#if i hadn’t treated my depression and anxiety before my ed i don’t think it would have helped at all

[miniatureeyes]

I think the difference between those who survive eating disorders and those who don’t is largely based on suicidality.

The will and desire to live is essential for recovery.

[cookinguptales]

Today, SCOTUS is hearing arguments about whether businesses should have to cover birth control for their employees in their health insurance plans and I just. It’s hard to read.

I was going to make up this big informational persuasive post about the situation. But I’m just. I’m just so sad and angry and tired. So I figured I’d make an emotional one instead.

Let me tell you about my hormonal birth control journey. 

(Rest under a cut for length and content. cw: mental illness, graphic discussion of medical issues, injuries, & menstruation, discussions of suicide & self-harm, discussion of opioids, alcohol, & recreational drug use.)

 I started taking hormonal birth control late in high school to help regulate “painful periods”. It wasn’t for actual birth control at that point and I hadn’t been diagnosed with any disease, not even POTS yet. I just had “painful periods”.

Things were okay for a little while, but when I got to college, things started to fall apart. The double whammy of undiagnosed mental illness and a barely-diagnosed chronic illness (POTS was relatively unknown at the time and my doctors gave me information which I now know is incorrect) really caused me to spiral during my first year of college. I didn’t know it yet, but I react very poorly to some forms of hormonal birth control. Put succinctly, they drive me batshit insane. On one pill, I literally did not leave my apartment for over a month. I became very literally agoraphobic. Bouncing off the walls, irritable, angry, high suicidal ideation. As bad as side effects can be.

But I didn’t know that yet. I just stopped taking BC as part of the whirlwind of medicines and doctors that my life became for about two years while I was on my (first) medical leave from college.

My ribs were coming out back then. I didn’t know that yet, either. I knew that when I was around 16, I started getting severe back pains. The first time it happened, I had to go to the ER because I couldn’t breathe and my teachers thought I was having a heart attack. I got a narcotic shot in my butt. It did nothing to dull the pain. That’s how much it hurt. But it went away on its own eventually and I over the years I started medicating reoccurrences with a lot of different things. Physical therapy. Muscle relaxers. (Medically prescribed) opiates that made me puke. Prescription strength Advil. Wine.

I didn’t see that it was all connected yet. Not yet. I didn’t realize, with my periods as irregular as they were, that the back pains were coming around the same time in my cycle each time.

My “painful periods” got worse. I talked to an OBGYN, with my mother in the room. I told her that I was scared of something like childbirth. I knew that my blood flow was dangerously bad. What if the fetus didn’t get enough blood? Oh, my doctor laughed, that wasn’t a problem. The fetus would always get enough blood. The risk was that I wouldn’t. That it, like the tiny vampire it was, would take it all until I simply died. If I got pregnant, I would likely die. I asked about permanent sterilization. My mother cried. My doctor said no. I didn’t ask again.

I went back on birth control.

It was odd. I didn’t want children before that visit, not really. I was so tired all the time. I knew I’d never be able to manage to raise a child — and honestly, I didn’t care to try. I was so depressed. I was so sick. It sounded like so much work. I still don’t want to have kids. But it still feels… weird, knowing that I can’t. And knowing that I could die if I get knocked up.

I’m bisexual, but I have zero sexual contact with men (because I don’t love them, despite being somewhat sexually attracted to them) and zero sexual contact with people with penises (because they could literally kill me and it would be no one’s fault). But I’ve been followed home by men before. I’ve had cabbies lock me in and ask me for a date. I’ve had men who won’t take no for an answer. And my god, it terrifies me that I might have to deal with both sexual assault and a slowly creeping murder all at once.

(It’s laughable to think he’d be tried for both.)

I ended up getting sick off birth control a few times. I went on and off it periodically during my college career. I now in retrospect see that a lot of my “meltdowns” were a combination of discrimination-based stress, physical breakdowns, and hormonal whirlwinds. At my worst times, I was on birth control. The wrong ones.

My periods, over time, got worse. My back would hurt. The cramps were unbelievable. I couldn’t feel my legs. I could feel them too much. I couldn’t keep food down. I’d be so angry, so sad, so everything.

I went to the doctor again. I was diagnosed with both endometriosis and PMDD. PMDD, or premenstrual dysphoria disorder, is like PMS on steroids. I remember telling my doctor, in halting tones, that I wasn’t well before my periods. That I always had depression, always had anxiety, but I wasn’t well before periods. At her prodding, I confessed that sometimes I would just lie there for hours, for days, in the fetal position. That I’d clutch at my own arms, mooring myself, because I knew that those white knuckles were the only thing between me and killing myself. That my brain, always somewhat malevolent, became an inescapable mantra of death. That I’d just lie there and sob because it took everything I had not to hurt myself. That I’d find claw marks, bruises, on my arms later, and all I could do was get some ice.

It was better than the alternative.

I told my doctor about how painful my periods had always been. How I’d heard a story once about, y’know, that Spartan boy? The one who hid a fox kit under his shirt during an examination and stayed perfectly silent even as it clawed at him so he wouldn’t be caught with it? How it tore at his stomach until he fell down dead, still silent? I told her how I felt like I was holding a fox kit every damn month and sometimes I couldn’t stand the pain of it. Sometimes I considered ending that pain, one way or another.

She put me back on birth control.

A little less than a year later, or in layman’s terms, about a year ago, my mental health was so bad again that I was almost committed. Literally committed. I had to go stay with my parents for a few months while I transitioned to new medications because it wasn’t safe for me to be alone. I learned that the birth control I was on could create those symptoms — but they didn’t start until months after you’d started taking it. So you didn’t realize it was the medicine. You just assumed you were crazy and unlikable and so, so angry. At the world, at your loved ones, but mostly at yourself.

