#and not have my grade affected by someone elses shitty/lack of work | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

i-did · 3 years

Note

what would make renee angry in your opinion?

I had a really hard time answering this one actually. I thought about it for a while and asked a lot of my friends to see if they had any ideas, and here's what I came up with:

1) A professor or TA who is super shitty to her

Just a really shitty teacher.

as she goes through college, she’s bound to run into some assholes, and I don’t think Renee has perfect grades in the past or present. her not knowing academic terminology and feeling out of place in the college setting would make a lot of sense for a lot of the foxes, and Renee is good on putting on a smile, but she still eventually gets that one professor or TA that scoffs at her questions and “doesn’t have time for the likes of her” and the constant complete dismissal digs painfully under her skin and brings out her anger.

2) People who are intensely rude to her despite her best efforts to be as kind as she can be

Renee is patient, but we all have our limit. similar to the one above, but Renee dealing with someone who is just rude all the time and she struggles to keep reminding herself “we all have bad days, I don’t know what they’re going though.” Renee working in a coffee shop and a woman bumping into Renee and spilling her coffee on herself, only to yell at Renee for an hour, ignoring all of Renee’s pleasant customer service smiles. said customer later on becoming a regular and repeating this behavior, cutting off people in parking lots and flipping them off, Renee being kind and trying to give her a free scone only for the woman to tell her she hates scones, Renee offering something else only for the woman to tell her to shut up. that shit wears you down, and Renee still dumping her kindness onto someone every time only for it to backfire or be dismissed would make her have to take a few deep breaths in the back room before deciding, fuck it, she's cut off from active kindness, now only passible neutrality and not being aggressive is enough.

3) someone who refuses her help

her knowing she could really make a difference, but some people just don’t want help, and she feels helpless and angry. she's not angry at the person, but the situation of them not being ready to accept help or even able to accept help makes her so frustrated she would start to grind her teeth in her sleep. She understands how it is, how hard it can be to take the first step to change or giving up pride or whatever the hurtle may be, but that doesn’t make it any easier than her thinking in her head “just let me fucking help you!!! or anyone!!! just let anyone in to help you!!!! fuck!!!” inside her head. she knows not everyone needs help or saving, but some people do, and when they shove her back, unwilling and not ready for it over and over while she’s trying to save them, she gets frustrated that she can’t.... do anything. and just has to wait. but Renee can be patient, and she’s willing to wait.

4) Someone actively trying to wear her down and get under her skin

okay so this isn’t something that happens often, the closest Renee has really come to it is with Andrew when he first was scoping her out. but– if someone was actively trying to aggravate her, laughing at everything she said and making fun of her, pulling at her looser strings and picking at her ticks, watching to see what brought out her reaction, they could eventually do it and get under her skin. i think she wouldn’t let herself blow up at them since thats what they want, but she would silently excuse herself from the situation to take a breather. no one really does this with her, and Andrew only does this to size her up and even still his interrogation isn’t the type of harassment i’m imagining. i mean like old school bullying, not locker shoving, but the middle school girl shit that leaves emotional scars. and them being older, they’re less afraid to show it and be more straight forward mean. people don’t really do this to her tho, its too much effort to get a reaction, and when they do, its never what they would have wanted, like crying, but instead is her smile falling and then finding a way to make them feel like shit. Renee is kind, but she also knows how to play on a similar level as them, not just with fists. i HC Renee as plus size, and fuck it is hard to be different in anyway as a kid. but childhood bullying was the least of her worries and these people dont see how deep her personal self assurance has grown and how she has learned to stand with her head held high and her face serine. her and dan are quite similar in this, but dan is much more active and direct while Renee is passive in her letting it glide over her, dan has even gotten annoyed on Renee’s behalf and then annoyed that Renee was not affected and why she didn’t fight more directly back.

5) People who are overtly cruel and she struggles to sympathize with

okay so, you ever see someone so mean and rude for zero reason to someone else and you’re just like... what the fuck??? Renee doesn’t let others get to her really, but damn.... someone going after someone else in ways that are just so uncalled for and so harshly.... it gets to her. She once watched an episode of catfish where the catfisher laughed at the girl, uncaring that he crossed so many emotional lines and manipulated people without really any care. and she wanted to throw the remote and punch the tv right where the guys face was on the paused screen. nothing like someone just, kicking someone else while their down with no mercy, or making fun of someone behind their back and them not knowing, making fun of the deaf kids voice behind his back and he doesn’t see them doing it, and she’s like, man, Fuck. You. in her head. I don’t think she was like, always a nice person, in fact, i think Renee used to very much so not be the type to sit with the alone kid at lunch but instead ignore him and think “yea he’s weird, kinda ugly” without thinking much of it. But then she decided to change, and she took everything she thought it meant to be a good person, and became that. she started sitting with the alone kid, she started doing charities, she started to smile instead of punch, and she started going to church. and so when she sees cruelness she was once passive in the face of, maybe even active in, she uses kindness. Renee is she good at using taking the high road in such a graceful way it makes others feel bad. like when she tells Nicky calmly “thats not very nice” after he jokes about Seth dying in a car crash on his way from the airport book 1, and Nicky feels like shit. it feels like shit to get called out sometimes, and while its not her goal, she does know it is an effect of it. (i don’t think she’s mad at Nicky in that scene, but she did say something since she is there to protect hers and she redraws that line in that moment, especially without Allison or Seth there yet to say fuck you themselves.)

6) Injustice and systems of oppression

for these i feel she gets more frustrated, overwhelmed, and sometimes resigned. she knows how dark and shitty the world is, but she stays up at night with her hand on her heart as she breathes deep, thinking about how... utterly fucked everything is. its pretty easy for me to HC that Renee is politically far left and has seen the dark side to lack of resources and systemic issues that are just... so overwhelming she doesn’t even know what she does as just one person. world pollution, corruption, class divide, flint water crisis, the homeless crisis, the prison system, functioning segregation in school systems, just... it all. she’s had nights after volunteering where she thinks “i did something, i did.” and she has days where she realizes “...i’m doing nothing, in the end... its all for nothing, there’s just too much.” just a bad day where she sits there, thinking about how much is wrong and wont be fixed and how ‘doomed’ things are, how broken, and she doesn’t feel at a loss, but rather this deep anger that comes from who she was before.

7) herself.

Her being unable to live up to her own standards. she still thinks mean things, she has mean and cruel urges, and when she has them, she remembers that she’s still a bad person trying very hard to be a good one, and she thinks she’s still a bad person at her core. she’s not self loathing with it, but she does think to herself “i’m a hypocrite.” and sits with that thought for a minute. sparring with Andrew has helped her, to balance the two sides of her in a way that feels both self indulgent and honest to her path forward. but sometimes while sitting in that church pew, she thinks of her dead mother, her dead step father, those she turned in without batting an eye, stabbing in the back to save herself, and she thinks “i should feel something.” but she doesn’t, she wasn’t sorry then and she’s not sorry now. and she thinks, “the others call Andrew a monster, and they don’t realize that i’m one too.” and she tries to muster up something deep inside her, but she cant. and it can frustrate her, how after all these actions, all those hours of beach clean up and homeless shelters and building houses in some other country and going around clapping her hands to the songs, but she’s still the person she is deep down. and it gets to her. i think her having a conversation with Neil one day, on what it means to be a real person, is she pretending who she is? is she her thoughts or her actions? which is the real her? and Neil saying, it’s all of it. every facet of the self is still the self, he is Nathaniel and Neil and Abram and every other person he has been and will be. we change but we are also always ourselves, and her actions are just as true as her thoughts.

#renee walker #aftg #all for the game #tfc #the foxhole court #ask #mailob

24 notes · View notes

wordsnstuff · 4 years

Text

10 Mistakes to Avoid in Horror

Patreon for early access & exclusives || Ko-Fi

Masterlist || Work In Progress || Studyblr || Studygram

–

Valuing Shock Over Imagination

I’m only going to say this once: readers will always choose an imaginative story over a shocking one. Shock horror, gore, cliché, and easy solutions that the characters overlook for the sake of plot progression is shitty writing. Of course, shock, gore, and tropes all have their place in most horror stories but they are not the foundation, they’re the décor.

Not Doing Your Research

Just because a horror story isn’t a medical drama or a science fiction series doesn’t mean you don’t need to do your due diligence. The toughest part of horror is toeing the line that is the reader’s suspension of disbelief, and the most obvious mistake a writer can make that destroys this KEY part of the reader’s experience is to screw up the details. Research the way torture looks, feels, and how it affects the victim’s mental and physical state. If you’re going to reference or retell an urban legend, do some research on the lore rather than rely on the bits and pieces you remember from a 3rd grade camping trip.

It doesn’t have to be textbook level accuracy. It’s fiction. But all readers have their own patchwork collection of knowledge on the facts used in fiction, so you want to avoid pulling them out of the story by getting something wrong due to a lack of research.

Cliche

Unethical experiment, bas phone service, playing with demons, Car breaks down in a forest, family trip to a haunted house, ghost hunters, etc. are all clichés that most can agree have been beaten to death. The problem is not a “lack of originality”, it’s a lack of effort. When a writer scribbles a bunch of tropes on little pieces of paper and then picks 3 randomly out of a hat, it’s easy to tell.

Remember that it’s perfectly fine to use things that have been seen before, even over and over again, simply because they’re staples of the genre, but unless you make it your own, the reader will lose interest in not only your story, but your entire body of work. Horror is one of the most harshly judged genres in the literary sphere, and when a reader pegs you as a lazy horror writer, it sticks and it spreads.

Boring Main Character

Everyone on the planet has complained about the presence of boring main characters in horror. It’s not just about making the story more interesting or complicated, it’s about giving the reader someone worthy to root for. Humans are naturally desensitized to pain and fear that isn’t relevant to them. If the character is another faceless, nameless victim, there’s no reason for the reader to care whether they survive and recover or not. There’s no thrill in following their perspective because boring main character do not allow the reader to insert themselves. That’s not the goal of a horror story.

You don’t want the reader to feel like they’re running from the killer directly, because their first instinct when faced with fear is to run (disengage from the story). You want the reader to feel like they’re watching someone else run from a killer and that there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it. They should be invested in the survival of this character, and feel helpless and scared FOR them.

Boring Antagonist

Yes, most people are scared of death and pain and helplessness, but those should be products of a really strong antagonist. It’s hard to be afraid of an antagonist in any story because, deep down, we know that the hero (almost) always wins. Horror is the beautiful exception to that rule. It’s a coin toss as to whether the protagonist will survive and recover from the conflict of the plot, so take advantage of this uncertainty and make the villain truly and complicatedly terrifying. Make them human, deconstruct their motivations, and show the reader the parts of the antagonist’s point of view that most everyone can empathize with. There’s nothing scarier to an audience than their reflection in a black mirror.

No Stakes.. At All.

Yes, dying is very bad and very much something to avoid, but it shouldn’t be the only outcome of the conflict resolution that the reader is afraid of. Let me put it this way: there should be at least one or two moments where the main character is in a situation that prompts them to come to terms with their fate. This is where you show the true stakes of a horror story. “My kids will be without a mother”, “My dad will be stuck without a son to look after him”, “my daughter in the other room depended on me and there’s nothing I can do to save her and it’s all my fault”. These are people’s WORST real-life fears and (hopefully) a book is the closest they will ever come to experiencing them. Be aware of that.

Excluding Humor

Horror stories can have jokes in them. The best way to hit a reader really hard with suspense and dread is to lead in with a joke. Have a dad and his son reminiscing and joking about the son’s childhood in the midst of the situation. It humanizes characters to give them a sense of humor, so throw in a joke here and there to show the reader exactly what’s at stake. Protagonists are meant to be the light that the antagonist is trying to snuff out, so try to let the light in a little bit.

Shying Away From Real-Life Horror

Gore, ghosts, and surprises are staples of the horror genre, but an integral piece of the genre that’s often overlooked when one is analyzing horror is the real-life implications of the story. For example, Misery by Stephen King is scary because it’s got an obsessed fan+kidnapping+a hammer, but it’s also scary because it shows the worst case scenario of things like idolization, parasocial interaction, and the fine line between idolizing an artist and feeling like they owe you something because you support their creation. Horror stories should always have two edges: the surface-level fear and the deeper meaning.

Telling Instead of Showing

This one’s pretty simple, but worth mentioning. Don’t say that Annie Wilkins “hobbled” Paul Sheldon. Make Annie Wilkins grimace at Paul Sheldon before bringing a hammer down upon the round of his ankle, with a resounding crack and an agonized shout following immediately before she continues to the next.

(Sorry about all of the Misery references, I just watched the movie again.)

–

Support Wordsnstuff!

FIND MORE ON WORDSNSTUFFBLOG.COM

If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon.

Request Resources, Tips, Playlists, or Prompt Lists

Instagram // Twitter //Facebook //#wordsnstuff

FAQ //monthly writing challenges // Masterlist

MY CURRENT WORK IN PROGRESS (Check it out, it’s pretty cool. At least I think it is.)

#horror #writing #writeblr #writing tips #writing reference #writing help #writing resources #writespo #writing advice #authorblr #authorspo #amwriting

197 notes · View notes

wxsuthorn · 3 years

Text

a sort of organised analysis of The Gifted characters:

pt 2: Wave

(this analysis includes episodes 1-13 of season one and 1-7 of season two, so it probably isn’t completely accurate, but i tried my best. also please excuse my shitty grammar and spelling if I noticed it i would’ve fixed it lmao)

Characteristics and qualities in the beginning of season 1

I’m writing this while listening to love score on loop lmao so if smth I write makes no sense I blame it on nanon’s high note. RAK TER DAI REBLAOW. okay so in episode one Wave just seems like that classic draco malfoy mean dude with his whole wIpE mY fReAkInG fOoT bullshit. But wait... what’s this??? an egotistical personality that comes from past trauma??? yep, lmao. But we’ll talk more about that in the next section.

Throughout the show, Wave displays his ego very clearly, but he also show’s his intelligence. I don’t think i need to explain but in case you need examples: first discovered his potential and revealed it, solved the problem from the academic competition punn was in, almost beat all of the gifted squad when he had the plan to “leak” the gifted program info (he could’ve done it if pang didn’t use his potential, which wave didn’t know the details of, unlike the rest of his classmates), did a research project in eighth grade that was plagiarized to be used as a MASTERS(?) DEGREE THESIS. Bitch is smart as fuck, on contrary to Pang, who also has an inflated ego. (I will discuss how their egos are different in the next part). His intelligence isn’t only academic, but he’s also street smart, and he knows how to provoke people (like when he came back at ohm’s joke + when he provokes punn)

Wave doesn’t really show a lot of depth in the beginning, but to sum it up: ego, smart, kinda cocky and wants to be the best, doesn’t seem to trust anyone, very straight forward/has a level of confidence, cool/mysterious so I don’t really mind him being mean cuz im interested in his back story.

okay lets move one to where wave has a backstory and development.

Characteristics and qualities from episode 9 - 12 of season 1

Wave... was mentally/emotionally groomed when he was in eighth grade and had his work plagiarized. Yeah. On top of that, he’s an orphan with grandparents/guardians who don’t provide him enough emotional support for him to develop properly as an adolescent. These traumatic experiences affected him in so many ways.

In the flashbacks, we see Wave being shy, introverted, and he lacks the confidence he has in the present. His eighth grade self lacks self confidence, since a majority of the adults in his life have told him that he was dumb/he wasn’t good enough. On top of that, he has no emotional support (adults or peers) to seek help from and was probably very lonely for a long time. Well, if Wave is in M4 (aged 15-16) in season 1, and he was in lower secondary school in the flashbacks (probably M3, aged 14-15), which means that his personality changed/developed pretty quickly. What triggered this change you ask? MS. NARA. THE BITCH AND ONLY. FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT WHO I HATE AND WANT TO DROP KICK.

Let’s talk about Ms. Nara, shall we? To say the least, she mentally/emotionally groomed Wave into trusting her, and even having a crush on her. She encouraged him to do work that she would eventually plagiarize for her masters degree thesis. That’s the shit she did. Fucking bitch I hate her. And Wave trusted her really easily because again, he significantly lacked emotional support, so once he received it, he was very welcoming of it. This allowed for ms. bitchass to groom him more easily. She praised his talent, spent a lot of time with him, encouraged him to do more, and brought his ego up. Her effect on Wave stuck with him, since it wasn’t really that long ago, and he could even remember little words/phrases she would say. “You talk big game, huh?” is one of the things she said to Wave, and when Namtaan said the same thing to him, you could see him thinking back to those times with ms. bitchass. lmao almost everyone in this show has trauma. Now, when Wave decided to expose ms. bitchass for buying her bachelors degree and get her fired, that shows basically where he became like the wave from season 1. He wanted to win against her. He couldn’t let her get away with what she did to him. After all, isn’t he extremely talented? Despite him disposing of ms. bitchass, he still took in her words of encouragement and praise. He still believed it all. But after she “betrayed” him, he must’ve felt that perhaps she was lying... so in turn, he had to prove that he indeed was talented by getting back at ms. bitchass.

Ah yes, Wave is indeed a cocky motherfucker. But his ego can be easily tarnished by adults. The reason why I say adults, is because I don’t think he has ever felt threatened by a gifted student, other than Pang. When Punn tried to provoke him by saying he didn’t get head student, Wave didn’t give a shit cuz he knew (thought) he was better. But when Director Supot says “Wasuthorn im disappointed in you” and shit like that, Wave listens to it and gets pissed as hell. A lot of these behaviors come from his trauma with Ms. Nara. If you look at almost any internal conflict he has, it can be traced back to his self-worth and/or trust issues that stemmed from Ms. Nara.

I don’t think I’ll need to explain this much but Wave’s need to win at everything is basically to prove to everyone (but actually just to himself) that he’s better/more talented than everyone else again because of his past trauma and how he had almost no emotional support.

