#and how to not feel lonely when not living with parents

[catherinetheprincessofwales]

James Middleton: Kate, William and the dog that saved my life. The younger brother of the Princess of Wales was so depressed he came close to killing himself. Then Ella, his faithful cocker spaniel, stepped in — and even found him a wife. He tells Matt Rudd about his ‘waste of money’ education, family therapy and the help Prince William gave him. The Sunday Times, 22 Sep 2024.

I’m in a cottage on a farm with the brother of the Princess of Wales and his eyes are filling with tears. He has a cocker spaniel called Luna on his lap and I have a cocker spaniel called Inka on my lap. Both dogs are looking anxiously at their owner as he tries to tell me about the death of their mother, Ella. It could be a bit awkward when a man you’ve only just met starts getting very emotional about a dog that died nearly two years ago. Instead it’s the moment I realise James Middleton isn’t exaggerating. A dog really did save his life.

On a winter’s night in late 2017, Middleton climbed a ladder to the roof above his parents’ flat in Chelsea and contemplated suicide. Overwhelmed by feelings of failure, he had decided that the labour of living was no longer worth the effort. As his thoughts spiralled, it was only the sight of Ella, watching him carefully through the skylight, that gave him pause. How could he leave her, he wondered.

Over weeks and months Middleton had isolated himself from family and friends, ignoring increasingly desperate phone calls and texts. When his sister Pippa came to the door, he would hide in his room. When he tried to go to work, he got as far as the car park and then drove home again.

“I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t sleep, I was constantly agitated,” he says. “If I sat down I had to stand up again immediately. I couldn’t eat because I felt constantly as if I were about to throw up. What was most challenging was that I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong. It wasn’t living, it was just existing in this awful state of anxiety.”

As his mental health crisis deepened, it was only Ella and the routine of looking after her that kept him going. “I was never alone in a time when I felt very lonely,” he says, stroking Inka’s ears. “I’m surprised there weren’t marks on the carpet from the laps I was doing, but she would sort of get in the way. It was a silent interruption, but for a fraction of a second it would stop the spiralling. “Something was taking over my mind, but not knowing what it was made it very difficult to talk about. And I didn’t feel as though I had a right to be depressed because I’ve had everything, because I am privileged.”

We are meeting today, I should mention, at Bucklebury Farm Park, a genteel sheep-petting outfit plus farm shop (excellent organic pesto) at the more desirable end of Berkshire. It is owned by his sister Pippa Matthews née Middleton and her hedgie husband, James, who is, among other things, the next laird of Glen Affric. Carole and Michael Middleton, parents to James, Pippa and Catherine, live in a manor house a stone’s throw away and Middleton’s own farm, which he bought from the parents of a prep school friend mid-pandemic, is a mile over there. It’s quite the empire.

Now married to the French financier Alizée Thevenet and father to 11-month-old Inigo, Middleton is happy to talk about his annus horribilis and his dog-assisted recovery. He does so at book-length in Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life. But it’s a good question: what does someone born into such wealth and privilege have to be depressed about?

The roots of his 2017 crisis can be found, like most roots of crises, in childhood. Born in 1987, the same year his mother set up the mail-order company Party Pieces, he followed his two older sisters to Marlborough. If the prestigious boarding school demanded academic excellence and his parents expected it, both were to be disappointed. Diagnosed with dyslexia then, and with attention deficit disorder when he finally sought help in 2017, he struggled where his sisters had excelled.

“School is about comparing yourself to others,” he says, recalling how he would avoid friends phoning to compare exam results in the summer holidays. “I didn’t feel despair when I failed because it happened so often, but I was embarrassed. I felt let down because I didn’t think that those results properly represented me.”

In the early chapters of the book he charts his struggles with expectation — his mother is frequently in tears, his father just as frequently exasperated. Even without VAT, it must have taken a large chunk of the trust fund established by Michael’s grandmother, the heiress Olive Middleton, to put his son through Marlborough. When that son had to spend a gap year retaking his A-level chemistry four times, a “humiliating record” for the school, he tells him his education was “a waste of money”.

Although today Middleton studiously avoids criticising his school or his beloved parents — he learnt valuable survival skills at Marlborough, he tells me, and “Mum and Dad just wanted the best for me” — the pressure was clearly intense. He sought escape from that pressure in nature and in dogs. “I was an outcast … alienated from my classmates,” he writes. “But dogs never judged me. Mum asked repeatedly if I wanted to bring friends home to stay at weekends. But truthfully all I wanted to do was to see Tilly.”

Tilly was the family’s golden retriever, but from an early age Middleton was desperate for his own dog. His parents, on the other hand, continued to be desperate for him to succeed. And so, after that long summer of resits, he squeaked into Edinburgh University, choosing criminology, environmental studies and geography modules because he was “pretty certain they would all be multiple choice”. They weren’t, of course, and he failed his first-year exams. More crying from Mum, more exasperation from Dad, more solace from a dog, this time his own.

