#also feeling a lot or guilt for having access to treatment for my trauma while people are being retraumatized and murdered constantly

[nastytransmasc]

Unfortunately, or fortunately, idk, the patterns are converging and becoming more pronounced

[shiobookmark]

Ooh actually, new Utena theory.

So I've been following along with a certain liveblog (won't say who in case they see this, they don't like spoilers) and I've realised that while I like my previous Utena analysis it never really satisfactorily explained what the heck happened with Dios/Akio and Anthy.

All we really know is that Dios eventually exhausted his ability to save all the girls in the world, and Anthy stepped in to save him from an angry mob.

So just a quick aside to set the scene.

The reason Dios can't be Anthy's prince is that the fairytale prince is an explicitly romantic figure. A prince makes a girl his princess, his bride, and she is then loyal only to him. You could say it plays into notions of romantic chivalry as well.

There was a review of the film with Jesuotaku and Oancitizen which put this rather succinctly, to paraphrase:

A prince has to play a dominant role in a relationship, which means controlling his beloved in such a way that undermines her personhood, which will eventually destroy the fantasy of the prince anyway. Or else they have to be nobly self-sacrificial to all people and be unable to give their beloved special treatment, eventually sacrificing their own happiness and that of their partner.

Dios could not protect the person he really loved (Anthy) and still be a prince without either sacrificing his personal relationship with her and being a hero to all, or by forcing her into a subservient role.

As Dios, he tried to be a good person and hopefully help Anthy along the way, but as a result Anthy was left all alone in the world as he was too busy to spend time with her. He couldn't make her his princess because that would be a romantic role, and to be clear, at the time there were no incestuous feelings there. He loved his sister and wanted to be with her as a family, but his role as a prince forced them apart.

And when it eventually grew to be too much, Anthy decided to take on the role of a villain and hopefully free him that way. If the prince had been captured by an evil witch, he could no longer fight for the world. Maybe then they could be a family again, even if she had to be hated by everyone, it would be worth it.

The key thing is here, I don't think Anthy did anything.

She didn't seal away his power, she just claimed Dios for herself and herself alone. That was enough to get the mob angry enough to tear through her.

Maybe she did seal away his power to prevent him from being even able to fight, but if she did, surely she would have been able to give it back to him? Akio never seems to directly confront her about that, and I think he would. So unless it was a spell she could never take back and he was leveraging her guilt over that, I think something else happened.

But in any case, when Dios saw what the people he'd sacrificed everything for had done to his beloved sister, he lost it.

He probably killed them, but even if he didn't, he lost all faith in humanity as a whole. From then on, he decided he was going to be a prince to Anthy alone.

And at first it was everything she wanted. Dios was with her and yes she was in pain, she had to take all the hatred and resentment of humanity for his departure in his place, had to take all the blame, but she was happy.

But, as we covered, a prince can't be a prince to his sister. He can sort of be a prince to his beloved, but only if she submits to his authority.

So over time, it became twisted. Dios started forcing Anthy into that subservient role, tried to mould her into a princess, into his bride, rather than his sister. All the while he began to blame her for putting him in this position.

At some point, perhaps since that day in the barn, Akio was unable to access his powers.

Dios locked himself away in his own coffin, buried so deep down he could no longer climb his way out. Even worse than Anthy, he became almost entirely detached from his old self. And with it, his powers were gone. I think Dios sealed himself away.

And he was horrified to see what he had become.

So he used what little agency he had left to reach out to duelists. I don’t believe Utena was the only one or even the first. He reached out to anyone he thought had a noble heart, hoping eventually that someone would be able to help.

Akio found his own version of this, of people stunted by their traumas, so he used Anthy’s power to weave a garden where he could control everything and hopefully groom a prince powerful enough to break through to Dios’ coffin.

Anthy went along with it because by this point Akio’s successfully worn her down. Maybe she hopes he’d be able to return to his old self. She’s clinging to the past, hoping that one day they can be a family again. It’s also a bit of sunk cost fallacy, she’s worked so hard to help her brother surely just a little more won’t matter.

Dios didn’t know how to free Anthy, but maybe someday someone would be the prince he could never be. He lent them his powers as necessary, trying to raise one up to be strong enough to bring Revolution.

But his new self was always there twisting things. The cycle went on and on. It could be with the same players, it could be with new ones. Maybe they’re all going round and round in time. Maybe Utena is new, maybe she’s done this before. There’s lots of possibilities.

But either way, little did Dios know that no prince would ever be able to save Anthy. Anthy needed to make the choice to walk away. Anthy brought the Revolution. Utena just helped her realise she could still open that door.

[valideity]

[the original post that i’m replying to by @colorsinautumn is in the source link but basically it went like this:]

y’all, i feel like i need to remind y’all that there’s a huge difference between ignoring what’s going on, and taking a mental break because you’re exhausted with trying to keep up with the situation in the country right now. this shit is no joke and is weighing incredibly heavy on people such as myself and if you need to take a break from this and just log out, please do. please take care of yourself and don’t feel bad that you’re not keeping up with things at every second of the day.

god i keep reading the notes on this post about being privileged to take a break and i feel the need to explain a few things. one, a black man wrote this post. two, i clearly emphasized the point of ignoring what’s going on. I understand that non black people have the privilege of being able to “log out” and not be effected by this. black people like myself don’t have that privilege of just being able to log out. what i’m trying to say with this post is that you shouldn’t be feeling like shit all day and having anxiety attacks and generally feeling incredibly overwhelmed all the time. taking care of your mental health is not up for fucking debate and I don’t care what the color of your skin is, this applies to everyone. take care of yourself mentally and physically. i can’t believe I have to argue that people have the right to care for themselves amidst all the shit going on in the world today.

i’m a white person and bro, the shit going on in the US earlier in the year was a real catalyst to my first psych ward admission (not like police brutality against Black, Indigenous and people of colour, and other marginalised and multiply marginalised populations is a ‘new’ thing).

i felt completely powerless and like i had to prove my whole entire moral worth as a person via social media and while i learnt that the best thing to do was to amplify Black, Indigenous and people of colours voices AND to spread resources and awareness was the best thing to do in that situation, as well as show up to protests and educate ourselves, i just totally shut down as i couldn’t find the RIGHT posts to share, I didn’t want to spread trauma-porn to my BIPOC followers already suffering, and i couldn’t find something to do that seemed authentic and genuine (seeing as this was NOT a new problem), and in my mostly-white social media circles had barely even been addressed before George Floyd.

at one point, i didn’t even know whether we (whites) were doing this for solidarity or purely for reputation, and THAT thought fucks me up.

and i still dont know if my radio silence due to wanting to seem authentic and genuine during this time was more of a reflection of me and my personal faults and schemas and insecurities rather than a genuine desire to be more consistent and mindful in my awareness-spreading and a preference to have in-depth discussions with the people around me about what was and still, always, is going on in the fucked up world we live in

anyway, i still have a lot of guilt and regret over being so silent in that time and wish i could give out a billion of the sincerest apologies to Black, Indigenous and people of colour (and other marginalised identities), who may have seen my internet presence and thought of me as not an ally or safe presence to them. so, for what it’s worth and for whomever may see this, i’m so, so sorry.

i appreciate @colorsinautumn ‘s sentiment of looking after your mental and physical health despite your skin colour. it resolved me of a lot of the shame i’ve been carrying since that time. but i’m still fucking internally debating the quality of my heart (but that’s my own shit to deal with).

“...I understand that non-black people have the privilege of being able to “log out” and not be effected by this. black people like myself don’t have the privilege of just being able to log out. what i’m trying to say with this post is that you shouldn’t be feeling like shit all day and having anxiety attacks and generally feeling incredibly overwhelmed all the time. taking care of your mental health is not up for fucking debate and I don’t care what the color of your skin is, this applies to everyone. take care of yourself mentally and physically. I can’t believe I have to argue that people have the right to care for themselves amidst all the shit going on in the world today.”

since then, i’ve come across a few resources that i’ve found to be very accessible for people with ADHD and other learning disabilities who may struggle to read:

the first one is a documentary (with subtitles) on the continuation of Australia’s foul and disgusting treatment towards our First Nations peoples. it’s called Utopia, and you can access it for free here:

https://vimeo.com/168410495

the second one is a book called Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. If you have the money, I’d highly recommend purchasing the ebook, to support both the author and the publisher (Arsenal Pulp Press is very good and publishes lots of antiracist and queer content from authors with marginalised identities). If you can’t afford the book, https://gen.lib.rus.ec is a way you can get it for free. It’s about the intersectional Disability Justice movement, mutual aid, ‘care webs’ and life with neurodivergence (they have autism and other NDs) chronic illness and disability as a whole as a person of colour. It is an easy and accessible read, with essays in small chunks of writing, and using text-to-speech on iOS or mac, or, apps like Speechify and fonts like OpenDyslexic make it a lot easier.

the audiobook is available on the app/website Scribd if you’d like to read along with the audiobook.

this video is also an excellent starter for those who are interested in reading the book. it is also officially close-captioned (rather than auto-generated)

‘left-tube’ creators like philosophytube have a lot of content about police brutality, prisons, solitary confinement and racism to check out

if you want to read a book or get an introduction/discussion about it (with subtitles), searching youtube for the book title and author is bound to come up with something. Take Alex Vitale’s The End Of Policing (published by Verso, whom i highly recommend for both books and educational videos) for example:

or, Police: A Field Guide (a book about the history and abolition of the police) by David Correia and Tyler Wal (also published by Verso), brings up an interview with Vitale, Correia, and Wall:

or, this, an interview about the book and discussion:

, and, this youtuber has just started uploading the audiobook to youtube:

as well as The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.

so yes, there are accessible ways to educate yourself about this stuff, whether you have ADHD, dyslexia or another learning disability—it just took me a while to figure it out.

I hope this post was helpful to people like me who struggle to read and/or pay attention but want to educate themselves in the ways that Black people have recommended.

[leam1983]

Cyberpunk 2077 Thoughts

Having perused Dark Horse Books’ The World of Cyberpunk 2077 over the past few days, I’ve gotten a better feel for the various basic hooks that structure V’s inception as a protagonist. The short of it is the Polish wizards are on the right path to nailing Pondsmith’s treatment the same way they nailed Sapkowski’s works.

Consider the following as half a brain dump, half a series of prospective spoilers, and also half projection, so either skip this, find some other entry to read, or come back to this come late November.

I know I mentioned three halves, but it’s late and I don’t give a shit.

I’m serious - DO NOT PRESS ON IF YOU’RE THE TYPE TO BLOW A GASKET IF YOU’RE INADVERTANTLY SPOILED. 

The latest Night City Wire as of August exposed three incipient “life paths”, or starting branches of V’s path. I’ll tackle my personal narrative approaches to them in the order of my choosing.

Nomads: CP2077 is set in a world where much of what we understand to define a family has been blown up, tossed around by climate change and nuclear fire and then stitched back together using grit, resourcefulness and the last dying embers of human decency. Nomads are less a group of people defined by blood relations and more a cadre of individuals that share something more significant than mere genes. It might be a common history, a set of shared hardships, a yen for similar automotive and engineering-related projects - whatever it is, that something pulls people together in ways Corpo rats and street kids will never experience.

This seems to define even the average Nomad’s degree of education. Surprisingly, Nomads are the most well-read group in Coronado Bay’s greater area, some caravans reportedly including entire RVs packed with books. Nomads generationally elect teachers and record-keepers and seem to care for those cultural remnants of the old world, before Pondsmith’s paranoid alternate sixties kicked off more than a century’s worth of technological progression and rampant dehumanization. To a Night City native, a Nomad’s speech patterns appear precious and uselessly florid, while they might appear almost normal to us - maybe slightly touched by the fact that Grandpa Joe or whatever really wanted you to have your Greek classics down before you were old enough to repair your first CH00H2 carburetor on your own.

That new, mega-clustered version of family matters immensely to the Nomads. You identify to yours the same way Orcs in Shadow of War might refer to their clan, or the same way a Scottish clan might design specific visual cues identifying its members. In normal circumstances, Nomads live, thrive and die in service to the clan - and the opening segment for V’s Nomad origins suggests that something happened to his clan. They’re gone, or so the narration says, without going into further detail. Is V responsible? We don’t currently know. As it stands, however, he is a lone Nomad in a clan of one, and soon finds himself pushed out of the Californian wastes and into Night City’s neon-drenched streets.

Seeing this, I considered the narration as an admission of guilt on V’s part. He feels responsible, and hopes that grinding his way to success will in some way atone for what he’s done. Consequently, my Nomad V would be as gruff as could be, but as moral and upstanding as the setting allows. He considers himself as having been invested with an example to set, and would intend to set his sights on more than just filthy lucre. Honest filthy lucre is what matters to him, if that concept even is possible: he might deal in unsavory types and illicit activities, but he always does so with a certain moral rectitude - as a tough and gruff, lean and stringy type you can occasionally catch in his battered Thornton pick-up truck with his feet up on the dashboard and a dog-eared copy of Plato’s Republic in hand. Jackie honestly wonders how he can put up with that Greek pendejo’s endless words and the lack of scrolling animations, while V keeps his Kiroshi optics’ News ticker locked onto grassroots Leftist RSS feeds that stoke a bit of an ignored Rockerboy ethos in him. Quoting Marx in Night City might feel like trying to teach lab rats in the finer points of string theory, but it at least feels genuine to him, compared to the predigested sociopolitical pap Militech, Arasaka and their ilk are more than happy to spew on the airwaves. 

