quarter from their mum later.

I'm bitter, I'm depressed, my living situation is getting worse and worse because I just have no room for anything, and it all could have been avoided so easily, but everyone was so damn eager to get their inheritance right away that they left us behind, they didn't even let us go through nan and pa's things after they died, they took everything they wanted and threw out the rest without asking us.

Thing is, I still love my family, and it kills me because I don't think they love me, or respect me. I'll always be a little autistic kid who doesn't know how the world works in their eyes.

I don't know how to be okay.

[more-thoughts-than-money]

Born “gifted”; grown chronically depressed

// long, personal post. basically a tutorial on express therapy (and by express I mean 10 years of rationalising, learning psychology on myself and fictional characters + 48 hours of not sleeping)

When I was grieving I spent 48 hours sleepless

it’s not that I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been on insomnia medication for 3 years now. I just had to “have a reason” and time to actually acknowledge my emotion and thoughts which caused my body to struggle with setting a “proper” circadian rhythm

Living with a 5 person family in basically a studio flat for 13 years of my life low-key harmed my ability to think and “feel” without privy eyes

this accidentally sent my brain into survival mode where I could only “think rationally” at night

So when we moved out and I got to have a room of my own

that’s when *serious* sleep problems started

my brain would just REFUSE to shut the fuck up

first off I was used to tv noise while falling asleep

i fixed it up with some rain sounds or watching ATLA when I was feeling funky

it distracted me enough

still I wouldn’t fucking sleep.

because my brain didn’t feel like it

probably hyperactivity which I could never “treat” with sport as an asthmatic kid

also an outcast but it is what it is

unable to name the cause of my insomnia I would just head to sleep at 10pm. Two reasons for that:

a) you know what they say! Don’t trust your thoughts after 10PM

b) 8h of sleep is THE healthy amount. And it seems like my brain likes waking up early for whatever reason!

yeah also I went through a fair share of medication before they got it right

anyways whoops I’m depressed now. Very depressed and even more anxious. Day by day my brain is giving me more compulsive behaviours and thoughts! Yaaay!

so I went through a 3 years worth of antidepressants

also a lot of unintended research (thanks, tiktok.)

basically I “subconsciously” KNEW what my problem is but “consciously” my brain refused I acknowledge it because haha living in the state of constant survival mode is way more fun! right?

right?

basically it was like being a doctor and being pretty certain about the diagnosis but having to go to some other doctor to objectively either confirm or discard my diagnosis

yeah anyways I changed medication, SNRI, venlafaxine

known to help some adhd folk with severe vegetative depression for “no reason”

Yeah basically my new psychiatrist kept on upping the dose until I got “a kick in the ass” so we know it works

and then my aunt died.

wELL my workaholic and emotionally constipated child brain would NOT acknowledge it

hell you’d catch me dead before I’d admit that I felt shitty but didn’t know how to deal with that because at the same time I “saw it coming”

No one ever told me she’s sick

I just saw her hair loss (or rather a sudden haircut change and awkward silence that followed) and had some foggy memory of someone saying her sister died of cancer

Mind you I don’t fucking remember my childhood that well

hell I don’t remember it at all but it is what it is

I just “know” some things and some are more of a “hunch”

I have this information buried in my brain but I can’t recall how it got there, ykwim?

yeah basically I was suspecting she’s dying of cancer but I was trying to stay optimistic and told myself I’m “overthinking it”

and I thought the mourning was “good enough of a reason” to stay up for 48 hours, write down my “thoughts” and wail all day long (yes, everyone gave me shit for crying growing up, how did you know?)

anyways yeah I did this and suddenly I “solved” the root of ALL my anxieties and minor paranoias.

as if it was a fucking riddle. Or a fucking house MD episode.

I hope you can understand WHY I’m so livid.

I SPENT OVER 3 YEARS ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND MADE ONE THERAPIST CRY JUST BECAUSE MY BRAIN WENT SO FAR INTO THE SURVIVAL MODE EVERY TIME I INTERACTED WITH A HUMAN BEING. IM JUST FUCKING AUTISTIC AND TRAUMATISED NOT “ANXIOUS” AND “PARANOID”

OH FOR FUCKS SAKE

Also I’m fucking dyslexic. But hyperlexic at the same time. I mean I’m hyperlexic in my native language, and I “remember” the spellings so I went undiagnosed

but I love technology. I want to be a CS student and then I’ll see where I can go from here. I’d love to work on an online learning platform for “gifted” children

y’know so they don’t lose their childhood but at the same time can associate learning with something nice and actually enjoyable

I think a lot of “gifted kid burnout” comes from the | dopamine <—> habit making | mechanism

so if children can learn they don’t HAVE TO be good at every subject and learn their “strengths and weaknesses” early on

Hardships later on won’t be as depressing

cause hey maybe I’m not the best at english but I know a lot about maths and I like maths and maybe when I grow older I can be a mathematician!!

you see what I mean?

at least this is what I’m trying to do for myself

generational trauma and neurodivergency running in the family made me develop some shitty coping mechanisms (example - perfectionism in order to cope with my actual time blindness and the “need” for structure while hating organisation and refusing “unreasonable” authority)

I wasn’t raised catholic, not really

nor was I raised queer lol

but my brain reacted to religion the same way people who went through religious trauma did

basically I put myself through religious trauma on accident!

fun, aye?

what I mean is, I grew up religious because that’s what “felt right”

tradition and all that

and then I realised the catholics hate me for no fucking reason

and then I thought “well fuck you too!” And called myself an atheist

later it went into agnostic

and a couple of weeks back I grew OBSESSED with religion

christian one I mean

Fuck I even started reading the nsrv bible in english (!)

and then I tried to interpret it “by myself” using some historical context and googling some stuff

WHAAAAAAAT! Turns out the bible is a product of its own time and is not to be taken literally!

