#I’m fine btw! I’m not in an unsafe mindset or anything

[fuzzymakercloudduck]

Paige Bueckers x reader

Fluff! Comfort!

I’m sad, wrote this out of the fact I needed it

This is so self indulgent btw

Dusk till Dawn

I have come very far in my career for a twenty two year old, I knew that, but there is a twinkling feeling that chases me for so long, a feeling of failure as if I will never be good enough, it’s exhausting having to fight your brain in a endless battle day to day.

Through the years it got easier, I have found friends that were there for me, my family, my job which I love, and then Paige who has become my sunlight. But sometimes the things I went through, the mental stress I was once caged in comes backs crumbling the steps I took so far.

And it was exactly what was happening right now, an overwhelming takeover of anxiety, I have been overworking myself lately, the fear that I will be a failure knocking down my walls, trying to drive properly as tears blur my vision was not a easy task when I literally couldn’t even breath.

For some miracle I get to the building safely, but I just couldn’t push myself to even get my belt off, I sit in the car and just fall apart, remembering everything, the times in my teenage years I wished I were gone for good, and I know it wasn’t right but I got myself wondering if I done enough to deserve to have lived, if I suffered enough to deserve to have happiness, to deserve Paige, to deserve anything good that I got.

I dry my tears and try to look put together as I bring myself up to Paige’s dorm, hoping the other girls weren’t there so they wouldn’t see me in this state, I just needed to be in my girlfriends arms.

Thankfully once I open the door, the living room was empty so I was able to just go straight to Paige’s room.

Once I standing in front of her door I take a deep breath before knocking.

“Baby, it’s me” I noticed my voice being raspy because of the meltdown I had so I try to cough discreetly as I hear Paige opening the door.

“What happened?” Her face is of immediate concern as she look my face up and down, I was stupid to think I could just pretend everything was fine, at least to the one who knew me the most, and that realization instantly made me have new found tears streaming down my face as I let out a sob, the feeling of stupidity filled my whole body as I hide my face in my hands, right away I felt Paige’s arms around me pulling me in as she closes the door behind my back, her smell sinking me in.

“shh, it’s okay, I’m right here” I feel her guiding me to her bed as she sit us both down, her words made me melt into her embrace then my tears came for real, it felt like hours of simply crying and sobbing as Paige’s hand went up and down my back soothing me down, she kept silence, knowing me well enough to know I need to formulate my feelings before anything else.

“I’m right here for you baby, d’ya wanna talk about it?” her voice was low as she kissed the side of my head. I take a deep breath as I hold tight onto her before saying anything.

“I just felt so overwhelmed lately, with work and within myself really” I let out a sob before continuing, “it makes me so anxious that those feelings I felt when I was in the deepest stage of my depression will just come knocking down everything I’ve done, all the way I crossed, I’m just scared” I finish and feel her arms falling from around me to now her hands holding mine as she look in my eyes.

“You have no idea of how strong you are, and I understand is so scary to know you ever felt that way, but the difference is that you were dealing with all that all by yourself, you don’t have to do it anymore, whenever you feel like you lost just remember I am right here with you, as well as so other people that love you, you’re not alone anymore, and you’ve come so more far than you even realize.” Paige whips the tears that spill out of my eyes as second nature and then pull me into her chest laying both of us down, suddenly all the unsafely mindset evaporate, being drowned out by the comfort of the person that loves me.

“And I need you to promise me that you will always talk with me when you feel like this, ok?” She look in my eyes as she say this, Paige was one of the only people that I shared my past history with mental health medicine and the darkest side of my depression. “Doesn’t matter where or when, the moment you need it I am right here, you do not need to be strong alone, I love you”

“I love you Paige” my eyes were so heavy because of the tears,I knew this would be a bigger conversation in the morning but for now I really needed to drift in sleep in her arms, my safe space, my home. “Thank you for just being you” she held my tightly as she grabbed the blankets to throw over us once she realized my eyes closed.

“I’m here from dusk till dawn” I feel a kiss pressed to my forehead right before I stumble in sleep.

*NOT PROOFREAD, ALSO ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE SO DO NOT COME FOR ME

[harmonizewithechoes]

(Video by @renegadescienceteacher on tiktok)

This video is making me Feel things that I can barely put words to

I of course had to grab some pen and paper and map out multiple generations after this. 10 generations ago is 512 people. 15 generations ago is 16,000 people. And if you go back 25 generations?

That’s 16,777,216 people. Over 16 MILLION people who lived and loved and had babies that had lived and loved and had babies that lived and loved and had babies and so on and so forth until you were born and made it to where we could all exist at the same time right now.