There’s a lot to be pissed off about in Richard Night’s failed utopia, a lot of fat cats to gut and buildings to burn. Still, he leaves the glowering act and the churning rage to Johnny Silverhand’s imprinted ghost. Being more of a down-low, gun-toting choomba than a classic Street Samurai, Vincent “V” Carson thinks first and strikes second.

Vinnie isn’t much for electric guitars and anarchy in the UK, much less in the Free State of Southern California; but he does love the occasional Leonard Cohen ballad or the occasional shot of Johnny Cash’s melancholy. Having picked up something of a Northern Texas drawl while cruising, he might feel like Harry Dresden’s Good Ol’ Boy cousin, magic tricks here pushed aside in favor of a measure of dermal plating and a good ol’ fashioned twelve-gauge and revolver combo. Not being much of a techno-fetishist, he considers his optics and his skull jack as being begrudging concessions to an era that looks down on fully “ganic” types. Having grown up with TV serials and the occasional visor-based Braindance all depicting cyberpsychosis as something vile that utterly dehumanizes its sufferers, he’s naturally wary around anyone who seems a little too giddy with the prospect of taking a few scalpels to perfectly decent muscles and bones.

His Thornton is where most of his Eddies go, and yes, he’s named his truck Suzie. Suzie’s done right by him, and he’ll do right by her - unless someone else with a pretty smile and a working moral compass makes him swoon.

Street Kids: if you weren’t taught on the highways or in corporate arcologies, odds are you became a positive blip in an otherwise grim statistic, one of the myriad fucked-up kids raised by other fucked-up kids with more seniority than you. With no roads and paid-for nannies, you survived off of grifts, grit, violence, deceit, smarts and gumption - and that, in its own screwball way, creates its own blood ties. You’re wise by Heywood’s standards - streetwise, that is - and you speak the back-alleys’ lingua franca of threats, insinuation and casual intimidation like no other.

If only Jackie hadn’t fingered that Rayfield, huh? This beaut could’ve been paydirt! Well, at least for a week or so, judging by the fact that hundreds of car thefts are reported across Night City on a daily basis. At least, Dean - who also goes as “V” - got to make a new friend while out in the pokey, and managed to shake a few proverbial trees... They’ve got a short-lease in with Trauma Team’s frequency and could maybe hook themselves up with a sweet finder’s fee for anyone who’s on the verge of death at the hands of the city’s Scavengers...

Little does V know, that’s selling Trauma Team as well as their clients painfully short. Shows of gratitude don’t mean anything if you’re not packing the right social status. He barely remembers his birth parents as it is, and grew up the fifth grubby prospect of one of the Valentinos’ “school clubs” (hence the nickname) - where the points of study refer to the proper observances to be held in Jesus Malaverde’s presence, intensive Chicano and Spanish immersion, as well as the handling of common types of weaponry.

Vincent and Dean would be likely to shoot one another, if placed in the same room. One clings onto nearly-lost value systems, while the other commodifies what can be discarded like so much flesh - only inasmuch as his efforts to pacify his unofficial five or six abuelas force him to forego extensive modifications. His knives and wrist-mounted data port are his main tools of the trade, although Dean keeps his hacking creds along the bare minimum. Why bother, when melting an ATM’s ICE wall and whacking the cops with a baseball bat is all you need? There’s a type of gun for nearly anything else, if someone knows where to look...

Dean has no last name, and is consequently registered as “Dean Smith” in the city’s Census records. That doesn’t suggest, however, that he wouldn’t want to make one for himself. As he’s less focused on the city’s legends than on its kingmakers and pawn-movers, Dexter DeShawn strikes him as someone to emulate, watch and learn from - all with a decent degree of caution.

Being on top matters a little less to him than eventually pulling Heywood’s stings. With a little fear and a lot of persistence, Dean “V.” Smith knows that one day, he won’t go hungry on a weeknight. To that end, he’s certainly a hearty eater, here paired with extensive free-weight training regimens and the use of anabolic stimulants. Oh, sure, he’ll speak of family and blood like the best soldier festooned in Santa Muerte visual codices, but his friend Jackie’s got a mind like a slow and steady steel trap.

Either Dean blows his new fellow Street Samurai out of the pond, or he does. Unlike Jackie, however, Dean isn’t realistic about it. Friendships are a rare gift in Heywood, if not the rest of Night City, and Dean’s convinced that Jackie could conceivably look past his final betrayal.

Corpo: nowadays, we’re mostly familiar with the idea of one-percenters creating a bubble of affluence for themselves. Boarding schools, private villas, prebooked vacations across the globe’s priciest spots, access to the hottest trends on the minute of their inception - what this tends to forego is the level of social disconnect that’s required in order to stay relevant. We’re only just waking up to the consequences of letting an aging, crusty first-generation Yuppie be crowned the ruler of the free world, and even someone who’s behind on their Bret Easton Ellis could tell you that Donald J. Trump is a sociopath and a narcissist.

Take that mindset, and cultivate it into an ethos that’s taught to children from a very early age - children who live, eat, shit and breathe in accordance with their parent corporation’s tenets. The more placid, mid-tier lifers in the genre are called sararimen, in reference to William Gibson’s use of the term to designate low-level company workers in Chiba City. A bit like Shenzhen’s factory workers and execs, everything in a corpo’s life is in service to the corporation.

In Night City, as of 2077, two major players have installed this culture of total obedience in their roster. Their names are Militech and Arasaka. One is a juggernaut in the field of military-grade personal defence, the other has a wider grasp and reach, but is more fragile. Arasaka owes that fragility to the last fifty years having involved its re-establishment and reconstruction. Fifty years ago, Night City’s Corpo Plaza was blasted open by a thermonuclear discharge that sent the Japanese giant packing. The charges had been set by three Edgerunners: Rogue, Morgan Blackhand and Johnny Silverhand - accessorily a well-respected Rockerboy and front-line member of the band SAMURAI. Only Rogue survived that fateful night, or so the street lingo goes, having gone on to start a legitimate consultation business as well as a fruitful career in the hospitality business. Her bar, the Afterlife, is Night City’s hotspot for every techie, script kiddie and accomplished cyber-spelunker.

Our gal Vivian knows this. She knows this, because Vivian “V.” Banks lives two lives.

In one of them, she’s a lean and hungry Junior Executive in Arasaka’s Counter-Intel division. In that line of work, you either fuck someone’s prospects or protect your own, or ensure that no up-and-comer just out of the company’s Law School program manages to push you off the board. She knows full well that in centuries past, corpo-speak was made up of mild euphemisms that at best referred to destroying a rival’s prospects or lifelihood. Taking a life was something that required careful deliberation, especially when tossing a fat severance bonus into an aging CFO’s three-piece pockets and letting your erstwhile rival snort cocaine off of the rolling hips of Tahitian dancers was so much cheaper...

Nowadays, zeroing someone is commonplace.

You’re born for Arasaka, and chances are you’ll die for Arasaka just the same. Viv’s killed, lied, cheated and even stole her way to her position, remorse being this vaguely churning sense of coldness in her gut that keeps one-night stands coming in and out of her bedroom. She only remembers her parents as being credit-chip enablers and personal enhancement drug addicts, cutting ties with them so completely on the day of her official hiring that it felt more like a tacit understanding.

On most days, sex and booze keep the cold at bay. On most days, Vivian Banks is a class-act of a sociopath. The stronger she gets, however, and the more paranoid her targets become - which reinforces her own paranoia. Before long, playing the part of one of Arasaka’s several poisonous flowers won’t work anymore.

Unfortunately, she trusts no-one. No Fixer could put her in contact with any hacker she’d trust, no rando fresh off the street with a retro-tinted National Arms plinker would satisfy her. To climb up the ranks and maybe share tea with Old Man Saburo himself, she needs a spotless performance record. She needs skills.

More importantly, she needs a reputation. That means leaving Arasaka Tower and mingling with the experts in their own field - and it means filling out her back book of successful hits. The drinks at the Afterlife are decent enough, but what she’s after is an official in.

If she can get to Rogue, or maybe even hook up with a ripperdoc not bought and paid for by the company, she might be able to score both new skills and increased performance...

If it were as simple as slitting Janet’s throat in HR and diving her way to an orgiastic performance review quite innocently left on the department’s server, she would’ve done that already. Viv is my obvious Pure Stealth build candidate, my main-line hacker and would-be engineer with a thing for black power skirts and designer offensive augments.

With that said, we’re months ahead of schedule, all the good shit’s already come out, so we’re stuck playing the waiting game...

What are your own character or build ideas for Cyberpunk 2077?

[abundanceofsoph]

SkyFire 2: Chapter 12

The Late Show with Steve Colbert: September 28th, 2016

Word count: 2.8k

Song is Reaper by Andie Case

SkyFire 2 MASTERLIST

Aurora was anxiously pacing backstage as she waited for her time to walk out onto the set. She listened as Stephen Colbert began his opening monologue and she swallowed thickly as he explained how the following day marked the first anniversary of the shooting and how this episode was in honour of the 43 lives they had lost that day. Mark squeezed her shoulder in support as she was announced and she let out a shaky breath, trying to push her anxiety aside as the curtain was pulled back for her. Her hand trembled as she walked out into the bright studio lights, the crowd applauding as she approached were Stephen Colbert stood in front of his desk. She hugged him before taking a seat on the sofa next to the desk; the audience continued to clap and cheer for a few extra moments before Stephen shushed them and she felt the weight of everyone’s gaze fall on her. She had a smile plastered on her face and if her family were there, they would recognise how fake it was, but to the audience in front of her she looked calm and collected, some would even say excited to be there.

“Aurora, welcome,” Stephen said once the audience fell silent. “Thank you for joining us tonight.”

“Thank you for having me,” Aurora replied. “I know we’ve been trying to make this happen since your first show last year.”

“We have and of course everyone watching knows that it’s been an incredibly challenging year for you, so we are very grateful to have you here. What has this last 12 months been like?”

“Like you said it’s been really challenging. When I woke up in the hospital they told me I’d been shot about a dozen times, once in the abdomen, 4 times in my shoulder and then another 7 or possibly more in my left hand, so for the first few months I was just focusing on all the surgeries and trying to heal.”

“And about a month after the shooting you were trending online after you joined your fiancé Harry Styles on stage for One Directions last concert show. What brought that about?”

“I think in the wake of tragedies like the Columbia shooting we all focus on the victims and their recovery but not a lot of thought goes to the victim’s friends and families if they survive. For those that die, their families receive overwhelming support, but if your loved one survives, there’s not a lot of emotional support and that’s something I never realised until I found myself in that situation. While I was recovering physically and receiving the help I needed to deal with the PTSD and the emotional trauma, my family was struggling and that became pretty clear to me when I watched fan videos from the One Direction tour and I saw the way that Harry and the other lads were hurting. I can’t begin to imagine the trauma of hearing someone you love has been involved in a mass shooting and that they might not make it. That leaves such devastating wounds that I knew I had to go to London and help them through that pain. Getting on stage was just this last minute idea we cooked up to celebrate that I was still there and to thank the fans for all their support.”

“It was a beautiful moment to watch,” Stephen replied, “but you’ve been pretty quiet online since then.”

“I have yeah. I stayed on Instagram and I’ve kept posting there but I deleted all my other social media accounts after the shooting.”

“Why was that?”

“Emotions were running high and unfortunately the anonymity of social media really encourages the worst in people. There was quite a lot of awful things being said about myself and my family in those first few weeks and mentally I wasn’t in a good place so I just deleted everything and my manager does a great job of keeping my Instagram comment section clear of the worst of things.”

“Why stay on Instagram at all? Why not delete it as well?”

“Despite the fame and attention, I’m like most 21 year olds. I want to see what my friends are doing and share the aspects of my life that I’m comfortable sharing and I love my fans. They’re really wonderful people and I like being able to invite them into my world in small ways, I’m just learning how to do that in a way that’s right for my mental health.”

“You said you were receiving a lot of hate after the shooting, what kinds of things were being said?”

“While most people were incredibly supportive, there were also a lot of voices pointing out the special treatment I received because I’m a Stark. I saw the best surgeons and I never had to worry about hospital bills. I also survived because my parents responded to the emergency as quickly as they did, and I was rushed to the nearest hospital. A lot of people died because nobody got to them as fast as they got to me.”

“Did you agree with what they were saying?”

“Of course, and I still do. Growing up poor and then being thrust into my dad’s world has always caused me to have a tremendous amount of guilt. I have so much privilege and even though I knew how lucky I was I didn’t use that privilege to help people. It was really confronting to get called out for that on such a massive scale, especially when I was at my most vulnerable.”

“And you used that as a wakeup call, didn’t you?”

“I did. My father’s charity, the Maria Stark Foundation stepped in immediately in the wake of the shooting and set up the ColumbiaStrong fund to pay for the medical care and funeral expenses of the other victims. The fund has ensured that everyone had access to the surgeries they needed, as well as providing therapy for those of us who developed PTSD and other mental illnesses from that day.”

“It’s an incredible initiative,” Stephen agreed, “and we’ve heard that you’ve taken a more hands on approach in recent months.” Aurora looked at him for a moment, trying to work out what he was referring to. “It’s been reported that you’ve been visiting hospitals over the summer.”

‘Ahhh’, she thought, ‘So people finally caught on to that.’