“For all my reservations, I shall be eternally grateful for the time I spent in Edinburgh because it is thanks to Ben, a university friend, that I find my adored dog Ella,” he writes, introducing us to the dog that saved his life. Despite his best efforts, puppies and student life are not compatible, and when he was banned from bringing Ella to lectures he finally abandoned his studies. “I knew that if I left university I’d be responsible for that decision,” he says. “It was a big step, but I had Ella with me, as my companion and my responsibility.”

Middleton’s story is not exactly Angela’s Ashes. When he announces that he is ditching his degree to become an entrepreneur in London, he is cut off, he tells us, from the Bank of Mum and Dad, but he can still move in with his sisters at the family’s flat in Chelsea. His uncle Gary Goldsmith, he of Celebrity Big Brother 2024 notoriety, is also on hand to invest in his cake kit start-up. Nobody in this story is going to find themselves on the street.

But cynics desist! Don’t underestimate the impact of parental expectation, nor of not conforming to the traditional model of success. Middleton, anxious and increasingly socially uncomfortable, had left his friends in Edinburgh and washed up in London with his dog.

“She was my shield,” he says. “Through her I could enjoy things. I could take her for a walk and see what she was seeing. I process a lot of things in my mind and that can be overwhelming, but she helped me open my eyes and realise everything was OK.”

There are, I’m sure, many advantages to being royal adjacent, but when his sister Catherine started dating Prince William in 2004, Middleton found the level of media interest “shocking”. A young man who used his dog as an excuse to leave parties early was not equipped for the spotlight, for stepping out of the flat into a sea of flashing cameras.

“I’d never seen a royal wedding,” he says, rather sweetly. “There hadn’t been one in my lifetime. Not a big one anyway. I wasn’t aware of the scale or the global interest. I just felt privileged that my sister was asking me to do it, and it meant something to her. I wanted to make sure I did it.”

His description of the intense amount of practice he put in to the reading is like a potted version of The King’s Speech — he stutters, he stumbles, he takes lessons with the voice coach Anthony Gordon Lennox, he reads nervously and then more confidently to an audience of one dog ­— Ella, of course — in Chelsea Old Church. And then it’s the big day. “Really, the build-up to Catherine’s wedding was no different to Pippa’s or other friends’ weddings,” he says, unbelievably. Just the family, 1,900 guests, Her Majesty, an archbishop and a few world leaders. Watching the recording back today, there’s no hint of nerves — Middleton, 24 at the time, gives a bravura performance. Afterwards an American production company wrote to ask if he’d like to star in his own film — their opening offer was $1 million.

“They even ventured,” he writes wryly, “that members of my wider family might like to take part.” Middleton is not unaware of how everything is distorted by his proximity to royalty.

On the surface the next few years of Middleton’s life read like a Hello! magazine special — parties, holidays on Mustique, holidays in the Alps, a blossoming relationship with a glamorous older woman (the actress Donna Air, about whom his parents were hesitant because of the eight-year age gap), weekends at Sandringham (“Did you get my message, James?” the Queen asked the first time he visited. “Ella is welcome to stay in your room.”) But then came the night of despair in pyjamas on a Chelsea rooftop. Long sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy followed with a psychiatrist who was happy for Ella to attend too. She was, Middleton says, the only reason he kept going.

In December 2017, his mental health still fragile, he left London without telling anyone and holed up in a remote cottage in the Lake District. While his family grew frantic with worry, much to his irritation (“I’m a grown man”), he describes three days of elemental existence — fetching firewood and water, heating soup, walking Ella and her two pups. For the first time in a year he enjoyed a deep sleep and, in front of the fire after a wild swim with his dogs, he felt fleetingly happy.

“Dogs are amazing,” he says and all five of the dogs in the cottage with us — three spaniels and two beautiful golden retrievers — look delighted. “They do just sense things. Ella had been with me in every therapy session, she was always with me. I think we can learn from dogs. They’re not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow. They’re not even thinking about the next couple of hours. They’re thinking about right now. I’m here, they’re here, in the moment.”

As Middleton’s recovery continued, he says his sisters understood — they both had friends who had depression — but his parents struggled. “They were uncomfortable with the fact that I’d been labelled ‘clinically depressed’,” he writes. “To people of their generation, I can understand why it was concerning. Society was only just starting to break through the stigma.”

The solution, in the end, was to invite the family to the therapy sessions. “I felt guilty because I knew they were worried,” he says. “They felt guilty because it’s really hard if you’re not able to help the people you love the most. I was finally understanding how I felt but I got nervous trying to translate that to my family without the help of an interpreter. When they came into the sessions they had the opportunity to ask questions that I couldn’t necessarily answer.”

In the 13 years since Catherine’s wedding Middleton’s hair has receded a little, but he now has a beard for balance — a little twirl of his moustaches and he could be a not-too-distant cousin of Tsar Nicholas II. He probably is — this generation of Middletons is not the first to hang out with royalty. He looks less bright and bushy-tailed than he did in 2011, but that might be fatherhood or the weekend with friends he has just returned from in Norfolk. Or it might simply be the passing of enough eventful years.