Okay now I’m gonna talk about his relationship with Pang and their trust. This is the part where I’ll get the most wrong cuz episode 9 of tgg just fucking came out and im rushing cuz i wanna watch it. Again, unlike other peers, Pang reaches out to Wave as an equal, and they have an agreed ideal. Fuck the school system, it just makes kids feel bad about themselves and give them trauma. At first, I think Wave trusted Pang because of his idealistic and almost naive outlook on the world; he just seemed good, and like he genuinely wanted to do something to better people. However, in the end his ideals and beliefs to align with Pang’s exactly. No one wanted to give up their potentials for their own reasons, Wave’s being to protect his breakable ego. lmao this is getting messy im so sorry welp lets move on.

Characteristics and qualities from season 2, until episode 7

Wave trusts Pang. He says it to Time. It’s made clear in the beginning. But when Pang decides on things on his own and tries to find Korn on his own, Wave starts to see a pattern. Pang (unknowingly) only comes to Wave when he needs help with something regarding doing the right thing blah blah blah hero complex shit. and like Wave said, once he doesn’t agree with Pang, he just does everything on his own, like his view is the only correct one.

Lets take Korn for example. Or the whole “there’s an imposter among us” drama. Wave was the one with the braincell in the moment. He was the one to conclude that they could be someone within the group who betrayed them. He looked at the situation logically, while Pang was looking at it idealistically. This is what separates them and causes friction between them. Wave can separate and balance his ideals/logic/emotions, while Pang’s ideals/logic/emotion are all smushed together and combined.

Last point: his last fight with pang (episode 7) was a valid one. Wave was hurt af. and i think he started to see Pang as another Ms. Nara. The difference here is that Pang is a kid, and he’s also unstable, so they’re both affected by what he’s doing. It is possible that Punn used Pang’s potential on Wave, but it wouldn’t be out of character if the fight came up naturally.

Summary

Has an inflated, yet breakable ego

does what he can to prove that he’s talented/good enough to protect his ego from shattering

trust issues (stemming from Ms. Nara)

a smart boi

he can balance his ideals/logic/emotions most of the time

Sees Ms. Nara in everyone, compares all of his relationships to the one between him and Ms. Nara

Genuinely cares for people and is afraid to lose the emotional support he has (since he lacked so much of it in his childhood)

A smol bean that must be protected

Cocky

could probably be the villain to a superhero movie if he wanted to

#wave #wasuthorn #tgg #the gifted #the gifted graduation #tgg spoilers #charater analysis #the gifted series #chimon wachirawit #the gifted wave #sorry its messy and a little rushed lmao

27 notes · View notes

k-liight · 3 years

Text

important (?) life update

to cut to the chase, my life has been and is gonna be changing real fuckin quick. we're finally selling the rental house my dad's owned for years instead of continuing to rent it out to people, and he's gonna be moving in about 3 weeks like he's been planning to for a few years, but now the time has come. he actually caught the ✨c-word✨ a little over a month ago from his boss, who had it way worse and almost died, but he miraculously made it, though because of how rough it was to his body he's probably never going to work again, which leaves my dad out of a job. guess that might be part of the reason why my dad's leaving now and not even later, but I suppose things are finally falling into place for him, especially now that he's recovered. so that means my mom and/or I will have to find employment soon enough. and I guess that's all the most important information said and out there, but there's more to this ultimately, which I’m putting under the cut if you don't feel like reading a wall of text because it's more me just getting stuff off my chest than anything

unfortunately things haven't yet fallen into place for me like they have for him. I was hoping that I could have been out of here myself long ago, but of course, ✨the c-word✨ kinda ruined all those plans for me and threw them right out the window lol. thing is, this whole entire bullshit has put even more strain on my parents' already rocky relationship with each other and my relationships with the both of them, even well before he caught it himself. like as soon as shit started shutting down my mom practically forbid me from being anywhere near him- six feet my ass, we'd be on opposite sides of the fucking house or accidentally pass each other for half a goddamn second and she'd scold me like I just committed a felony; I didn't know he was there and I had to pass him to use the bathroom, whadaya want me to do, piss my pants? she'd make me fucking. go into HER room and keep me there whenever my dad wanted to use the kitchen just to keep us separated. she thought us both too much of dumbasses to not stay apart from each other, but like... fuck, man. and looking back, this isn't even all, she practically had this mentality for my entire existence. my parents used to have really terrible and verbally violent fights when I was a child, and I specifically remember one time overhearing my mom say something along the lines of her having the right to basically deny him of taking any part in raising me at all, and that he was only there to work to support us. what the fuck? my support goes out to single moms whose baby daddies (for lack of a better term) are absent or were obviously shitty/abusive, but if a child has two halfway decent parents I believe that they should both have equal effort in raising the child. I dunno if her views have changed since then (I was only in second grade or so) but it still stuck with me. that paired with her overprotectiveness makes it clear that she wanted control over me in a way right from the start. last night, I had a conversation with my dad after months of hardly being able to talk to him for various reasons. we had a talk about what we're both going to do once he moves, and he expressed his disdain at how my mom has more or less sieged control over my life and hasn't let him have much say in it. and while there were a few things he said I didn't agree with, they weren't the points of the conversation so I didn't find any good in causing unnecessary arguments about it. but there was something he said that struck me. I was saying how I'm gonna have to learn how to do shit for myself whether she likes it or not, and he simply said "and you have learn to think for yourself too." in any other context, I would have scoffed internally at such a thing. I have a mind of my own! I disagree with her on lots of things! the fact that we happen to share similar values that he does not share with us is just a coincidence the way I see it. but I realized that wasn't what he meant. it's nothing to do with politics, and it's not me having a preference for her over him (cuz I have no real preference). it's about me literally not knowing how to live my life for myself. almost every single decision I make, it's never about me even if it's supposed to be. "I'd do this or that thing, but what if Mom [insert negative reaction here]?" "I and everyone else needs permission from my mom to do anything with me because otherwise she'll get mad at us." "I know she doesn't like it when I ask too many questions, but what if I get this thing she wants me to do wrong? I should ask just in case." and, as wrong as it may feel for me to say this, this sort of behavior is exactly the kind of thing that someone who's been abused will do. my dad was under the assumption that I was simply prioritizing her wants and needs until I clarified that it's actually out of fear that I behave in this way. since becoming an adult, I've realized more and more things about how my childhood I considered normal was actually pretty fucked-up, and relating to more and more signs and symptoms of emotional abuse, but this realization... pretty much confirms it. it still feels weird to say though, because it implies that I hate her or that she knew what she was doing to me. I do love her, and appreciate all the good things she's done to help me, and I know damn well she cares for me. but the way she's raised me and continues to treat me to this day have had some obvious effects on my psyche. my dad said that the only way for this to end was for me to get away from it. unfortunately, that's not exactly possible right now because I'm financially dependent on her. so the next best thing is to set up my boundaries and demand she let me to learn all the shit I need to know in order to make it on my own, because I sure the hell won't learn anything from continuing to be sheltered. as for finding employment, I'll be restricted to in-town jobs without a driver's license (unless I can get ahold of the local transportation services, but I wanna work on my driving anyway, but THAT might become difficult because it'll be winter before I know it and winter driving is a whole nother hassle lmao) and I'm still debating on whether or not I wanna continue any more college, but yeah. I may continue to be sporadic depending on what happens after dad moves out, but hopefully now that I've been able to more accurately pinpoint all the shit in my life that's affected me today, I'll be able to work on fixing what should have been taken care of years ago and get a step closer to healing 💚

#Light's stupid stuff #status update #vent #kinda #more like me realizing and coming to terms with shit lmao #cw emotional abuse //

1 note · View note

chemicallydamaged · 4 years

Text

Recovery: The Stigma Of Struggle 1/2 (TW)

Please do not read further If you are easily disturbed or affected by mentions of self harm or suicidal behaviors. I wrote this to help someone feel less alone and share my experience- not to potentially trigger someone. Please be safe.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I told my parents about my several-year long addiction to self harm, despite starting at the age of seven. I've never once been to a therapist, counselor, psychologist, or a psychiatrist. I mainly have scars on my thighs, but I also have them on my waist, face, feet, hands, hips, and so on. I have used needles, glass, push pins, scissors, exacto-blades, knives, razors, and whatever else I could get my hands on. It became an addiction before I even knew what and addiction was.

(Sciencey part if you're interested)

What Is Self-Harm And Why Is It Addictive? In a summary, self-harm is going out of your way to hurt yourself physically (this takes many forms, not just cutting) in order to receive emotional relief. Self-harm can become an addiction. It becomes addictive because of a series of “feel-good” chemicals your body releases, causing a temporary sense of euphoria. Those who self-harm often have an extreme build-up of emotions that feel out of control, and may use self injury as a way of coping with these emotions- even if it's incredibly unhealthy. There are tons of definitions much better than what I'm providing here, so I strongly recommend looking more into it if you would like to learn more. For now, this is the best one I can provide from my own knowledge.

What led you to this? There are many, many factors. I have never quite been able to pinpoint exactly what led me to using self harm at such a young age though. I suspect I may have been through trauma, although I am unsure. I can barely remember anything at all about my life until I was seven-ish years, when I started self harming. Everything there is so blank for me; I feel like that part of my life has almost gone completely missing from my mind. Sometimes pictures, smells, or sensations can help me with memory though, which I'm very thankful for. I know I use to be an extremely hyper, very bubbly kid despite being so anxious. I know I use to sit at the window and cry four hours everytime my mom would leave for work. I know I use to create art out of trash I found on the street or at the beach. I know I refused to wear anything but a princess dress and froggy boots. I know I loved death metal and dancing. I know I was rebellious, opinionated, and a trouble-maker, all according to my parents. As I get older these memories start to come back more and more, although they feel so incredibly disorganized. I'm lost.

I was on-off self harming until ten years old.

At ten, maybe nine, the self harm had reached an all time high. I was now in poverty- living in a rundown R.V. without a working toilet, A.C., running water, or mold free walls. (Winter felt like nuclear war, and summer felt like burning hell. We had substituted this by using a propane heater and those shitty plastic fans, which dont work so well when you don't take care of them or can't always afford propane for heat.) I had moved across states, and all my friends despised me for my situation- I was considered gross, poor, dirty, trashy, dumb, and so on. I wasn't able to help it, no one chose this.

I was now homeschooled (4th grade) and didn't even give enough of a shit to try academics at that point. I almost failed, or at least that's what everyone told me. There were also a ton of family issues, but I’m sure as fuck not sharing them on the internet. I was getting bullied at school (5th grade mainly) for being the only Jewish person in a very Christian area, not to mention being extremely reserved, alternative-looking, having a lack of social understanding, being overall a little weird, having a horrible family-bond with my parents and brother, suicidal ideations, my cousin’s death fucking me up to an extreme degree, having bruises from an abusive friend, my binge-eating-starving cycle and the good ol’ hiding in the closet (a transparent one, at that) not really helping either.

The world felt like too much. I was taught to never think of myself as a victim, to be a certain way, to act a certain way, to always be smart, to not be so loud, to be less spastic, to be less boyish, that my achievements were only expected of me, that all kind people want something out of me, that shitty, horrible people are the only ones who tell you how it is, that I needed to be something I was not- and I was fucking sick of it. I would cut to feel valid, I would cut to feel existent, relieved for a split second. Suddenly, I couldn't stop. I became reliant; anything that was bothering me that day I could relive with a quick euphoria. I felt like self-harm was the only way my feelings were valid, it was the only way I could express them on the outside, or so I thought. However, the more I cut, the guiltier I felt. The guiltier I felt, the more I cut- and the less I wanted to say anything. It became a never ending black hole for me.

I felt stuck. (1/2)

#tw #self harrrm #self harm recovery #mental health #mental health awareness #my thoughts #my story #recovery #pro recovery #pro help #its okay to ask for help #its okay to have feelings #you are enough #please love yourself #or else #i will cry #because you deserve it #hope youre doing okay #love you dude

4 notes · View notes

bubmyg · 5 years

Text

not a date - jjk

pairing: jeongguk x reader

genre: enemies to lovers, college!au, fluff, very sparing illusions to smut, like jeongguk takes his shirt off for a few paragraphs

word count: 3,184

summary: he’s the infuriating kid in your literature class that has an answer to every single question and every time he raises his hand you kind of want to punch him because of that time you were in a group project together and he deleted and rewrote your entire portion at three in the morning or your voice is so infuriating please shut up and kiss me.

a/n: part 5 of to lovers :’-) the rest of the series is linked in my masterlist!!

In the scheme of wanting to take someone’s very specific and very annoying bright green pen from them and make them swallow it to prevent the incessant clicking that plagued your right ear the entirety of the power hour class, you wish you knew less about the owner of said pen.

You knew Jeon Jeongguk from freshman year composition, when he was one of eight people who’d filed into the tiny computer lab huddled in a giant black hoodie while you were still trying to gauge whether the sweat coating the back of your spine was visible through your shirt. The graduate student handling the class had split you into two groups immediately, prompting a question for you to discuss. That was the first time he’d taken something you’d said and added thirty unnecessary words to it without guilt and with a bunny smile you didn’t want to admit was attractive.

A liberal arts degree comes with the same general people in virtually all your classes. The girl who offered you a pencil the first time scantron attendance was taken. The boy who’d taken your seat the fourth week of class when you were both ten minutes early. And unfortunately for you, Jeongguk.

You knew he lived off campus in an apartment with his bio chemistry, doctor seeking roommate Namjoon after Yoongi had informed you the spindly man was terrible at pickup basketball and you’d scolded your friend for hanging out with someone who shared the same cereal bowls with the biggest prick in the literature department. You knew he wasn’t in a fraternity but his friend Jimin was and he spent the majority of his time holed up in the third floor of the house with a game controller in hand when he wasn’t correcting people or reminding homework due dates in group chats created for your various classes. You knew he could sing because Yoongi had dragged you to karaoke night on his off day at the cafe he worked at in which Jeongguk just so happened to be at and his friend, Taehyung and his charcoal stained fingers, had shoved him to the front and Yoongi had to pinch your hip to prevent you from burning a hole through Jeongguk’s melodious lips with your glare.

You knew he turned twenty-one in September when he showed up to your group presentation the next day, hungover, after deleting and changing your entire thesis to fit his.

Somehow his green pen still managed to be annoying even when he was half asleep and wearing his hood completely cinched under his chin. You resisted the urge to scold him when he took a seat (because there was no doubt he’d have done the same to you) but you nearly severed the tip of your tongue when an, endearing, rasp addressed you first.

“I’m sorry,” Jeongguk offered, gesturing vaguely at himself with a sliver of his teeth appearing, “Twenty-first was last night.”

You offered a tight lipped smile in return, “Happy belated birthday.”

It didn’t matter that he could barely keep his eyes open or the weight in his head above his spine because he knew the topic by heart, no need to glance backward at the slides or the bullet points or the visual aids like graphs and pictures and charts. He hadn’t even blinked in cutting you off when the slide color changed hue, showing where your ideas were supposed to be but were just instead a modified version of what you’d spent hours doing over the weekend.

They were your words but they weren’t and Jeongguk had the nerve to wink at you and say, “As my lovely partner starts to point out here, the chapter touches on—”

Your GPA mattered more than your pride when the professor kept you after class to commend your presentation, even though you hadn’t spoken a word outside of your name, and you took the A+ with a sour taste and a pointed vendetta to ignore Jeongguk.

The words groups for next project were enough to make your insides churn with distaste but the addition of the word reminder at the beginning was almost worse than the prospect of leaving your grade to someone else. Not only did your class stretch through two semesters with the same professor and the same general concept, but that particular class kept the same groups the entire year.

The reminder was seeing your name printed in bold, block letters directly above Jeon Jeongguk.

“Hey, partner,” He greeted when you dropped your backpack in front of your desk. He’d dropped his hood and traded black for one of color, a faded blue. You focused on counting the stripes on his joggers rather than meeting the sparkle in his stupidly pretty eyes.

You were silent in pulling out your laptop, notebook, non obnoxious pens. He continued to stare at the side of your face, desk creaking as he shifted more toward you, fingers gripping the edge of his desk in your peripheral.

“Don’t speak to me until you want to pick a time to meet.”

Jeongguk had the nerve to giggle this time, “We don’t even know what the topic is yet. Unless you want to come over, I won’t object.”

You knew where his apartment was, too, that Namjoon kept the place neatly decorated while Jeongguk’s door didn’t open entirely from the pile of laundry hidden between it and his desk, that he was a track star in high school from the medals dangling off a hook behind his bed frame, that he did, in fact, own more than five black hoodies and one grey one from the pile of pastels folded within his open closet door, that the green pens were stolen from Namjoon, ones that occupied a mug on their kitchen counter and came from the hospital that the med student had done residency at over the summer.

You hated that you knew all of that, too.

“Okay. When we learn the topic, don’t contact me until you want me to come to the cesspit that is your place of living.”

It was silent for a handful of your heartbeats roaring in your ears and then his voice was a half octave softer in your ear.

“Why do you keep responding to me if you don’t want me to speak to you?”

You were right, Jeongguk’s eyes were sparkling and they seemed to double over in all the reflections of a planetarium when he completed his goal of getting you to turn towards him. You tried averting your gaze to his smile but found a stray butterfly escaped from it’s locked prison in your stomach at the sight of the tiny freckle in the center of his bottom lip so you chose the tattered cover of his notebook in the end.

A notebook that he was flicking at the pages in, ring clad and vein ridden fingers and all.

“Fuck you,” You mumbled and you meant it in every connotation possible.

Jeongguk ignored you through the lecture notes, too busy interjecting his opinion at any point possible and you hated that you couldn’t find it within yourself to disagree with everything that left his lips. He ignored you when the project requirements appeared in place of the lecture slides, still scrawling looping notes on the margins of his notebook while the professor explained each bullet point in excruciating detail.