“I thought I was doing a good job of sneaking around and keeping that out of the news,” she chuckled, attempting to cover her nervousness. “Ever since my own amputation I’ve been visiting the children’s hospitals and speaking to kids with prosthetics and residual limbs.”

“They must love meeting you.”

“They’re incredible kids. Honesty I think they’ve helped me more than I’ve helped them. They’ve always got a smile on their faces and they don’t see themselves as victims. Meeting them helped me come to terms with my own situation.”

“You’re very humble.”

“I just don’t like to take credit for things like I’m some hero. I’m just 21 year old girl that survived something horrific and I’m just trying to do the best I can with what I’ve got.”

“Well we’ve got some people joining us tonight who are also doing the best they can with what they’ve got,” Stephen said to the camera, the audience clapping along. “We’ll be right back with more of the incredible survivors of the 2015 Columbia Shooting and a performance by Aurora Stark.”

As the cameras cut to the commercials, Aurora stood up, making her way off the set to where Mark was waiting for her. “You did great,” he said and they both turned to watch the crew swap out the seat she’d just vacated with a three seater sofa and add three bar stools behind it. There were 5 other survivors of the shooting guesting on the show, all choosing to be interviewed together as apposed the solo interview that Aurora had just given.

“Welcome back to the late show,” Colbert said when they returned from the commercial break. “I’m joined by 5 incredible young men and women; Chris Watkins, Jacinta Flores, Brandy Taylor, Jacob Lawler and Daniel Thomas.”

Aurora watched the interview on one of the monitors backstage. She felt like her own experience was being recounted by the 5 people on set as they discussed their own recoveries and the challenges facing them, so similar to her own. 3 had returned to Columbia to continue their studies, while the other 2, like Aurora, couldn’t face going back. They all had a range of injuries, but she found that they all shared the same burden of nightmares, flashbacks and guilt. After Colbert threw to another commercial break, Aurora headed back out onto the set, this time heading for the stage area. She smiled at the members of Harry’s new band, grateful that they agreed to join her for this performance, and she felt a little less nervous with them sitting behind her after spending so much time with them all in her home studio. Sarah gave her a supportive thumbs up from where she was already sat behind her drum kit, Adam similarly smiling in support with his base guitar in hand, and despite feeling more at home with a guitar in his hands, Mitch had happily volunteered to play piano once he’d heard Aurora talking to Harry about how scared she felt to play live. She didn’t allow herself much time to be nervous about her first solo performance in years, taking a seat on the stool set up behind the microphone and listening on silently as Stephen continued to interview the other 5 survivors. She wiped her sweaty palm against her thigh and then she heard Stephen thanking his guests before walking over towards where she and the band waited.  

“With her new single raising money for the ColumbiaStrong fund,” he said into the camera, “this is Aurora Stark with Reaper.” The lights dimmed across the set, a solitary spotlight softly lighting where she sat as the song began.

Broke down, thought that I would drown Hoped that I'd be found, 'fore I hit the ground Sun rays out the corner of my eye Saw you weeping, saw you creeping Saw you sneaking in the shadow's dawn I feel so strong Saw you out the corner of my eye

Don't come for me today I'm feeling good I'mma savour it Don't come for me today I'm feeling good I remember when You came to take me away So close I was to heaven's gates But no baby, no baby, not today Oh, you tried to track me down You followed me like the darkest cloud But no baby, no baby, not today Oh reaper Oh no baby, no baby, not today Oh reaper Oh no baby, no baby, not today

So come back when I'm good to go I got drinks to drink, and a man to hold I got good things to do with my life, yeah Oh, I wanna dance in the open breeze Feel the wind in my hair, hear the ocean sing I got good things to feel in my life, yeah

Don't come for me today I'm feeling good I'mma savour it Don't come for me today I'm feeling good I remember when You came to take me away So close I was to heaven's gates But no baby, no baby, not today Oh, you tried to track me down You followed me like the darkest cloud But no baby, no baby, not today Oh reaper Oh no baby, no baby, not today Oh reaper Oh no baby, no baby, not today

Reaper  

As the song finished, the lights lifted, and Stephen walked out to hug Aurora before turning to the camera as the audience applauded. “Aurora Stark everybody!” Stephen yelled. “Reaper is available now, all proceeds going to the ColumbiaStrong fund to support victims of gun violence. We’ll be right back.”

She quickly hugged Mitch, Sarah and Adam before following Stephen back over to the desk, joining the others on the sofa.

“That was an incredible song,” Stephen said when the show returned from the ad break. “Thank you for sharing that with us, Aurora.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

“Now back at the start of the show we were talking about the ColumbiaStrong fund started by the Stark family to help survivors of the shooting, and I’m interested to hear what you all think about it.”

“I wouldn’t be sitting here without that money,” Brandy said. “My mom’s health insurance wouldn’t have covered the therapy I needed afterwards, and I was really struggling. My dad isn’t around so my mom was already working 2 jobs to pay the bills and send my 3 younger sisters to a good school. My medical bills would have bankrupted us if the Starks hadn’t helped us.”

Everyone else nodded and agreed, adding their own versions of the same story, while Aurora felt her eyes growing damp. She knew that the foundation had paid peoples bills and she knew that her father’s money had helped people but being confronted by it made it all the more real to her.

“I know Aurora was saying earlier in the show that she felt guilty that Iron Man and Captain America got to her so fast, but I’m grateful they did,” Daniel added. “If she hadn’t been on campus and they hadn’t responded, I hate to think about how many more of us would have died that day. When Iron Man stopped the shooter, he was heading for one of the busiest parts of campus. A lot of people walked away unharmed because Aurora sent out that SOS.”

As he spoke, Aurora felt her cheeks burning and she ducked her head in embarrassment. If she’d known that agreeing to this interview would lead to these people praising her for her actions last year, she would have declined the invitation. She didn’t deserve their praise or their thanks. All she’d done that day was cower under a table in fear and call her dads to come save her, but here these other survivors were, acting like she’d saved peoples lives. She hated it.

“I don’t know about everyone else, but I know I deal with a lot of guilt,” Jacob said. “My therapist called it survivors’ guilt and he said it’s pretty common for those who experience trauma to struggle with trying to understand why they survived when others died.” Everyone else nodded in agreement. “Aurora, I want to thank you, even though I’m pretty sure you don’t feel like you deserve it. You saved a lot of people that day and the money that your family has donated has saved a lot more. You shouldn’t be ashamed of your privilege because your using to help people around you. So, thank you.”

Aurora felt a few tears slip down her cheeks, painfully aware of the audience and cameras watching every moment. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want them thanking her for something she didn’t deserve.

“It’s very nice of you to say all of that but I shouldn’t be the one you’re thanking,” she said, quickly wiping at the tears threatening to drip down her blushing cheeks. “The first responders deserve our gratitude. The doctors and nurses. And my dads were the ones to set up the money so please don’t thank me for that. I was lying in a hospital bed just trying to hold myself together just like the rest of you. I’m not anyone’s hero.”

Jacinta, the blonde sitting next to Aurora on the sofa, pulled her into a tight hug.

“As you can see ladies and gentlemen,” Stephen said to the camera’s as the two girls hugged. “The emotional scars left behind by this tragedy are still very fresh in the minds of those who survived. Thank you for joining us this evening in commemorating those we lost and those still healing. Aurora’s single, Reaper, is now available for purchase from all the usual places with all profits going to the ColumbiaStrong fund to ensure support is available for those affected by gun violence. Thank you for watching and goodnight.”

Stephen stood up, walking around the desk to shake everyone’s hand as the audience applauded and Aurora pulled herself back together. She said her farewells as soon as she could, making her way backstage to where Mark and the band were waiting for her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know it was going to go that way.”

“It’s ok Mark,” Rori promised. “I don’t think anyone expected that to happen.”

“Let’s get you guys home yeah?” Mark replied. “Steve said he was cooking a big dinner for everyone.”

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

[jazzypizzaz]

endgame spoilers

overall I liked it!  it was a fun event and (mostly) a fitting, definitive end to the original phase of Avengers.  it’s one of those finales that plays enough fanservice and callbacks to be satisfying, but also does everything it needs to do to tie up narrative arcs with some twists along the way.  like, it’s not a movie I’d rewatch a bunch, but I’m glad it played out how it did for the most part

with the exception of NATASHA!!!  listen, literally any of the characters would do the heroic self-sacrifice to save everyone, and the narrative could justify it as a fitting end for their arc. whatever it takes and all that... but Natasha, unlike Tony -- had only the Avengers as her family and nothing else to live for apparently, had red in her ledger and did it to repay a debt, couldn’t have kids (*deep sigh*) and decided that made Clint’s life more worthwhile....... and you know what FUCK all of that.  no fucking way does any of that mean that she’s better off dead and none of those are good enough reasons for her end. what the FUCK

that said, (and yes I’m immediately contradicting myself) the only things I really wanted from this movie was a satisfying reason for Tony and Steve to never reappear in future movies (and you know that retiring happily into the sunset while still relatively young could never secure that) -- preferably with Tony to be the one to make the self-sacrifice hero play and for Steve to have a happy quiet life somehow.

idk it’s a superhero movie.  someone’s gotta do the big climatic hero move, and the entire arc has been building for Tony to do that.  and it wasn’t a cool-headed either/or choice, it wasn’t deliberately walking into death -- it was a split second decision in the heat of battle.  maybe that makes it different.  also, the greater narrative weight put on it

also maybe, as much as he’s a great character, I’m just tired of him. (oops)

& Steve, sure he could live a happy life rebuilding the world and chilling with his buds, but like... since the ice he’s always been a man out of time yearning for what could have been in his past (while always meeting the challenges of the day of course), he’s always felt misplaced and alone, and... I don’t begrudge him choosing to live a happy life and get that dance he promised Peggy.  

maybe it’s that tony deserves to be immemorialized as the ultimate hero that he is; & steve deserves some goddamn rest??

that said what the FUCKING FUCK is up with the time travel mechanics???

cuz you know that Steve “never followed a rule in his goddamn life if it didn’t suit him” Rogers wouldn’t live in obscurity not changing the timeline through: Hydra’s infiltration, Bucky’s brainwashing, more wars, the civil rights movement, every single social event in history, etc etc etc.  so like?? okay maybe changing the past makes it into a different timeline but then how did he wait for them on the bench as if his timeline connected to theirs ???

did ANY of their actions change the past of the current timeline??  like I think the answer is no it’s impossible, but then how do you explain Steve???

also who thought letting Steve be the one to return the stones was a good idea.  who gave Steve unbridled access to the past and thought he wouldn’t just fucking live there.  Bucky knew he would, I’m sure of it.  Natasha would have known (*shakes fist*).  Sam seems like he should have, I mean seriously??  it’s on Steve’s character sheet; he doesn’t do well with moving on.

HELL YEAH to captain america bird man Sam though. fuck yeah I’m here for it

okay other characters...

Ant Man was a breath of fresh air in the first part.  the perfect character to reappear into this dark timeline, give new hope, and react to all the weird space shit (I DIED at the taco scene, probably when I laughed the most).  I didn’t think I cared about him, but I was really touched by the Cassie scenes.

my favorite Rocket moment was him petting Paul Rudd’s head like a puppy.  yes please.  also, snapping some sense into Thor.  he had a bit part as expected, but it was good.

Hawkeye... stop trying to make Hawkeye happen. I just.... don’t care. and I could not stop sniggering at his hair long enough to feel sad about anything.

yes all the treatment of Thor’s weight gain and alcoholism was fucked up, played for cheap laughs, not all that funny.  but also like -- they’re clearly shown as manifestations of his corrosive guilt and trauma and self-harm, and by the end, he becomes the brave hero again without any sort of getting-into-shape losing weight montage scene.  it’s his perception of himself not his physicality. plus like, he’s the Goofy Avenger tbh and idk if there was a serious way to show him at a lower emotional low point than Infinity War without getting too dark for his brand(tm).  low standards on my part maybe? but whatever, he didn’t die.

Valkyrie HELL YEAH... I was so giddy about her flying around on the Pegasus.  where did she even get it???  I don’t care it was amazing.  all hail Valkyrie, King of Asgard.

actually??? wait. fuck that. Thor needs to accept responsibility and live up to being king of his people.  Valkyrie needs to go on kooky space adventures and find herself.  seriously!!

good for Bruce on the hulk integration thing, but I missed watching Mark Ruffalo’s human non-CGI face

Nebula, baby girl, you’ve come so far ;_; sorry you didn’t get put on airplane mode for the time travel, whooops.

the 100% best part of the movie for me, the only point at which I got chills, was (of course) Sam chiming in over Cap’s earpiece on your left and flying out of the wizard hole in a glowing swoop of glory. beautiful majestic bird man.

(and then the armies piling through after & Wakanda. yes.)

Wanda reappeared and I admit I totally forgot about her until that point.  and then I realized I also totally forgot about Vision until the end when she was talking to Hawkeye by the river jklsdfjkl. okay then

Carol just decided that she likes space more than Earth I guess? sure whatever.  great haircut though

also... New Asgard is in Norway, presumably, but it’s a sovereign kingdom???  what did they do when the Norwegian government stopped by??  paid for the land and said “look we’ve been through a lot so just let us fish and drink beer in peace. also, we’re the people from your myths and have inhuman stamina/strength/science so what, feasibly, are you gonna do about it anyway” I just want to see that conversation.

oh another thing. I wanted some resolution or cathartic followup to the themes in Infinity War -- killing the one to save many, trading lives, etc. which. this really didn’t do at all.  there wasn’t a consistent theme in the same way? idk I’ll have to think about it more, but for that reason alone IW is a much better movie imo

really excited about (As)guardians of the Galaxy, vol 3, Search for Gamora.  Rocket is going to be unbearable in the best way.