Whatever it is, he tells me he is now happy, which, given the depths of his depression, he still finds extraordinary. His idea of what constitutes success has changed — he is no longer motivated by money but by the things in life about which he is passionate. He doesn’t even like the word entrepreneur any more.

Having stepped away from Boomf, a marshmallow delivery company (Boomf is the sound a marshmallow makes falling from a letterbox), he started James & Ella, a “premium freeze-dried raw dog food” company in 2020. He clearly finds it easier to be passionate about dogs than marshmallows. But it’s in his personal life that the change has been most dramatic.

“I remember sitting in the therapist’s chair with Ella’s head on my lap, wondering how long it was going to take to get better,” he says. “But within a year I had met my future wife. And we’re now here with an 11-month-old son, living on a farm with six dogs. If someone had told me that would happen, I’d have been annoyed. It would have just seemed so ridiculous.”

He met Thevenet, 34, at a members club in South Kensington, west London, in 2018. Ella, having actively disapproved of several previous girlfriends, broke the ice by going over to her table. They married in the south of France in 2021 (a Hello! magazine world exclusive, naturally) and Ella was a flower girl. And everyone lived happily ever after.

Except, alas, the dog. It is one of life’s cruelties that man’s best friend has a much shorter life expectancy than man. Just asking Middleton about the death of Ella, early one Saturday in January 2023, makes him emotional. Despite being given two weeks to live the previous September, she had made it through Christmas, perhaps buoyed by the thought of one final week in the Alps. Of course Middleton was with her when she took her last breath at 3am. The whole family, including William and Catherine, gathered in his parents’ garden for what sounds like an extensive memorial on the Sunday.

“Saying goodbye to Ella was not just saying goodbye to her as a dog,” Middleton says. “It was everything I’d been through with her. She had arrived just as I was starting out in my twenties and she was leaving as I’d finally figured things out in my mid-thirties. She put me on the right path and I didn’t want another day from her. I didn’t want another hour. I would have loved it but I didn’t need it. “She was sent to me before I even knew I needed her, but she chose me. She was able to transform my life better than any human could have done and then she put me in the capable hands of someone and together we’re now raising our own family.”

Eight days after Ella was buried in her favourite sheepskin, Alizée interrupted Middleton’s mourning to announce that she was pregnant. He is convinced Ella knew and that her death was a kind of passing of the torch. His son, Inigo, was born last autumn. “I hope there’s an Ella who will find Inigo, if there’s a time in his life when he needs it,” he says, as one of the golden retrievers has a long stretch.

If you’re not a dog person, you might find this cosmic canine intervention a bit much. Whether Ella was the ultimate therapist or a very effective placebo, it worked for Middleton. His sisters’ families are also fully invested in the joys of cocker spaniels — Pippa has one of Ella’s sons and Catherine, whose announcement of the end of her chemotherapy treatment comes a few days after this interview, now has one of Ella’s granddaughters — no corgis to date. Middleton himself now regards his mental health crisis as a blessing. “Although I would never wish it on anybody and I would never want to go through it again, I’m pleased it happened. It was an opportunity to recalibrate and to re-evaluate what matters.” Happiness, he says, is what matters. Happiness and lots of dogs. Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life by James Middleton (Radar £22). 

[tgmsunmontue]

Saga of Solitude 13/21

Nepo!Baby Bradley and his life at USNA and afterwards. DADT fully in force. IceMav AU. (Begun prior to 'It's not who you know' - the non-angsty version). (Side Hangster, which is ALSO angsty).

PROLOGUE (He remembers)

HANGSTER FIRST MEETING (Lonely Nights - set 2009)

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

ONE (2000) TWO (2001) THREE (2002) FOUR (2003) FIVE (2004) SIX (2005) SEVEN (2006) EIGHT (2007) NINE (2008) TEN (2009) ELEVEN (2010) TWELVE (2011)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – 2012

                They’ve decided to forgo their rings outside of the house. They live in a little pottery dish that Petra made beside a larger one that Tamsin had made several years early, likely in the same class. It’s a new habit, keys go in the large bowl and the ring goes on his finger when he gets home and he remembers Mav sliding it onto his finger during their wedding ceremony every time. And when he leaves the house it works in reverse, he takes the ring off and picks up his keys.

                They’d had a quiet courtroom ceremony, just the seven of them. When he’d checked his paperwork to see what needed updating he hadn’t needed to update next of kin, Maverick has been listed there for years alongside Sarah, and nothing there is going to change. He does fill in the forms for change of marital status, and he holds onto them for weeks afterwards, hands shaking at the thought of handing them in and everyone knowing. It takes him a couple more days but then he’s standing in the doorway of his office looking at Aubrey fastidiously working on something, muttering under her breath and she’s been with him for five years now, nearly six, and he knows he can trust her.

                “Aubrey… I need to ask you opinion on something.”

                “Sir?”

                “I have filled these in and should submit them to the administration office. However…” he swallows roughly and hands the forms over to her silently. She accepts them, eyes flicking over them quickly.

                “Well sir, I’m a little hurt I wasn’t invited –”

                “Ah –”

                “I’m joking sir. Now. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, however I came from the administration office and still have the same level of access. I can update the information and file these and no-one else will see it. Unless they go looking of course.”