Upon further inspection did you notice the loops in his shorthand were drawings and you, again, hated that you agreed with his lack of attention paid to something that would be posted online later for your viewing anyway.

“Spend a few minutes speaking with your partner and then you’re free to go.”

Your bubble remained silent while the rest of the class erupted in a soft murmur, creaking desks and zipping backpacks and soft laughter all while the set of your shoulders remained rigid. They slumped only when Jeongguk’s tender murmur was back in your ear (and you’d admit, anything was better than his clicking pen).

“May I speak to you yet?”

The smack of your laptop on the metal spiral threaded through your notebook was embarrassingly loud. You corrected it while he snorted, nearly headbutting him where he was leaning towards your desk as you fished for your backpack.

“Are you wanting to set a time to meet?”

“Yeah. That’s...what we’re supposed to be doing.”

You tossed your hair back as you straightened, making direct eye contact with him, “Then yes. You may speak to me.”

Jeongguk was grinning again and you swallowed to keep the escaped butterfly in your throat at bay. You’d deal with her later.

“I’m free Thursday night, if you’d like to come over. Namjoon should be out of the apartment from five onward. He has a date with one of his extremely smart friends. Or I can come to yours, if you’d rather not fester in my filth like you insisted last time. Your dorm does have a pretty nice study room—”

“Thursday as in…” You blinked, “Valentine’s Day Thursday?”

You wanted to force feed him the feces to comply with the shit eating grin that encompassed his features. “My bad, I wasn’t aware you could display affection,” He rested his chin on his palm, “I assumed you’d spend the night throwing darts at heart shaped candies stuck to your ceiling if I didn’t make plans for you.”

“They’d be tiny pictures of your face. Why would I waste candy?” His grin only grew at your snarky indifference, “But no, I just assumed you had…”

“I don’t have a Tinder. I’ve never had one.”

“I wasn’t...going to ask that. I wouldn’t care even if you did.”

“Oh,” Jeongguk shrugged, “Well, I don’t. And I don’t have any plans Thursday. So if you’d like to work on our project before the weekend, I’m free and can stock up on discount candy from the drug store down the street. We can order one of those shitty heart shaped pizzas too, if you like.”

You scoffed, standing with your backpack in tow, “We’re just working on our project, not having a date underneath the radioactive glow from your hamper.”

He turned away and you shoved aside the seeming disappointment that saturated his monotone response, “Alright. I’ll see you, Thursday, then.”

You hated that you knew the best parking spaces around Jeongguk’s apartment complex and you hated that you’d visited the building more times than you could count on both your hands and feet in order to gather than information. Your backpack felt fifteen pounds heavier on your shoulders as you trekked through the maze of broken sidewalks and your knuckles felt numb for reasons other than the biting temperature when you lifted them to knock on his door.

You couldn’t imagine the scrutiny you’d face if you ever admitted coming over, no matter the obnoxious amount of times, to Jeongguk’s apartment made you nervous. A nagging voice on your shoulder told you it was because of the piano in the far corner of their living room that you knew he could play because he had for you before, or because his room smelled like him, vanilla and cinnamon and fresh flowers and laundry detergent, or because he always ordered and bought you food and insisted you couldn’t pay him back all while teasing you for mooching off of him, notes, food, and grades.

The grade comment settled like a forming cavity on your molars and you generally ended up leaving after he mentioned it. But it never stopped you from coming back.

The weight was heavier because of your textbook but also because of the tape that continued to replay in your conscious, the one of you watching with a bated breath as Jeongguk seemed to slouch at your denial of a date with him, of all things. You knew he wasn’t stupid, he was anything but, yet the devil on your opposite shoulder suggested that he just lacked any sort of critical thinking or social skills.

Or, the latter voice in your ear suggested, maybe you just didn’t want to admit you were slightly disappointed at the facade you tried to put on declining a date-like interaction with him too.

The smile plastered to his entire being when he tore open his apartment door fizzled your worries away and traded them for the grumble in your stomach when he thrust a white box in your direction.

“I went ahead and ordered the pizza for this not date,” Jeongguk’s fingers brushed your own when you took the box from him, “I got cheesy bread too. I didn’t know if you liked the breadsticks from Domino’s so…”

His words muffled like you were underwater, realization drowning you the second he teased you about the forbidden meeting between two individuals. A date. He didn’t want the date either. He hadn’t been disappointed.

He was playing some game that you didn’t want to be apart of but could master the same as he could, if not better.

“Can I eat in Namjoon’s room, seeing as this is a non date?” You mirrored his beaming smile, “The less I have to speak to you, the better.”

“No,” He answered your rhetorical question bluntly. You wanted to speak to him even if it was sarcastic insults about the single wrinkle in his duvet. “We have work to do—” You had to catch the door when he stalked into the depths of the apartment, voice echoing away, “—come inside. And take your shoes off!”

If you didn’t want the pizza promised with the cheesy bread, you would have bolted back to your car. “Anything else, your highness?”

“Yeah, bring the cheesy bread will you? And grab some plates from the kitchen.”

If you didn’t want the cheesy bread so bad, you would have turned and pelted the box into the disgusting snow drift plowed at the end of the sidewalk.

Jeongguk was three insults into teasing you for dropping tomato sauce on his partially clean duvet and a streaking blue highlighter into his notes when you decided you really wanted to kiss the garlic speck off the corner of his mouth.

No longer were you toning out his explanations because you had a predetermined bias to disagree with them but because you couldn’t shake the urge to grab his chin and determine how pepperoni tasted on someone else’s lips. If Namjoon were to arrive back anytime soon, the non date faux you each kept digging into each other’s conscience’s like daggered knives would crumble in an instant.

He’d switched the lighting in his room to a deep set purple, a setting you thankfully weren’t aware of and didn’t have to hate with your entire being when the first thought that entered your mind was that’s cool. There was a heart shaped pizza open between the two of you, enough pieces still prevalent to give off the illusion but the grease stains on the cardboard telling the full story. You were on his bed, crossed knees brushing his thigh where he’d scooted closer to show you something and hadn’t bothered to move back.

And you were unabashedly staring at him like he was better than any loaf of cheesy bread you could consume in one sitting.

“Hey,” Jeongguk’s voice was quiet in contrast to the snap of his fingers underneath your nose, “Did you hear me?”

You thought you were going to puke the crusts he’d given you all over his lap, “Y-yeah, I agree we could—”

“Wait, you agree with me? Either we’ve entered an alternate universe or you weren’t listening—”

There was probably pizza grease on his rug now from where your paper plate fluttered sadly from his bed, only to be melded into the floor by the smack of your textbook landing on top of it with the force in which you propelled yourself at Jeongguk’s figure. Surprise was barely an emotion with the speed that you pressed your mouth to his, messily squashing the tip of your nose against his cheek and nearly biting a chunk out of his bottom lip.

Your skin flamed momentarily in embarrassment and morphed into want when he kissed you back. His notebook followed the fate of the other obstacles when he moved onto his knees, the cool engravings on his rings pressing into your jaw when he cupped it to angle your lips, latter hand falling next to your thigh to loom over you.

His teeth snagged on your bottom lip as he settled his forehead against yours, still firmly holding onto your chin.

“I thought you’d never cave.”

You ground your teeth together with the same force as pale knuckles snagging on the collar of Jeongguk’s t-shirt to drag his mouth back to yours. He came with a chuckle against your lips, crawling closer to lodge a thigh between your legs while dragging his tongue across your molars. He craned over you, trailing opened mouthed kisses across your jaw while you hissed, “Like it better when you’re not speaking.”

He hummed into your skin, nudging your hair aside to nick his teeth into your neck, “Keep telling yourself that, baby.”

The noise that lulled lazily off your tongue was somewhere between a guttural groan and a mewled whine, scratching blunt fingernails across his shoulders, “You’re the smartest person I know and it’s fucking infuriating.”

“Mmm, talk dirty to me.”

“I’ll leave right this second—”

His hands gripped your hips and you were on your back, his dark fringe tickling at your forehead as he hovered over you. Brown irises grew black, dilated and twinkling under the ambient purple blanketing his room, “Want to know a secret?”

“No,” You pulled on the hem of his shirt, “Want this off.”

“Okay—” He tugged the white off his torso in one swift movement, leaning back over you with palms on either side of your head, “—now do you want to hear a secret?”

“If it’s the amount of months it’s been since you washed your sheets, I don’t want to hear it.”

Jeongguk’s mouth quieted you and he grumpily mumbled into the part of your lips, “I think I like it better when you’re not speaking either. I was going to feed your ego but…”

“Tell me the secret, Jeongguk.”

His lips traveled to your ear, “Always have thought you were incredibly fucking intelligent. Annoyingly so. Thought I needed to prove myself to you—” His teeth teased your earlobe, “—it was stupid and I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah, you are, but at least you’re self aware,” He kissed your cheek and your nose on the way back to meet your gaze and you grinned, “Thanks for that one A, though.”

You knew Jeon Jeongguk had glow in the dark, stick-on stars plastered all over his ceiling, ones that glowed an unnatural green in purple lighting and you hated that it was your new favorite view, just like you hated how good his lips felt on your skin and how comfortable his chest was to sleep on and how often he was right about nineteenth century literature.

#jeon jungkook #bts #bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts fluff #jungkook scenario #jungkook scenarios #jeon jungkook scenario #jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook imagine #jungkook fluff #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #unedited #and me knowing how to end things?? literally never #idk what this is cheers im getting in bed ajfkdlsajf TAKE IT

2K notes · View notes

mentalcurls · 5 years

Text

1. Sembri una pu***na

So I started the all-Skam Italia rewatch last Sunday and it turns out I have a lot to say about it. Like, four pages on Word of stuff to say. It took me three days to get evrything out and make it readable. So here, for you reading pleasure, my thoughts on ep.1 season 1 “Sembri una pu***ana”. There’s some kind of heavy stuff and I draw some parallels to my personal experience, since I was, unce upon a time, a teenager and a student at the same school all the highschoolers in SkamIT attend, and I’m also beginning to do the Bechdel test on the episodes!

The montage at the beginning is really powerful when you link the images from Giovanni and Eva’s class’s time at the Succursale to Gio’s essay, that Eva’s reading in the background, in particular the first part: LudoBesse is basically telling us how much of a waste Eva thinks her and Laura’s friendship is to Laura now

Something else about Gio’s essay (as someone who attended classico): it’s a YES from me because criticizing liceo classico is peak classico culture, it’s a HELL NO because classico is actually the best school in the world and I sincerely hope that if anyone else but himself said/wrote that kind of stuff about his school Gio would be at their throats

Eva has that “seeing someone outside the school gates and static fills your ears” moment just like Marti when he sees Niccolò for the first time! Hers is of course with Laura and Sara, who are with... Silvia and Fede! I like that they showed us a bit of this friendship that we didn’t really get to see in the og.

Martino and that iconic first “A zozzoni!” ❤️

Marti and Gio are competing for who got the best grades in the History test and I have a lot to say about this: we know Gio has really high grades (we are told he has an average of 9/10 in Latin and he got 8,5 in History) and that thing he does, bragging about it with his friend, the friendly competition between them, the actual talking about his grades without worrying who’s listening to him? That shit wouldn’t have flied for me, a once-upon-a-time student of liceo classico with an average of 8/10 in Latin, 8/10 in Ancient Greek and 9/10 in History and in part it was because I didn’t have the best classmates, but for the most part I couldn’t have done that because I am a girl (and my friends and classmates were 98% female)

girls are socialized to be humble about accomplishments, first and foremost, to avoid bragging AND humblebragging as well, and to always care about other people and their feelings; basically, whenever the topic of marks and grades came up while I was in high school, I had to try my best to avoid disclosing my own; if they were brought up directly, say them as dispassionately as possible and then try to change topic; I had be conscious of the fact I was talking someone who had much worse grades than me most of the time, so I had to keep into mind their experience of finding things I found doable (like translating from Latin) extremely hard, of disliking subjects I enjoyed (and most of the time the professor who taught them too, especially when they’d recently gotten a bad mark) and of being frustrated by their grades. I could never have competed with any of my friends about who got the highest marks (most of the time there was actually a sort of “gallows humor” competition over who got the lowest). I couldn’t show I was happy about my good grades, because I’d get negative comments from my friends (yes, even close friends, people I get on with and love to this day) who would dismiss my accomplishment as obvious, something that came easily to me because I was a nerd (the translation in Italian is “secchiona” and it doesn’t have any of the “cute” connotations pop culture gave its English counterpart) and something I shouldn’t “show off”. On top of that, if something was hard for me, it was whatever and what right did I have to complain when I had such high grades anyways, it wouldn’t be a problem in the long run.

So yeah, Martino and Giovanni, right now I kind of hate you for not having to take on any emotional labour in these kind of situations and society for socializing males and females in different ways when it comes to accomplishments and for accepting different behaviours from boys and girls.

QED Gio and Marti turn to Eva and ask her about her mark, she’s reticent but they get an answer out of her (that is not even the truth) and they mock her for it. Yes it’s all fun and games but Eva’s mark is really bad compared to Giovanni’s and Martino’s (especially her real mark) and grades are important for teens, no matter how much they deny it, if nothing else then because they influence their relationship with their parents

you can see Eva is hurt by their careless mocking, by Gio’s fake attempt at placating with “stuff she’s good at” (among which is re-heating pre-cooked food which is at the same time a way to have her “stay in the kitchen” and not even be able to properly cook) and by the way he and Marti underestimate her and laugh at her in the following exchange, when Marti shushes her and she calls him “asshole” with that annoyed face. It’s silly, “loving” mockery but it affects people anyways and it shows a lack of empathy only guys are allowed. She’s expected to take it with good grace (and this takes additional emotional labour) because it’s just for fun and they’re friends and they don’t mean it, but it’s not fair

“There are no secrets in a couple, but there aren’t between friends either.” THE WAY MARTINO PUTS HIMSELF ON THE SAME LEVEL AS EVA in Giovanni’s life, straight away! This boy. And Gio agrees! That shit must’ve been so frustrating, poor Eva.

This conversation between Gio, Eva and Marti: G: Today we’re going to Elia’s place to study. E: Oh, so that’s what you’re calling it now, studying. M: Oh c’mon, 6 minus, shhh. is the beginning of the reoccurring dynamic between them in the season that will make Eva paranoid and will bring her to confronting Laura and to cheating aka Giovanni keeping a secret, lying to Eva about where he goes and what he does, Martino enabling him by misdirecting or distracting her or Gio doing it himself, then either or both the guys calling her crazy or paranoid for doubting their words. You know what’s that? It’s called gaslighting.

[Gaslighting means manipulating a person by psychological means into questioning his or her own sanity. It’s the same technique that, according to some of his critics, Donald Trump used to get gain traction with voters (see Trump giving “alternative facts” and dubbing the media that fact checked and corrected him “fake news”).]

[I’M NOT SAYING THAT GIOVANNI IS THE SAME AS TRUMP, I DON’T THINK THEY’RE THE SAME, I only want to present an example of how this form of psychological manipulation is an actual thing in the real word and is really effective and dangerous.]

I am aware that Giovanni is just a dumb teenager trying to hide his weed habit from his girlfriend, that Martino is just being a good bro and covering for his best friend, that they’re doing this without any malicious intent towards Eva and that she’s insecure all by herself. Still, gaslighting is not a behaviour our societies should excuse, especially because it’s usually practiced by the usual suspects over women and minorities. I’d never seen it pointed out in the context of Skam Italia so I thought I’d bring it up, especially in light of S2 and of the “unproblematic” label Gio’s been given. He’s not perfect, he does shitty stuff too, then afterwards he simply grows up and becomes better. Let’s not forget about it and celebrate the person he’s become.

Case in point is the whole 1.2 Online clip. This is conversation between Eva and Gio: G: My battery died. E: But you were on-line. G: No, I wasn’t, my phone died a couple of hours ago. E: But I saw you. G: Eva, I don’t know how it happened. There must be something wrong with my phone, I don’t know. Sometimes I see you online and you’re not, too. I mean, everyone knows it happens. We can Google it if you want. E: No, it’s okay. And where were you? G: At Elia’s. E: Till now? G: Yeah. E: That’s weird. I talked to Martino earlier and he said you guys left a while ago. G: Eva, what’s wrong? Martino left earlier and I stayed till now. What, you don’t believe? Don’t you trust me? Are you insane, uh? [G kisses E] Everything’s alright. Little koala? Little koala always works. [G carries E to her room, then they have sex.] Giovanni lies about his phone being dead, then tells Eva that her seeing him online is impossible or a fluke, that everyone knows those kind of flukes happen, then lies again about being at Elia, when she tries to expose him he adjusts and starts questioning why she doesn’t believe him, finally calling her crazy and distracting her with kisses and sex. This is gaslighting.

(I had actual chills as I watched the scene again and typed this.)