[essayofthoughts]

You should definitely meta about Tony and Wanda and how Tony's given way more leeway for what he's done as opposed to Wanda

Okay so. There is a huge disparity in the treatment of Wanda and Tony. Tony stans are virulent* in their defence of him, while Wanda stans, fans or her defence squad are pushed to defend her or point out the holes in other’s arguments - they’re pushed on the defensive from the start because Stark Stans love to focus on the fact that, as we are shown in the films “Wanda wrongs Tony first”.

*Yes, virulent. Like a virus. They’re awful and as far as I care, should be eradicated.

Yeah, right. Long before Wanda ever touched Tony Stark’s mind, Tony did something to her. Unintentionally. Unknowingly. Indeed, he may not have even been directly involved, it may have been Obadiah Stane’s fault, but, for narrative and thematic reasons, I think it would resonate more with Tony’s sense of guilt, blame and responsibility if it was in some way his fault. If Tony Stark had willingly sold weapons to NATO, who were involved in the Balkans unrest, or to the US government who later interfered in the unrest in the Balkans* - unknowingly making a situation worse with his weapons as Yinsen tells him. If it’s simply Obie’s fault, selling them behind his back, I think it removes a lot of the narrative impact from Tony’s shouldering the blame for his weapons - which he designed, which his company and people he trusted sold, which were then used in ways that hurt civilians, intentionally or not.

*You can read more about the Balkans conflicts after the dissolution of Yugoslavia over Here and Here. Many thanks to @tobermoriansass for helping me with this. Further reading [x] [x].

The fact of the matter is Tony Stark’s company - his company then, before he gave over power of it to Pepper - sold weapons that orphaned the twins. The twins, as ten-year-old children, hated the man who, as far as they knew, had orphaned them. Who had sold the weapons. Who had power and money and means and was praised - who, if he had sold weapons to NATO, for use in the Balkans conflict, may well have been praised for his part in such a so-called “peacekeeping” initiative - … and whose weapon had taunted them for two days in the rubble, as they waited above the bodies of their dead parents. To quote This truly fantastic meta by @eatingcroutons:

With all this going on, Maximoffs would have grown up knowing nothing but war, and with a deep-seated hatred of the foreign powers that had occupied and violated their homeland and people. Orphaned, desperate and powerless, it makes complete sense for them to jump at von Strucker’s offer to become something more. Like many of their compatriots, they volunteered for his experiments when he showed up with Loki’s staff in 2012.

The thing is, in explaining this, I’m not trying to justify Wanda’s actions to you. I’m sure there are many fans of Tony who’re going to insist that that’s exactly what I’m doing, but I’m not. This is simply an explanation of the upbringing and background - and ultimately trauma - that led to her decision. Just as Tony’s trauma has affected much of his behaviour to ultimately toxic ends.

[Source: Where’s The Alcohol?: Revisiting Tony Stark’s Glossed Over Alcoholism. The meta largely covers comics!Tony’s alcoholism, but I think the degree to which Tony drinks in the films, and his attitude towards alcohol, as well as his generally reckless behaviour, all speak to someone with some very unhealthy coping mechanisms]

So there’s that. Both of these characters have severe trauma and that affects not just how they see the world, but how they access and interact with the world. In simple terms, both characters have what amounts to excellent fic fodder! They’re both deeply fucked up with deep-seated issues, a desire to make amends for the wrongs they’ve done:

[Source: Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Battle of Novi Grad. Clint to Wanda, offering her a chance to make amends - which she takes]

TONY: I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability.

REPORTER: What happened over there?

TONY: I had my eyes opened. I came to realise that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacture at Stark Industries … until such a time I can decide what the future of this company should be, what direction it should take, one that I am comfortable with and that is consistent with the highest good for this country as well.

[Source: Iron Man 1, Tony’s press conference on his return, shutting down Stark Industries’ weapons manufacture after seeing what it’s doing to people first hand]

So, if we’re getting into an argument of who hit who first, it was Tony. This is a farcial debate, because both characters seem able to move forwards from this, and grow up rather than clinging to it - Wanda sacrifices her vengeance to defeat Ultron and proceeds to do everything in her power to make amends afterwards, staying on as an Avenger while Tony has been actively making amends since, like Wanda, he was made aware of what his actions were actually doing. If we’re getting into an argument over who has learned, both of these characters have remarkably similar arcs and have both learned a lot from their starting points. Both of these characters lost their parents at a young age due to factors beyond their control, both sought to do something in response to this (the twins fought the injustice of their country and it’s unrest too try to make a safe place for it’s citizens, so no other children would be orphans like they were, Tony spent his entire life trying to live up to his father’s demands and expectations.), and both, when they realised their ways of going about this (for the twins, trying to destroy Stark, who they blamed for much, for Tony, the creation, manufacture and sale of weapons) were doing considerable harm… both stopped, and both proceeded to try to not just make amends for what they’d done, but actively undo it - Wanda fights back Ultron’s drones, tries to save lives on the train and pre-emptively in Novi Grad and fights alongside the Avengers, while Tony halts the manufacture and sale of his weapons, tries to track down his Stark tech and works as an Avenger, trying to prevent disaster.

There’s other similarities too. They both lose people who are either important to them, or who are integral to their character arcs. Tony loses his parents, yes, but also Obie, who turns out to have betrayed him and Yinsen, who taught him what his weapons did, and the loss of Coulson impacts him incredibly - “We are not soldiers!”. Wanda loses her parents, her city and her brother, as well as sacrificing the vengeance that supported her for so long.

They both learn that those they’re working with may not be the right ones - Obie in IM1, but also learning of his father’s work with Anton Vanko in IM2 and the likely accidental or invisible ties between Howard’s presence in SHIELD even as SHIELD was early on riddled with HYDRA and, of course, Ross and the Raft. The twins sign on to work with what they think is SHIELD, only to later learn it’s HYDRA - this isn’t fan speculation, believe it or not, but canon.

[Source: This Scepter’d Isle prelude comic for Avengers: Age of Ultron. Note List saying “our Iron Man, … our Avengers”. They’re claiming to be SHIELD as this was before CATWS and the reveal of HYDRA. Many thanks to @emmasdiamondheart for reminding me this panel exists]

And of course, after this, they work with Ultron, only for Wanda to learn his intention to destroy the world, which they of course cannot condone (when Ultron asks them not to get involved on the train Wanda responds “What choice do we have?”). Both Wanda and Tony repeatedly place trust in the wrong people and feel deep responsibility for this. And even Wanda’s continued anger at Stark when she knows he is the better choice than Ultron (“Ultron cannot see a difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that from?”) makes sense - while Tony stopped making and selling weapons for and to others… he’s continued to make the best and worst weapon of them all - his own Iron Man suits, which he has kept wholly for himself - even Rhodey had to steal his suit, because Tony trusts so very few people. Indeed, like Steve, in some ways he does believe that sometimes the best hands are his own, even if he is very willing - and may even in a way find it comforting - to be held accountable for things.

There’s also a big one left. A really big one. A huge big one. And while every Stark Stan may try to justify it, it only goes to show the huge disparity between how Tony’s anger is treated vs. Wanda’s.

[Source: Captain America: Civil War. Tony stating his intent to kill Bucky Barnes for the death of his mother - a death Bucky was not in control of, as the brainwashed Winter Soldier, but is being blamed for anyway, and a death long ago.]

[Source: Avengers: Age of Ultron. Wanda putting fear into Tony Stark’s mind in order to bring about his downfall - an action done under the belief that blame was to be placed at Tony’s feet, regardless of if it was or not, and for deaths long ago.]

This is where the disparity comes in - a huge disparity, a disparity that I am pretty damn sure has it’s roots in classism, racism and sexism.

Tony is allowed to attack Bucky. He’s defended for it. He’s given justifications. And after it all, his fans still write fics where he apologises to Bucky and everything is fine and dandy. Wanda, on the other hand, is vilified. Is insulted from here to hell and back, is blamed for everything Tony does wrong from AOU onwards, is used to justify Tony’s every action - even Tony’s insults towards her:

“It’s a 100 acres with a lap pool. It’s got a screening room. There’s worse way to protect people. She’s not a U.S. Citizen and they don’t grant visas to Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

[Source: CACW, Tony to Steve, justifying Wanda’s illegal house arrest that happened against her knowledge… which kind of invalidates a house arrest when the person could break it simply by popping out to the shops.]

People buy into the in-universe media’s narrative that Wanda caused the explosion (she didn’t. We literally see Crossbones setting off the bomb he’s wearing). There are people who call her a murderer because she couldn’t contain an explosion - even though she contained it long enough to get it out of range of the people in the market, undoubtedly saving all of their lives. Indeed, the onus there if anything should have been on Steve, the one who was directly confronting Crossbones - but he got distracted, and Wanda, an Avenger still being trained up, still without a full grasp of her powers, had to step in when the bomb was set off.

[Source: Captain America: Civil War. Wanda self-flagellating over her perceived failure to save the lives of the Wakandans.]

Wanda displays much the same hallmarks as Tony Stark, has a very similar arc and very similar responses to trauma and mistakes (drive for vengeance and desire to make amends most notably).

And yet, Wanda is blamed, insulted, vilified. Tony Stark is praised, defended and others are trodden down so he may be raised up. Why is this?

It’s really very very simple:

Tony is a cis male (ostensibly) straight guy, born and raised in America to immense wealth, with a genius level intellect, constant snark and Daddy issues to make even Tyrion Lannister or goddamnit Jon Snow cry. He’s America’s 1%, he’s got guilt issues up the wazoo and his sarcasm and snark makes him many people’s favourite archetypes in one - and so they defend him to the death.

What’s Wanda got?

Wanda is a woman from Eastern Europe who grew up first in a block of flats which were later destroyed due to the war-torn nature of her home country and from then, is said to have lived on the streets according to Marvel. She and her brother were deeply codependent as a result of their trauma, and, in order to have the power needed to take the vengeance they had sought since they were ten (reminder! they were children when they imprinted on this idea) they let themselves be experimented on by people they later learned were Nazis.

Oh, and she actually managed to in-part take that vengeance on Stark.

That’s the reason she’s hated. She’s a woman. She’s Other with her Eastern European accent. She’s Different with her powers no one can explain. She was poor. She’s foreign and lesser and a she. And then she attacked a fandom fave due to misconceptions that she believed in her whole life - that her upbringing and country only continued to emphasise:

[Source: Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sokovian graffiti of Tony Stark as Iron Man, his face plastered over with dollar signs.]

It’s xenophobia. If you count in the Roma and Jewish background of the twins in comics, then it’s also racism. It’s certainly sexism, likely classism. These things mean that few will consider her… for her. For her character arc, for her trauma. Few will sit down and notice the similarities between her and Tony, few care. Instead, they hate her for her act of vengeance. They don’t try to understand why.

[Source: Captain America: Civil War. Vision explains the science behind the fear response to Wanda due to her powers in-universe. And yet - so few both in the MCU and out of it - where it doesn’t actually matter - care to delve into the whys and werefores and Wanda’s treatment.]

They just hate.

And it fucking sucks.

End Note: If you should want a truly excellent fic written to battle these issues with how Wanda is perceived and treated in and out of universe, may I recommend to you all Soldier, Weapon, Stranger, Monster by the wonderful @tobermoriansass, who has been such a help in writing this meta.

[hughshannon1994]

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[mads-baker]

Happy world bipolar day! Information and my experiences with bipolar disorder.

Happy world bipolar day! For the past 4 months (before social distancing, that is) I've been going to a mood disorder support group and I've decided I want to be more open about my illnesses. So here's a post that will be a combination of general information as well as my specific experiences with bipolar disorder. It's something that can be really difficult to talk about but it's important to me to raise awareness, so here goes!

*I will link to some resources at the bottom for anyone who has bipolar, wants to support someone who has bipolar, or just wants more information.*

Content warnings: descriptions of mania, depression, psychosis, and dissociation; very brief mention of self-harm.

General information:

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder that involves alternating episodes of depression and mania or hypomania, where a depressive episode is defined as lasting at least two weeks and a manic/hypomanic episode is defined as lasting at least a week or being severe enough to warrant hospitalization. An episode can also last months or even years. My longest hypomanic episode lasted six months and my longest depressive episode lasted 14 months.

There are several subtypes of bipolar disorder, including bipolar 1 (depression and standard mania), bipolar 2 (depression and hypomania, which is a less severe form of mania--this is what I have), and rapid cycling bipolar (in which a person has 4 or more episodes per year). I will talk about depression and mania a bit later, after some more general information.

Bipolar is believed to be genetic, but environmental factors such as prolonged stress or trauma can also contribute to a person's risk of developing the disorder.

The onset can happen at any age but usually happens during the late teens or early twenties. I've had symptoms for as long as I can remember but the full onset--meaning when everything got a whole lot worse--was when I was 18.

There is no cure for bipolar. Medications, therapy, and lifestyle routines can help a person manage the illness, but it will never go away. Someone may be declared 'in remission' if they have no episodes for a long period of time but this does not mean that they are cured or should stop taking medication.

Everyone reacts to treatment and the illness itself in different ways. Some people are able to function at a high level while others are completely debilitated by this illness. Most of us are somewhere in between. Please don't try to compare people with this illness against each other; it can manifest in MANY different ways and affects everyone differently.