                “Oh. You can do that?”

                “Of course sir. Leave them with me. And congratulations.”

                “Thank you Aubrey. For everything.”

…            …            …

                He doesn’t know what he expected to change with Ice and Mav getting married. They aren’t suddenly more affectionate with each other, Mav doesn’t move absolutely everything in, although there isn’t much left at his house anyway. He does note the appearance of the rings though, thinks it’s softly sweet that they wear them but the thought then turns sad when he realizes that they still feel like they cannot let the wider world know. That despite everything they’re still keeping it a secret. A part of him understands, to have something so big have to be a very well-guarded secret for over two decades.

                The extremes they both went to, to ensure that they weren’t found out. Marriages to women who fortunately knew and supported them and loved them and knowing that now, what his own parents must have known and done make him feel a little better about his own sexuality and journey. Knowing that they would have loved and supported him regardless. That Tamsin and Petra are here in the world because they added a legitimacy to Ice’s marriage, even though he knows both Ice and Sarah wanted kids and figured out the best way that could work for them. He looks at them all, Sarah and Melissa, Ica and Mav, their relationships with each other well over two decades and he doesn’t know the nitty-gritty of how they got together. Definitely isn’t going to ask, Mav tends toward over sharing and there are things he doesn’t need demystified.

                That said he does wonder how he’s going to maybe manage a relationship. If he even wants one. He didn’t before. Had very firmly put it away as something he couldn’t have, not alongside having the career he has wanted for as long as he can remember. But now… fucking Seresin putting the idea in his head has got him thinking and maybe it’s something he could try. If he could find a guy to try it with. He doesn’t want it to be someone who is also in the service, that seems like a recipe for trouble. There are dating apps and clubs but he already uses those to hook up, case in point, Jake Seresin.

                He does have people he can ask though; Chris and Pat. Nat’s cousin and his husband. They’re his age, well, a little older but not as old as Mav and Ice. More importantly they’re not in the military and probably know guys who are looking for… not just sex. Dating. He remembers them sending guys over and everything he learnt and now fondly remembers. Despite Christopher being Nat’s cousin he does count them as friends and so he finds himself reaching out, asking if he could maybe come and visit.

                Of course there’s an open invitation and he finds himself there mid-week, not really wanting to give up his weekend time with Tamsin and Petra, even as they have busier social lives he still tries to shoehorn as much time with them as they’ll let him. He knocks on the door to Christopher and Patrick’s apartment, a different one from over eight years ago, but he has been here before a couple of years ago when he visited with Natasha.

                “Bradley! Look at you. While I might not be a fan of the military I cannot argue with the output …”

                Bradley grins, well used to Christopher’s flirty banter now after years of it, accepts the hug and kiss to the cheek and toes off his shoes and places them on the rack.

                “Hey Christopher, nice to see you too. Thanks again for letting me come and stay.”

                “You’re always welcome, you know that. Come on in, make yourself at home. You know where everything is right?”

                “Yeah, assuming you haven’t done any major home renovations.”

                “No, we have not. You want a drink?”

                “Yeah, coffee would be good, but only if you’re making one yourself.”

                “I’m making myself a cocktail. Want one of those instead?”

                “Sure. Why not?” Bradley decides, because this conversation will probably go easier with a slightly looser tongue. He drops his bag in the guest room and heads back to the kitchen to find Christopher making coffee but also pouring vodka into a cocktail shaker along with a healthy amount of ice cubes.

                “Alcohol and caffeine. So we can make bad decisions wide awake!”

                “Well, I was actually after some life advice but sure, let’s start with bad decisions.”

                “Life advice? From moi?”

                “Yeah, you and Patrick. You two have your shit together.”

                Christopher’s gaze goes sharp.

                “Oh honey, I thought you were here for a booty call…”

                “And you still let me invite myself?” Bradley asks, half-joking but also a little horrified that Christopher would think him that rude. Although coming to visit just so he can ask advice probably isn’t the best look either.

                “I’m sorry, have you seen yourself. I’m married, not dead. And I didn’t mean a booty call with me and Patrick…”

                Bradley startles a little, feels the heat in his cheeks, hot and immediate because he let himself be startled; caught off guard. Because he had imagined that when he was younger, the idea of somehow being with both of them. However he’d never pursued it or shown any interest, because he’s good at hiding all that, he hasn’t managed a decade in the Navy under DADT by having his every want and desire clearly on display in his face and body. It’s not really happened before. He might need to unlearn some things.

                “I was joking but… interesting.”

                He tries to ignore his embarrassment as Christopher makes the cocktails, his gaze flicking back to Bradley every so often. Then he’s sliding over a glass filled with a dark concoction that does indeed smell very strongly of both coffee and alcohol. He takes a sip and coughs.

                “Shit that’s strong…”

                “Hmm. Bottoms up!” Christopher says, eyes wicked and Bradley coughs again, shooting Christopher a look because yes, he did get the fucking innuendo.

                “Babe! I’m home!”

                “In the kitchen!”