Those theatre kids are so awkward, but quoting weird passages from greek/latin/italian poetry by heart is peak liceo classico culture

unsupportive boyfriend Gio shows up again when Eva suggest they go to the Easter party: his first reaction is “What? Why? You don’t even like that”, so savage, but fair Eva reminds him he’s actually a loser who, at 16, plays card to have fun with his friends like a 60 year old

Gio is being an asshole, he only considers going with Eva’s suggestion in exchange for something, then guilts her into accepting his “deal” bringing up Marti’s difficult family situation and her grades, implicitly, by promising to volunteer for the philosophy oral test, plus he’s rude and insensitive af because he brings up her inviting a friends when he knows fully well that when they cheated on Laura she got completely cut off

this will show up again, but let me just start to say it in the first episode: how unfair is it for Eva to be suffering most of the consequences in her life for getting together with her best friend’s boyfriend, when Giovanni faces no consequences that we know of for cheating on his girlfrien? And how unfair it must feel, deep deep down, to Eva

then, when she agrees, he takes back his side of the deal and Eva has to say it’s fine, it’s nothing because he says sorry and that’s socialization kicking in, telling her not to be difficult, not to be needy and not to complain cause that’s annoying and girls guys want to date are not any of those things; honestly, the emotional labour Eva has to go through

that getting ready montage, Eva really goes full on revenge mode like Lady D and she’s fully feeling her oats

the first dress Eva tries on is the same we saw Laura wearing at the party, but Eva’s red while Laura’s blue: I put all my money o it being a dress they bought together and on it being kind of their go-to dress, Eva thought about wearing it to remind Laura of their friendship but in the end decided it would only make things harder

oh, the conversation with Laura at the bar. God, if the situation is this tense can you imagine being in the same class as her and as Gio six hours a day everyday? We’ve talked about how shit it must have felt for Niccolò to be in the same class as Marco Covitti in S2, but Eva’s situation is awful too. I wonder how much of that factors in her bad grades and troubles with school

how more people don’t ship Italian Evanora is beyond me, have you seen this interaction?

on the other hand, I wonder how much Eleonora thought about it later, about how she must have come on too strong, about how maybe Eva thought she was weird or hitting on her and how much that weighed on Eleonora not reaching out first again, cause she makes a face like she regrets her life the minute Eva walks away

it breaks my heart, honestly: Eva has just been told she’s a whore by someone she once considered a friend, but when she finds this person’s new friend, who she doesn’t know, crying in the bathroom she doesn’t bat an eyelash, reassures her and tries her best to help her (so much emotional labour that women “naturally” take on themselves because we’re taught to be empathetic and caretakers even when we’re ourselves in distress)

one question: if Federico Canegallo is as popular as the Villa crew seems to be, how the hell does nobody know him when Eva is looking for “Fede”? Besides, Silvia doesn’t even react to the fact that he’s a friend of Edoardo’s when she sees him in the bathroom!

the interaction between the two Fedes kills me in every version

ok fuck you Silvia for not even saying thanks for trying and looking at Eva like she’s a decerebrate

Bechdel test: the episodes passes the test because of the conversations between Eva and Laura (nice 😑), Eva and Eleonora (though they’re mostly talking shit about other girls, so still not very good) and Eva and Silvia (though we actually don’t know her name yet at this point, we can only guess it from context, so it’s borderline). So this is cute.

This post is part of my complete series of meta about Skam Italia season 1. If you’d like to read more of my thoughts about the other episodes, you can find the mastepost linked in the top bar on my blog under SKAMIT: EVA. Cheers!

#skam italia #skamit s1 #eva brighi #martino rametta #giovanni garau #laura pandakovic #federico canegallo #eleonora sava #silvia mirabella #skamit meta #1x01 sembri una pu***ana #a. writes

3 notes · View notes

princessamericachavez · 6 years

Note

what's up I'm in first year life sci and I just got my first 65 on an assignment. And like I know it isn't much, the thing is worth 1% out of another 30% of my grade and I think I did p well on the mid term which is like 15X MORE IMPORTANT but now I'm looking at my proposal just thinking about how shitty I am at doing anything and wondering how I even got into this prestigious uni, like imposter syndrome you know? yeah idk fam I saw that post on your feed about worries and I needed some helpsrry

Hey babe.

As someone who grew up used to pretty high grades and still struggles to cope with anything under an 80, I perfectly understand the gut punch that a grade like that can be, even when you’re aware that its overall value won’t be that high. It’s always a risk when we grow accustomed to correlate our academic performance with our self-value because they are two entirely separate things.

Now, even knowing that, though, I completely understand that the anxiety doesn't go away. So here's the thing I always try to keep in mind when grades start weighing on me: a grade is, literally, just that. A number. A percentage, actually, of how much you learned during this unit of classes (technically, anyway, because many of this tests are not properly tailored to show the extent of your growth, especially when you get squared, old-fashioned teachers). My point is, that's all that number represents: how much you learned so far, and how much more you have to go. And that's fine because learning is a thing you can always keep doing. It's not that you "did bad" on the test, you just still have a bit further to go and it is your teacher's and your own responsibility to get there. Don't let the number become an anchor that keeps you in place, you've got a lot further to go and you're gonna get there. No one is born knowing. Imho, tests grade our teachers as much as they do us. A better teacher helps you learn more and therefore get better grades.

Also, darling, if how it may affect your final grade still stresses you out —because even knowing what I said before my own grades still worried me sometimes— try to see how much of your % it represents. Add it to how much you got (or think you got) on your midterm. Then, pretend you got a perfect score in everything else for this semester. That final % is your maximum goal atm. It's probably still very very high, and this one misstep probably didn't change it much, did it? Now you can work for that goal, knowing that's your new 100% and don't get bummed if you fall a little shy of it because none of us can reach perfection, all we can do is know we did the best we could.

Don't think in terms of whether you deserve or not to be where you are. You are there. That's that. What matters now is not how you got there, but what you're gonna do with it and how hard you're going to work to show the world and yourself that you gave it all you had. If it works out, then it's because you earned it. If it doesn't, it's not for lack of effort and trying.

I hope this helps. I hope you're feeling better soon. Thank you for coming to talk to me, I'm always here if you need me. Sending you lots of love

#sofia's nonsense #Anonymous

4 notes · View notes

orthonas · 6 years

Text

Blog 4: Introspection

So I’ve been thinking about myself lately, like who I am and why I am and stuff. I guess I did that before now but I never really wanted to write any of it down. In a way I think it’s probably important for everyone to think about this kind of stuff at least once in their life. Consider what they are, why they are the way they are, what are they going to be, and most importantly, are they happy with that?

I guess I’ll start with trying to think about what I am if I’m going to go through with everything I just listed. It’s hard to describe yourself, at least it’s always been hard for me to describe myself. I feel weird saying good things about myself and focus on the negatives a lot, but my life is made up of a lot of negatives I guess. I’m not trying to like get sympathy with that either, I feel like a lot of insecure people get accused of trying to guilt trip others into saying nice things to them or something along those lines but I like to think that there’s nothing malicious about it. Just people being insecure, you’re usually your own worst critic and all that.

I’d say appearance wise I’m not great, pretty far from what I want to be really. My body is weak and inflexible and super unhealthy. My shoulders are too broad and you can see my veins through the skin on my arms. My hair has the consistency of straw and is all stringy and gross looking most days. My face is nothing special. And on top of that I have a man’s body, I’m more effeminate than some guys which I’m lucky for but I have male genitals, no breasts, my face is male looking. It hurts to look in the mirror and see a guy and I hate it. Good things about my appearance would be my hair can look decent on good days, I’m more effeminate looking than a lot of guys which is something towards passing as a girl, and honestly I don’t know what else to say about myself. It feels a bit weird to start with appearance, it doesn’t seem like much of a self examination in the sense of who I am. But in a way my appearance reflects that, and it makes sense to start with the outer layer and work in.

So I guess next would be how I act, and honestly I don’t like the way I act. More and more I think about who I am and what I do and I don’t like it. On the days I don’t do anything and waste away I feel useless and worthless, not someone worth keeping around. And on the days I go out and do things I rarely do them well, always in half measures. Fearing any sort of hard work for some inconceivable reason. I guess I”m just lazy. And how I act around people, I’m usually too shy to talk to anyone unless they approach me or unless I have a good reason to talk to them. And even when I do talk to someone I think I come off as overbearing or obnoxious and pushy. I think it’s in part because I get really excited to talk to people, I feel starved for affection, to talk to people sometimes and I just pour everything out the first chance I get and that’s offputting. But I can also be seriously annoying or rude or just flat out mean sometimes too and I hate that part about myself. And sometimes I’m too distant, I’m terrified of saying the wrong thing or messing up something between me and a friend. And even more terrified of having already done so and that friend hates me. Like what if they just put up with me, they pretend to like me because they feel like they have an obligation to keep me around? Or even worse I’m just the spare friend, someone you talk to at school sometimes but you would never want to spend time with if you had the choice. And that stops me from maintaining friendships, from really trying to reach out and talk to others. But everytime I try that the people I know are busy or something like that, and it feels like my worst fears are confirmed. I’m probably too needy of a friend, too clingy, but it hurts all the same to not be able to spend time with the people I like.

So why am I like this? It’s hard to say really, a huge multitude of reasons to breakdown and analyze. When I was growing up I was an awful arrogant bully and maybe the way I am now is justice for how I acted. I hate my younger self honestly, they were a little dick. After I got into 6th grade I guess I just retreated into my shell, I didn’t know how to make friends or talk to people so I didn’t. I don’t know what my reputation was back then or if I had a reputation, it was probably more likely that no one noticed my presence or cared for it. As the years went by I became more and more withdrawn, I had a couple friends and made some in my different classes but I would always let them go for the next year. I was alone for a lot. Luckily for me in 9th and 10th grade my friend group now really got together, like we all started hanging out and playing dnd and it was nice to finally have a group to call my own. To have people I didn’t have to worry about texting or talking to or any of that. I still did worry though, I barely ever initiate conversations and I’m usually ignored. It’s sort of funny cuz even now that happens and I think it’s really fed into my self esteem issues. It’s no fault of there’s though I’m not blaming them, I say stupid things a lot. Things that aren’t worth responding too and I can’t just expect them to want to talk to me about dumb things I guess. It’s still something that when I think about it makes my insides feel like they’re on fire though. I really only talked about my social anxiety but I think I have other issues that I don’t really feel like getting into now honestly so maybe another time.

So that leaves what do I want to be. And I think about this a lot, everything I think about are more nebulous dreams than any sort of hardset goal. Lofty wishes that will probably go unfulfilled because I lack the conviction to go through with them. The goal or dream or expectation or whatever you want to call it would be my dream to be a girl. And I guess with that dream I could say I’m a girl, I’m a trans girl. But I want the stuff that goes with that I want female body parts I want people to see me as a girl I want to be able to transition without my friends and family ostracizing me. I want to be a normal person, not a freak of society. I wish so bad that I was born cis, female or male I don’t care just with a body that I didn’t hate as much as I do now. And I guess in my dream I’ve gotten there, I might not have gone back in time and become cis but I pass as a woman, I have the parts I want. I’m happy that way. My other major dream is to have money, I guess that sounds shallow but god is it daunting to think about how all I have to look forward in life is being another cog in the workforce, and that’s it. Work my entire life away at some shitty job and never go anywhere or do anything. My life now isn’t worth that price and I’d rather just end it if I needed to. My third dream and the most attainable feeling so far would be my dream to be an author, a famous author with well liked books would be nice but I’d settle for being a minor author with a decent fan base. I want to write a story that people like, that people enjoy, that I enjoy. And once I write the stories I want maybe I could write something worthwhile, something that’s not fantasy or sci-fi but something that people will remember or take something away from. A way for me to really convey how I feel.

So I’ve said what I want to be, what I am, and all that. And I have no idea how I’ll ever get there. I’m stuck the way I am now and unless I really start trying to change I don’t think anything will happen. I’m like a leaf being swept away by a current, unable to do anything but just float along in life. Never doing anything worthwhile or noteworthy. Barely even surviving. And certainly not living. So I don’t think I can say I’m happy right now. It’s hard to say I feel anything a lot of the time, I just feel empty.

#blog #diary #dear diary #sad #just some introspection

1 note · View note

betslangland · 6 years

Text

Don’t Downgrade Depression

~The Long(ish) inside scoop on how someone with a rad life struggled with depression~

What depression is not

1. Sadness because of a situation…

-There’s a difference in ‘feeling’ depressed and ‘being’ depressed

2. Pin Pointed ‘feelings’ that explain your depression…

-Those with depression can’t necessarily tell you how they’re feeling, they’re just lacking…

3. A lack of happiness in ones life or being a victim to life…

-A ‘lack of happiness may. In turn feeling sorry for yourself because of your ‘social status’.

What depression is…

1. Feelings of shame and insignificance…

-Shame, when you fail or mess up.

2. A lack of knowing…

-You may know something is wrong but you can’t seem to put a finger on it because everything around you seems to be fine, so you’ve convinced yourself that you’re fine too though you’re miserable.

3.Loneliness even though you may have the greatest support system and you may have several people around you…

-You can have the most followers on all the social medias, the best of friends and an amazing family, but that doesn’t change the state of your lonely mind.

4. Brokenness/Failure

-You’re always finding fault with yourself because you could’ve done something better. Depression isn’t something that should be downgraded. I used to be so flippant judging others when they’d say they were depressed when they had a happy life. (i.e. they had a lot of friends, they were close to their family, they had a great job etc.) I would talk so poorly about these ‘depressed people’ because they had it made. I’d judge them and say they shouldn’t feel that way because everyday is a blessing, they should be so grateful, they shouldn’t take advantage of this one life blah blah blah…..all the ‘feel good’ mantras. Though those mantras are accurate I was losing the whole picture.

I soon learned how miserable depression could be and how life draining it could make you so I no longer spoke poorly about those people.

Like I stated above, there are times when people claim depression but are just having a bad day, they broke up with their lover, their dog died, etc. I’m not downgrading those events, but that’s not what I’m talking about here and that’s not depression.

There’s a difference in feeling depressed and being in a depressive state of mind. Feeling depression is something everyone goes through in life. It’s inevitable, because life sucks sometimes, but being depressed, sitting in it and living that life is another story. I was depressed and didn’t even realize it. The things I had been facing, the lies I had been telling myself and the illusion of my life I had been lying to others about for years, I had convinced myself was the norm. I thought I could lie to myself and to my friends and family about how I was feeling to play off that I was always happy, because you’re never supposed to have a bad day, right?...Wrong!

Events in my life started to not line up with me anymore and I was so exhausted of being this person who wasn’t me just to please everyone else. When I reevaluated my life I realized I was more miserable in the time being than genuinely happy, and this was a problem.

I let my depressive state of mind become my idol since I was focusing more on the depression and the negative nature rather healing and on positive things. Like mentioned above I couldn’t pin point a significant ‘feeling’ of depression. Yes, I had many feelings during this time, but not one that led me to believe that I was ‘depressed’. It was more of me trying to be a hard ass and shake off all the feelings and be tough. I learned first hand that if you don’t take a moment to feel those feelings and deal with them they will come to bite you in the ass later and be ten times worse.

You don’t have to have a rough upbringing to be in a depressive mindset. (Please read that again!!!)

I was raised in a great Christian family with more love around me than anyone could imagine. I was athletic and I was a musician so I was very busy, but somehow through all of the chaos of high school I formed bad mind habits of not feeling good enough. I didn’t feel good enough for my parents because I would end up getting B’s instead of A’s and I would hear, “Well, why aren’t you getting A’s?”, which I interpreted that as, “Why aren’t you working hard enough. Your hard work is not noticed. You aren’t significant because you got a B.”

Crazy I know, but that’s where my mind went.

My mother never ever said those things, but that’s how my brain interpreted them. Everything came back down to not working hard enough. I never felt good enough being raised in a Christian environment. In my household there was no cursing, no bad language, and no negative comments, but I’ll be completely honest with you in saying that cursing, bad language and negativity come pretty naturally to me, which made me feel like there was something wrong with me internally since I didn’t have a ‘heavenly mindset’ all the time.

The thoughts I’d have would’ve been condemned and judged if they were ever uttered out of my mouth. I would slip up occasionally and say a curse word soon being accused of always saying them around my peers (which I didn’t) and not having my heart in the right place with God (which it was).

So from there I felt a sense of brokenness, confusion and not being good enough because I couldn’t express myself in the way that came naturally. I couldn’t because ‘God wouldn’t approve’ and ‘Christian’s just didn’t speak that way’. My mother made it very clear that I had other believers and non believers looking to me to be an example, so every move I made was judged and Lord forgive me if I did something and it wasn’t under the approval of another believer and was labeled as ‘ungodly’.

But what if something ‘bad’ did utter from my mouth? My mom would assume my heart wasn’t right with the Lord and I’d be sent to my room to read my Bible. Sounds like a legit punishment to me that solved the ‘issue’.

^insert biggest eye roll (sorry Ma)

~Let me pause here for a second to clarify something. I love the Lord and I would NOT be here writing this without him. In saying that I am NOT disrespecting nor am I disregarding a relationship with God. I am wholeheartedly taking you through a snip-it of my childhood and how I was raised to explain to you how I developed my, “I don’t feel good enough” mindset and attitude. I needed to clarify because 90% of what I had explained to you was negative, but without that negativity I wouldn’t be able to write this for you today. Also, the reason why my mother raised me the way she did (right or wrong) was because she held me at a higher standard than anyone else in this whole world. She expected nothing but the best from me. Carrying on!~

Body dysmorphia, negative body image, self-esteem issues and insecurities started in just the fourth grade. I can remember it like it was yesterday. While sitting next to a girl in Mrs. Edwards’ class, comparison stole my confidence, which would haunt me for years. This girl, Emily and I were sitting next to each other in class while we were doing a fun activity. You know how your legs turn into the size of Russia when you sit down? Well I noticed that for the first time. But when I noticed my legs I also noticed Emily’s legs…but hers were smaller.

Hmmm, weird. We’re practically the same stature so why are her legs smaller than mine?

Oh…is this what fat means?

Oh how I wish I could shake that 4th grade Bethany!

Fast forward to 5th grade…middle school, when you could sill have a bunch of guy friends without people freaking out about it.

(^insert another eye roll)

In fifth grade I sat with a group of guys at lunch everyday and one in particular noticed how I hadn’t been eating the food on my tray so he asked me about it, “Bethany! Are you not hungry?? Why aren’t you eating your food?”

I state very snooty like, “It’s very unhealthy food and I don’t want to get fat!”