Mania and depression:

Mania (including hypomania, which involves the same symptoms but in a less severe form): Symptoms of mania include elevated mood, racing thoughts, pressured speech, irritability or rage, hypersexuality, grandiosity, and extreme impulsivity. During mania people often spend huge amounts of money, go days on little or no sleep, engage in high-risk behaviors, and have an endless flow of ideas. Psychosis can also occur. A person experiencing manic psychosis might have hallucinations or delusions and lose touch with reality. Delusions can be grandiose (e.x. believing that they are god or that they have supernatural powers) or paranoid (e.x. believing that someone is tracking them or that their mind is being controlled by some outside force).

Mania can be euphoric or dysphoric/mixed. Euphoric mania feels like a massive high--the brain pumps out huge amounts of dopamine. Dysphoric mania, also referred to as mixed mania or a mixed episode, involves simultaneous symptoms of mania and symptoms of depression. Dysphoric mania is difficult to describe and can present in many different ways... my experiences with it have been disorienting and terrifying and hellish.

Depression: Those of you who have experienced depression know that it is so much more severe and nuanced than 'just sadness'. It can feel like numbness, emptiness, apathy, anhedonia (loss of enjoyment in activities and hobbies), hopelessness, or generalized psychological and often physical pain. It is usually accompanied by anxiety, fatigue, brain fog, and changes in sleep and appetite. People experiencing depression often isolate themselves from others and may feel intense guilt or shame. Dissociation may also occur. Dissociation is the brain's way of coping with severe distress by detaching from the world. It can also take the form of depersonalization or derealization, and can range from feeling 'spaced out' to a complete disconnect from reality or oneself.

My diagnosis:

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 19 after being hospitalized for psychosis and self-harm during a mixed episode. I went through some severe trauma during that time. Since then my executive functioning, memory, and focus have all declined. I struggle with chronic fatigue and I find myself more easily overwhelmed and less able to deal with stress. I have been told that these symptoms are not uncommon and are related to how the disorder affects various areas of the brain. My life-long struggle to control my sleep schedule has also worsened. I saw a sleep specialist for six months and she believes that my disordered sleep is related to bipolar and possibly exacerbated by my medications.

I go to therapy every week, see my psychiatrist for med management every 3-4 weeks, and go to a support group every 1-2 weeks. These three things have improved my life tremendously. (Quick shoutout to Dialectical Behavior Therapy in particular because it changed my life!) My episodes are much less severe now and I have long breaks of stability between them.

While I have made lots of progress, managing this illness on a daily basis is still extremely difficult. The mood instability, fatigue, anxiety, cognitive impairments, sleep problems, and medication side effects affect just about every area of my life.

Like I said, I have started wanting to be more open about these things. If anyone has any questions or wants to talk about mental health stuff, I'm here. I know a lot of y'all are struggling, and it can be helpful to talk about with a friend. I would never try to drag a conversation out of someone who didn't want to talk about it, but please know that I'm here and open to having those conversations.

One more note: When someone opens up about their struggles with mental illness we are usually not looking for advice. We are usually looking for empathy and support, and hearing "Get some fresh air!" or "You should eat healthier" instead of "I'm sorry you're dealing with this right now" or "I love you and I am here for you" feels really lousy. Most advice comes from a good place but it is often times not helpful. The one bit of advice that I think is appropriate is suggesting that someone seek professional help if they are not already. (It’s important to note that it can be very difficult to find and access mental health services on a good day, and a hundred times more difficult in the midst of an episode. Depending on your relationship with the person, consider asking them if you can help them with searching for providers, making phone calls, dealing with insurance, etc.)

Good ways to support someone with a mental illness include: checking in with them, being a good listener, letting them know that you care about them, letting them know that they are important to you, inviting them out for coffee / lunch / a walk / etc. (but also being understanding if they are not up for it), asking if there’s anything you can do to help (bringing them a meal, helping them with a chore, etc.), and helping them find a therapist and/or psychiatrist if they want help. Physical affection is often helpful but not always so please ask for consent first!

Here are some further resources:

More information and statistics

Information about DBSA (Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance) groups (many have support groups for friends/family as well)

Information about NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness), which also runs support groups

A useful therapist finder, where you can filter by location, insurance, type of therapy, etc.

Information on ongoing mental illness research

The type of therapy I have found most helpful is called Dialectical Behavior Therapy. To learn more about DBT, here is a site I use a lot that goes over the skills and exercises

The DBT workbook I went through

A mindfulness and meditation teacher whose talks have been really helpful to me

[compo67]

awaiting soup

my dad’s girlfriend is making me soup from scratch. i’m sitting here, waiting, happy to have something homemade that i didn’t have to make myself.

it’s been a rough few days for me. i haven’t had a flare this bad for a while. yesterday, during the day, was excruciating and awful. i spent most of it in bed, curled up, trying not to cry and trying to sleep. 

i got a last minute appointment with my chiropractor in the afternoon, thank goodness. that provided some relief, but i definitely cried on the table during treatment. not because what he did hurt, but because when you’re hooked up to the ultrasound machine all you can do is think.

then i went to the library and got two books on plants and one graphic novel. that was the highlight of my day and took a lot of energy just to walk to and from the parking lot to the first floor check-out. 

i’m so happy they have new books by the entrance. it’s so accessible. i still get to browse new stuff without needing to go upstairs. 

after the library, i went to therapy, where i cried more. sobbed. just used up a bunch of tissues and let things out i hadn’t even realized i had been holding in. 

that was tough. and also painful. -_- but necessary. i’m glad i went.

my therapist thinks these flares are partially due to trauma. 

i told him i’m so tired of everything--pain, trauma, lack of sleep, etc. i just want everything to go away. i’m only 29.

i managed to go to the grocery store afterwards and buy some essentials. i usually cook my meals from scratch. this week it’s all cereal and sandwiches. 

i got home completely exhausted and just watched Pride and Prejudice for a while. 

at around ten, i started to feel less like a pain zombie and more like a person, so i started writing. it was slow, but finally, i posted a whole chapter of Model. i am still proud of that.

not 100% sure that chapter made sense because of fibro fog, but folks have responded to it well, so...

i slept a little better last night, but still woke up throughout from pain and weird dreams. i dragged my butt to chiro this morning.

we are using this cream thing called biofreeze. i like it. i just want to cover myself in it and cocoon myself up for a thousand years. 

i got some samples of it from their office, so i put it one before i try to sleep or nap. after chiro, i ate two leftover tamales from the weekend, took my morning meds, and went to sleep.

three hours later, it was time to go to work. 

i sat at my desk for half an hour before it was time to clock in, debating on pushing through, trying to work a half day, etc. i wrestled myself and cried and pouted and was just a big ol’ mess before i picked up the phone and called the supervisor on duty and just called off.

they were very nice about it. i just hate calling off. it’s how i was raised--that guilt complex of you go no matter what.

but i think it���s a good thing i called off. immediately after, i was so nauseous, that i went back to bed and slept another three hours.

after that nap, i dragged myself to the kitchen and made a sandwich, which took 1000% of my energy. but i did it. and i ate it.

then i did some dishes. +10 points for me.

my dad swung by with some concoction of baking soda, agave syrup, water, and lemon. he said this will help. i drank a glass in front of him so i wasn’t a total jerk. but i’m skeptical. 

he is all about youtube doctors telling him to make various concoctions that will cure everything.

i listen to Sawbones, this medical history podcast, and i’ve learned that cure alls cure nothing. 

i think bumping up the methotrexate is doing more harm than good.

so i emailed my rheum about starting humera sooner than planned. 

i’ve been trying to drink water and stay hydrated. 

i have another chiro appointment tomorrow, then KP is treating me to breakfast, then i have work. 

my soup arrived. thank goodness. it’s so good. feels awesome.

overall, i just feel like my body is falling apart. 

four years ago, i was active, i was on my feet eight hours a day without an issue, i could lift boxes, bins, dollies, unpack pallets, bend, type, etc. at work. and after work, i would still have energy to go and hang out with friends or drive into the city for events.

i am trying not to resent my past self or my body, but that’s easier said than done.

sigh.

sorry. i’m venting. it’s tough to be positive when your body and mind are dragged down by pain.

i really want some tea and chicken tenders with this soup.

ugh. what do i do with the rest of my evening. 

maybe i’ll put on a movie.

like the second half of price and prejudice... hmm.

i need to update coffee shop. maybe later tonight i’ll feel more like writing and less like lying here.

that soup was really good.

[xlivethroughthisx]

The Rippling Impact of Suicide

Over Memorial Day Weekend, Congresswoman Susan Wild (PA) lost her longtime partner to suicide. This set her down a path to making change in the halls of Congress. She recently introduced two bills: the Enhancing Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Through Campus Planning Act and the Greater Mental Health Access Act. Today, she convened a roundtable event on Capitol Hill that included a panel of suicide experts that included Dr. Paul Sasha Nestadt (Johns Hopkins), Chris Maxwell (American Association of Suicidology), Fred Stokes (NFL Super Bowl Champion), and myself, with Mike Schlossberg (State Representative, PA) moderating. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, opened the event. There were also several other members of Congress in attendance, including Congresswoman Grace Napolitano (CA).

The event was slated to last an hour, but was so well-attended, and with an incredibly engaged audience, that it was extended an extra hour. While we had a pre-planned list of discussion questions to address, the time wasn’t there, and it made more sense to answer the questions posed by folks in the room.

I prepared in advance for the planned questions, and I think the content is still important, so I wanted to share my responses with the Live Through This audience.

Q: One of the common things that happens when someone tells their story about losing someone to suicide is that it empowers other to share their personal stories as well. It also sheds a light on how prevalent this has become. Do you agree that suicide is a public health epidemic, and how should that inform the way we address it?

A: I guess my question would be: it is a public health issue, but what is our goal in calling it an epidemic? Most mental health clinicians have zero training on suicide and their responses to suicidal clients are driven by fear or liability, which often results in suicidal people being locked up and traumatized by the people and systems that are supposed to help them. Hotlines are underfunded. Crisis centers are underfunded. People are being funneled into the prison system for having mental health crises. So I wouldn’t encourage even more public health messaging on the topic by calling it an epidemic without first addressing those funding issues, because right now public health is failing us.

Q: What are some common misconceptions about suicide that you’d like to clarify?

A: The CDC released a report in June 2018 indicating that 54% of Americans who died by suicide between 1999-2016 did not have a known mental health diagnosis. Instead, issues at play were relationship problems, housing issues, legal issues, substance use issues, financial issues. 

These are life events that can happen to any of us, and that can threaten our our wellbeing. Certainly there are intersections with mental health, but I think marrying suicide to mental illness closes off a lot of opportunities for people to relate to the issues and, honestly, it closes off a lot of opportunities for actual suicide prevention, too. 

When we focus on mental illness, we automatically allow people who have never struggled to believe it can’t happen to them, and it can. Adversity affects all of us. Trauma affects all of us. I think it’s imperative that we change the focus of our messaging.

Q: Loss survivors often express a sense of guilt. They wonder if there were signs they missed, or how they could have intervened. However, one of the things we are learning is that there often aren’t missed signs. What are some of the most common things you hear from loss survivors about their healing process?

A: Guilt is a part of the grieving process. We ask why, and we scour our memories for all the times we could have done something differently. Ultimately, the “blame” does not rest on the loss survivor. Not ever. The responsibility for the action belongs to the person it rests with. I have known people who died by suicide who did everything they were told to do—they sought treatment, they built coping skills, they had supports—but the pain was still too great. As those left behind, we have to grieve, and we have to accept that we can only do what we can do.

I do think there are almost always missed signs; I think that we usually just don’t see them because we haven’t been given the necessary education. Many of us in this field are here because we have been affected by suicide. We sought out the education after we were affected, and we dedicated ourselves to making change. Part of our job, then, is to commit ourselves to educating others in the hopes that they might be able to help someone in crisis in the future.  

Q: There are some who think that a person just needs to “get help” and after that, the ideations will go away. However, some attempt survivors sometimes describe suicidal ideations as a life-long experience that they’ve learned to work through. Can you discuss the importance of having lifelong access to mental health services?

A: In my experience, having spoken to hundreds of people with lived experience, suicidal thoughts occur more than once over the lifespan. They also occur on a spectrum—sometimes they’re worth talking through, sometimes it’s a true crisis. 

We’ve been sold a narrative: something bad happens, a person attempts suicide, they seek a specific, sanctioned kind of treatment, and they’re better forever. This isn’t true for most of us. The thoughts recur. Sanctioned treatment isn’t accessible to everyone and it doesn’t work for everyone. We need more clinicians, we need more clinicians of color, we need better access, and we need to be more honest about the recurring nature of suicidal thoughts so that we can encourage people to build supports and build better coping skills. But we also have to stop pushing therapy and education as the ONLY answers, we have to educate people on how to seek those treatments effectively if they do go that route, and we have to encourage people to seek out what works for them—especially if treatment isn’t an option. Leaving people in the lurch contributes to suicidality.

Q: One of the reasons people are reluctant to reach out about their struggles with suicide or a loved one’s struggle is the stigma that’s attached. Can you explain the different ways a person might experience stigma, and what needs to be done to overcome this?