I learned, around that time, that I also had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. That the pain I felt every month right before my period wasn’t just cramps. It was my bones coming undone from their sockets. It was my hips dislocating. It was my ribs popping out of my spine. I realized that that lump my parents could feel in my back wasn’t a hard knot of tense muscles. It was my fucking rib poking out of my back. I learned that there is a period right before menstruation that mimics a period during pregnancy where your joints loosen — your body thinks it is preparing you for birth, for loosening your pelvic cavity so an entire head can pass through. For someone with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, that period of joint looseness was enough to wreak absolute havoc on a system of already-weakened joints.

I learned how to put my own ribs back in with a foam roller. I started drinking marijuana tea for the pain. I went on a different birth control. I stopped taking the placebo pills. I had to fully eradicate that entire portion of my cycle. Goodbye PMDD and ribs constantly popping out. I don’t miss you!

I am still on that pill, y’know. Every day I take it and wonder if I’m one step closer to the day when it inevitably destroys me. The last one took about a year. Tick tock.

Or maybe I finally found the one that works… I really just don’t know.

The fact of the matter is that I have a full handful of maladies that require birth control so I can function. PMDD, endometriosis, dangerous pregnancy, EDS. I need hormonal birth control. I would probably be dead by now without it. The PMDD especially was that bad. My internal organs are likely a scarred-up mess. But the birth control itself almost killed me, too. God, it was close.

Simply put, birth control is heaven and hell all wrapped up in a pill. It treats illnesses and it prevents pregnancy. In other words, it provides you with both freedom and peace of mind. It is absolutely essential. But it’s also monstrous. The sheer number of sometimes-deadly side effects that come with hormonal treatments is staggering. Which is why you need to be under a doctor’s careful eye when you’re on it. You need to be free to choose whichever brand you need. You need to be free to switch kinds at a moment’s notice. None of these things are possible in a system where these pills are not fully covered by insurance.

(And yes, I know, this is a stupidly American problem in so many ways. Obviously the ideal thing here would be single-payer for all medical procedures. But that’s not up for debate here and insurance for BC is. Because for some reason we let some people’s religious convictions determine others’ health care. But I digress.)

Please don’t worry too much for me. I have a good employer who has told me in no uncertain terms that I don’t need to worry about my healthcare coverage. But there are so many people just like me. Who may not have diagnoses yet. Who may have “problem bodies”. Who only know that they need to do something and that they might have to go through several pills to find it. Whose employers either have the strong religious belief that hormonal birth control is a sin or the strong religious belief that they want to pay as little as possible for their workers’ health care. (Call me cynical.)

Those are the people I worry about. Those are the people I feel absolutely sick over as I watch the SCOTUS argue whether we should be allowed to have life-saving medicine. The people who I know will fall through the cracks the second that the cracks are widened enough for them to do so. The people who will die.

It’s a tense time right now. It’s a tense time for very obvious reasons. But this morning I find myself to be even tenser, and my stomach hurts thinking about it. It feels like all I can do is stare at a pill packet and remember every horrible reason I need it and every horrible thing it’s done to me and I just.

It’s a lot.

[sleepyfan-blog]

hewwows!! may i request some more es!nedwarvin please? (im on pc again so you should see this?) ovo

fandom: ES!IBVS by @onebizarrekai

characters and pairing: Edward Quinton, Nevin Jovel, ES!IBVS Muffet

warnings: food

word count: 1,351

Summary: Edward and Nevin are on a date - although where Ed hasn’t said yet.

tagslist: @anxiety-is-married-to-depression @angelofthehalfmoon @trainwreck-of-skeletons @hisame-amadashi​ @therandomskelekey @capisnotonfire

“So where is it again that you’re taking me?” Nevin asked, a small pout appearing on his face as he tried to gently poke his boyfriend into telling him just where and what it was that the other had planned.

The young werewolf grinned and shook his head “I hadn’t told you where we were going. It’s a surprise Nevin! … you like good surprises, don’t you?”

“I… I guess I do. I just haven’t had very many of those recently. Although dating you has been one of the best surprises to date. I thought I hated you at first… Mostly because you were a pompous asshole, but you were able to worm you way into my heart pretty tenaciously… That and you helped me figure out what I needed after… After The Bite. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t helped me.” Nevin responded, sighing a little and shuddering. He still had the occasional nightmare of draining his grandma or Drew completely, unable to stop himself from killing them, as the bloodlust had driven him completely nuts until the thirst had died down.

“I… I don’t know either. But I hope that you would have managed to figure out what was happening to you before you seriously hurt anyone.” Edward responded, gently grabbing one of his boyfriend’s hands and squeezing gently. He was well aware of the other’s fears. “I’ll help you out in whatever ways I can, babe. Oh, and close your eyes. We’re nearly there!”

Nightmare sighed, closing his eyes as he noticed that Error wouldn’t move until he capitulated. He felt a little bit silly, but Error’s warm hand in his helped him feel better as the two of them continued walking.

The young vampire heard the tinkle of a bell overhead, and a warm, cheerful voice called out “Ah, hello Edward. Back again for some sweets for you and your brother? Who’s your friend?”

Error gently nudged Nightmare in the side and answered cheerfully “This is my boyfriend, Nevin! I brought him here ‘cause he’s a vampire and he’s never been inside this place before. And yeah, everything here is safe for you to eat - and will actually fill you up!”

Nevin’s eyes widened as he looked around the cozy little shop - it appeared to be a combination of a bakery and a chocolate shop… And everything looked so good. Part of him wanted to rush over to the glass counter and press his hands against the table top and smush his face against it like a kid, but he resisted the temptation. “The… The food here does look really good. Is this where you got those blood-chocolates from for our date a couple of weeks ago?”

Edward nodded, grinning brightly “Yup, sure is!”

The young vampire’s eyes lit up as he looked at everything with renewed interest. He paused for a moment, frowning a little bit “I… I don’t see a cost associated with everything. How do you know how much you’re going to pay for, if you don’t know the price of the items?”