If any one of those people had had a different life that didn’t involve having kids you would not be here today. That is an absolutely wild concept to think about. Even if I don’t know the names of more than around 20 or so people- even though I have no idea who past that is connected to me- each and every single one of those people was important to me because they made it so that I could exist today.

If they were important enough to still be impacting the world today, long after the world has forgotten their names, then maybe I have some importance as well?

[dwindlingashesburnt]

How long do the shields stay down?

This is something I think is really really important for you to be aware of if you're in a situation that's bad for you or are just doing kinda shit in any way - physical, mental, emotional, whatever. And I'm including stuff like food, shelter, sleep under physical for the sake of this

And that is this - at some point your body and or mind will almost definitely try to protect you by shielding you from it. When it's mental or emotional this is typically a very long term thing to keep you safe that you have to actively unlearn, as is physical stuff like training yourself not to flinch or stuff like that. When it's a lack of something physical like sleep or food or so on, it's generally just intended to keep you going until you manage to get whatever it is you needed, at which point the shields should start falling on their own pretty quickly

But the obvious problem with this is that if you're being shielded from the problem, you don't know how bad said problem is. You might not even be sure what the problem is, or even worse, might not even be aware that there is a problem. This means that until those shields go down, you can't figure out what's wrong or how to fix it, and you may end up actually making the problem much worse without realising in the meantime

(That's the end of the general advice bit - which is important btw! - and now goes into my own stuff, which isn't important except to me cos it's mostly just venting so feel free to stop reading at this point)

I rediscovered this yesterday night.

Every time I get this badly worn down, it always happens exactly the same way - I've already been apathetic and tired for quite a while, low on sleep, and been constantly tense for a long time, but bc I'm apathetic and can't sleep, I stay up watching videos on youtube for far too long. At some point, I find myself actually in quite a bit of pain and only then realise it's because I'm so incredible tense, and at this point I start finding it to be a real struggle to focus my vision or pick out the voices and concentrate enough to really watch videos. A while after this, I normally find that I'm shaking uncontrollably, and acknowledge to myself that it's most likely a mixture of a shitty mental place, being so tense for so long, and utter exhaustion. So to double check, I put some simple music on that doesn't require much focus, close my eyes and focua on going limp - I know that if my own thoughts fade to absolutely nothing while the singing drifts through my mind, and that I lose ALL tension and start melting into the bed...This means I'm on the point of passing out and or veering into dangerously sleep deprived suicidal ideation type territory, and need to sleep stat.

And this is the part that really alarms me - before I go to bed I need to put the light on so I don't trip, put my phone on charge, go to the bathroom and have a drink of water. Before sitting up at this stage I am AWAYS exhausted, noticably shaking, struggling to focus my vision beyond a blur, and so mentally wiped out I can barely string a single thought together, not to mention thirsty, empty, and feeling tired down to my bones, off balance and like I want to either pass out or start sobbing any second.

But by the time I get back into bed I'm always seemingly fine, if not better than when I first started watching videos - and this fucking scares me.

Because that switch happens in less than five or so minutes! Nothing has changed in that time, I am still on the borderline of passing out, I am still exhausted, I am still in an absolute shit place both mentally and emotionally and quite frequently in the middle of a relapse, and god knows what else. NOTHING HAS CHANGED I'm just far too good at putting up a front even to myself, and so practiced at it I just do it automatically- even though this normally happens around 2am or 1am when there is absolutely nobody to put up a front for!

And when I get back in bed, if I didn't remember exactly how bad I had been not ten minutes before, even I wouldn't realise there was any issue whatsoever! Let alone an issue THAT bad

That means that every time I walk into the bathroom and instantly feel sluggish thoughts crawling through my mind and then rapidly speeding up to a somewhat normal speed, every time I fill my water bottle and watch as my hands go from shaking so bad I dropped my phone and struggled to take out my earphones to not shaking at all, every time I stand and feel the majority of the tension leave and my shoulders force themselves up and back into more of a slouch and less a slump, every time I realise my vision is suddenly clear enough to be able to plug my phone in, and balance good enough to safely walk past the landing...It scares the fucking shit out of me.

I don't make any conscious, or as far as I'm aware, unconscious decision to do this, to put up this front - it just fucking happens without my input, automatically. That's terrifying because it suggests it's going to be difficult or even impossible to stop this, or any lesser form of this, from happening in the future

It also alarms me that it tricks me, that it goes so far as forcing my thoughts and mindset to shift, and that it happens when I'm entirely alone and safe. That's fucking scary - how do I stop it if I'm not even aware of it, if it's deep enough to change how my thoughts are happening, if no outside input seems to affect it? It's not a case of just, remove the bad input and I'll be fine - what do I do with that?!