A: From the lived experience perspective, there are a lot of hurdles and so many ways it can go wrong. If we tell the people in our lives, we open ourselves up to the potential for harmful feedback, like, "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps,” or, "Other people have it worse,” or, "But you have so much to live for.” If you open yourself up to an employer, you risk losing your job because there aren’t protections in place. If you open up in a time of crisis, you risk someone overreacting and calling the police for a welfare check or an active rescue, which could put a person acting erratically, or a POC, or a queer person in danger. Medical professionals have also been known to sometimes mistreat suicidal folks, from expressing resentment to administering forced treatment like physical and chemical restraints, which have the potential to further traumatize the person in need. All of this really depends on the compassion of the person whose hands you put yourself in—and whether they have training or experience with suicidal people, and whether they can avoid a fear-driven response and respect the autonomy of the person in crisis.

Q: What can someone do to support a loved one or friend who is struggling with suicidal ideation?

A: Talk to them. Ask how you can help. Rally around them. Do their dishes, make sure they eat, distract them. If they want to and can seek treatment, help them navigate the insurance system, help them find a therapist who might be a good fit for them, help make appointments. Check in regularly. Listen when they talk and validate their feelings, even if you don’t understand. Don’t react with fear and put them in danger. Always respect that they are a person and should be allowed to retain autonomy and maintain control of decisions about their bodies.

Q: What can government do to help prevent the prevalence of suicide?

A: Fund research. Fund training. Fund the development of training programs that address suicide from a person-centered perspective. By that, I mean include people with lived experience in the development of these trainings. We know best what helps us. Treat us like people who need help, rather than problems to be solved. Fund alternative approaches to care, like peer support. Mandate training for all clinicians who work with patients, from mental health professionals to medical professionals to speech therapists, occupational therapists, and especially teachers. Mandate suicide education in schools, starting from Kindergarten. In my work, I have encountered people who said they started thinking about suicide as early as 5. Not teaching them about it is not protecting them, it’s endangering them. We have to make suicide a regular conversation, beyond awareness campaigns. We’ve got to approach it practically, and we’ve got to stop ignoring it.

[ihealthlove1-blog]

Parents May Mistake Picky Eating for a More Intense Eating Infection

Parents May Mistake Picky Eating for a More Intense Eating Infection

ARFID isn’t popular, but experts state the extreme disorder may lead to serious health problems if a child doesn’t secure proper treatment.

At some point or another, many children go through a picky eating stage.

They do not want to use new items they refuse foods that they loved, and so they generally drive their parents mad each and every time that they turn their noses up at anything was placed on their plate.

It is ordinary, and it usually does not last long.

Except when they don’t.

She had been one of those kids who never really ceased being picky in what he ate. And also his variant of picky proved to be an intense most parents probably cannot imagine. Indeed, there have been five foods he was willing to eat.

His mother,,”When the child was 2 years of age, he simply ate Aunt Jemima frozen sandwiches, Tyson chicken nuggets, goldfish, Cocoa Pebbles, and McDonald’s french fries. No additional brands of the foods were okay. He’d had some veggies, fruits, or grains.”

Concerned about his eating patterns, Jayce’s parents moved to his or her inheritance. But these were told this is only a standard point and so they should quit giving him the foods he had been demanding.

“Kids won’t starve themselves” could be your lineup most pediatricians provide parents of picky eaters.

However, she did.

“He awakened himself for the entire week,” she explained. “At the conclusion of this seven days, he had been lethargic he couldn’t get off the sofa”

What they didn’t understand at the time was that she was working with an eating disorder most people haven’t been aware of: avoidant/restrictive food intake disease (ARFID.) ARFID was inserted to the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness in 2013.

Prior to that point, this is a state few professionals knew anything around. Even today, parents may be hard pressed to locate a health care provider who knows just how to deal with it.

However, those who have dealt with ARFID are passionate about increasing awareness. So, details with the ailment are starting to find their way into various mom blogs, online books, and treatment center pages.

The impact of ARFID

Castle is just one of those professionals who both understands and treats ARFID. She’s written extensively about the condition and contains dedicated an entire podcast into it as well.

She explained, “There’s lots of panic and anxiety around food for those children, to the point at which it leaves them anxious. They can’t spend the night together with friends and do not wish to go to sporting banquets or outside to team food because they worry there’ll soon be nothing for them to eat. It begins to babble on their capacity to function socially”

“Another form of classic hint is the fact that the diet is not a lot of,” she added. It’s really a really repetitive diet where they exhibit an unwillingness to try out anything new, truly anxiety about trying anything new. For a lot of families, they convince themselves this is just that their child is — that they’ve always been picky. But one of the things we see with the years is this innovative shedding of foods from their diet. Therefore while they might have started out with just 20 foods that they were ready to eat, that number can gradually become 1–5. And then 10. And then even less.”

Kim DiRé of Arizona can be a certified professional counselor devoted to somatic-trauma healing.

Her first experience with ARFID was extreme.

“I’ll affectionately call him’French-fry Boy,”’ she told. “After I met, he was 14 years of age. And since the age of 2, he’d eaten nothing but In and Out french fries. He ate two orders for lunch, breakfast, and dinner every day, for 12 decades.”

Because imaginable, French Fry Boy was suffering from a plethora of medical issues by the time he was referred to DiRé.

The adolescent was morbidly obese, at a condition of malnutrition, also fighting together with osteoporosis. His french fry diet also had done him no favors.

“He had been known to me with a cardiologist,” DiRé said. “And he had been desperate” “Truly, it was a great mishap he’d been known to me,” DiRé clarified. “I had been too new to the work of practicing therapy to get any set predispositions surrounding how to work with anybody. I’d to think beyond the box. And at exactly the exact same time just so happened to be getting my certificate in trauma recovery”

What Can Cause ARFID?

Rather, it’s frequently trauma-based, leading in some episode, in the beginning, this convinces these children eating the foods they’re terrified of could kill them. It could possibly be a choking episode.

It really is a sensory illness, where in fact the concern with even having foods deemed”dangerous” in their mouth might be ineffective.

“These children, and adults, suffering from ARFID genuinely believe should they eat those foods they will perish,” DiRé clarified.

How to treat the disorder

Despite the extremes, ARFID can be a curable condition, provided that you are dealing with a person who is proficient in the best treatment options.

“you actually should work with someone who works with tissue,”” DiRé clarified. Fixing ARFID requires understanding injury to tissue.”

“Beyond that,” she stated, “if it’s treated as food vulnerability, where you attempt to induce certain foods during steps, it is possible to actually activate and boost the outward symptoms much more. That is like putting the kids before the firing squad. I’ve learned of practitioners trying that, even though their intentions are great, they don’t really understand ARFID enough. What works for either anorexia or bulimia or binge eating won’t work for this”

“That said, it’s such a treatable illness,” DiRé went on. “In my clinic, I typically observe these patients around once a week for a couple of years. From then on, forget about ARFID. That is especially valid with teenagers, who seem to be the most motivated to have ARFID. It affects their social lives and they’re desperate to have it over which is the contrary to what we see with other eating disorders, where adolescents are often the most resistant to treatment.”

One teenager’s story

Rachael out of Pennsylvania was some of those adolescents.

She was a sophomore in high school before she heard about ARFID and realized that’s exactly what she was struggling with since at least as early as age 7.

“She did not request a way which has been judgmental or inappropriate, and that’s the way it’d been brought up before (people seeing my size and automatically assuming that I had anorexia). I informed me I didn’t — I’d never had problems with body image, so I had had no reason to guess my food issues were anything other than the usual shortage of interest. But a few weeks later, I Googled it and that I knew immediately. The DSM criteria have been a specific reflection of my life. It brought me into tears. Finding out it was not my fault, that it was not something that I did to myself, was the most empowering feeling ”

When she had the diagnosis at hand, however, it took four years for her to get a professional willing to listen to her.

“ARFID remains relatively unknown, including to numerous health providers,” said Rachael, whose last name has been withheld for privacy reasons. “Since nobody knew exactly what I was talking about when I brought it up, I did not have access to treatment — or to folks have been even remotely knowledgeable about the identification.” “I slowly got worse, my set of’safe foods’ got smaller and bigger. I started to undergo physical symptoms (nausea, nausea, losing feeling in my fingers and feet, extreme temperature sensitivities, along with other random pains) because of being malnourished. And for a while, I quit seeking treatment.

Nobody knew what it was, so I figured I would only have to live like this. This has been a terrifying reality. My biggest fear was that I would awaken and all my staying foods could unexpectedly be disgusting to me personally. I was so afraid that finally, there might be nothing left.”

Rachael, though, didn’t have to find that reality come into fruition.

In college, she managed to finally get a diagnosis and last September she started inpatient treatment. “little by little, I’m gaining weight (about 15 pounds since starting treatment) and enlarging my diet. It’s slow, but I am becoming convinced and feeling a lot better than I thought possible.”

Tips for parents

As someone who is there, done that, Rachael has advice for parents that might suspect their child is fighting with ARFID.

“Don’t guilt or shame your kid trying new food,” she said. “Try and avoid pointing out the way they are missing out or sad and frustrating it’s that they can not eat what everyone else is eating. They may already feel uncomfortable, uncomfortable, and guilty” Castle needed information about her very own for parents at this particular position.

“There’s a lot of anxiety that goes along with this,” she said. “And plenty of that time period, this piece becomes overlooked. Then it just gets bigger and more complex. The anxiety around food can be pretty painful in case it doesn’t get addressed.”

“As a parent, familiarize yourself with a few of the resources that are outside there is huge,” she added. “I really do believe that parents know when something is wrong, however, it can sometimes be tough to obtain a practitioner that could listen. Thus familiarize yourself with all the diagnostic criteria, and do not stop trying .”

All these years after, He is thankful his mommy did just that.

In 13 years of age, he told, “that I was really little when I moved to each one the therapies, also I really don’t remember them nicely. I can’t imagine merely eating pancakes. I am happy I try so many other foods today because they are really excellent “

[scripttorture]

This blog is extremely helpful. Thank you for running it. I'm gonna try and be as detailed a si can be with this ask since that seems to help you, so forgive me if this runs a bit long. So I'm writing a fanfic in which my MC was in a mobile suit explosion at the end of a war, then captured by enemy troops and held until he was stabilized from his initial injuries, then was repeatedly sold off. Information on the MC: He's in his mid twenties, prior to the explosion he was in fair health, (1/?)

(2/?) He has a history of past childhood family abuse and bulimia but has been recovered from both for several years at the time of the explosion. His physical health is fairly good as he is a well trained and wealthy soldier. The explosion left him with extensive scare tissue and internal damage as well as some muscle damage in his legs, all of which were treated by his initial captors only to the extent of keeping him alive, not making his comfortable.Once he was passed on to new captors(cont.(3/?) (cont.) he was subject to several types of abuse common for prisoners of war: long-term starvation, basic beatings, periods of solitary condiment, sexual abuse, and psychological manipulation. For the last part, since he was being held and traded mostly by his direct enemies, he would be repeatedly told that he was a monster and other worse variations, and they would attempt to force him to hurt other soldiers from his own side and left him with their bodies, or force them to hurt him.(4/5) He would also be made to watch the news coverage of post war damage, and a subsequent war that occurred where his daughter (whom he was unaware of) was used as the "face" of the war. He has extreme guilt for his actions in the first war (as he provoked a lot of trouble and he was aware of it). He also did NOT plan on living through the first war. He survived by chance and because his enemies wouldn't let him die. And they used any information they could get on him and is past against him.(5/5) My questions for this: after he is rescued, would it be realistic for him to be able to put on an act some of the time that he's fine/indifferent, but have extremely low swings and periods of dissociation and self harm if he's triggered? What are some possible symptoms he could have that I may have overlooked/are underutilized in fiction? And what sort of care would best help him learn to function again? He does have a few people who have stood by him after the wars that could help him.

While I realise this probably isn’t the period and placementyou’re going for it’s reminding me a lot of the period immediately post WorldWar 1 in Europe. A lot of people came back with pretty deep psychologicaldamage and that was the first time European society really attempted toconfront it. The ‘treatment’ of veterans with mental health issues was reallynot pretty. There was widespread lack of understanding and sympathy.

Conversely the treatment of physical injuries was pretty good for the time. Popular feeling inmany European countries after the War was strongly in favour of giving veteransthe best possible care. Institutions to help the disabled sprung up quickly anda lot more effort than before was put into helping disabled people remainemployed or learn new skills.

 If you’re based in the UK the Science Museum in London has anexhibit particularly on injuries in WW1, both psychological and physical. Icertainly found it moving and inspiring (though more Curie would always begood). If you’ve got any chance to access it you might as well.

 Back on topic-

 It seems to me that if he wascoming across as fine/indifferent initially that probably indicatesdissociation. It sounds like you’re having him swing from dissociating (andhence ‘looking’ fine) to depressive. That’s a perfectly reasonable pattern ofsymptoms.

 ScriptTraumaSurvivorhas a spread sheet designed to help people keep track of their character’strauma symptoms. You might find it useful. Icertainly found a testing-version useful.

 In terms of under-used symptoms, well honestly there are a lot but I’m going to narrow them down tothe ones that fit what you’ve already described about the character’sresponses.

 With depression particularly I think the physical symptoms are under used in fiction. A common symptom isnausea and difficulty eating. Stomach pains and intestinal trouble are alsopretty common. A feeling of lethargy is common, being tired and yet havingtrouble sleeping. And I think all of these fit pretty well with your scenario.