The spider-shifter chuckles behind the counter, her eyes shining merrily “Ahuhuhu~! This one is very clever, dearie! I don’t generally ask for human money - most of the things that I need to make these delicious treats are magical in nature, and require… Other things. Eddie here tells me that you’ve got quite the eye for rare and precious things. Were you the one who found that wild field of magical berries early this month?”

“Yeah… Why? I’ve always been good at finding things. He was really excited when I brought him there. Ran home and back again with these huge buckets - as many of the berries as were ripe that we could physically lift and carry.” Nevin responded, tilting his head a little bit, still confused by what that meant.

“You see, your boyfriend here has been holding out on me - trading me pints of berries in exchange for quite a bit of that ice cream that his baby brother loves, along with chocolates and other sweet things… I suspect he has more of those berries to trade for whatever you want here. Barter is generally used in our world, dearie.” The woman behind the counter explained with a bright smile “Call me Muffet - I also have savory things - loaves of bread, rolls, sandwiches that would be discrete if you are interacting with humans regularly… And I’ve recently figured out how to make pizza for my discerning customers.”

“Ed…” Nevin murmured as he stared at the pizza - it wasn’t like his grandma’s pizza - which was objectively The Best… But it was pizza and  his mouth was watering just looking at it. Also those cinnamon rolls were calling his name too.

“Go on, order what you like. Those berries that you found and we collected will cover the cost of pretty much anything that you want.” Error encouraged with a grin “And yeah, I’ve been wanting to try the pizza since she first came out with it.”

Nightmare nodded, looking over each of the items and deciding what he wanted to try with care - not wanting to ask for a lot all at once - besides, what if he only liked some of what she made? “Cool - want to split a slice of every different kind of pizza that she has? It should be enough for the two of us. Oh! And I really want to try one of those cinnamon rolls.”

“Sounds really good to me - I’d also recommend a scoop of her ice cream - all of them are great.” Error encouraged with a small grin. “I’ll have one of the caramel pecan-praline, please?”

“Sure thing, dearie. And you, do you want ice cream? The flavors are on the board.” The other - Muffet, as her ID tag proclaimed her to be - asked of Nightmare.

“Uhh… The double vanilla scoop - with the cinnamon roll, please? And maybe a little bit of that sea salt and orange caramel sauce on the side?” The young vampire decided after a moment, nodding a little.

“Sure thing - twelve pints of those berries, please.” Muffet responded “And before you start to argue with me, you two are getting rather a lot of food, Eddie, dear.”

The werewolf scowled a little, huffing a bit and shifting from side to side. He growls for a moment “Eight at most. We’re only getting six slices of pizza, two scoops of ice cream and a cinnamon roll. Don’t think you can overcharge because Nev is here.”

“So you’re not getting the four-dozen blood pops that your baby brother loves so much? I was including that in the price, dearie.” Muffet responded back with a slightly sharp smile.

“… Fuuuck, of course I am. Twelve it is.” Edward grumbled, carefully pulling out the small boxes of berries and setting them on the counter, double counting before pushing them to Muffet “Twelve pints of magical berries, as agreed.”

“It’s always wonderful to do business with you, dearie~! I’ll bring out your food soon. Do you want the cinnamon roll and the pizza heated? On the house, of course.” Muffet questioned “Or are you taking all of this to go?”

Edward glances at Nevin, who shrugs. If they stay here, they’ll be tempted to buy more - but if they take the food out, they may have to deal with a hungry little brother pestering them for pizza and goodies if Geno and his little friend finds them. Which Geno inevitably does whenever they have goodies on them. “We’ll eat here - except for the blood pops, which’ll be coming home with me.”

“Very well, dearies~!” Muffet responded with a cheerful grin, grabbing their non-frozen orders and disappearing into the back for a couple of moments before walking around the counter and setting down two plates of pizza, as well as the cinnamon roll and the just-starting to melt vanilla ice cream. She handed him a cup of the caramel and vanished, returning with ice cream for Edward “I hope that you enjoy everything.”

The pair of teens nodded eagerly and dug in.

[luffywhatelse]

Even when there is no star in sight

A/N: I thought about Ed's moments of sadness, his nightmares, his guilty conscience and maybe feelings of inadequacy. And then I added Winry who helps him when he's physically and literally in pieces. It's set in Resembool, after the fight against Scar. Words: 2034 Genre: Angst, Drama, Romance, Hurt/Comfort Pairing: Ed x Winry Rating: T Completely immersed in water, holding his breath, he opened his eyes and came face to face with the woman who was watching him: a shiver ran down his spine and the boy sank even further, bumping on the warm bottom of the bathtub.

His mother Trisha just smiled, with chapped lips, giving way to a silence so deafening that Ed's eardrums were like about to rupture.

It's all physics, the pressure is blocking my upper airway, I need to keep calm – his thoughts were faster than light, so he just exhaled – "gas sylvester", carbon dioxide out of my lungs.

He laid still, until his survival instinct kicked in and made him emerge from the water as he continued to stare at the vivid apparition in front of him.

Now Edward was no longer holding his breath but felt trapped anyway; a cold windblast chilled him to the bones.

He kept his gaze on her, sitting on the opposite edge of the tub.

"Hi sweetheart, you need some help?"

His heartbeat quickened wildly; his eyes widened noticing her approaching him, graceful and loving as always as he stood petrified. The woman ran her fingers through her son's wet blond hair, softly touched his face, and then placed her hand on the boy's sore right shoulder.

"I was starting to think you’d forgotten me," she spoke in a sad voice kneeling at the side of the tub. "Don’t be scared of me, Ed," she whispered in his ear, her lips resting on his forehead while he blinked overwhelmed.

Then the woman moved away enough to look into his eyes, her expression became serious, her look darkened; she creeped him out.