                He watches as Patrick gives Christopher a kiss hello and he’s struck with a sudden memory of his parents, bright laughter and easy affection. Huh.

                “Hey Bradley, nice to see you again…” Patrick says, reaching out to shake his hand and Bradley accepts the handshake, ignores Christopher’s eyeroll.

                “Hey Patrick, nice to see you too.”

…            …            …

                He’s not sure quite how it happens, other than apparently couples seem to be able to hold entire conversations silently with their eyes. He lies there, feeling wrung out but a growing sense of unease growing in his gut that he’s just slept with a married couple. His first threesome and god, Natasha can never know.

                “Well I sure as hell won’t be telling her,” Christopher says, and Bradley realizes he must have said something out loud.

                “You’re over thinking this. You’re not going to ruin our marriage by being in our bed.”

                “We’ve done this before,” Christopher adds and Patrick groans and Bradley bites his lip in amusement, because they’re still them, even here. Even if he’s becoming increasingly aware of his nakedness and feeling less comfortable himself. He hasn’t unpacked, maybe he should just get up and leave. He shifts but Patrick is there, hand pressing him back down.

                “Uh uh uh… you aren’t running away. No sneaking out. There isn’t anything to be ashamed of. You came here to talk, and now we’ll talk. And we’ll all put some clothes on. Go have a shower in the guest bathroom and we can sit on the sofa and hear your troubles…”

                Bradley wonders if making a quip about not minding either of them without their clothes on would be in appropriate or not and decides to keep his mouth shut. Clothes will help.

…            …            …

                “So… help us understand what you want.”

                “I don’t know what I want, that’s a whole part of the problem.”

                “Well, what do you not want?” Patrick asks and Bradley scrubs at his face.

                “I’m kind of over meaningless hookups.”

                “Oops?” Christopher offers and he and Patrick both snort.

                “So you want a relationship,” Patrick states and Bradley pulls a face.

                “I guess?”

                “Wow, ringing endorsement for relationships everywhere.”

                “Christopher stop being so bitchy, it isn’t helping.”

                “I… under don’t ask don’t tell I knew I couldn’t pursue a relationship. Not and have a career in the Navy.”

                “So you’ve never…”

                “I’ve never even gone on a date,” Bradley offers. “I don’t know if I’d be any good in a relationship. It seems like hard work.”

                “And you’re definitely a stranger to hard work, what with going through the academy and then flight school being so easy and all.”

                “Still bitchy, but he has a point. If you care about it, you put in the work.”

                Bradley groan, because the advice is reminiscent of what Ice had said,

                “Another silver lining from having sex with you, gives us a better idea of what you might like. Make sure you’d at least be sexually compatible.”

                Bradley shrugs, because he’s never put that much thought into it, other than always wanting to ensure the other person wanted to be there and enjoyed themselves.

                “You ever thought about entering the scene?”

                “The scene?”

                “Oh honey…”

                That devolves into a whole other conversation and Bradley feels overwhelmed with information, glad that Patrick stops Christopher from going and getting their toys. Instead Patrick says he’ll send him some websites to read through, once he’s had time to process and consider it. He can’t imagine doing anything like that with someone he doesn’t already know really well, but there is also a definite interest in exploring and learning about it all.

                He ends up talking about Jake, although he doesn’t mention his name. Just that the three nights and two days with Jake are pretty much the closest thing he’s ever had to dates, if they can even be called dates when it was simply filling time between rounds of sex. Annoyingly both Patrick and Christopher seem skeptical, like he should maybe consider pursuing something there and he shakes his head, insists he doesn’t want someone also in the service. Doesn’t mention how badly he feels that he’s likely burnt any and every bridge back to Jake. He’s not an option.

                “You want training wheels.”

                “What?”

                “Like a trial run. A relationship with training wheels. Someone to practice with that lets you try it out but not something too serious. A guy that’s low maintenance.”

                “That rules out over half your single friends,” Patrick says dryly. “They’re single for good reasons…” he says to Bradley, making his eyes wide to drive the point home and Bradley’s glad that he’s there. He’s calmer and more sensible than Christopher. Between them though he’s hoping they might have someone.

                “What about Mike?”

                “Bradley sees enough warzones, let’s save him from that one…”

                “Fine. Andrew?”

                “Andy or Drew?”

                “Andy. Drew is back together with his ex. Again.”

                “Ugh. Andy would be okay I guess. Maybe too much drama though? Drew would have been better.”

                Bradley feels like he very much does not need to be here for the conversation they’re having. They go through several more names, one or both of them shaking their heads and he’s glad they’re being so picky and discerning on his behalf, but he is becoming more and more terrified of ever entering the dating scene on his own. It sounds like a minefield.

                “What about Callum?”

                “Oh. Hmm. Not a bad idea. And he’s actually local to you, having just moved there… he’d probably appreciate the introduction as well. He’s… yeah. Actually that might be the best one.”

                “He’s a bit of a workaholic, which is why he’s single. But…”

                “I’m not around for months at a time…”

                “Yeah. Worth a shot right? At least a date or two?”

                “Yeah, got nothing to lose right?”

                “Just your first date virginity!”