 At the risk of over-sharing I threw up a lot during my first major depressive episode. I got nausea prettybadly, but I was hungry and/or actually enjoying my food. The result was Itried to eat a ‘normal’ amount for me when I couldn’t manage it and I’d bringit all back up within ten minutes. It took months to figure out how to managethat. (Smaller meals and more of them, plus bland foods. In the meantime I was constantly hungry).

 I’ve never seen a character written with depression manifestthose symptoms. But apparently it isvery common.

 Another symptom of depression that I don’t see very often infiction is the character being….apathetic and lethargic to the point of notbeing able to get out of bed. I’ve seen this in real life but I’ve never seenit in fiction. This would especially tie in if his depression makes itdifficult for him to take care of himself and where he lives.

 A symptom that’s rarely used and fits with dissociation (andself-harm) is……..particularly extravagant self harm fantasies. Things that gobeyond self harm and into self mutilation. Wanting to amputate a limb, orbreak/crush it. Wanting to cut off the nose, scar the face, sew up the lips anddrill a hole in the back are all examples I’ve heard of.

 This can be separate to thedrive for pain that feeds self-harm and more about body image or ratherdisconnection from body image. The character may not feel a strong desire to carry out these fantasies or attemptthem but have repeated intrusive thoughts about, for example, cutting off theirarm.

 You’re giving a strong impression that this character hasvery low self-worth and self-esteem. Following the sort of ordeal he’s beenthrough that’s normal. He might havevery narrow ideas about what he’s ‘good for’. I know that turns up in fiction alot but it does so for a reason.

 I’ve been talking to ScriptTraumaSurvivor about triggersquite a lot over the past few weeks. Theyhave a post on them here, which you might find useful.

 Issues with hygiene are another symptom that comes up a lotin real life but not in fiction. The character suddenly not caring about hisclothes, hair, when he last showered- Not keeping his living space clean andtidy is more commonly how that’s shown.

 Irrational fear of everyday objects (or being triggered bythem) is another one that I’ve not seen come up. I’ve not seen a characterdevelop a fear of the shower, even if they’ve been through something that mightmake confined spaces a problem.

 You said he’s rich. He might well throw a lot of money intotrying to get rid of his injuries and scars. Things like that can serve aspotent physical reminders of what happened. But…money and the best surgeons inthe world won’t necessarily be able to wipe it all away in the sense he mightwant. Surgery, physio and the like take timeand aren’t always successful.

 I’ve seen a couple of things in fiction where people havecovered scars with tattoos in an effort to reclaim them, which does happen inreal life. It probably has a better prognosis than extensive surgery to reducescars that are already pretty old.

 Memory problems also rarely seem to show up in fiction butare hugely common in real life. Or perhaps more accurately the way memory problems show up in fictionisn’t accurate to real life. Victims rarely forget who they are or key elementsof their past (ie childhood before torture). They don’t forget their names orwhere they live.

 But they do oftenstruggle to learn new skills. They often have trouble remembering details oftheir abuse, or conversely remember it in great(but not necessarily accurate) detail. He may have forgotten a lot of littlethings about his friends and family, which could be distressing especially withhis already low self worth (how couldhe forget his best friend’s birthday when they’re so much better than he deserves?Etc-).

 He might have forgotten things about his hobbies. He may wellbe constantly forgetting little things like his keys, or what someone asked himto do that morning and that can feed into someone feeling ‘useless’ or likethey’re ‘going mad’.

 I think….in order to make the symptoms you’re using seem realyou should have him try to reduce contact with the people who care about him.Have him avoid people sometimes and try to reduce contact to....contact on his terms. This means the time periods when he ‘seems fine’are….balanced by long stretches when no one has seen him. The less direct contact timehe has the more likely he’ll be able to come across as normal.

 As to the last part-

 Recovery take a long time and it’s never easy. This charactercan and should access professional help (you should take a look at ScriptShrink’sblog to see what that might look like).

 Having a support network is incredibly important though.Having friends and family who won’t judge him: a character he can rely on toturn up at 3am if he phones because he’s having nightmares, someone else who’swilling to come by every day and make sure he at least eats breakfast. Thatsort of thing.  

 There isn’t a….agreed on treatment method for torture. Weare, to be frank, making this shit up as we go. At the moment we just don’t know.

 But this was a war. And that means this character was not alone. His experience will havebeen shared by other veterans andthere are likely to be groups and societies of these people. Seeking them out(perhaps with encouragement from his friends) could well help.

 It could help put his feelings and experiences inperspective: he isn’t going mad, other people are having these memory problems,he isn’t useless other people have the same low self-esteem.

 I hope that helps, I realise the treatment and recovery stuffis a little vague. A strong support network, shared experience,professional help and being believedwhen he says he was raped/tortured- those are all important. With all of themtogether he’d have a relatively good chance of recovery and learning to livewith his symptoms.

 Oh and if this is a Marvel/Iron Man fic, I’d very much like alink when you’re done.  

Disclaimer

[getoffthesoapbox]

[VKM Spec] The Gradual Deterioration of Yuuki’s and Yori’s Friendship

In the original Vampire Knight series, Yori was once Yuuki’s closest female friend as well as her roommate. Yori was never Yuuki’s best friend------that position was held by Zero------but she was the next most important after Zero.

Their friendship hit a rough patch after Yuuki became a vampire. Yori wanted to continue the friendship, but Yuuki put significant distance between herself and Yori both out of concern for Yori’s safety and because of Kaname’s eventual rampage. The original series ended with Yori putting more into the relationship than Yuuki.

As Vampire Knight Memories has unfolded, it’s become increasingly noticeable how absent Yuuki is from the important moments of Yori’s life. And by “absent” I mean “how little screentime Yuuki shares with Yori as the story progresses post-VK.” In fact, there are so few panels of Yuuki with Yori in VKM that I had to resort to using a panel from early Arc 2 for my teaser pic for this post!

I’d like to break down the process of disintegration that I believe Yori and Yuuki’s friendship goes through during VKM, from the first scene of VKM 1 until Yori’s death in VKM 1. I’d also like to speculate a little about the underlying causes for this unraveling of one of the only friendships Yuuki ever created. 

Warning: This is analysis is a bit on the depressing side, tread with care.

The Downward Spiral

VKM begins with Yori. She’s one of the lynchpins of the story, and one of the wisest heads in the cast. Her friendship with Zero and relationship with Aidou are some of the high points of the few chapters we have access to. Her friendship with Yuuki is a different beast entirely, though. 

Chronologically, Yori’s and Yuuki’s relationship up until VKM 3 is as follows:

Yori watches over Yuuki with Zero during the two months after Kaname tosses his heart in the forge. Yuuki during this time is unresponsive and incapable of participating in the friendship.

Yori, as far as we’re aware from what she says during the meeting of the Night Class kids in VKM 1, hears nothing directly or personally from Yuuki during the four years of her pregnancy. She might know a bit more, given her proximity to Aidou in VKM 2 and given that Aidou knows Zero was feeding Yuuki blood, but if she did know what was going on at that time, Hino hasn’t made that clear in text. Regardless, she and Yuuki do not appear to be in direct contact during the four years of Yuuki’s pregnancy, likely for Yori’s safety given Yuuki’s increased hunger.

Yori is welcoming to Yuuki when Yuuki presents Ai to the group in VKM 1, but there’s no special treatment for Yori nor is she singled out as Yuuki’s closest female friend. 

Although Yuuki’s relationship status is the reason Aidou won’t marry Yori, instead of scolding Yuuki or at least talking to her about the issue, Yori scolds Zero in VKM 5. This is the first sign that she and Yuuki are no longer close enough to be honest with each other about their dreams and hopes for the future. Yori at this point in time is closer to Zero. She even is starting to root for other girls to win Zero over from Yuuki, which is an odd thing to wish if she’s Yuuki’s closest friend.

Presumably Yuuki and Yori chat at some point when Aidou finally asks to marry Yori in VKM 6. This chat isn’t shown onscreen. 

We see mention of an offscreen conversation again in VKM 8, when Yuuki sends Ai and Zero on an errand to Yori’s and Aidou’s place, but for some reason doesn’t come with them. 

At this point in time, Yuuki has had no direct screentime with Yori other than a small scene in VKM 1 which was shared with other characters. While their friendship appears to be relatively intact during Ai’s youth, Hino spends more time showing Zero and Yori’s growing friendship and camaraderie than she is showing Yuuki and Yori’s continuing bond. Zero is the one who goes to school with Yori, who visits with her and Aidou at the lab, and who stops by to see them with Ai in all the chapters.

Things only go downhill as we move into what I like to call the “black box” years------the 8 or so years between VKM 8 and VKM 3, and the 34 or so years between VKM 3 and Yori’s death in VKM 1. 

In VKM 3, Yuuki just mentions offhand that Yori would miss Ai’s company if Ai went to sleep. This does imply they still see Yori a bit during this period. Things get really hairy once we hit the original Night 93 epilogue and VKM 1, however.

VKM 1 and the original Night 93 epilogue take place near the end of Yori’s life. In the Night 93 epilogue, Yori’s grandchildren don’t even know Yuuki------she tells them “stories” about Yuuki as if Yuuki is a figure of legend. This is further exacerbated by the last scene we ever see of Yori: a scene where Zero is visiting her, alone, in VKM 1.

Yori admits when she talks to Zero that she’s been waiting her whole life to be invited to Zero and Yuuki’s wedding! Her whole life! She encourages Zero to cherish the time he has and reassures him that he’s the best suited to be with Yuuki. 

But wait a minute. Isn’t Yori supposed to be Yuuki’s best friend? Why is she telling all this to Zero and not Yuuki? Why is Zero the one Hino’s showing visiting Yori in her final days, and not Yuuki (or Zeki together)? 

At Yori’s funeral, we find out something interesting. Yori’s grandchildren tell Yuuki that Yori asked them to be friends with her, which implies they did not know her before the funeral. This would mean that Yuuki either always visited Yori when the rest of her family weren’t around or rarely visited at all. Their friendship had clearly deteriorated to a point where Yuuki didn’t even know Yori’s grandchildren!

Further, Yuuki “assumes” they don’t know Zero, and asks them be friends with him too. He makes an incredibly weirded-out face because, as we know from just a few pages before, he already knows these kids. 

This whole scene implies that not only are Yuuki and Zero estranged at this point, but Yuuki and Yori were too. 

One Friendship Falls, Another Rises

Basically, given the few snippets of facts we have from VKM, I believe that over time Yuuki begins to avoid Yori out of guilt. Yori’s expectations are for Yuuki to live her own happy life, and Yuuki for reasons so far unknown refuses to do that. Yori would never pressure Yuuki, but Yuuki probably feels pressured anyway. 

For whatever reason, Yuuki can’t explain “why” she won’t choose Zero to Yori, and that friction, plus Yori’s and Aidou’s close friendship with Zero (and potentially Ai sleeping), likely contributes to Yuuki slowly fading out of Yori’s life. I doubt they ever fight, I even doubt there’s a significant split. But I do believe Yuuki being unable to move forward with her life, while Yori rapidly advances through hers, contributes significantly to their friendship deteriorating by the end of Yori’s life.

There may be other factors involved (we do have 36 black box years between VKM 3 and VKM 1 to fill still, a lot can happen there), but ultimately I think Yuuki felt guilty over not being able to live up to Yori’s wish and allowed the friendship to crumble because of that.

Yori, who is older and wiser than Yuuki because of her quicker lifespan, accepts Yuuki’s distance and turns to Zero to encourage Zero’s endeavors in bringing Yuuki happiness.

Zero and Yori become close in the original series and continue to deepen their bond of friendship and loyalty until the end of Yori’s life. Yori, in essence, becomes Zero’s best friend, and both of them “replace” Yuuki with each other because Yuuki’s incapable of friendship due to her mental trauma that she still hasn’t dealt with by the end of Yori’s life. 

In Short

I find the trajectory of Yuuki’s and Yori’s friendship to be one of the most depressing aspects of VKM. Whatever is going on with Yuuki, she let her friend die rather than fulfill her wish for Yuuki to embrace life and happiness. It’s truly heartbreaking that it took Yori’s death for Yuuki to finally get her act together, and even then she waits until a year later to officialize things with Zero. Yuuki missed out on being able to have Yori at her wedding! 

It’s a tragic end to what was once an adorable friendship. 

My one comfort is that Zero remained a steadfast and loyal friend to Yori and Aidou until the end. 

I just wish I could say the same for Yuuki. 