As adult as a 5th grader could be he rebuttals, “What?? Bethany, you’re in 5th grade. Why are you worried about getting fat right now??”

The only response to this question was trying to explain that I was planning ahead and how proud of myself I was for not eating all my food, because I remained, “self-controlled”, and “self-disciplined”.

But there was a HUGE issue.

I was SO HUNGRY!!

At this time my older sister was I high school and she was a 3 season athlete so she was always active. We had the same body structure but she was more fit than me because obvi, she was more active. My little baby brain couldn’t figure out why she was more fit than I was and why she could eat a candy bar and not feel shitty or not gain weight, but when I’d eat a candy bar I would belittle myself and tell myself over and over that I wasn’t good enough AND I felt like a cow. I remember asking my mom one day why she could eat whatever she wanted and my mom replied that she worked out all the time so she could eat those desserts and it wouldn’t affect her. I took this straight to heart and all I heard was, “She works out all the time, which means she can reward herself with food…”

Now I’m in high school and still (I was always the ‘big friend’ in elementary and middle school) labeled as the ‘big tomboyish’ friend. I thought I had kicked this title, but I was wrong. Being an athlete and being on the drumline didn’t help any…I hated the title. To me women were supposed to be very feminine, small boned, small breasted (which makes zero sense), short, quiet…cute little tiny tiny things and I was well aware I was none of those things. I was built durable (fancy terminology for “big framed”), I definitely did not have small breasts, I wasn’t feminine, I sure as hell wasn’t quiet, and I wasn’t a tiny tiny human. Men looked through me, usually to my other friends, and I associated not receiving attention due to my body structure.

I watched my food intake more so than most high schoolers. I exercised way more than what was needed, and I would assume never to shop for clothes because I would end up shopping in the men’s department because the shirts were naturally baggy. I remember having a boyfriend at the time and for years he had thought I was a very confident outgoing woman until he went swim suit shopping with me.

I was very hesitant about it because I wanted to remain that strong woman to him since he had no idea how insecure I really had been for years.

That was the first and last time he ever went shopping with me. I swore to myself he’d never go again because I was so extremely embarrassed with myself.

I cried.

A lot.

I just sobbed and sobbed in the dressing room looking at myself in the mirror wondering how I had let myself get ‘this far’. He kept knocking on the door to see if I was okay but I never let him in because I was so ashamed of how I looked. I would stare in the mirror and grab my belly and get SO angry that it was there! I would look at myself completely naked and ashamed and say to myself over and over and over, “You’re so fat!!! This is disgusting!” I would imagine if I could just take scissors and cut all the fat off. Then that would be okay! I just wanted to sit down without having to adjust my pants to cover up my belly!! I was so disgusted with myself.

But those feelings were normal, because every girl cries in the dressing room and thinks about taking scissors to their belly, right…?

I justified to myself that this was just a part of being a woman I had to get over and live with.

Now I’m in college.

Oh, college!

The 6 years I spent in college (YES, 6! I changed my major, okay!!) were the most trying, taxing, exhausting, fun, and difficult learning experiences of my life.

Now I'm in college and the uncontrollable stress of every day life and school was so great and so overwhelming. I'm a very type A personality, meaning if I don't have control over situations or I don't have any say over situations I tend to get anxiety and start feeling very vulnerable towards whatever scenario I was in at the moment. While I was in school I studied music education for four years until I switched to health promotion and business, which became my degree.

During my sophomore year in college my mother passed away from cancer. This undoubtedly rocked my world. What could I have control over anymore?

Now, for a type A personality having control is a HUGE characteristic, like I mentioned above. Since I wasn't able to control the environment around me the only thing I could 100% control was my body. This is when the disordered eating habits started to manifest and take control.

Before more explanation lets define these disorders.

Orthorexia Nervosa: "a medical condition in which the sufferer systematically avoids specific foods in the belief that they are harmful; an obsession with eating foods that one considers healthy."

Bulimia Nervosa:"eating disorder characterized by a cycle of bingeing and compensatory behaviors such as self-induced vomiting designed to undo or compensate for the effects of binge eating."

Anorexia Nervosa:“There are two main types of anorexia. Both types are characterized by irrational fear of weight gain and abnormal eating patterns. The restrictive type is what most people associate with this mental illness: The individual rigorously limits food intake, effectively starving the body of the nutrition and calories it needs.However, there is also a type of anorexia known as binge/purge anorexia, in which an individual purges after eating. Thus, this type of anorexia results in additional health problems, which are also caused by bulimia and binge-eating disorder.Another category of anorexia is known as atypical anorexia. In these cases, the individual meets some but not all of the criteria for anorexia. For example, they might restrict their food intake but not be underweight.”

I mentioned that I was essentially a control freak, but I didn't know that then. I can label these disordered eating habits as a control mechanism now but when I was in the midst of that way of life it seemed normal and imperative for me, like I was filling a void of vulnerability I didn't want to succumb to out of fear. This was a fear of being wrong, judged and rejected. I was fearful of judgment because I was the, "face of health" and the one who lived the "fit and healthy" lifestyle people would come to for inspiration and questions. So how crazy would it have been if I came out and confessed to how unhappy I was with my life and how I wanted nothing more than to eat normally and not exercise like a crazy person all the damn time.

This wasn't an option though. People looked up to me and I couldn't be ‘normal’ like everyone else.

Though the 'healthy' lifestyle I was living was out of fear, it also came out of a place of shame and guilt.

I'd feel disgusted with myself, utterly shameful, ugly, unworthy, and the biggest disappointment when I'd eat out of my 'macro or meal plan'. When I say I was strict with my food....I mean I was STRICT with my food!! Every single morsel of food I'd consume would be weighed and counted, to the last gram. If I had accidentally counted incorrectly or had forgotten to track a certain food my mind would be consumed with this failure and I wouldn’t be able to sleep and I’d end up doing extra cardio to ‘burn off the excess calories’.

(sounds crazy just typing it!)

I would eat 100% clean, with no cheating until I had planned a binge eating, "cheat day" or I was tired of eating chicken and broccoli and wanted something different because I could feel my sanity slipping because of the restrictions.

These days I'd usually consume copious amounts of food to turn around and feel the shame and guilt of "cheating" on my diet and "cheating" on everyone who looked at me as a health and fitness figure.

So I'd take ‘control over the situation’ and make myself throw up. I'd justify sticking my finger down my throat by lying to myself and convincing myself that I was sick and nauseas and needed to throw up because the food had ‘upset my stomach’.

I was lying. I didn't feel sick, I felt guilty, shameful and like a disappointment for not eating correctly...for 'falling off the wagon'.

What's messed up is that I felt bad for the foods I had eaten and not making myself throw up because I thought I was solving a problem. Twisted, huh?...

I tried to act normal. I tried to be normal and eat out with friends and family. I tried to live out the 'balance' portion of health and fitness so people couldn't argue with me saying I was crazy or normal, but once I'd try I would always end up in the bathroom flushing guilt, shame and regret down the toilet.

Problem solved.

I remember a specific time I was having dessert with a friend at a restaurant and at this time I was in the midst of early recovery and I was tired of telling people no to going out all the time so I made myself go and ‘be normal’. The thing was I was trying SO hard to be normal it started becoming a chore and weird trying to be normal….(overthinking much??) Anyway, we went out and I ordered the smallest and the ‘better for you’ option. I finished all of it and thought, “Okay, I got this!”. Nope I didn’t. I went to the bathroom (I actually had to go) and it felt like a drug…

A good analogy would be putting a recovering pill popper in a room full of hydrocodone…

It just doesn’t work.

Sooner than later I found myself over the toilet.

I walked back over to my friend red faced, watery eyes, chattering teeth, a broken heart and disappointment and she had no idea.

Through this time I had zero confidence.

Zero confidence in my intelligence, my body, my mind, my music and my relationships. Just like any other insecure college woman I'd look for confidence through comments from men and that only led me down a road of seeking validation from other people and accepting sexual comments because I wanted to feel sexy and beautiful.

During these phases of dieting I decided to do a bodybuilding show.

To give you a little insight on my training I was consuming 800 calories a day, 1,000 calories on 'high carb days', while doing an hour on the stair master in morning and training in the evening after school. To put 1000 calories into perspective, that would be equivalent to one crispy chicken sandwich with a medium fry from McDonalds. After a few months of this style of training I had lost a significant amount of weight....

Goals, right?!!

Wrong.

I had no boobs, no ass, my upper body was bony, I hadn't had a period in a year (which was caused by disordered eating), I would go weeks without having a bowel movement, and the only thing I could do recreationally was sleep because I was extremely miserable, exhausted and fatigued. I couldn’t form a complete sentence without concentrating because of the lack of nutrition going to my brain.

Kind of scary.

Though I wanted so desperately to eat what my friends were eating, I had an unusual sense of pride that I had to bring my own meals into restaurants or simply not eat and celebrate with my friends and family. Kind of like, "I'm better than you because I have better self-control...".

Awful, I know!!

But the health and fitness industry is glorified for self-discipline and I was bound and determined to be the best and when I want to be the best nothing can stop me.

While training for the competition I would workout with my trainer and she would weight me about once a week. There were times when my goal would be to lose 4lbs in one week.

Do you understand how crazy that is??

Anyway, I’d come back the following week doing exactly what she wanted me to do and I’d step on the scale and sometimes I wouldn’t have dropped any weight or I would have dropped two pounds, which was completely unacceptable.

She’d stare at the number, shake her head and say, “You’re doing something wrong. You’re too big. You’re not losing enough weight.”

Can you imagine someone saying that to you??

She would accuse me of cheating on the diet, which as much as I hated that 8x11 eating disorder, I never once cheated on that god awful diet. She wouldn’t believe me because I wasn’t losing 4 pounds a week.

Those comments and the unbelief in me weighed heavy on my heart because I gave 100% during my prep! I hated every second of it but I was committed so I couldn’t quit!

It’s competition day. Oh boy.

I knew I wasn’t going to place because the girls were much much smaller than me and you could tell this hadn’t been their first show.

I walked backstage to setup my little secluded corner, because I honestly didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted a weeks worth of sleep and food. Lots and lots of food.

I finally setup my corner and I was looking at the rest of the girls get ready and I had something come over me…

“These girls look like the pictures I had on my wall when I was in high school….the fitness models I wanted to look like…” because ‘hard-work’ and ‘dedication’ would get you a 6 pack.

All that these girls could talk about was their hunger, tilapia, how much water they had to cut, how many diuretics they had to take and what they were going to eat after the show.

My mind started piecing things together while I was backstage. “These girls aren’t healthy…..they’re just shredded hungry girls.”

Right then and there my mind changed forever! I was angry and relieved all at the same time. I was angry because I felt like I had been lied to for years through magazines and the internet when women were being portrayed as ‘fit’. I was relieved because IT WASN’T REAL!!!! I didn’t feel like I had to be some skinny bitch that only ate spinach, tilapia, chicken and rice forever because nobody actually liked it and no one WANTED to do it!!

If these girls didn’t WANT to do it and it didn’t make them happy then why in the hell were they doing it?? Were there aesthetics more important and more valued than their time with family celebrating a birthday party, or a boyfriends birthday dinner?

I can recall this mental breakthrough like it was yesterday.

This is when my mindset started to become unveiled and all the lies from the health and fitness industry were becoming revealed and I was disgusted and I wanted to make a change right then!

I went into this body building competition with a very negative mindset because I hated everything about me. See, my goal throughout my fitness journey was the same as numerous other women…lose the belly and get skinny. To my surprise even after all the dieting and weight loss I still had a little bit of a belly. I was so confused!

After dieting for so long I was now lethargic, anemic, insecure though I had lost so much weight and I had the title of a ‘body builder’, hungry, exhausted, always sick, and even more miserable mentally than when I began this journey.

I thought, So after ALL that I sill don’t have what I worked my ass off for AND I’m even worse off?.....What was I missing?

And then I heard something so profound to me that put my mind into another dimension of thinking… Life should NOT be about weight loss, food, counting calories or your physique. Life has so much more to offer and you as a person have so much to offer other than how you look….Oh wow!!!

This mindset changed my life forever.

I thought I could deal with myself emotionally after my body building show so I decided to hire an online powerlifting coach who agreed that the way I dieted was destructive. We talked over the phone and she set me up with a training schedule and macros to start with after my show.

I was ecstatic to be lifting heavy again and to be eating yummy foods!

I thought I had a grip on the disordered eating habits because I was on the track to counting macros again! Yay!

A few months into powerlifting I was regaining strength back and gaining my weight back, which I was mentally ready for because my stage weight was unrealistic and I was okay with it because I needed the extra weight to lift heavy.

I had to check-in with my powerlifting coach each week with my macros for the day, my lifts and my weight for every day. I would reluctantly get on that scale but I did it because I had to. She started cutting my macros down bit by bit each week and I could feel myself start to panic. I would anxiously open my email to see if she had given me permission to eat more that week or I still had to cut down. I began hating check-ins. I was spending 1.5-2 hours in the gym every single day and I was exhausted.

Because of my body building experience I had downloaded helpful podcasts hosted by women who’ve been in the same place mentally as I had been in, but little did I know that I was still in the negative mental mindset when it came to my eating habits.

I was on my way to see my boyfriend at the time and I was headed to the gym but I was going to see him first. I was dreading going, but I couldn’t have any days off and I had to go so I didn’t have a choice.

I was listening to one particular podcast about the hosts’ experience with eating disorders and the breakdown and breakthrough she had gone through. She discussed the prep she went through and how awful it was (same), how she didn’t have a period (same), how she gave up time with her friends and family (same), how she gloated in the fact of having more ‘self-discipline’ when it came to not eating ‘bad’ foods (same), how she was still insecure with herself after the body building show even though she lost a lot of weight (same), how she didn’t have boobs and it made her insecure about her femininity (same), how she felt deprived of every food even healthy foods because she wasn’t ‘allowed’ to eat those things (same), how she was lethargic all the time (same), how she had 0 sex drive (same), how all she could do was sleep because she was so exhausted (same)………..the list goes on and on!

She stated in her podcast that once she realized there was an issue she told her mother in hopes for accountability and help towards her recovery,

“Once I told my mother about my disordered eating she knew something was going wrong and she told me that food had became my idol which means food was more important than anything else, including God.”

When I heard these words coming out of my radio and after all the mental connections I had made with this girl via podcast, I broke down. Every vulnerability I had at the moment was broken down by those words. My walls had been completely torn down. All I could do was cry.

How could I have let myself get to this point?

How could I have I let myself get so unhealthy?

How could I have lied to so many people?

How could I have lied to myself for so many years?

My world changed dramatically! I didn’t go to the gym that day because I talked to my boyfriend about my struggles. He knew I had been struggling all along so he wasn’t surprised when I came out and explained how miserable I actually had been.

-Side note: I am a problem solver. Once I have found a problem, I will fix it. I won’t spend time relishing over the problem, I will go above and beyond to fix whatever the issue might be.

I talked to my former boyfriend about the steps I should take and if I should email my coach and explain to her that I couldn’t continue training with her and how I needed time to heal and recover from this disordered mindset. This was by far one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. I’ve ALWAYS had a training schedule! Not once have I gone into the gym and didn’t know exactly what I was going to do for that workout session. I was organized, I planned everything and I was prepared.

Now…I felt vulnerable, unorganized and I had a lack of preparation because someone wasn’t planning my workouts. I was confused.

I decided to shoot my coach a long and detailed email explaining why I couldn’t continue working with her. I was so nervous that once I received an email back I never opened it. I still haven’t.

After sending an email to my coach I knew I had to tell my family….

I sat down and wrote 5 pages worth of struggles, events and fear that was driven by the eating disorder. I copied 3; two for my sisters and 1 for my dad. God, this was so hard. They were so supportive and loved on me unconditionally.

I couldn’t have asked for a better support system.

I struggled to change. It was so hard. I knew I had an issue that needed to be dealt with and fixed so I became obsessed with change. I started listening to podcasts that dealt with struggling with eating disorders and the first thing they would suggest for recovery is telling your closest friends and family.

Oh, Lord.

I read numerous self-help books, specifically for eating disorders. I cleaned out my FB feed and IG feed of anything and everything that made me have comparison (i.e. bodybuilding account, IG stars who were fit, macro and ‘clean eating’ accounts) because I now knew this wasn’t reality, I journaled every single day about my thoughts towards recovery. I had no idea what hunger was. I couldn’t pin point when I was hungry, what I wanted to eat or when I should eat. I had been under macro counting and eating under an eating plan for so long I hadn’t ever had to think for myself when it came to food.

I was lost.

My dad would get so frustrated with me because I couldn’t tell him when I was hungry. I couldn’t be mad at him because he had zero comprehension of my struggles or my mindset with food. His thoughts, just like any normal person, would be, my stomach is growling…I must be hungry…I’m going to eat now. Instead of mine, which was, My stomach is growling…does that mean I should eat or I should drink more water?....What should I eat if I did end up eating?...I didn’t work out so I probably shouldn’t eat a lot…Maybe I should just eat some vegetables or protein…But that doesn’t sound good…What sounds good?....Pancakes…That sounds good, but there’s no nutritional value in pancakes, there’s too much sugar, there’s no protein and all I’d want to do is slather it in peanut butter, and peanut butter has way too much fat…I also don’t have any sugar free syrup, which sugar free isn’t even good for you so I probably shouldn’t eat that anyway….I don’t even have the protein pancakes brand mix so it would just be the regular pancake mix and I can’t have that because it has too many carbs…….I can go on and on.

It was exhausting.

Eating should be simple, but it definitely wasn’t.

This was the longest progression of recovery. After telling my family I started documenting everything on Twitter, Tumblr, my business FB page and IG. I knew that if I had been dealing with these issues I knew that someone else had been dealing with them as well. I wanted to be that person who brought freedom and a great message to someone who needed it. I wanted to be able to tell these women that they are worth it and they make a difference despite the lies they’ve been telling themselves.