That’s crazy innit?

Yeah and then I realised all of my recent hyperfixations (last two years) were a silent ways of rationalising ALL my “unreasonable” anxiety and trauma caused by; you guessed it

NOT UNDERSTANDING SYMBOLISM AND SOCIAL CUES AS IT IS

IN MY NATIVE FUCKING LANGUAGE

I can learn *any* language

I just need some books, movies, music in said language

But don’t ask me about any grammar. I don’t care about grammar. And you can’t make me. Idfk what present simple is but I can shove it so far up your ass your own mother won’t recognise you. so yeah

I’m great at learning languages cause they’re a “brainless” work for me

I mean

I learn languages for fun - it’s a tool to communicate with broader audience AND find more knowledge on the internet (I Google EVERYTHING in english)

and when someone tries to make it into an actual job of mine. This is when it goes downhill.

also english being coded as “language of knowledge” is my “main” language

my native language is way more complicated and I never really had to acknowledge my emotion in polish

I mean maybe I did but I just never wanted to cause I never learned that! English in comparison is simple. It allows me to communicate simple ideas without the need to “sound smart”

this and isolation from my peers (kids are bastards) gave me an actual “language barrier”

which isn’t the case really

it was just my overthinking

I started enjoying polish music way more recently cause I can never get the lyrics

so I listen only to what sounds “cool”

in english on the other hand the most of my music taste was built around midwestern emo and folk punk

cause I listened only to songs that felt “somewhat relatable”

yeah all of that understanding makes me want to write an essay but i kind of don’t care and I’m too lazy to do that!

so yeah this is how I “cured” my compulsions, anxiety, depression, irritability and perfectionism. By having fucking adhd and being a massive nerd. because I would hyperfixate on linux, customisation, open source applications, cybersecurity, programming

turns out I’m great at maths since I KNOW HOW to solve the problems

My brain is just too quick to do it step by step so I tend to skip and get lost in my own fuckin notebook 💀

schooling just made me believe I suck at maths and i should actually kms for trying to improve at it /hj /lh

And I suck at my own language. I know a lot of “complicated” words and can deduce what certain words mean (logically) but I have issues adapting my language to my listeners. I either cuss every other word (too comfortable; thanks mom LMFAO)

Or I speak like an university professor. To my peers. And they don’t know what the fuck is going on. And I end up isolating myself because of crippling fear of being misinterpreted. And people think I don’t have a sense of humour whatsoever because I don’t “get” jokes. But I joke a lot and am very sarcastic cause that’s just how I am. God damn it

When were y’all going to tell me not everyone thinks I want to use them and be a bastard overall when I need to ask someone for help. when. were. you.

icb I had to go to paid therapy, feed myself some subliminal messaging, deprive myself of sleep for 48 hours, force myself to talk to my dad about things I don’t understand or scare me, go manic for a week on venlafaxine, my aunt had to die and I had to have a reason not to go to school for 2 days for me to actually acknowledge my emotion instead of rationalising it.

also everyone in school + my therapist thinks I’m still manic and in need of hospitalisation. How do I even begin to explain it’s not that I have superiority complex, and I just realised I’m hella smart, just in a pretty unexpected way….. because thorough my entire life I never acknowledged it for the sake of being “humble”. bitch it’s not humble it’s the lack of self worth and being someone else’s doormat.

y’all think that if I say “house md and one tumblr post cured me” they’ll let me off the radar?

no honestly I have too much to catch up on (maths, c++, reading in POLISH, and learning German for fun) to actually care about “depressing” things of this world

I mean sure it does sound unhealthy in hindsight

but thing is

this is the first time in my life where I don’t feel hopeless both about present AND the future

and I guess that’s enough for now

I have “a goal” and that’s enough

Later I might catch a job as an actual university professor. Maths or computer science. Biology or physics maybe?

it gives me an excuse to be “eccentric” lol

cause the students are here to learn not to make fun of who I am and focus on that

sure it’s a funny anecdote to mention like “dude my physics teacher is fucking nuts but at least his lectures are interesting”

and that’s all I care about

I get to express myself instead of internalising anything

and the students get to learn

yay and yay

mutual benefit!

yeah anyway fuck I have so much shit to catch up on and I’m so lazy I actually have to reorganise my room and desk so I don’t try to do my homework in bed……. (Yes I was THAT depressed and lazy)

when I do my chores in bed I keep on losing my pens and I’m one minor inconvenience away from doing something I might not particularly want to do…….

yah

thats it I guess

If this post made anyone realise something (“connect some dots”)

congrats and I’m sorry you had to find out this way LMFAO

if not

scroll ahead, not the target audience probably