"You’re even more feckless than you were as a child, or maybe you haven’t changed a bit," she pronounced those words a few inches from his face, looking him straight in the eyes. "Do it, Edward," she said imposing upon him but always keeping the distance, "Come to me once and for all." The boy's breathing became faster and, suddenly, in the distance, a familiar voice called his attention:

"Edo!"

He opened his eyes, immediately sat up in the middle of the tub and took a deep breath as the water spilled on the floor.

The steamy tiles in front of him looked like they were covered with tears. He sat for a moment in the ripples, clenched his left fist, grinding his teeth as a persistent ringing tormented his ears.

"Edo" the voice he thought he dreamed along with everything else was clear now. He looked up to the left, meeting those blue eyes.

He stayed like that for a few seconds, breathing heavily until that empty silence was filled again by the sounds of life around him. He felt reassured, everything had found its place and he gradually came back to reality: the mirror above the sink was completely fogged, the towels were white and fluffy.

He instantly remembered.

~ Edward hadn’t slept very much and was in a bad mood. His automail arm was still under repair after being destroyed in a thousand pieces and even just that made him very angry; then he couldn’t even toss and turn in his bed. At times he almost got the feeling it would have been better not to have any automail: because of the fact he was used to them, he took for granted every basic movement that he shouldn’t have been able to make.

But there were still a few days of unbearable discomfort waiting for him, at least until Winry had repaired the automail. Still in bed, he rubbed his aching neck, stood up and, limping on his temporary leg, moved on to Winry's laboratory. He found her sitting, bent over the table, and working. This also irritated him: knowing that she probably didn’t go to sleep at all just to complete those repairs as quickly as he had asked her.

He felt guilty, even though he knew he needed it.

Outside it was a gloomy day, befitting his mood, and he got a little bit of a headache.

Just what I needed – he thought to himself.

He entered the bathroom and remembered when brushing his teeth with his left hand was a challenge while now, after four years of training, he was completely used to it. He opened the water in the tub. The blowing of the hot water suddenly brought him back to a few days before, during the fight with the Ishvalian who had destroyed his mechanical arm. It was raining and Edward got knocked down, on the wet ground. Scared, he had tried to back away and escape from Scar heading straight for him but, in that moment of weakness, he had practically forgotten he no longer had an arm and so, instinctively he had put his right hand on the asphalt behind him, finding himself lying facedown, slamming his right side into the puddle of rainwater, with no support. Shocked, insecure. Helpless.

If the idea of being out of play for a few days made him mad, not being sufficiently self-reliant was even worse. Despite this, he felt the need to take a bath.

With a finger he grabbed the shirt behind his neck and tried to take it off, but he was so angry that he ended up in a maze of cloth that made him feel inside a straitjacket; he got out of it finally ripping it with a disjointed movement and a roar of rage. Exasperated, he took off his boxers and slid into the tub.

He sat down and felt the anger piling up; he knew very well that it was foolish, but he couldn’t do anything about it: phantom limb pain, trouble and frustration had always had that kind of effect. They made him angry and angry, generating a circle of pathetic thoughts. Sometimes, instead of pushing him to get to the end of the matter, that whirlwind of emotions depressed him horribly. There he was: a boy of barely fifteen, a disabled and increasingly pissed off State Alchemist, who had only hard knocks throughout his life, now was also pathetic, without an arm and with a prosthesis instead of his left leg that made him seem even more invalid.

Flooded with those anxieties but extremely tired, he had ended up falling asleep in the tub, exhausted.

~ "Edo, are you alright?"

Winry was on the door and he, still lost in his thoughts and his bubble bath, saw her enter.

"Come on, I'll help you,” she said.

"Wh-what?" he asked, caught unawares.

But she didn’t give him time to reply, "You were asleep in the tub," she said. With gestures that seemed so coordinated to him, the girl knelt next to the tub and wiped away a few drops of water – or maybe they were tears he hadn’t realized crying – on his face, under his puffy and tired eyes.

A dejavu brought him back memories; she had done the exact same gesture as they were kids and he told her he was afraid Al hated him. His eyes were covered with a cold cloth that was used to help the fever go down. She had it shifted to the right, finding his tears and drying them with care and apprehension. At that moment, Edward hadn’t felt exposed after showing her his sadness. He had allowed himself to be consoled – for as much as he could find comfort in such a situation – by that touch and that look which was so full of affection that had reminded him of his mother's, in some ways.

"Can I wash your hair?" she called him back to the present.

He nodded, even this time deciding to let her do that. Conscious of the pout that still puckered his lips and that he was unable to pave, exactly like when he let his mom treat his scraped knees as a child.

"Then lift up your head."

He obeyed, adjusting his back a little. She opened the water and guided his hand to take the shower head. Ed leaned back with his torso, keeping his arm up.

The touch of Winry's hands on his head was the first pleasant experience after nearly twenty-four hours of distress and sent a bolt of pure electricity down his spine. The bad mood was dissolving as if it was washed off.

Her hands began to draw small regular circles on his skull, dwelling in some points.

Edward left his own shoulders drop a few inches, realizing he had kept them tense all the time.

"Lift your head again, so I can rinse your hair."

He raised his left arm, which he had relaxed in the meantime, and squeezed the shower head before reaching back. The soft caress of the water was pleasant, but not as much as Winry’s touch while she took great care to ensure that not even a drop fall into his eyes.

She turned the water off again.

He lowered his head, still a little lost in the pleasure of that feeling. How long had it been since he felt pampered like that? When was the last time he had dared to put his pride aside?

Like he had already done before with his tears, now Ed decided to ignore the warmth in his heart and the need to let go completely and let off steam. He stretched his lips in a grimace trying to hold back that river in flood but the sweet taste of Winry’s tenderness reassured him.