I worked so hard on my recovery!

Coupled with journaling and posting on social media I practiced words of affirmation. And when I say I practiced words of affirmation, I mean I spent hours writing phrases of ‘who I was’ and words proclaiming victory all over my mirror in my bathroom. I took white copy paper and on each piece of paper I wrote something different, something uplifting and motivating. I covered half of my mirror in my bathroom so I could see them and say them to myself everyday.

I had a ritual. Every morning I’d stand in front of my mirror (not looking at myself) and would say each phrase on those pieces of paper.

Did I believe the words coming out of my mouth at the time?

HELL NO…

But did I do it anyway, because faith comes by believing and believing comes by hearing?....

HELL YES…

Do I believe those things now because I made it a habit to say them every day?...

HELL YES…

On my body length mirror I wrote ALL over it in marker claiming more words of affirmation and positivity.

I also had strict rules so I wouldn’t be tempted to think negatively towards myself, such as not looking at myself in the mirror naked or when I was getting ready for school. Some of you might think, “But aren’t you supposed to look at yourself and think positively about the way you looked right then? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do all along?”

Yes, you’re right, but I’ll be honest with you at that moment in my recovery I wanted to feel like a straight beautiful badass without looking in the mirror, because if I had already felt like a beautiful badass and something in the mirror distracted me from feeling that positivity towards myself I would’ve backtracked and started relapsing on the negative thoughts. I was trying to stay clear of all ‘triggers’ (I hate that word) for myself personally and looking at myself naked was one of them.

I read numerous self-help, motivational and recovery from disordered eating books. I was a professional at reading by this point.

I read one book in particular that encouraged doing yoga and meditation when you could feel your mind and thoughts shifting to distractions or negativity.

You know what?......it actually helped! I can’t remember anything else in that book (it was too ‘yogi woo-woo’ for me) other than one simple yoga/meditation practice that would center my mind back on the ‘here and now’ instead of on the food, exercise, clean eating or macros. I still use these practices today!

Hold please….you’re thinking today? I thought this whole thing was about recovering from depression and eating disorders!

Well princess, you’re not wrong; however, once you’ve been addicted to something you’re going to have those addictions come back to haunt you occasionally.

Let me explain further.

I’ve spent years conquering disordered eating habits. Is there still a portion of me that struggles occasionally with thoughts of comparison? Sure, BUT because I had my rituals and proclaimed those words of affirmation, I truly believe them now and I say those phrases and who I believe I AM to myself every single day.

You see, recovery and victory is a process. A very long, long, long process. It’s hard. It’s mentally exhausting. It’s taxing. Sometimes you’d rather just throw in the towel and jump back on that addictive train because it’s comfortable. But you also know that past the blood, sweat and tears is peace of mind, love and contentment.

I’ll be vulnerable and honest with you.

Have I binged and purge all while stating and hash tagging about eating disorder recovery? Yes.

Have I felt guilt and shame if I ate a yummy meal for a holiday? Yes.

Have I felt disappointment if I went over my calories and/or macros for the day? Yes. What’s the difference now?.........

Now, I don’t dwell on those things.

Now, I notice the feeling. I notice where the feeling is coming from and why I’m feeling that way and take a moment and let myself feel that way. Then I either meditate on the good, I speak affirmations, I proceed to tell myself that life is NOT about those worries and I list things I’m specifically grateful for to put my mind back on track. I’ve been doing this for so long that this process happens in just a few seconds then I’m back in the right mindset and back to conquering the eating disorder that once controlled every aspect of my life.

Do these struggles happen every day like they used to when I first started the recovery process? No.

I’ve trained my mind to prioritize things in life. Now the numbers on a scale and the ‘feelings’ towards food is not a priority in my life.

I’ve learned that losing weight, hours spent in the gym, cardio, the foods I eat and sacrificing time with friends and family is NOT what life is about. I would lay awake at night planning my meals out on the app MyFitnessPal, which calculates macros and calories and I would calculate to the very last gram what I was going to eat the next day. So number one, I could hit my designated macros for the day and so I could save time and stress throughout the next day planning food. This was such an unhealthy mindset and approach towards meal prepping and planning meals in general. I’ve spent so much time practicing healthy habits that I can meal prep without the mental struggle of calculating every morsel of food.

How did I approach recovery?

I approached recovery very quickly because I knew I had an issue and I wanted it resolved as soon as possible. I HATED knowing that there was an issue with my mental status! I thought I had been ‘doing everything right’ until now…

I filled my mind with nothing but uplifting, positive reminders that ‘gym life’, counting macros and my weight weren’t on my ‘priorities list’. I was reading a book on recovery and the author asked the readers to journal 5 things that we loved doing that wasn’t based around food or exercise.

Do you know how many I listed?

One.

I literally couldn’t think of anything except for writing. I was dumbfounded and embarrassed. It was coming to focus that I had been a slave to the fitness lifestyle and hadn’t let anything else enter my life……no new forms of movement, no new experiences, no new relationships, no new adventures…..nothing.

Though I had listed one thing I loved doing besides exercise, I started doing that one thing more and more and more.

Lets review how recovery was approached throughout this time. Some of these steps have already been discussed so bare with me.

-Reading/Meditation/Yoga

-Podcasts

-Cleaning social media

-Words of affirmation

-Eating without distractions

Podcast listening was vital to my recovery. I listened to the Mind Body Musings Podcast hosted by Maddy Moon, and she gave numerous tips on how to recover and the steps she took for her recovery. One in particular was to clean out all social media accounts of people you were following that would make you question your own body or life AND REPLACE it with something NOT fitness related; such as, beaches or puppies. Girl, do you know how many beach and dog accounts I follow on IG?! Too many at this point! She made it clear that if you take something out it NEEDED to be replaced with something uplifting and beneficial. This fills your mind with positivity instead of a deprivation. So one afternoon I sat down and scrolled through the accounts I had been following and if their account was no longer beneficial to me I deleted that account and added an uplifting account that made me smile, dream or yearn for self-growth.

Words of affirmation.

I won’t go too much into detail about this because I’ve already covered this topic extensively above. I just want to drive home how incredibly IMPORTANT talking over YOURSELF can be. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it at the moment because if you’re consistent and you keep proclaiming those words over you your brain starts to believe it. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, ‘fake it till you make it’? This is a perfect example!

Eating Without Distractions

This was an odd one for me to practice, but it was very effective. Nine times out of ten we’re busy while we’re eating; talking to someone, on the computer or playing with your cell phone. There was a challenge on a podcast that had you eat with no distractions. Eat while doing nothing else besides eating. Kinda weird, but this gave you a chance to appreciate food for what it is……food.

Without any distractions you’re able to appreciate every bite, the different tastes and smells and the texture to be grateful for being able to eat. If we’re distracted we’re usually finished with our meal before we actually realize what the food had tasted like because our attention isn’t at the task at hand. Ultimately this procedure formed gratitude and thankfulness for the food you were consuming. Just getting into the mindset of thankfulness is one of the most effective tools for recovery.

In Conclusion…I write this just so I can get the most important aspect across…struggles with depression are different. Not one is the same and not one situation that causes depression is the same.

Depression should not be downgraded.

I explained how I was raised in a wonderful Christian home with amazing parents, and guess what? I was depressed, I had substance abuse issues and I was addicted to food, or a lack there of.

LISTEN!

Now, it doesn’t matter what type of addiction, issue or struggle you have YOU ARE WORTH SO MUCH MORE!!! You are worth MORE than the sleepless nights due to anxiety, you are worth MORE than the cuts on your arm, you are MORE than skipping meals, you are MORE than making yourself throw up, you are MORE than using alcohol to cope, you are MORE than pills, you are MORE than feeling like sex is the ONLY way you feel worthy, you are MORE than what other people say or do to you, YOU ARE MORE!!

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, who did what to you or what you’ve been through….those scenarios do NOT have to define you! There might be someone in your life telling you that you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not fast enough, you’re not talented enough….BUT their words do NOT have to define who you are as a person! Those words don’t have to mold your future or your potential!

You were designed and you are destined for GREATNESS!!!

Here’s the kicker though, are you ready?I watched a motivational speech by Will Smith and he spoke about Fault and Responsibility.He stated that it is NOT your fault that those things happened to you, but it is DAMN sure your responsibility to do something about it and to not let those words mold you into a person who falls victim and believes the whole world owes you something.

Being in ‘victim mode’ only sets you up to lose.

Victims do NOT succeed!!

Casting blame on others gets you nowhere!I’ll be honest with you in saying that I’ve lost a lot of relationships because they lived in victim mode—nothing was there fault and their sadness and depression were all due to something that had happened to them in their past. I’m not discrediting their awful experiences, because nobody deserves to be treated that way. But instead of using those experiences as fuel to live a better, kick ass life, they’ve chosen to do the exact opposite and live a life of blame. And let me be the first to tell you, their lives are miserable. They’re not happy people. They’re not content with their lives, they’re depressed and they suffer addictions. It’s very sad to see because, like you, they were created for greatness.

I hope you’re starting to realize your worth and your potential through this post. It may take some time to start believing in your worth and start believing you’re more than what other people say and more than what society says about you, but once you’ve grasped that concept, nothing, I mean NOTHING will be able to hold you down from your potential and GREATNESS in life!!

You are more.

You are more than depression.

Depression doesn’t have to define you.

My main purpose of writing this bit of biography and my main purpose in life is to show you that depression can come in every shape and size. Depression can occur to someone who’s been abused and depression can occur to someone who’s had a great upbringing. Depression doesn’t favor anyone. My other main purpose in life is to also tell you that YOU. ARE. NOT. ALONE! Life is hard and I lived my life acting like it wasn’t hard and everything was fine. Please don’t do that! Here are some findings of a National Institute of Mental Health study of 10,000 teenagers (ages 13 to 18) with eating disorders. Researchers found that the majority of teens with eating disorders did have contact with mental health care, school services, or general medical services. But, LESS THAN A THIRD had talked with a professional about their eating or weight problems.

Do you know what this means??

These mechanisms of depression CAN be AVOIDED! I wouldn’t have gone to anybody either and that’s what I’m here for…to come to YOU and express my empathy and love towards you! I get it! I get laying awake at night in misery and anxiety. My anxiety was all derived from my physical appearance and substance abuse but your anxiety could stem from something totally different, but I get it!

If no one has told you, “I love you”, or no one has encouraged you lately, well sister, I FUCKING LOVE YOU and I encourage you to KEEP MOVING FORWARD. Keep pressing through this crippling depression, because I PROMISE you if you give it your 100% effort to recover, you will recover and gain SO much strength to help another woman who might be struggling.

Sister, thank YOU so much for reading this post. It means the absolute world to me! Please pass this on to whomever you think would need it! I love you!!

You are destined for greatness!!

Love,

Bethany

#depression #eatingdisorders #bodypositivity #anxiety #disorderedeating #youreworthy #greatness #recovery #edrecovery

2 notes · View notes

keiraelaine · 6 years

Text

2017

This year I learned the compassion and caring that I’ve always felt shame for lacking. I learned how to listen and show up when someone tells me how they feel and I’m working out the kinks with making caring space for myself in relationships. I learned that I am worthy and I found love and I learned that I need to care about myself in order to take care of myself. I started learning how to do that. Long long post below.

January: I flew into Green Bay like someone who doesn’t have any sense of self-preservation. I ignored the signs. Or, I worried that I was too anxious, and that it wouldn’t work because I couldn’t just trust a person. I was out of theory though, and I felt like I could breathe easier than I had in a year. Benson stopped me in the hall, surprised. Jan. 20 sucked. Landlord continued to not do his job. In coding, I felt like I was actually learning a cool thing. I spoke to no one. AfAm Writers seating was straight up segregated and we were intimidating. I learned more about the world at BGH than I did anywhere else. I suppose I felt shame, but I was away from the con. I couldn’t make myself care about getting out of bed. The voice search was frustrating, because no other students really showed up.

February: I learned what I want to do with my life from a candidate. I had a reason to make myself get up in the morning. I offered crumbs because that’s what I did best, ask for nothing and feel anxious. We had one good night. People suggested walking away. I scared myself by not drawing a line and allowing some major bullshit. I should have known because every white girl I’ve been with couldn’t ignore me in public if she tried. My new friends showed me what respect looked like. In coding, my attendance and attention faltered. One night, I threw my phone. An apartment opened up and it seemed perfect. It took weeks for me to figure out he and we were going to stay unhealthy. I felt ignored and unimportant. My writing in AfAm was exemplary. My friend got really, really hurt by a shitty boy. I got hurt by a shitty boy too. I felt shame.

March: The coding project loomed just in time for me to realize I knew nothing about Java. The random girl in my class who I worked with made me laugh from my belly. The boy in our group was MIA and sexist. Cue the hardest project of my life with a partner who was brown but not a lesbian. I kept wanting to give up. I slowly figured out I thought and was afraid to think she was cute. My friends tried playing matchmaker. ACDA was magic and disappointing and educational all at once. I came back and made some quip about morning finals, and I gave back shit that wasn’t mine. I moved! I observed girl choir and thought it was impossible. I got a biopsy and was not dying. I passed coding barely, and AfAm with flying colors. I was nervous about history and about scenes, and anxious about the boundary I drew, but it turns out the Ignore Boring Girls in Public game continued regardless of how I tried to communicate. Some people I thought were friends knew and decided to not have my back. I decided to kiss the girl I wanted to kiss instead of waiting for some bullshit that would never not hurt.

April: After kissing the girl I wanted to kiss, who was brown and not a lesbian and also cannot do Java, I went to the library with her, and then to breakfast, and then to a movie, and then back to bed! Beethoven haunted me. History started good and so did Race and Ethnicity, but RE went downhill fast. It was more 101 than I could even consider sitting through. They put me in with an orchestra and I sang well. I figured out that anxiety was now a loud, disruptive thing that I had to deal with every day of my life because of the shit I picked up from useless boys and men, especially theory. I apologized too much. I loved my new apartment. I was afraid to like this girl, but I pulled a Torres and UHauled faster than I thought proper. We said things to each other that were honest and caring at the same time, and kissed in my office.I stopped being afraid. Kadihjia left and I felt lost and angry and resentful. Spring scenes were fun!

May: Spring scenes continued to be fun because I barely had to speak to the directors, and thank god. They made me a witch with a knife and put me in white make-up. Choir became insufferable. I wanted to be in Cantala. I thought about dropping RE. I thought about dropping everything but singing and poems. Melissa gave me the tools for an excellent imitation poem and continued to trust me for reasons I can’t fathom still. I made friends with the Academy! They and Julie grew my brain bigger than I thought possible. I felt angry all the time. Every day. I learned jaw tension and migraines. I learned my recital rep. I wrote good program notes, and my mom came to visit. I didn’t weep this time. I sang very well. My people were there. My girlfriend was there, because that’s who she was. I looked elegant. Campus went to shit. My friends got hurt. I felt afraid.

June: I shaved the side of my head and rebleached the blonde bit and we three got tattoos and had a sleepover. My friend group kind of went to shit and I decided to not have friend groups anymore. I took an incomplete in history and then passed that shit like nobody’s business. I was so proud of myself. I worked an office job that seemed totally fine before it started sucking my soul out. Anger ran my life. Reunion weekend was a time for singing and remembering and confusion, but mostly a time for singing. I grew to resent the people I worked with. I missed my girlfriend but I trusted her, and missing someone you trust is a whole different game. I tried out veganism and yoga and both were good. Gaycation!

August: I scheduled box braids and tried bullet journaling and I got box braids and I felt Real. I felt ready and real and beautiful and worthy and loved. Except at work which continued to be bullshit. I worried about theory, but I knew I could at least try with a new professor. Still angry always. I felt like I could spend a good long time with my girlfriend.

September: I thought all my classes would be exciting except theory. Turns out, a good teacher and an excellent therapist make theory perfectly good, and a teacher who doesn’t care to decolonize the classroom can make interesting content insufferably boring. I felt angry and anxious and safe. Facilities fired me. I had the worst panic attack of my life about my refund, and I felt angry at a white woman I typically trust more than most folks. PEDAL hit the group running.

October: It was affecting me that half the queer Black women at school left. Anger abound. I was ready to slap some smiles off white girls’ faces. I was ready to schedule an actual fight with Richard. I was ready to drop Sonja’s class. My homework was getting done but I couldn’t say anything to a professor without also saying sorry. I did jack in my independent study. I thought about I wanted a Black Studies MA.

November: Melissa convinced me about MFAs. I figured out that all I could do was give the best presentation in the class I wanted to drop. I took my hair out and panicked about it. I realized I needed to shave it off, so I did. Nothing I have ever done is as freeing as that I figured out that some white middle class women love technicality more than anything else. I learned that I can’t yet glare a shit-eating grin off a white face. I learned that I have trouble listening to my own needs, again. I learned that I’m allowed to work on it, that I’m allowed to feel overwhelmed and need to be comforted and held. I wanted to go home. We planned Costa Rica. I shaved all my hair off.

December: Straightness was a weight on my chest. I passed every single class. I got an A in music theory. I earned the grade of ‘A’ in MUTH 252. It felt unbelievable, like a miracle but also like a birthday, like a matter of course. I missed Rebecca. I had a massive breakdown about grad school. Melissa showed up for that anxiety. Girl choir was indescribable. I had a short quarter-life crisis about music education. I sank into a week-long lesbian unrequited shame melancholy and wrote some poems and asked for help and pulled myself out of it. I got into a professional choral ensemble. I applied to Cave Canem. We moved. I fell in love with our new house. We made a plan to go home to the sun after school lets out. I fought with my brothers and I broke down crying in the car and I ate real Mexican food and I apologized and made up with my brothers and I jumped in a cold pool and I worried about the future. On Christmas, I was Black for the first time. I had a panic attack about coming back. I had another panic attack about coming back. Anxiety sat like bile in my throat the entire time I was in the air. I came back and spent time with a really wonderful human, and I cleaned and reorganized everything, and I ate cookies, and now I feel like I can do this next six months, even though it’s so much bullshit. I realized that I need to make small changes this year that will give me ease in small ways. Lotion, swimming, sleeping, water. I graduate June 10.