��               “Yeah, okay, thanks for that Christopher…”

…            …            …

                Neither he nor Ice are prepared for the arrival of the boyfriends.

                Plural.

                He doesn’t know if Tamsin and Bradley colluded to deal out the trauma simultaneously but it throws him and Ice both into an emotional tailspin. He knows Bradley is twenty-nine, likely has plenty of sexual experience given his little fieldtrips to New York and San Fransisco that he probably thinks he and Ice are blissfully ignorant of. Hell. He was young once. Tamsin though? She’s only fifteen no matter how much she argues that she’s turning sixteen soon.

                Tamsin’s boyfriend is a sixteen-year-old kid that neither he nor Ice like, although Bradley tells them they’re being too harsh. Pete knows what he was like as a teenager, and what Bradley was like, and quite frankly he’s glad that both his daughters know how to defend themselves, even if Petra tends to the slightly more violent side of things.

                Pete isn’t quite sure what to make of Bradley’s boyfriend. He’s nice enough, clearly cares for him, but also doesn’t seem to have the deep-rooted desire or passion that he’d hoped Bradley would find. It’s fine, it’s Bradley’s first boyfriend and Callum is smart and attentive but also doesn’t seem to get Bradley. Their interactions are friendly and easy, but that’s it he realizes. They act more like friends than anything else, careful distance always maintained and he wonders if Bradley is simply not into public displays of affection.

                Then he watches more, sees how Bradley hugs both him and Ice, how he’s hugging Tamsin and Petra, pressing kisses to the tops of their heads when he can get away with it. He reminds Pete so much of Goose in those moments and he wonders what is stopping him showing the same with Callum. Callum who Bradley won’t even invite to the house for family dinner. They go out to restaurants, although he does know that Callum stays over at Bradley’s place, and he won’t be making that mistake again in a hurry. Or ever again if he can help it.

                Fortunately, Petra seems to think that boys are disgusting, Pete hopes that she never changes her mind.

[another-art-studentt]

7/15/23

I reorganized my room and there are finally some corners that give some aesthetic vibes. My goal for the rest of the summer is to be well prepared for the next school year in terms of time management and academically (or rather, musically). Today I successfully got up early and had a good practice session, but I could have practiced more had I prepared food in advance.

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

Thinking about how if Shermy Pines. And like, if he is the baby, he’d be born in the 1970s and be 40 by 2012 and he’s already a grandad. He had to be a teen dad in the 80s (after a severe economic recession) and then his kid ended up being a teen parent by 1999 (Which is 8 years before ANOTHER SEVERE ECONOMIC RECESSION LOL)

Also he was born into a pretty broken family, probably rarely if ever saw his brothers. Do you think he ever saw Stanley before he had to start pretending to be Ford? Do you think Ford visited from college??? Because he didn’t seem confident facing his father until he made millions, so like???

And, like, do you think Filbrick and Caryn changed as parents by the time they raised Shermy? Because it seems like a trend that as parents get older they mellow out a bit, so Shermy probably has a completely different experience with their parents then Stan and Ford, and talking to them is just “is this seriously the same parents???” (Imagine the silent resentment that’d cause 😭😭😭)

Personally I headcannon that Shermy had a daughter (Mabel and Dipper’s mom) and not a son like it says on the wiki because c’mon. Can he just have a daughter. Idk why this is important to me but… c’mon. Can he just have a daughter. It just feels right to me.

[wife]

reading about peoples experiences with childhood loneliness on reddit is like wrow... i'm a special girl i see

[insanechayne]

~ ~ ~

[whyisntketchupasmoothie]

.

[multishipper-baby]

Baby fever so bad I've been thinking about the ideal number of kids for characters. What is wrong with me.

[pepprs]

i will shut up abt this i promise but like. the concept of being in a stable safe mutually loving whatever relationship is INSANE . like how can you ever feel bad about yourself or wounded or whatever again. it’s like a superpower or somethi ng. <- doesn’t know what she’s taking abt bc she’s never experienced it or the absence of it after having it merely the negative space of it and is filling in the gaps w logic or something. but it’s INSANE to me. like of course i feel like shit about myself i am catcrumb unloved.jpg!

[monstrsball]

me when i think about hanazawa teruki for more than five seconds

[skhardwarevers1]

I can’t wait for the weather to get warmer,,

[eldrichthingy]

I'm so tired

[bitbrumal]

      long post on diluc’s reclusive tendencies & specific pain re: kaeya.

diluc’s persistent agony regarding kaeya’s secret, is not a petty refusal / inability to admit his own wrongs unless he gets to blame kaeya too.           it’s not even necessarily blame in the sense of deeming kaeya’s lies / deceit wrong. by now, he has accepted that the cards his little brother has been dealt necessitate deceit - even of him, especially of him. for a long time he wished he could not forgive it. now he’s grateful.