"Can I wash your back?" once again she didn’t hesitate waiting for his answer and, with the same careful gestures, neither too slow nor too fast, poured the bubble bath on her hands and then rub them together, meticulously.

The contact of her hands on his shoulders caused him another shiver and this time he wasn’t able to contain it: his whole body shook under her touch. She seemed not to notice it and ran her hands over his shoulders and arm, down to his wrist. He felt the wrinkle in the space between his eyebrows disappear. She rubbed his shoulders up to his chest with energetic gestures that weren’t sensual at all, but he still had goose bumps. He didn’t dare look at himself, his body looked awkward, so he closed his eyes and gave himself up. He felt her spread the soap on his skin, even where the skin became more sensitive to tickling.

He kept his eyes closed, his breath stuck in his throat when she stopped. It was a moment that seemed to go on forever.

What happens now? He wondered. The sound and the heat of water were the only answers to his question. She was rinsing his body, always with the greatest care, which now began getting on his nerves: Why? Why is she doing it? The question suddenly crept into Edward's mind. Not only she was working hard on his automail, giving him priority over any other job she had to complete. But now this. He felt kind of useless.

You’re even more feckless than you were as a child, those terrible words Ed’s unconscious had made his mother say were in his head like a scream that went on and on. And insecurity came back aggressively. Did Winry act out of pity? He didn’t want her pity!

Then the water stopped flowing again.

"I'll get you a towel," she said.

She wrapped his hair in the towel and, once again, he was impressed by her manual dexterity. Winry's face was a few inches from Ed's but he suddenly looked down.

“Thank you…” he whispered. His hand reach out to her and then grab her wrist, "Now just get out… please, Winry."

The girl didn’t speak but silently and gently put her hand on his shoulder and stood up.

Edward, not showing it, surrendered himself and focused on her touch. He felt Winry was truly by his side and connected to him; that wasn’t like a touch that’s perfunctory or detached, it was warm, loving, grounding and gave him a sense of calm stability that immediately made him feel safe.

And just like that, Ed felt that everything made sense again.

[bigbluebarns-blog]

ABLEISM REDUX

Well… There are so many different dimensions of disability that people can be ableist toward those with different disabilities than their own. …And it’s only in the last couple of generations (within my lifetime, at least) that Disability Rights groups have banded together in a common cause (Rather than, say: Rights groups for the blind working only for the blind, Rights groups for Cerebral Palsy working only for Cerebral Palsy, etc.).  Matter of fact, based on my own recollections, I think working together for universal access rights only really got any steam in the 1970s – when I was already a teenager.

Confession time: until relatively recently (like, the last 10 years, or so), as a physically disabled person, I was biased against those with intellectual disabilities, and would get quite insulted if anyone mistakenly thought I was “R

—–ed.”

@theborkplanet IDK HOW TO SEPARATE MY COMMENTS FROM YOURS AND COMMENTS FROM YOURS. HENCE THE CAPS. 

I WAS ALSO BIASED AND PROBABLY STILL AM SOMEWHAT, TOWARD PPL WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES(ID). I TOO USED THE R WORD. GROWING UP MY EXP WITH PPL W/ ID WERE NEGATIVE OR GROSS, AND NO ONE EVER BOTHERED TO EXPLAIN SOMEONE’S ID TO ME, SO ALL I KNEW WAS NEGATIVE BEHAVIORS EG JO GRABS STUFF AND SCREAMS; NO ONE EVER EXPLAINED HER AUTISM. MOE HAS DOWNS SYNDROME, IS OBSESSED WITH SAYING “BOOBIES” LOVES THE EFFING BEACH BOYS AND FARTS A LOT AND NEVER SHUTS UP; HOW ANNOYING; NO ONE EVER TOLD ME ABOUT PERSEVERATING, OR THAT DS CAN CAUSE GI PROBS SOMETIMES. AL MUTTERS, HE STINKS, AND HE KNOCKED OUT HIS AIDE SO I’M AFRAID THAT AL WILL GET ANGRY WITH ME AND KNOCK ME OUT; NO ONE EVER EXPLAINS HIS CONDITION, SO I GLEAN MY INFO FROM EAVESDROPPING and RUMORS. THE ABLE-BODIED ADULTS DIDN’T BOTHER TO PROMOTE UNDERSTANDING EVEN THO WE WERE ALL TRAPPED ON THE SAME SPECIAL ED BUS, SO THE PASSENGERS WITHOUT ID TALK SMACK ABOUT THE ONES WITH ID. THE ONE TIME I ASK, “WHAT’S AL HAVE?” ABLEBODIED ADULT SHAMES ME FOR ASKING AND BLATHERS ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY. NOT TRYING TO JUSTIFY MY PREJUDICE; JUST RELATING EXP. I’M ALSO WORKING THRU IT BUT U R RIGHT; NEVER 100% DONE. 

I’m working through it, and like to think I’m getting better (and one huge part of that is learning just how deep and intertwined institutionalized ableism really is, in our societies). But as with being a White woman dealing with racism, I have to remember that it’s a case of continuing recovery, and not something I will ever be 100% over and done with.

Thanks for sharing, @aegipan-omnicorn. You’re lovely.

@bigbluebarns, I don’t personally know anything about suffering racism, being a white american myself. However, I do know a thing or two about suffering ableism, both at the hands of able-bodied people, and disabled people.

People are incredibly social animals and will band together in groups with other similar people. This is natural, and it is good. It can be healing and cathartic to hang out with people who “get it.” But this tendency can also have an extremely dark side, as we see with “isms.” This is going to get long, so I’m going to break it here in consideration of people’s dashboards. Again, I can only speak to ableism and sexism so please keep that in mind.

OMG, I LOVE THESE NAMES AND TRADEMARKS. DID U INVENT THEM?