Resolutions:

Say no to things that distract me from my goals.

Swim often.

Learn to cook a few things!

Make some money.

Fix my nails.

Read one whole book for pleasure every month.

Keep the apartment and garage clean.

Do laundry on a schedule.

Do mornings on a schedule.

Work more on apologizing.

#personal

5 notes · View notes

eeveelutionsforequality · 7 years

Text

I don't know if this is pessimistic of me, but I find the rallying against "your teens are the best years of your life" to sometimes come across as overly optimistic. Your teens can absolutely suck - but adulthood isn't any better, it can be better for some people, worse for others, not change, be bad in different ways. The thing is, whatever situation makes your teens suck - whether it's a poor family, a shitty school, a mental health issue, whatever - it doesn't just magically disappear unless you do something about it or get lucky, and even that sometimes doesn't work. You're still gonna be low on money unless you get lucky on the career ladder, that shitty education is still gonna affect your prospects unless you work your ass off, that mental illness isn't going to cure itself. I used to think that things couldn't get worse when I was a teen, but boy howdy was I wrong - mental illnesses worsened, responsibility like I didn't imagine existed was piled upon me, college was more stressful than school and leaving it left me with no prospects, the memories and strains of earlier life not only weighed on me but limited my future, and any money I did get had to be calculated and budgeted and given to companies that didn't care how many times they screwed me over to take more and more. All of the intricacies of the stress of having to manage a household, of buying food, of not only realizing that your life is going nowhere but feeling the impact of that happening every day, the lack of money, the lack of purpose, the lack of prospects, the lack of people there to pick you up. When you're struggling as a teen it's because bullies are assholes, the school system is shit, the adults in your life aren't earning enough money or supporting you enough - when you're struggling as an adult, as far as anyone else is concerned, it's your fault, you didn't put the work in, you're just a benefits scrounger, you're just too childish to manage the real world. And I'm not someone who was naive or threw away my teen years or was stereotypically unprepared - I was abused, ridiculously poor, horribly bullied, I managed my own money, I cooked and cleaned, I got spectacular grades, I'd planned my career - I knew the "real world" could be a horrible place, I knew how to budget, I thought I knew what I wanted in life, and I still got knocked on my ass.

What I'm saying here isn't "life is going to suck no matter what, don't be hopeful", but that we need to prepare teens better for the "real world", we need to ease them into it better, we need to fix the job market and the economy, we need to fix the education system, we need to have more sympathy for young adults - especially those hit by disabilities or unfortunate circumstances that threw them off course when they were trying so hard to actually make something of life, instead of just assuming them complacent. Your teens shouldn't be the best years of your life, neither should your adulthood - in an ideal world, all the segments of your life would be great. Your teens are the years when you've got the most options available to you though, and I know you're sitting there going "Umm, I have no options" - to that I say, exactly. The couple of options and paths and protections that you have in front of you, the idealism and hope that hasn't been crushed yet, those aren't enough, but it's going to hit you hard when even those disappear. Some people get lucky in their teens and have parties and friends and excitement and gigs, and those are seen to them as the best years of their life after they get hit by adulthood and live vicariously through nostalgia; some people have awful teens but get lucky and work hard in adulthood, they manage to get a good job and good friends and a dog, and those are the best years of their life; for others, they get lucky in both or they get unlucky in both. It's a roll of the dice.

When people say "your teens are the best years of your life", I think they mean that they know from experience how quickly everything can tumble downhill, and that they want you to see and value what you have while you have it because adulthood could very well snatch it away, and they want you to take advantage of those things and fill your days with experiences, because they don't want you to hit adulthood and get knocked down in the same way that they did, without even having some happy memories in your pocket. There's a lot of "no, it gets better, people mature, you have more freedom!" in argument to it, but I think that's as poorly worded and unhelpful as the initial statement - it doesn't apply across the board, not even in the majority of cases in my experience - people are just dicks in different ways now, different things limit your freedom now, different things cause your stress now. What people mean is that it can get better, that just because your teens are bad that doesn't mean that you should lose all hope in the world, because the bad things can be repaired, because adulthood might open the door for you, because there's not some intrinsic law of physics that says that with the progression of time life gets exponentially more miserable and the teenage years are the sweet spot where you have the most potential enjoyment available to you - that your teens sucking doesn't mean it's going to get worse. But in both cases, it's important to remember that "can" doesn't mean "will" - your teenage years can be the best years of your life, but it doesn't mean that they will be; things can get better, but it doesn't mean that they will do.

The world isn't suddenly going to become kind to you, especially not if it wasn't already - you have to get tougher than it, get really lucky, work your ass off, and even then you might not make it. The shitty people from school? They go to college too, as do the shitty kids from other schools - some of you will get unlucky and go to the college with twice the shitty kids, and some of you will get lucky and go to the one where most of the people are mature. The flaws in how they teach and grade, in the syllabus? Yeah, plenty of that seeps through into college too. The early mornings? College can be earlier and can run later, also you'll have a three hour break in the middle of one random day where you have absurdly early and late classes, but not enough time (or not enough money) to go home between them, and none of your friends will have the same break, and you'll end up sat in Gregg's, groggy, exhausted, and completely unable to focus your blurry vision on the textbook that's a huge leap harder than your school one was. You know how you had £2.50 and you couldn't afford Maccies because you had to get the bus? Well now you have £2.50 and you can't afford the heating bill that inexplicably doubled this month... you also can't afford the money that the bank is charging you for not having enough money to pay the direct debit for the heating bill; the good news is that now you actually can get Maccies and walk home because you live above a chip shop down the road and everything you own smells like grease. All that free time you expected to get? You tried going to the pub and discovered how much a Jack and Coke costs now, so instead you went to the corner shop and bought a whole bottle of each, then you drank it while watching cooking videos for things you'll never be able to afford to make, and now you're inexplicably laying in the bath, still clothed, crying because everybody told you that if you worked hard this wouldn't happen, and you did, and it happened anyway, and now the news calls you a benefits scrounger, and your friends got jobs and don't invite you out because they know you can't afford it, and your family keeps sending you clippings for jobs you can't get, and it's been so long since you had a healthy meal that you can't tell whether the exhaustion is depression or a nutrient deficiency... so you call an ambulance and go to the hospital to treat your alcohol poisoning, and at 4am they tell you that they won't be providing you with transport home, and you spent that £2.50 on Maccies so now you can't get a taxi back, and it's a hungover, six mile trek back to your greasy flat.

There's a lot wrong with the world, but it really strikes me as strange that this issue isn't at the forefront - people would rather debate how oppressive covering a bra strap is than how teens are suffering at the hands of a flawed education system, hoping that all of their hard work will eventually pay off, only to find that everything has gone to absolute shit. Until we start educating kids better, until we start preparing teens better for what's coming, until we start improving the safety net for those struggling in our society, until we start acknowledging that suffering like this is a vicious cycle and not something that a "little bit o' elbow grease and positivity" is going to inherently always pull you out of, until we start acknowledging that this hell isn't some deserved punishment for not working hard enough as a kid, then everything else is just turd sprinkles atop the turd cake, sprinkles that we're trying to sweep off instead of cleaning up the giant steaming shit. People aren't pointing fingers at migrants or corporations or the patriarchy because they're xenophobic or a Marxist or misandrist, you've got the order of events entirely wrong - they realized everything sucked, and they wanted to fix it, and they found people who told them "This thing is to blame!" and so they were like "Stopping that thing will fix it!" - there isn't some inherent bias or hatred in most of these people, there isn't some giant conspiracy at work, it's people who are desperate to fix what's crushing them.

I don't have answers or some magical plan on how to fix the myriad of flaws and circumstances and trends that resulted in all of this - I just wanted to vent about how adulthood and teenage years and the world as a whole can really fuckin' suck, and I feel like everyone would rather win an online fight and call people names these days, like, just look at the number of people on talk shows who get close to the answer, get to "They're poor people, in dead-end jobs, with no prospects, miserable..." and instead of carrying it through to the logical conclusion of helping them, they swing it around to "They're deplorable, they're pathetic, they're bitter because they didn't get what they want". Wouldn't you be bitter? If someone ripped away your comfy journalism job, threw you into a hot grimey factory for ten hours a day, then demanded money you didn't have while you struggled to afford food or medical care, would you not be a little pissed at that person? Well they don't have a person to be pissed at, it's the whole situation, it's partially themselves, it's partially the world for not judging their best efforts as good enough and screwing them over, and they're hurting. It seems like everybody wants to fight an enemy, but what if there isn't an enemy - it's not a boss fight against some evil system or group, it's a bunch of shitty circumstances and chances in the form of ten thousand level one rats, and unfortunately you didn't have enough mana for an area of effect spell so they ate you.

#Mod Vaporeon #this was off the top of my head I really just needed to vent #it's not very well worded sorry #long post

10 notes · View notes

mysticscanlations · 7 years

Note

I have already read all the backstory about YW and still I don't like the guy at all (I really wish that HB goes to America and finds a person that really appreciate and loves him, not some a***ole like YW), once again sorry to all the YW lovers, but try to be realistic about him for a minute, the only good thing about him is his undeniable love for his mother, being handsome shouldn't be enough to forget all the damage hi has caused so far to wonderful people (JM and HB).

Why I still don’t like him? well, first: a shitty childhood can’t be enough to forgive all the actions of YW until this point, so If he steals his friend’s jar all shall be forgiven ‘cos he is a child and he’s just jealous?, sorry but nothing excuse a person to steal another person possession and what is more amazing is how he is totally incapable of some sort of empathy with other people feelings, he has always thought about himself and his mother without thinking about how all his actions have hurt a lot of people in the process (Semi, JB, JM) and he actually doesn´t even care, so why exactly should YW be liked? all because of his face? that’s all you look for in your SO? I don’t think so.

Second: in ch 84 is evident that all for him is a game and he just want something fun to past the time, because he’s always bored and needs some new entertaiment (HB in this case T_T), he admits it “at the start, it was a joke” so he didn’t kiss HB out of love (be realistic, he wanted to make HB nervous and he succeded, he wasn’t think “oh, how cute looks HB or I kind of like him”, nope, everything was a big fat joke to him, har har ¬_¬).

Third: I don´t really care if after that kiss he began to fall in love or whatever, the facts are that he toyed from the begining with HB insecurities and feelings, is that a good start for a relationship? then, let´s keep going, they start dating, so why not use a girl and her feelings for me to date another guy without suspicions, great plan, ‘cos that’s what YW wanted at the time, meanwhile HB’s father finds out about their relationship and I’m totally sure he threatens his own son and beat him up a few times (ch 21 flashback can be a perfect example of what HB had to endure to be with YW), and after all that drama YW realizes that the most important thing is his mother and his future, so nothing else matters, even after all the suffering HB has to go through for his selfish whim.

Fourth: so because of YW arrogance and confidence about HB’s feelings for him, after thinking for a while, he just breaks up with him in the most painful possible way for HB, and when he finally realizes about the progress in JM and HB relationship, YW finally understand that HB is not a puppy that will wait all his life to get his feelings returned, not HB, he’s a normal guy and one’s life should go on, you can’t possible expect that a person’s love will continue forever and ever without the right nourishment (and even less when he was throw away to be picked up later without even knowing the oh so great plan of YW), that’s not how it works and if YW really thought that HB will be his puppet and will dance to his rhythm he was awfully mistaken and now he has pay the price, what really satisfies me.

To summarize I can’t like a person that starts an homosexual relationship with an innocent and lonely guy just for fun (YW has mentioned a couple of times that HB is funny and fun to be with), makes him go through rough times with his violent father, then breaks up with him but when someone else show interest in him, he just made up with him as if nothing had happened and expects that all goes just the way he wants until the end without really understanding the pain and sorrow of HB, and actually has the nerve to tell his mother that “I foolishly looked past how much she(he) was hurting”, sorry but he is just a pretty a***ole to me.)

OH MY LORD ANON YOU WROTE A BOOK I RESPECT YOU. okay hold on i’m gonna try and respond to everything i can cause this is really interesting! i’ll answer them in the order of the reasons you listed to make things less messy ^^;; i’m also putting this under a cut cause it’s gonna be SO LONG

1) for me, i think author-nim showed yoo won’s back story to really drive home one thing aside from furthering the plotline/giving insight into his background: it was to show that yoo won was a character with flaws as well. of course, stealing the jar wasn’t a bright idea, and it shouldn’t be something to be waved off because “he was just a kid”. but it showed that yoo won, this person we’ve been seeing as this perfect and beautiful guy everyone admires in the present timeline, also has had his low points. he’s made mistakes and that makes him more human. in terms of his lack of empathy, i put that all on the circumstances he was put through. i mean, this kid was in fifth grade when his so-called first friend beat him up in front of his class, got completely ignored by everyone, and even openly teased by others in front of the teacher without repercussions. his personality drastically changed after that, and i think that made him sort of numb to others around him ever since he started closing himself off from anyone getting too close. and we can’t forget the reason why he’s started to only focus on his mother is because dong rae, the person who completely changed his life, gave him that one piece of advice before leaving: to live for only one thing and bury the rest in your heart. yoo won undoubtedly chose his mother, and has been following dong rae’s mantra all the way into his college years. he isn’t intentionally ignoring how his actions might be affecting others, i just think he’s grown used to not attuning himself to others since he lost his trust in their sincerity because of past issues

2) i can see how this kiss could be controversial since it’s evident that yoo won wasn’t taking this whole “wanna go out” thing seriously, but i still think there was some genuine interest on his part when he went in to kiss hee bum. HONESTLY, i don’t think he’d planned on going as far as kissing him until hee bum asked “but why do you want to date me?”. his internal monologue proved that when he stated that had hee bum not asked that question, he would’ve just been another hoobae yoo won liked to tease. so yeah, although him starting it off as a joke wasn’t really a romantic (or nice) start, i don’t think yoo won did everything for the sole purpose of messing with hee bum, since he has shown a lot of interest in getting closer to hee bum prior to this.

3) even if eldo’s claims that she was used as a shield were true, in the end i still think she still had the choice of breaking away from that role if she chose to. yes, yoo won might have had asked eldo to hang occasionally because it seemed more natural as a trio, but eldo also decided that she would pretend to get along with hee bum because she wanted to get yoo won’s attention. and in terms of hee bum’s dad (who i hate), i definitely don’t think yoo won was completely blind to the abuse. yoo won mentioned that even when the dad did find out, hee bum didn’t say anything about breaking up because he still wanted to be with yoo won. i can’t put the blame on yoo won for that, that’s all on his dad for being a terrible and abusive person. and don’t forget that yoo won did try to break it off with hee bum at the beginning. hee bum was the one who was completely in denial that they would break up, even chasing yoo won down to the academy to try and get back together. it wasn’t as if yoo won was forcing hee bum to stay in a relationship with him regardless of the abuse he was going through. hee bum was even more adamant on staying together.

4) this one confused me a bit because hee bum was the one who broke it off with yoo won, not the other way around. but you’re right that yoo won getting dumped was when he realized that hee bum wouldn’t be waiting around for him in the back, constantly giving him love. i think that realization is an important starting point for yoo won to address that he’s really closed himself off too much from others, even hee bum, while trying to prioritize his mother’s health and happiness. for me, i saw it as a precursor for yoo won to really develop in terms of how he treats others and putting the whole “throw away everything but one single thing” idea into a new perspective. i don’t particularly think yoo won is a bad person for this, though. just a pitiful person. he grew up believing he couldn’t really rely on anyone and followed the last advice given from a major significant figure in his childhood, and that led to the distant and whimsical way he was treating his relationship with hee bum.

5) but while it might have started off as a joke, like yoo won said, they did seem to develop to the point where both of them were equally committed to the relationship. i don’t think hee bum was forced into it, since he has the personality and nature to easily rebuff and back away from something he doesn’t like. i definitely don’t think yoo won made hee bum go through his father’s abuse. it’s not like yoo won told hee bum’s dad to hit hee bum for being in a relationship with him. even still, hee bum kept pushing to pursue the relationship even after yoo won broke up with him. for the last subpoint, i do think this only happens because of miscommunication on both ends. yoo won had the belief that hee bum would always be there for him and so he didn’t put much effort in maintaining that relationship because of it. but hee bum also never really voiced his concerns to yoo won. all those things about “feeling like he loved yoo won more than yoo won loved him” and being upset about it - these were all things he told jumi, not yoo won. i think yoo won was oblivious to just how much it was bothering hee bum because he never even mentioned it around him, which is why he kept thinking that hee bum was still in love with him and that everything was perfectly fine. that’s why i think they both need to talk to each other, fully and openly, so that these issues stop driving them apart.

THIS GOT SO LONG BUT ANON I REALLY LOVE DISCUSSING THINGS LIKE THIS SO THANK YOU. please feel free to send more asks if you want to continue to the conversation ^^ or anyone can feel free to add/comment to this post! i love reading analysis stuff on stories i love ahh

#ask #anon #analysis

18 notes · View notes

pinksweatergettingbetter · 7 years

Text

// y’know since I finished DD I've been trying to puzzle out why the ending was so unsatisfying, and I think I’ve figured it out

First off, I felt really uncomfortable finishing off the phantom; I actually ended up feeling bad for him during his breakdown. But why, though? His breakdown is actually pretty similar to Matt Engarde’s (cowering behind the bench in fright, tearing up his face). In fact they’re both quite similar villains: They’re both responsible for kidnappings in some way, both could be considered sociopaths and both pretending to be innocent.