it’s the agony of knowing that to the one person who only ever saw him as him. who didn’t see ‘diluc ragnvindr’ as a concept, a thing to respond to the way one must to those with power & status.                        [ “please don’t lie, adelinde. you don’t have to lie. it’s okay-” “you are very dear to all of us, young master. please don’t fret.” & she’s not allowed to speak ‘out of turn’, to tell him how she feels, to be a real person to him--& it’s fine to her because this is a job. it was diluc’s private life. he has so many strangers in his private life- ] the only person who didn’t lie to him about the things that matter: who loved him without conditions.          crepus changed diluc.       kaeya changed for diluc - changed from a frightful boy who didn’t want anything into one who dared to hold his hand. but also, less positively, would be the one to apologise or take the blame not bc diluc ragnvindr but bc diluc my only friend who i love dearly please don’t leave. ( diluc’s guilt at seeing that fear would always turn them into a feedback loop of no i’m sorry’s. )

but now?

from the very start - especially to kaeya, he was only diluc ragnvindr.

to this day diluc doesn’t really know who the fuck he is, torn to & fro by everything everyone wanted of him; & all the ways he had to behave in order to get some kind of honesty out of the people who approached him. but he does know that the only times he felt... easiest, felt most like he was flowing from some point inside himself instead of hoisting himself into a corset held out to him by others... were always, & only, with kaeya.            because kaeya was awful, in many ways. he was mean, & cruel, & took to his vulnerabilities like a goddamn vampire - until crepus sat them both down & calmly explained that kaeya was taught by cruelty, & that he learned to be cruel to people he wanted to be close to. that it did not work that way here, that he would lose diluc if he continued to act like that-- & diluc, gullible little boy that he was, never ever saw any reason not to believe anyone. it didn’t make sense to his brain that words would be spoken that weren’t true. but you pick up on people’s feelings, too.

the boy who taught him the simple ways people lie, so he wouldn’t be taken advantage of so easily anymore. the boy who held his hand & laughed with him or shared his resentment at crepus’ conditional love - even if diluc’s was buried deep. kaeya... where diluc ragnvindr was a person instead of some kind of trophy. father wanted him to be excellent. the staff that fucking raised him wanted him to play the part required of him so they could play theirs, instead of begging for sincerity - he is only their job, only their distant most eligible bachelor, the uncrowned king, lord ragnvindr, diluc ragnvindr. he doesn’t fucking exist.            by now he cannot find himself at all anymore.

           the only one who looked at him &, instead of wanting the corset demanded the truth - who saw his vulnerabilities & his everything & engaged those instead... kaeya, who took to the real him like it was the only obvious thing. that orphaned boy was the only place in diluc’s world where he existed. & that wasn’t always comfortable, but it kept him aware - that he wasn’t the thing father made of him, even as he lost whatever the fuck else he might’ve been.

but they only got that close- every actual reason for them to be close, was that kaeya had to... he was just a target.

& now that, due to everything beyond kaeya as well as his confession, diluc’s literal ability to trust people is non-existent? he can’t talk to kaeya because he cannot believe a word out of his mouth - hates himself for wanting to trust blindly. he doesn’t want to hate blindly anymore either, but he’s so inherently... trusting. it’s one or the other; he must compensate so hard just to not feel like he’s selling himself cheaply again.      & he can’t. he’s too simple - his mind doesn’t work this way & neither does his heart. he loves, & he trusts, especially because there is nothing left to love or trust. & even when he knows people’s cruelty he just trusts them to be that way... there’s no point demanding insincerity from people. let them lie, if that’s what they’re like. if only they wouldn’t ask him to play a part too.

diluc’s,,, autistic & very, very kind. it just doesn’t click in his head. things pretending to be what they are not makes no natural sense. he cannot... abide by the white lies & not so white lies people tell. the truth, no matter how painful, is never a cruelty to him - but it is demanded of him to lie at every turn. little lord ragnvindr, etiquette. the perfect fucking gentleman, & nothing else.

he keeps kaeya at a distance because he knows how much he needs him still, how little he cares for being loved truly- because it’s not a real option & he’s had to live with that forever already. his own father did not love him - he’s used to it. & yet, if he yielded like he knows he will if kaeya insists on continuing the lie - it will also break what’s left of his heart.

                what distance continues to exist between them is because there was always distance, apparently, & diluc just no longer wishes to lie to himself. to have to. let everyone else; at least he won’t. let them be vapid & meaningless, & he to them - but not he to himself. if he is to find himself at all he cannot continue to be what people ask of him. all they give him is the negative space that can be filled in by the part he’s supposed to play. so then, he’ll simply not fill any of it in at all. he’s going to lie to himself again anyway; he cannot keep this up. but he wishes he could. & he tries so hard. & if he must be a cold, distant bastard to someone who’s already made it clear that they’re not... close, anyway. then why doesn’t he get to? everyone always cheats him. no-one ever cares - especially when they say they do. why does he have to keep allowing it? he just wants to find some way to speak to kaeya that won’t involve being lied to or humiliating himself -- blindly hating OR blindly trusting, & he cannot be anything but blind around him now. in general diluc finds it difficult to understand people. having no-one who speaks frankly with him does not help that in the slightest ( kaeya was the only one who taught him to see, not to play along ), so he’s just... isolating himself in hopes of being in the only company that won’t lead him astray.         but he can’t heal, either.