Ableisms I have suffered at the hands of disabled people:

The Cripple Police™: These are the people who, in an overzealous bid for limited access available, arbitrarily decide who is disabled enough to use a mobility aid, bathroom stall, parking spot, and even sometimes the label of “disabled.” If you are not Crippled Enough, you can be subject to any form of social punishment they deem to be necessary.

I HATE THE CP AND I’M CONSTANTLY REMINDING PPL THAT U DO NOT HAVE TO APPEAR DISABLED IN ORDER TO USE HANDICAP PARKING. IT’S LIKE THEY WANT U TO WEAR A TAG STATING U R DISABLED SO THEN THEY CAN ASSESS IF U MEET THEIR RANDOM CRITERIA.

Example: I used to be able to walk longer distances with a service dog, but was still a high fall risk. My doctor (a licensed neurologist) prescribed me a parking placard so that none of us had to worry (as much) about me passing out in a parking lot where no one could see me, and getting run over. A lovely woman in a wheelchair, who just happened to park in the accessible spot next to me, proceeded to scream at me and my service dog all the way into the store. A manager rescued me by going along with my ruse of knowing him, and invited me into the back were I fucking hid away until they told me she had left the store. It. Was. Scary.

EGAD SOUNDS HORRIBLE. BUT YEAH THERE IS A DISABILITY HIERARCHY

The Born This Ways™ : The experience between people who were born disabled, and who acquired disability later in life, vary a great deal from one another. BTW ableist types actively minimize the experiences of other disabled people, simply because they hadn’t been baptized since birth by xyz. In other words, the suffering was not identical to their own, thus must be invalid.

Example: I became disabled after adulthood, and tried to find solace after being subjected to ableist responses from friends and family members who were unable to cope with the “broken me.” I found lots of great disabled people who helped me, but I also found people who routinely scoffed at my experiences, again informing me that I was not “disabled enough,” and suggested I was being deliberately weak, or histrionic. Sometimes it was almost eerily word for word what my ableist friends/family said. How strange…

I’VE SEEN THE ACQUIRED DISABILITY IS BETTER. TM ADIBS MIGHT IMPLY, “WELL I’M A QUAD, BUT AT LEAST I GOT TO EXP BEING ABLEBODIED; I’LL HAVE EXP U SADSACK LOSER BTWS WILL NEVER HAVE. I GOT TO BE NORMAL FOR A WHILE” MOST OFTEN I SAW IT COME FROM PARALYZED PPL WHO WISHED THEY COULD WALK AGAIN. I WAS BORN WITH CP AND AB PPL ACTUALLY ASKED ME “WOULD U RATHER BE BTW OR AD?” BEFORE I THOUGHT ABOUT IT, I SAID “BTW, CUZ THATS ALL I KNOW AND I’VE HAD IT FROM DAY1 FALSE EQUIVALENCY WHEREAS ADIBS HAVE TO ADJUST” NOW THO I KNOW THAT EVEN I AS BTW HAVE HAD TO ADJUST TO CHANGING SYMPTOMS. DO U WANT 2 BE A TREE OR A MOUSE...UHHH...FALSE EQUIVALENCY ALERT, CAN’T COMPAPARE APPLE N ORANGE.

The Faker Police™: I think anyone with an invisible illness has experience with this one. This is when people who “look disabled” refuse to believe someone who “does not look disabled,” and proceed to treat them as hysterical attention seekers instead of…well, anyone else. These people often practice double ableisms–I have noticed that many also tend to judge Disabled Enough based on mobility aids. Then, they try to chase the “fakers” out of the community, because everyone knows “fakers” are why we have additional burdens added (like further hurdles to access, government aid, etc).

ALSO IF U HAVE AN INVISIBLE DISABILITY LIKE YOURS AND ME ALSO, I SEE THE “WELL EVERYONE GETS DEPRESSED/SAD/TIRED.” I END UP FEELING LIKE I HAVE JUSTIFY THE DISABLING NATURE OF MY DEPRESSION/ANXIETY TO A WEG. 

Example: Before my condition had progressed to me needing a mobility aid, I was already facing discrimination in the workplace. I requested an accommodation to have the crappy fluorescent lights removed from above my desk, as they provoke bad neurological symptoms. You’d think it was a little thing, but when I asked for advice on dealing with skeptical and belligerent management, I met the same reactions in some disabled people, followed immediately by “Fakers like you are why we see knee-jerk reactions like the word ‘no!’ Come complain when you’re actually disabled and need to have a ramp installed! Until then suck it up!”

The Totally Qualified Disability Judges™: This one seems to arise from the natural tendency of people to compare their situations to the situations of others. If they arbitrarily judge another person’s situation to be better or more favorable, then that person is not As Disabled, or Disabled Enough, or Disabled At All. Then, based on that judgment, they try to socially punish the condemned, or to excommunicate them.

Example: Some conditions are really straightforward and don’t vary widely. People with the condition all seem to have similar limitations. My condition is the exact opposite of that. I have the chronic form of migraine disease. Lots of people get migraines, but not all of them have more than 15 a month, and migraines can last anywhere from a few hours to three days. To some people, pain is the most disabling feature of a migraine, to others, the accompanying neurological weirdness is. (Migraines are often proceeded by cortical spreading depression, a phenomenon also exhibited in epilepsy. Just for an example).

So, when people hear what my condition is, they remember that one lady they used to know who had to lay in the dark for a couple days each month, and wonder why the hell I’m in a wheelchair. It doesn’t make sense to them (who cares that migraines don’t make sense to the most brilliant neurologists in the world), so they decide that I just must not be disabled. Or, if I am, it’s hypochondria. 

 I’VE SEEN: YEAH HAVE U TRIED XYZ CURE? IT REALLY HELPED THAT 1 LADY. IF U DON’T TRY XYZ WELL THEN UR LAZY N ALSO PROBABLY FAKING THE EXTENT OF UR DISABILITY?