[neureaux]

it was nice to finally talk the situation through with somebody that knows me and knows about us. as much as the therapists were helpful in trying to unpick all those chunkier, tough and tangled feelings in the moment, i think that the way i feel about the situation is finally clear and i get why i feel the way i do.

essentially, i had a bunch of really shitty things happen to and around me over the winter, i had an inevitable (but reasonably quiet tbh) breakdown, and he moved his trip forwards as soon as he could and left me as soon as i went into a crisis wellness retreat, which was a gentler, more palatable adjacent to going into hospital to go to Thailand and ‘find himself’, all the while trying to avoid asking too many questions and treating me awkwardly as if holding me away from himself, and expecting me to be okay with it when it was realistically, unheard of in a relationship this long, thoughtless and completely poorly handled - and then expecting to proceed with things as if this were totally normal, as if the conduct would be exactly the same as a situation that’s actually regular, sending me photos of his excursions and telling me stories of his yoga retreats, treating me as if i has done something untoward/wrong/was just being difficult if i didn’t respond in the way he expected, as if responses of excitement and joy were the only appropriate ones from the bed of my treatment room, alone weeks earlier than agreed, pressing me for details about things he agreed to be here to support me through(like the verdict.), between my therapies and revelations and genuine hard work trying to pick up the pieces that 2018 had left me in. i think there were many missteps in the handling of this situation, and it’s been reaffirmed to me that i do actually have a right to ask questions. him trying to force acting like this is normal and pretending to what appears to be me AND himself that this situation and handling it this way is normal doesn’t actually make it normal to the rest of the world. how could you knowingly leave me here by myself even though you knew i was being absolutely smothered and crushed by pressure without so much as a second thought and expect me to have to beg you to stay or make me the bad guy for explaining why that would be strange at the very least(and if i would have, what a total bitch, right? how needy. but if she doesn’t truly press me, no guilt for me!), and just expect that to be okay when it’s such a grand display of disconnection and a lack of consideration for someone that tries so hard to be mindful of you, perfect or not? how could you display so boldly to me how separate our lives actually are at such a critical time, and think that returning briefly for a concert is some sort of consolation for this wildly public dismissal of me as a person? you’re waiting until we have at least one perfect year? do you realise that that means never, because we’re actual human beings and life brings couples ups and downs and it’s normal for literally everyone? how could you even look me in my tearstained face and say that to me? how could you let me pour my heart out, sob into your shoulder, drop me back to the door of a crisis retreat and then get on a plane the next morning? why have you never even considered asking me to visit knowing that i’m hurting like this and am actually able to financially support myself? what actual part of me is so inherently unappealing to you? am i enjoying being at home? what do you think, genius? have you ever even heard a word i’ve ever said? i think the timing was the biggest misstep, but it’s indicative of a bigger issue that needs gradually addressing.

the fact that any person would feel comfortable crossing the globe for months whilst their significant other of many years is in any sort of significant disrepair is bizarre to me, and it’s bizarre to everyone - especially when you witness things coming to a peak and they are at their lowest. no threat to you, just a quiet, broken girl. functionally, people don’t really do that. i would never think of doing this to anyone i love, and many around me share the sentiment but i believe there is a deeply rooted barrier of understanding that exists here, an example of a genuine lack of emotional depth born from becoming accustomed to avoiding ones own emotions and it becoming this thick, obtuse barrier that sucks the empathy and thoughtfulness from a person that becomes most noticeable at crucial times.

i’ve heard all sorts of things in the heat of the moment, that i suspect were used as some strange form of rationale to conclude this course of action to be the right one. many of them untrue, but bourne of a lack of comprehension of what being with a person regularly navigating and managing triggers every day really is. ‘you’re never fine’, ‘you’re always stressed’ etc - so i wonder if his thinking was, ‘she’s always stressed, so what’s the difference if i leave now?’ while still backwards, i don’t think it comes particularly from malice - especially if deep down, he really believed those things to be true. yes, a lot of things have happened, life is stressful sometimes. does that mean i don’t laugh and look for happiness in between? no, lol! even day to day, some days i might manage 5 triggers, some days i’ll have to quietly work through 50. however many, it doesn’t mean i don’t fight for peace and happiness in between and even during, and it doesn’t mean i don’t smile, laugh and share tenderness through pain. if dealing with a person in recovery from trauma is too much, that’s fine - but you don’t get to make their symptoms and their whole recovery journey their fault, especially when they’re an active participant in their recovery and actually work hard at adapting and utilising tools to progress and improve on their recovery process every day. and this winter? this winter, was by all means an enormous anomaly. so many things happened to me back to back, that even i was in shock. i naturally reacted to them eventually as they wore me down, and even then i found time to smile and try to do my best to keep on top of productive things and functions, make arrangements, make and answer the important calls and did my best to cope. so regardless of whether or not it was truly the internal belief that my recovery wasn’t a recovery at all or it wasn’t fast or consistent enough for him, there isn’t a way to rationalise the incredulousness of these actions, and furthermore expressing shock or confusion if i express that i disagree is also bizarre in itself. the long and short of it was that he knew what was going on, could have offered spousal comfort and support and potentially delayed for a while, or even just for the amount of time he originally agreed to, but he decided to do this instead, and leave me heartbroken, embarrassed and emotionally confused, wanting to be held and loved but instead receiving this excruciatingly public, awkward and uncomfortable rejection, nothing to show romantically for the better part of a decade of my romantic life, whilst telling me he loves me. but, i suppose that when you can’t handle your emotions properly, maybe the answer is run from overwhelming situations, even if that situation is a whole human person that would give you her world even as it crumbles.

still, though i have good understanding of the situation at the moment, it doesn’t make it hurt less but it makes it easier to work with. over the next couple of months, i have some space to figure out whether or not this is something i have the capacity and patience to work through, or if this is something that i need to direct my time towards getting over. i think that the part of me that holds on is a very soft, quiet but consistent part of me inside, one full of love that remembers tenderness and knows that it’s not entirely a conscious chain of events as much as a poorly thought out one in a time where the situation was simply too precarious and crucial for poor management to have been an option, a time where i needed a grown man, steadfast, supportive and patient, able to support me not by joining me in poor coping mechanisms and bouncing off my pain to excuse poor behaviour but by being truly present and keeping me responsible and accountable and received something else and i know and understand that part of me. but i don’t yet know if that part will be enough to allow me to continue giving myself to somebody that refuses to learn until the very last minute if ever, that doesn’t really understand me and that i’m sometimes unsure is able to love me in the way that i need to be loved. somebody that expects and expects, but violently rejects expectations in return. part of me wants to try therapy for him like he promised, to wait to see if i can move on from this pain and seek out the person i love to be with, the person i want to actually age with me but i’ve never seen so clearly how stuck he really is emotionally until now. he said for the first time ever recently that he now sees it too, and it gave me a boost of hope. that maybe, him coming to the first step of acceptance will be the road to him trying to regain himself and access to his emotions without them frightening him, even if it’s not with me. but part of me wonders if it was just more empty words to placate me, him figuring out what i want to hear again to get me off his back and in turn, subconsciously make me easier to ignore. i think sometimes i’m a reminder of his issues, because everyone else in his life barely pulls him up on them for some reason despite, from speaking to them, them actually knowing that they’re there. but they don’t see what enabling him does to his life increasingly, and they definitely don’t see what it does to me. and i would be aging with him, not them. i’m really wrestling with it and the way i feel, as the force and magnetism of the love has always kept me coming back, dropping everything to come back to him and dreaming, yearning to be swept off my feet and held tight, safe in love, romance, adventure and secure, steadfast partnership. i often feel like i’m still waiting.

[jasonheart1]

Parents: Kids' dentist did unnecessary work

Editor's note: Contact7 seeks out audience tips and feedback to help people in need, resolve problems and hold the powerful accountable. If you know of a community need our call center could address, or have a story idea for our investigative team to pursue, please email us at contact7@thedenverchannel.com or call (720) 462-7777. Find more Contact7 stories here.

The TV version of this story airs Monday, Nov. 12 on Denver7 News at 10 p.m.

REUNION, Colo. — Every time she helps her daughter brush her teeth, Ashley Conn feels that most dreaded of feelings: mom guilt.

"You want to think you brush your kids right. You know, you already have that mom guilt over every decision you make," said Conn. "How was I to know I couldn't trust him with her care?"

Conn's 7-year-old daughter Scarlett has a mouth full of metal crowns that Conn now believes were a mistake.

For her, this all started this spring with a trip to Treasured Teeth Pediatric Specialist in Reunion and Dr. Derren Tippets. While Tippets would not talk on camera to Contact7, he has posted videos on YouTube discussing his philosophies.

"So, I end up treating your kids as if they were my kids," said Tippets in one video. "Giving them the very best, the most conservative and very, very best treatment for them."

But Conn said when her daughter had X-rays done, Tippets said she had "eight-plus" cavities and needed eight crowns. During the procedure, Dr. Tippets said Scarlett's two front teeth had to be pulled while she was under anesthesia.

"But that morning, her two front teeth weren't loose at all. At all," said Conn. "I would have noticed if they were loose. If she had loose teeth she would be telling the world about it because that's very exciting for her. He said they were loose. She could choke on them in her sleep. 'We have to do it for safety reasons for her.'"

Instead of trusting her gut, Ashley trusted Dr. Tippets, and the teeth were pulled. But the nagging sense of mom guilt wouldn't go away. So, she sought a second opinion from the X-rays. She showed Contact7 a message from another dentist who told her Scarlett should have had two crowns – not eight.

"She was way over-treated," said Conn, but it was only after she saw a thread on her Facebook group in which she keeps up with other moms that she realized her daughter wasn't alone. "A lot of people with the same exact story. This mom posted, 'They told me my son had nine cavities. I took him for a second opinion and the other dentist said he just needed sealants.'"

Heather Kalodemas also posted her story on the same Facebook group.

"To me, he's a monster," said Kalodemas, who said that when her son was just five years old, Dr. Tippets diagnosed him with eight cavities. 

Kalodemas got a second opinion.

"He did have one tiny little one on his front tooth that was fixed by just shaving it off," she said. "They didn't have to fill it. They didn't have to give him any kind of pain, nothing. They just shaved it right off and that was the cavity."

Her complaint to the Colorado Dental Board led to an investigation and a Letter of Admonition for Dr. Tippets last year, calling his treatment plan "aggressive and unnecessary" – effectively a slap on the wrist. 

Other parents are also coming forward with stories and say they are planning to file complaints.

"I had to fight them over this," said Tehila Hatheway, who said Treasured Teeth billed her for a treatment her son didn't get. "And they said if I don’t pay it, it goes to collection, and I said, 'I’m not paying for something that was not done.' It just makes no sense."

Several other parents emailed Contact7 with similar stories, including Stacie Kent, who wrote that she took her 2-year-old son to Treasured Teeth in 2014 and was told he needed six fillings and would need to be sedated. Another dentist looked at her son's mouth and told her he didn't see any cavities or a need for fillings.

"I showed him the paperwork from Treasured Teeth and he apologized – said it gave dentists a bad name," wrote Kent.  

Brittnie Kreutzer remembered being impressed with the pirate ship waiting room at Treasured Teeth. She emailed that Dr. Tippets told her that her son needed two crowns, but when she got a second opinion her dentist told her there was no need for crowns.

"They wanted to put MY CHILD through unnecessary anesthesia, unnecessary dental trauma, and add unnecessary additions to his mouth all for thousands of dollars," Kreuzter wrote. "My child is NOT a dollar sign. They are taking advantage of worried moms who are just trying to do their best for their children by creating problems that aren't even there to begin with. It is shady and it is criminal. I tell everyone I know not to visit Treasured Teeth."

 In March 2018, Elizabeth Blaskowski took her 3-year-old daughter to a routine cleaning appointment at Treasured Teeth Reunion and was told her daughter had three cavities. She got a second opinion from a relative who is a practicing dentist, who examined the child's mouth and saw no cavities. But Blaskowski said the office would not send her all of her daughter's X-rays to show the other dentist. She decided to trust the dentists at Treasured Teeth and had the cavities filled.

"After hearing of other stories ... I became very concerned that I had been lied to, and my daughter in fact did not have the actual cavities that two different dentists at Treasured Teeth had told me she did," wrote Blaskowski. "The conscious sedation medication was absolutely a horrible experience, and I would never want to put my child through again. She was overly medicated in my opinion, and it took a whole day and a half to return to her normal state after the medicine, when the fillings were just a half-hour procedure." 

Two Yelp reviews of Treasured Teeth also warn parents to get a second opinion.

Conn's daughter was covered by Medicaid at the time of her treatment, which cost $3,657.

She said it took four months for her little girl's front teeth to finally start coming in, and she is still waiting to get the X-rays of her daughter's front teeth that show the permanent teeth supposedly coming in. She says Treasured Teeth sent her the wrong child's X-rays.

Dr. Tippets did not respond to Contact7's request for an on-camera interview, but in a written statement said, "We take these accusations seriously," but due to federal HIPAA privacy laws, "We are obligated not to respond."

"I think there's strength in numbers," said Kalodemas, who said she and other mothers believe their mom guilt was exploited to make them feel like they hadn't taken good care of their children's teeth. "These little kids —they’re so easy to take advantage of and it’s driven by money."

To give some context, the Colorado Dental Board gives letters of admonition to an average of 20 dentists every year.

The Former President of the Colorado Dental Association said there are red flags parents can watch for if they are concerned about a bad dentist.

Look for disciplinary action from the Colorado Dental Board. You can look up your dentist's name here.

Talk to your neighbors and others in the community for recommendations, reviews and complaints. That is how the group of moms speaking out against Treasured Teeth found each other.

If you feel the treatment is too aggressive, don't be afraid to ask questions and get a second opinion. You have a right to access to your X-rays.

"Make sure there is someone else who may have a different point of view," said Dr. Jeffery Hurst, the former president of the Colorado Dental Association."Maybe it's a less aggressive approach. It may be the exact same plan, but you can at least get that peace of mind knowing people are looking at your case if you have any questions or concerns."

Dr. Hurst said it is important to treat baby teeth, and crowns and fillings are not uncommon.

"Too many people think that because they are baby teeth, you can just let them go they are not going to be there that long, but I would mention that they are very important for so many other aspects other than just to smile with," he said. "Eating with them, speaking with them, not to mention the pain you can have from an abscessed baby tooth. You may have a very negative outlook because you're in pain all the time."

from Local News https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/contact7/parents-kids-dentist-did-unnecessary-work