Additionally, the fact that it's so thorough, tricks even me and happens without my input..I'm horribly aware that means that at more or less any moment I may be maintaining this front and not even realise. And I know for a fact it impacts my decisions...It makes me feel scared that maybe, maybe I'm hurting far more often and far more than I think, maybe I'm effectively lying most if not all of the time, maybe I'm making decisions I wouldn't if I wasn't shielding, maybe, maybe others don't even know me properly with this.

It's only maybe ten minutes total between music (shield down) and getting back in bed (shields up)

Sometimes I suddenly and very temporarily break free of this front, or apathy, or simple fear and nonoIcan't, and message my friends trying to tell them things I urgently want to share that I know I won't be able to when those shields come back up, so it's urgent and important.....And sometimes they don't reply in time and they ask something like, "what is it?" but I won't have the words anymore, or it won't seem important, or it will seem like the worst idea ever, or I'll struggle to even remember what "it" was, or I'll feel unable to say it

But every time I know I urgently wanted to say something, and now I can't because my mind and body is just, doing its damn best to protect me, which I appreciate but I just....But it also is awful because I don't know how to tell them in a way that makes sense "I'm sorry. You missed your ten minutes. I can't, I can't, I'm sorry - I want to but I can't. You missed it" so...so often I end up deflecting because at that point really do anything else

And usually in THAT kinda scenario it's not ten minutes (it may be anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours) but it never lasts too long so, so if they're not online or busy or caught up in another conversation etcetcetc......I lose the chance to be honest.

And I often don't get another chance to be really, truly honest, for LITERAL MONTHS

Apparently it's been determined that this is the best way to keep me safe and not in even worse health, but it's also incredibly isolating and I hate it

Quite often all I really want to say or do is more than a quickly passed over "I love you" and a brief hug - I want to be able to say "I love you. You're my best friend and I love you for this reason and this reason and this reason. You're amazing, and I love you - you help me in this way and this way and this way and I'm so grateful. If there's ever anyway I can ever help you or make you happy...Tell me. I want you to be happy. I love you - how could I not love you?"

And I CAN'T and I FUCKING CAN'T and I can't share any of the other stuff about my experiences or personality or relationships or opinions or anything that my brain has deemed "unsafe" BECAUSE OF ABSOLUTE PIECES OF SHIT WHO THINK IT'S SO FUCKING FUNNY TO BULLY AND BELITTLE AND GASLIGHT AND EMOTIONALLY ABUSE AND HURT AND IT'S NOT FAIR

The three biggest things for me, are affection, understanding, and being close to people

Do you know how much it fucking kills me to not be able to say EXACTLY how much I love everyone near me, because I was told so often that to love anyone and especially to love so freely, was am invitation to be hurt?

Do you know how alone and miserable and frustrated I get when I try to be understood and understand others and succeed in neither?

I nearly started crying one time because I was with my dad and sibling, and that was all, both of whom should be safe, and I started telling a funny story about one of our cats. And suddenly I just realised that the words coming out of my mouth weren't the truth. I knew damn well they weren't, and I hadn't been planning to lie at all, and I'd started off truthfully, but some stupid small part of me had started going "this isn't safe this isn't safe you'll be hurt they'll hurt you scream at you make you feel like you should be dead they'll make you cry then call you evil for it it's not safe it's not safe" so suddenly I realised the words coming out of my mouth weren't the ones I meant to say, and I tried to stop talking and it didn't work, and I tried to go back to how it actually happened or just my original story which was very very minorly altered (like 10% different from the truth) to keep me safe, but I couldn't and that scared me because I just kept talking, this version of the story that played up how cute and tiresome the cat was, that simultaneously diminished my part in it all and yet at the same time painted me as being silly and harmless and useful and entertaining and I just....I remember I freaked out a bit when I kept speaking even though I didn't want to, but that part of me was still going "not safe not safe not safe" and then I remember feeling for an instant like I was going to have to flee because I was about to start sobbing, but then I just felt some part of me shatter and go dim and silent and die. And suddenly I felt hollow and miserable and I was shielded again, and so I just kept talking even though later I cried about it and freaked out a lot and just...I hadn't even meant to lie. I was safe. I was among allies. It was a harmless story about a cat that didn't even feature me heavily and certainly didn't cast me in a bad light, but the entire time some part just kept chanting "not safe not safe they'll hurt you you musnt you cant you cant let them theyll hurt you its not safe its not safe its not safe"

And that fucking kills me