Fun fact: Internalizing ableism from medical doctors, and from some close friends and family, and THEN the disabled people I came into contact with later, and from whom I seeked guidance, prompted so much self doubt that I had a licensed psychologist work me up for hypochondria and other related psychological conditions. It…turns out that I am not a hypochondriac. I could not find relief from all of these experiences until I encountered a neurologist familiar with my condition, and fellow disabled people who have been around the block, and who are not so embittered by their experiences that they deigned to expose others to the same.

For that reason, I will always be vocally critical of ableism within our community. I will not sugar coat it, nor will I flatter ableist disableds by giving them another name. That goes for my own ableism, too. Now that I have worked through a lot of my own, I can use my aids with confidence and obtain a freedom that is at least emotionally similar to the one I had when I first formed my adult identity (which was as an abled person).

AH YES, IN MY CASE, INTERNALIZED ABLEISM=ANXIETY N DEPRESSION. STILL NOT SURE IF DISABLED PPL CAN BE TECHNICALLY DISABLED BUT THAT’S JUST LINGUISTIC SEMANTICS.

CLEAERLY WE BOTH KNOW DISABLED PPL ARE CAPABLE OF ASSHOLERY.

CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO BOLD TEXT IN POSTS? #TUMBLR NOOB

For an example of sexism from women, see my post Never Underestimate Old Women, in which an old lady cashier schools us for self-righteous activism.

Thanks for the discussion!

[fightingmama-blog]

This is long. Please read it. This is a story of The System and how it fails kids. More than that, it’s a story of how people within The System are complicit in this failure. All year I’ve been saying it feels like I’m living a British sitcom because this stuff is just too crazy to all happen to one person at one time. Everything I’ve written is true. I have permission from my daughter to share it, but I want to do so anonymously. Please share this far and wide. I want the world to know how stupidly difficult it is to simply live when your brain is trying to kill you.

 My daughter is 15 and has been struggling with severe depression and anxiety for the past year – well, for longer than that, but with suicide attempts and hospitalizations in this year.

 None of this is or has been secret, but it’s hard to talk about, to make oneself vulnerable. Mental illness is difficult enough to talk about without also feeling like a failure as a mother (regardless of whether that is logical or not). I have learned this year, though, that all of this is a lot more common than I ever thought.

 I think the worst thing a parent can face is the idea that the child they created doesn’t wish to have been created at all. The scariest thing I live with is the idea that I might wake up one morning to find her body.

 I first learned of the suicidal ideation (SI) last November. Immediately I went to her school for help because not long before we had had a meeting to support her anxieties and I was told they could help in these cases. They did nothing for a full month, despite me calling weekly to check in.

 She eventually began receiving therapy at a place called Nueva Vista (NV), but not until the end of January. Her first psychiatrist appointment was not until nearly a month later and she wound up not making it because of her first hospitalization. The doctors in the hospital started her on meds, though. I could not get another appointment with the NV psychiatrist for almost another month and she wound up missing that one, too, for the same reason. At this point I demanded that they see her sooner and they made it happen.

 Before, I never really understood the need to pull a child out of school for a doctor’s appointment, but now she’s been pulled out on a regular basis. Sigh.

 She was hospitalized once more in April, this time due to a reaction to a new medication they had tried.

 A few weeks later we were told that NV provides services in sets of 13 weeks. She was at the end of her first one, and they were applying for a second, but that she would likely not receive a third. I was a little upset because we hadn’t been made aware of any of this at the beginning of our time there. But they promised us a number of things:

 1. That they would prepare her for the end of services.

2. That they would help us find services to transfer into.

3. Worst case scenario, they could end services, we could wait three weeks and reapply.

 In May we had an IEP finalized for her to help her with this at school. For those who don’t know (lucky), an IEP is a legal document for special education written to provide services, support, and accommodations for a disability.  Her IEP stated, among other things, that she would get a therapist at school. The school wanted to write in 730 minutes per year, but my advocate (a very close friend who is a special ed teacher) would not settle for that, knowing that it wasn’t specific enough. Schools are notorious for not writing IEP’s properly and not following them when they do. There is a whole branch of law devoted to suing schools who do not provide accommodations to their students. Anyhow, my friend insisted that my daughter’s IEP state the therapy be provided at least every other week. This turns out to have been a necessary thing, because they did not actually hook her up with a therapist for 3 months.

 And then that first therapist? She told my daughter, “If you cry all the time, how do you expect to have friends?”

 Other fun things her teachers, school staff, or even her IEP case carrier have said to her, KNOWING her IEP is for depression/anxiety:

-You look too sad all the time. Why don’t you look happier?

-You made me feel like I did something wrong.

-Well, if you don’t talk to me, how do you expect me to help you? (This one in the middle of a panic attack.)

 To jump ahead for a moment, because it will just be easier to get all the IEP stuff out of the way, I requested an IEP meeting at the end of August to revise the IEP and, while they held the initial IEP (and I refused to sign it because it wasn’t complete yet), they have STILL not finished it.

 During May and June I was dealing with my son’s (12 yo) extreme anxiety. He had entirely lost the ability to participate in school, partly due to a new curriculum, but, I think, largely out of the anxiety he felt over his sister’s health. In trying to find him therapy of his own, he was given an eval at a place called Motiva, but they felt he was too severe for their services and they referred him to NV. THAT was a whole damn mess. They didn’t want him and they gave me a whole host of excuses:

 1. He can’t be seen there until autism isn’t his first diagnosis (yeah, that will never happen).

2. He can’t be seen there without a diagnosis (first of all, the referral from Motiva listed a diagnosis, secondly, my daughter didn’t have a diagnosis until they gave her one AFTER she was being seen there).