However, where I hate Matt Engarde and take great pleasure in making him cry as I threaten to put him in jail or leave him at the mercy of an assassin... I don’t really feel anything towards The Phantom. I acknowledge his crimes were bad, but they don’t make me feel the same hatred, so I don’t really feel especially good taking him down.

In fact, the person I felt the most hatred towards in DD was Aura Blackquill, and her take-down wasn’t satisfying at all.

So I think the main problem with this ending is similar to the reason why everyone mistakes Dahlia as the arch-villain of T&T

Lets think about her for a second; Dahlia isn’t the true villain of Bridge; its Godot (as the murderer) and Morgan (As the person who put the evil plan in motion in the first place)

But we hate Dahlia with a fiery passion. Why?

Because she's A) Really Unpleasant, and B) She visibly hurt someone we care about as an audience.

Godot doesn’t register as the main villain because his actions (though stupid, selfish and fucking awful) were based from a good intention (not really though) and his victim was someone so peripheral that it hardly matters. Hell, we don’t even know who she is and how she affects someone we relate to (Maya) until quite late in the case. (tbh I actually don’t know why people don’t hate Godot more; he put every one of the Feys in danger for his own shitty revenge and he sucks. But I’m getting off track...)

Morgan doesn’t register as the main villain because she only appears in flashback and doesn’t do anything material. She’s still disgusting for treating her daughters that way and attempting to have Maya killed, but she doesn’t appear for us to hate.

So our hatred is laser-beamed at Dahlia, who is nasty, smug, and most importantly: She hurt someone we care about. We can see how much her actions destroyed Phoenix over the course of the entire game; his misfortune is the catalyst for us to hate her, along with what she had in mind for Maya. Same for Matt Engarde and Manfred von Karma; both of them visibly hurt and endanger Maya and Edgeworth respectively, who are characters we’ve come to sympathize with and love.

Nobody cares about Juan Corrida, Robert Hammond or Valerie Hawthorne/Terry Fawles’ deaths all that much because we don’t know them. If they had been the villains’ only targets, we wouldn’t have hated them as much. What makes them an Arch-villain is how they affect a main character. Redd White and Morgan Fey (in her first appearance) become closest to arch-villains in their one-off villain roles because of their involvement with main characters.

But, returning to DD, the Phantom doesn’t actually... do that. Sure, he killed Clay, who was Apollo’s best friend, and Metis, Athena’s mother... But they’re such non-entities that it doesn’t trigger my sense of sympathy. Now I’m not saying non-appearing characters can’t have weight; but the way to do this is to have their presence made known through the actions or words of more important characters.

We can feel Magnifi Grammarye even if we’ve never met him because of the effect he had on Zak, Valant an even Trucy. We can feel Misty Fey because of DL-6 lore and Maya’s own grief. We can feel Celeste Impax because of how broken Adrian is over her death. Or at least we can at least feel bad for Adrian and hate Matt because of it.

But they don’t do that in DD; they set up their expendable characters very poorly. Clay obviously means a lot to Apollo, and we’d probably feel his presence through Apollo’s grief....... if we were allowed to actually see Apollo’s grief. He’s basically shoved out of the story after Clay’s death to ‘investigate it on his own terms’, so apart from a couple of lines, we don’t really see how much it hurts him in depth. Meanwhile, (and this frustrated me to no end) NOBODY else seems to give two shits about Clay. Even Solomon Starbuck, his mentor, is more worried about Athena during the case. He basically has a line or two of how much it sucks to lose Clay, then he totally forgets about him.

I love Clay as a concept, but he’s drowned out by all the other grandiose plot elements and never given a proper funeral. So I find it hard to care about his death.

Metis gets things slightly better as Athena doesn’t go missing halfway through the game... but her death also only comes up pretty late in the game and, well... Her memories aren’t altogether great. As much as Athena says she loves her, she also explains her belief that her mother had been experimenting on her, and didn’t care much for her. And it’s fairly obvious that Metis Cykes wasn’t the most attentive of mothers, no matter what Simon Blackquill says to the contrary. Anyone who lets their naive 11 year old daughter play with heavy machinery is not a good mother in my books. So I loose sympathy for her.

Oh! And the person who grieves for her most? It’s Aura Blackquill, who is so bitter, cruel and selfish that I like Metis even less just by association.

So our main reasons to hate the Phantom don’t really stack up. Besides that, his previous bombings don’t actually have any casualties, unless you count what happened to the HAT-1 and Starbuck. At the same time, if I remember correctly, that’s actually the fault of Yuri Cosmos and the Government who allowed the launch even when there were threats from a spy. Good going, you guys. (that might’ve been the HAT-2 actually but tbh my point still stands.)

There’s no story-weight behind his villainous deeds. Also, there’s no malice; the Phantom doesn’t kill for the horrible reasons the other villains do. von Karma killed out of twisted and petty revenge, Matt Engarde was a vain and utterly self-absorbed monster, and Dahlia (and Morgan) were both selfish and hateful.

But the Phantom kills for two reasons; orders from a higher-up, and to protect his own identity. Sounds a lot like our Other Assassin, Shelly de-Killer, who I’m not sure anyone hates, really. (I dunno. I never hated him all that much) That obviously doesn’t make his murders permissible or forgivable in any way, but it lacks the spiteful motivation that makes us hate a villain. Phantom was just ‘doing his job’. Perhaps we’d hate him a little more if we knew the origins of his mysterious contractors.... but we don’t. We don’t even know if they’re evil. They could be the country’s own government for gods sake. Hell, even knowing that would add some intrigue. But we know diddly squat. He’s a nowhere man, living in a nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

In any case. The Phantom doesn’t provide us with evil personality traits or close-to-home crimes. Who does?

Aura Blackquill, of course! She’s highly unpleasant, her motivation is selfish hatred for a child, her actions are ridiculously overblown and ill-timed (could’ve done something a little earlier than the day before the execution, eh, Aura?) and the person she kidnaps?

Trucy. Our precious darling Trucy who we’ve had an entire game to get to know, love and sympathize with.

Of course I love (read: hate) how the game tries to play this off like it’s no big deal; Phoenix barely worries about her (in comparison to his constant stress/anxiety/near panic attacks over Maya in Farewell) and when she comes back there’s like 2 lines of her being all “Nah it was cool i just did magic tricks lol” Along with Aura asserting that “none of this could have been accomplished without me”. Yes, thanks Aura; none of this could have been accomplished without terrorism and kidnapping. You sure are a grade-A hero.

So we finally come to the final point of the Phantom; his lack of emotions. Or his semi-lack of emotions, or... Well. DD doesn’t explain it very well. Does he have emotions? Does he not? Are they very minor, or does he control them very well (...somehow? You can’t suppress an emotion so much that it disappears; by the Mood Matrix logic, they’d still be able to hear it easily underneath.)

Phantom gives the cliché spiel of “emotions make you weak”, until the heroes insist that they don’t. And then... He doesn’t go down with defiance? He doesn’t go down cursing emotion to his grave. In his last moments, something in our heroes’ words touches him and in a moment of self-reflection he tries to ultimately remember who he is. Most villains show no remorse, but the Phantom seems very close to perhaps taking a step in the right direction. He renounces his lack of emotions and gives in to fear, and his end is really honestly terrifying to watch (at least it was to me)

This might partially be that I still associate him with Bobby, who’s been pretty much my favourite character in and motivation for finishing the game. Whatever the case, the Phantom doesn’t really make me feel smug for defeating him. Just kind of... uncomfortable.

Then he gets shot by the most amateur sniper in the universe (unless this is just another plan) and carted off to the Police. And so, with that ONE SINGLE TRIAL, the Dark Age of the Law is vanquished. Because that’s how Trust works.

TL-DR; the DD team did a poor job of setting up concrete reasons for us to hate the phantom, making his defeat not particularly satisfying. Also the whole plot is garbage and i hate it but meh

#Dealing with DD #sorry for the wall of text ahaha #ooc #just trying to long-windedly puzzle out why the end stunk so much

2 notes · View notes

ruffoverthinksthings · 7 years

Note

My friend keeps making fun of me cause I ship Freddie and chad

Then your friend is an asshole inthat respect. I give them the benefit of the doubt and believethey’re a nice person in general, but there’s no justification tomaking fun of someone’s ship choices, especially if it’s not ingood, playful fun you’re both in on.

You know what? Have some ship headcanon for how these too started, in my mind:

Chad and Freddie are initially very ambivalent towards each other,and have a very casual friendship--they know each other, they willwork with each other for class, and they will hang out with each other if oneof their other, closer friends initiates it, but they will not calleach other up on their phones or on Facebook to chat or hang out.

All of this changes as Ben starts to expand the Isle-To-AuradonProgram (not its official name, but you get the point) and more andmore VK’s and some of their parents start to enter Auradon Prep,the schools of other states, and their society at large.

Chad, being the Charm that he is (and also incrediblyentitled and shallow) sees that quite a lot of those VK girls areattractive and interesting, especially after you finally give themaccess to things like proper diet, modern medical care, and hope that theirfutures are definitely not going to be as shitty as their parents’. Inevitably,because VK is the new trend, they’re exotic, and he’s beenflirting with essentially the same people for all his life, fromawkward oblivious childhood to not-so-awkward, sometimes stilloblivious young adulthood now, he decides to try his chances with theladies of the Isle. (Before you ask about Audrey, I assume theyeither broke up amicably, or their dancing together was just for SetIt Off to not feel like the odd ones out.)

And he’s successful.

He’s just as exotic to the VK’s as they are to him, he hasmuch better hygiene than most other boys their age from the Isle (andsometimes even Auradon), and he’s got the appeal of hisself-confidence, his being co-captain to Ben, and great geneticscoupled with being ripped as hell from being a very effective andactive Right Forward.

But, as with all relationships, superficial attraction only lastsfor so long, and if you wan the relationship to keep going, you’regoing to have to find something deeper than looks.

And this is where it all starts going downhill for him.

The Ladies of the Isle begin to realize just how little Chad hasto offer in the way of personality--and for them, having a strongpersonality with deep passions, convictions, and personal values is much more attractive than justbeing a pretty boy. (It’s a practical and personal appeal: driven,determined men who have non-superficial values they hold fast to makebetter partners, protectors, and providers in thedog-steal-from-other-dog world of the Isle.)

And unlike the womenhe’s used to, they are NOT nice about it.

They will, up to his face, tell him he’s boring, vapid, and waytoo obsessed with his looks and nothing else. They will tell himoutright that they don’t want him anymore because he’s just atrophy boyfriend--looks pretty, but serves no practical purposeexcept maybe to pawn off for something better. And when they cheat onhim, seeking what he lacks in other men (and women and non-binary genders, Isle standardsare VERY loose due to the inherently low, limited population), theyare merciless with explaining why they cheated on him, and have zeroregrets for doing it.

The Isle Philosophy is that it’s really not you, it’s them, and you weren’t a good fit, or more often than not, the relationship will work but only with sanctioned, monagam-ish infidelity.

But Chad doesn’t know or believe that.

For him, it’s Rejection on a massive, constant, emotionally devastatingscale, all the damage aimed at his sense of self-worth—an entirely new experience for him.

And one that he’s notcomfortable with.

For all his life, he’s always been led to believethat he’s the best, that he deserves all the love in the world, andhis high achieving life and the people that surrounded him onlyhelped reinforce that. And now here he is, like manynarcissists and children raised by overpraising parents before him,finding out the hard truth of life we all need to know:

He’s not actually as great as he thinks he is.

Because Chad has a VERY fragile sense of self-worth, and hasconsciously or unconsciously lead himself to believe that if he stopsachieving, if he stops being the best, if he stops being one of thehandsomest of them all, no one will like him, and it begins hisspiral into a deep, dark depression that affects everything.

His grades plummet when he stops studying and stops bothering toget people to do his homework for him—what's the point of gettinggood grades when he couldn't do it himself, when he'd have no smartsof his own to rely on if there isn't anyone to do the thinking forhim? He stops taking care of himself—he begins to realize just howvapid and superficial the motivations for his twice monthly constantteeth whitening, nightly moisturizing rituals, and “three cans ofhairspray a day” habits were. His performance in Tourney evenbegins to suffer, him being benched more often, Aziz becoming themain Right Forward than his substitute, and after a particularly badgame when Ben tried to get his confidence back up with a Big Scoreand Chad failed to get it, Coach Jenkins reluctantly begins toconsider letting him go for poor performance, and the demoralizingeffect his newfound personal crisis is having on everyone else on theteam.

The night after that game, after everyone including the visitingteam has gone home, he's sulking in the Tourney field, sitting in themiddle of the bleachers, alone, ruminating on everything he's everdone in his life and what he's going to do now that his life has beenupended, that he realizes everything he thought was important isreally so temporary and superficial, that he's found himself, for thefirst time in his life, feeling down, lonely, and unloved with noservant, parent, or friend ready to comfort him and reassure him ofhis greatness.

Enter Freddie, out on a late night walk with a flashlight inher hand. “Hey, Charming, what're you doing here in the dark?”she says, shining it on him.

Chad flinches and shields his face.

“Trying to go for that 'dark, brooding, and troubled' look thatthe Auradon Girls love so much? Because believe me, it reallydoesn't fit you,” Freddie jokes.

When Chad doesn't reply, she frowns, steps up to the bleachers,and sits down next to him. “Hey, Charming—Chad, what's wrong?”she asks, hands awkwardly placed in her lap.

Chad looks at her, and for the first time in her life, Freddiesees him vulnerable, hurting, and hopeless—not an unfamiliarexpression on the Isle, but something she never realized the AK'scould feel too.

“Everything...” he mutters, holding back his tears, before heburies his face in his knees.

Freddie looks at him, and frowns. She puts her hand on his back.“Come on, we're going to the kitchen.”

“What for?” Chad moans.

“Cause you need some beignets ASAP, is what!” Freddie says asshe stands up. “Now get off your ass, I don't want to have to bringout some voodoo just to get you to move your butt.”

Normally, Chad would take offense to this, but at this point, he'sgot zero fucks left to give so he just ambles along after Freddie. Hesulks at one of the counters while Freddie fries up some beignets,not entirely sure why he's here, or why she's doing this, but notexactly caring to find out.

Freddie slides up some piping hot beignets with an extra generoussprinkling of sugar. “Careful, they're still hot,” she says.

Chad just looks at him, then at her.

Freddie frowns. “For Christ's sake, Chad, the fuck is eating atyou?!”

Up until that moment, Chad has mostly kept his problems and hislife revelations to himself, wrongly believing that sharing youremotions and problems with others will make him look less manly,threaten the “Prince Who Has Everything” look he's been workingso hard to cultivate.

And at that point, he just breaks. He doesn't spill everything,because he's still pretty bad at the opening up part, but he doesshare his woes with Freddie, about how every single relationship he'shad with the VK girls have all ended badly—they break up with himand aren't so decent as to do it in person, they cheat on himconstantly and sometimes his seeing them and their new beau togetheris his finding out they're no longer a thing, if they didn't bluntlyreject him outright.

He starts crying midway through, and he's just too emotionallydrained to care that he's doing it right in front of an almost totalstranger.

Freddie listens to him, saying the bare minimum of words to tellhim to keep talking, clarifying his words or which VK he's talkingabout exactly (she knows all of them—again, small Isle, limitedpopulation of potential dates), and just generally letting him know that she is in facthearing what he's saying.

He finally ends by saying that the whole experience has turned himoff from dating FOREVER—he skips on all the other elements like hisgrades, his Tourney performance, and of course, his sense ofself-esteem.

“And…?” Freddie asks.

Chad goes from “sobbing his heart out” to “pissed” in an instant. “'And' what?”

“And what's the problem...?”

Chad just stares at her indisbelief.

“Jesus fuck, Chad, are you really this broken up because you gotrejected a couple dozen times in a row? Dude, you realize you wereflirting with ISLE girls, right? We are vicious, you shouldknow that!”

Chad frowns. “I didn't...”

Freddie sighs, and puts his hand on his shoulder. “Look, Chad?Two things you gotta understand about VK's and dating: one, peoplebreak up, make up, and break up again all the time, you don't get onechance to make a relationship work then that's it; you just gottawait, and maybe work on whatever it was that lead to you breaking upin the first place.

“And two: when it doesn't work out with someone, you just findsomeone else that'll hopefully work better.”

Chad looks at her, stunned. With their culture of “love at first sight,” “one true loves,” and amazing stories about two people overcoming all odds and differences to love each other, this is an honestly new, eye-opening revelation to him.

“That's what we did, and we all basically just dated each otheror someone else's beau, but we still made it work!” Freddie continues, unaware of how much she’s blown Chad’s mind. “How much better isit going to be for you, now that you've got literally millions ofeligible bachelorettes, most of which you've never even met before?”

Her eyes soften. “You can't just give up completely fromyour first bad breakup streak ever, Chad—I swear, there is at least onegal out there who's going to be happy to make you beignetswhenever you damn well want 'cause she loves you that much.”

Chad smiles, for what feels like the first time in weeks. “Someonelike you?” he jokes.

“What? Hell no!” Freddie replies. “Chad, let me be clear:I'm only doing this because there's nothing sadder, and moreimportantly annoying, than a heartbroken dude who goes aboutall day moping and whining about how 'Love is dead.'

“Now come on: get yourself some beignets before they get cold,” she says, holding the plate to his face.

Chad does, they're delicious, and he feels a lot better.

Later in their relationship, Chad loves using this story both totease Freddie about how wrong she was and how thankful she is thatshe decided to do all that for him.

Figuratively and literally, she saved his life.

#Descendants #Disney #Headcanon #Chaddie

13 notes · View notes