& kaeya can’t tell him the truth. so he can’t try to heal - which is ignoring the fact he quite likely doesn’t deserve to be healed by him. ( not unless kaeya decides otherwise. but that is exactly that sort of ‘kindness’ people would feign in his direction - play along with the delusional young master, don’t burst his bubble. that’s rude. if the young master says your his friend then you are. somehow that makes sense to them? it does. because they go home to their real families. it’s professionalism & apathy; their job. like a customer service smile. i love you. )

& if kaeya actually did speak plainly. he will be telling the only truth that isn’t too good to be true - he just.. knows he won’t be able to handle that. kaeya was the one thing that made diluc want to live, because he was the one thing that made it possible for him to exist within his own life. & now, all of that, is the same simple lie everyone’s always told him. & the only reasons he fell & falls for it is because there is something wrong with his mind that makes him gullible. a fool, forever.

                     yeah, he’s quite done being around people.

p.s.: so in my portrayal, ‘gentleman diluc’ is fake as fuck & he doesn’t actually feel connected to anyone who he acts that way around. if he’s being seamlessly polite you know he doesn’t feel like a connection is even possible lmao so u get gentleman diluc bc that is all u want & he’s tired of asking for anything else.

[martyrbat]

me finding my location on queering the map but the closest entries to me are HOURS away and theyre all talking about religion guilt, violent acts of homophobia & transphobia theyve faced, public sex, and repression & fears 👍

[oglegoggle]

Idiot ex expected literally everyone around him to bend over backwards to do everything for him because he’s got ADHD and therefore isn’t capable of doing household chores or not breaking my belongings or responsibly managing his finances. He would throw up ADHD as a get out of jail free card literally every single time his behavior hurt me and I just had to accept it. Outright told me one time that trying to teach him how to do chores properly without breaking shit was triggering for him. But then was upset to see me call him an idiot and a coward in the notes on a post I reblogged about how shitty ADHD folks who use their ADHD as reason to never face consequences for their inconsiderate and selfish behavior.

Like yeah ADHD sucks and it requires a lot of difficult managing. But legit if you’re gonna say that it’s “triggering” to be expected to put away dishes without breaking them or take the used kitty litter to the dumpster outside every single day you’re just a pathetic self absorbed piece of shit. ADHD or not behavior like this has consequences and sometimes those consequences are the people you’re living with think you’re a selfish moron they don’t want to live with.

Your RSD is correct here dude, acting like this will make people drop you from their lives. You’re in your 30s and can’t do basic household chores. I had to walk on eggshells literally constantly with him because expressing even the tiniest amount of being upset with him would trigger a full blown self loathing meltdown and then he would be upset at me for hurting his feefees. He’s got ADHD, he’s got RSD, he’s got bipolar, it’s oooobviously my fault for triggering him and I need to calm him down and coddle him and reassure him that I’m not going to leave just because he hurt me repeatedly and did nothing to make up for hurting me or stop that behavior that was hurting me. He’s not capable of doing better and it makes him feel insecure that I deserve better treatment he’s not capable of giving me. I better reassure him that I’m okay with his shitty treatment of me or else he’ll fuckin kill himself. No he doesn’t want to go to couples counseling, that would be a waste of time and money.

Wow I’m such a shitty partner for not getting rid of all the glassware in my home so he won’t break it constantly. Wow I’m such a shitty partner I didn’t remind him to maintain his friendships outside of our relationship, obviously not telling him to remember to talk to and spend time with his friends is the same as somehow forbidding him from seeing them. Wow I’m such a shitty partner I don’t want to cook literal goddamn chicken rice & veg meals for his fucking dog and foot the bill for it, just like I was paying all of the other household bills as well as our entire shared food budget and cooking our meals every day because he would break shit and set fires if I didn’t. Wow I’m such a shitty partner for expecting him to actually pay the landlord his portion of the rent. Wow I’m such a shitty partner for smoking so much of his weed. Wow I’m such a shitty partner I won’t allow his awful cat in my home again after it slashed my fucking eyeball and put me in the ER. Wow I’m such a shitty partner for being constantly made sick by the filth and squalor he created faster than I could clean up without help. Wow I’m such a shitty partner for expecting to be helped with the cleaning. Wow I’m such a shitty partner for not accommodating his ADHD and letting him treat me like garbage without consequence. Wow I’m such a shitty partner for having needs and boundaries. Wow I’m such a shitty partner for not tolerating his abuse forever.

It was abuse.

He abused me.

Having ADHD does not make your behavior not abusive. ADHD does not absolve you of being an abuser. There are plenty of ADHD folks in this world that have actual honor and dignity about themselves. Don’t act like ADHD is a free excuse to abuse others. That’s not RSD talking that’s your conscience, listen to it. Treat those who care about you with genuine respect and they won’t reject you.

[alatus-k]

it’s snowing, and that’s all my mother needs to justify her texting me sad about gramps again. lol a) stop watching the weather reports for a state you no longer live in and lol b) bitch get THERAPY oh wait you moved to alabama hoping they didn’t have things like gender or therapy or gun control.