3. Why couldn’t Motiva just see him, anyway? (Because they don’t do family/group therapy or have access to a psychiatrist)

 Eventually, Motiva convinced them to take him, but I don’t feel like their heart is in it. I really don’t. He hasn’t been referred to the psych, and they are already talking about ending his services at the 13 week mark despite the fact that it took them 8 weeks just to get him to talk to them at all.

 NV is considered a medium-high severity mental health clinic. I don’t see how a child being hospitalized three times in three months isn’t considered severe. I don’t see how a child being unwilling to consider talking to a therapist at all for 8 weeks isn’t considered severe.

 And yet, one day towards the end of summer, my daughter’s therapist told her she had one visit left. I had assumed that they would TRY to get her the third set of sessions, but they didn’t even TRY. They also had not:

 1. Prepared her for the end of services.

2. Helped us to find care to transition into.

 I demanded to speak with the director of the place. This was a terrible idea. The director, Bill Simpson, is a terrible human being. You would think that a director of a mental health clinic would understand how to speak to people, particularly those in crisis. You would be wrong.

 During this conversation, he told me that the reason they could not apply for a third set of sessions is because the county would never approve such a thing unless the child had been hospitalized in the previous two weeks. I mean. That sounds like a thing that might be true, but it also sounds like a thing that a doctor could potentially make a case for more care for a child in a particularly special place (i.e. one who had been hospitalized three times in the past year, and who was not stable on her meds even after more than six months of trying to figure out the right meds for her).  And yet he told me (and he repeated it several times), “absolutely I would refuse to help your child.” He claimed that if he even submitted one request for a third set of weeks without the right criteria, the county would refuse to approve any requests ever. That? I have a hard time believing. And even if it were 100% true, I am certain he could have found a kinder way to convey that information.

 When I tried to convey the promises I had been made by the staff 13 weeks ago, he brushed me off, saying that he couldn’t believe everything everyone says they are told. It felt a little gaslighty.

 He also told me there is no such thing as long-term therapy.  Did I already mention gaslighting? Cause that statement right there is the king of crazy.

 I am not even kidding you when, at a later date, I asked how to complain about the way he treated me and I was directed to their in-house comment cards instead of the proper county forms that the office doesn’t have access to. I’d love to believe that was a simple mistake.

 Every time I try to discuss these things with the staff in the office, they nod at me and say, “I’m sorry you felt that way.” But it is so clearly empty. They don’t actually care, or perhaps they do, but cannot act in any way helpful because of the way the director runs the place. I don’t know. In the end it’s irrelevant because it is simply not helpful. I don’t feel heard and when I try to explain that they are able to say, “Well, I apologized. What more do you want?” It is a very crafty way to dismiss a person.

 I am getting quite good at spotting this sort of manipulation, though, and I refuse to play along. My tactics tend to be reminding them what they said two minutes ago, comparing that with the opposite thing they are telling me now, listing all the conflicting things they have told me during the conversation, and listing all the evidence I have from previous experiences. I am never loud, I am never rude, I never curse or insult. I simply state truths. I am always treated as hostile.

 We tried to find a new therapist for her. We spoke with a place called YES through San Ysidro Health Center and the woman who did the intake was so kind. She told us that they had plenty of kids who’d been patients there for years and that I should come in and talk with her and she’d take care of my daughter. It felt so good to be heard, and to hear the promise that someone would help us.

 They did not help us. They contacted NV who told them that my daughter had “met all her goals” and so they were not able to serve her at YES either. They said they could refer to the general San Ysidro Health Center, but I know (because that is the clinic where my doctor is) that their therapy is not traditional therapy. They only offer 30 minute sessions and most of the work is done at home, alone.  That is not nearly the kind of care my kid needs right now.

 So around this time, my daughter’s psychiatrist was still adjusting her meds so they could not fully close out her case at NV. She continued meeting with her therapist, but just for 20 minute check-ins instead of the full appointment. She had been on Lexapro since April and it was working well, but not well enough. So we tried Wellbutrin in August. It was a kind of a gamble, as anyone experienced with Wellbutrin knows, but it seemed to be a miracle drug for my kid.  She was almost normal for the first time in more than a year! But that only lasted two months. The psych had tried raising it, and then raising it once more.

 We saw the doctor one last time the week after they raised it a second time. Here is where things get really upsetting. My daughter had never been stable on meds. She is proving extremely difficult to treat. The longest period of stability were those first two months on Wellbutrin. The doctor’s nurse had found us a new psychiatrist, but the waiting list to see them was three months long. I kept trying to explain how the math doesn’t add up: three months without psychiatry for a kid who’s never been stable more than two months is not good math.  Further, we kept telling the doctor, the case manager, the nurse, and the therapist that her SI was increasing and that she was feeling worse and worse. The therapist kept responding by saying, “Yes, but you have coping skills now!” They would not listen when my daughter would try to explain that coping skills can only do so much when your brain is trying to kill you.

 The very day she had her last appointment with the psychiatrist, I had to take her in to the ESU. The Emergency Screening Unit is a pace you can take a kid in crisis and have them screened 24 hours a day by a nurse. This is one way to be admitted to a mental health hospital unit, and my daughter had been in the ESU twice already so we were familiar with the process. They kept her overnight, but then they released her, stating that she should continue the services she already had. When I tried to explain that she didn’t really have services, she only had one exit session left, they looked at me blankly and either told me that NV would help her find services (they wouldn’t and didn’t – not for therapy, anyway) or they just repeated the last thing they said before I confused them with things that are happening to us. I mean, believe me, I am also confused. But not helping is, it turns out, not helping.

 Luckily (?) because my kid had been officially suicidal again (it’s not real unless a doctor outside of NV had been told?) they were able to extend her therapy for the third set of 13 weeks.

 But not the psychiatry. Honestly, I don’t know why.

 JUST before we found this out, though, my daughter flipped out one day and had to be taken in again.

 It was a good day. She’d had a good day, and a good evening, and she seemed fine in the night, too. I was tired and trying to talk her into going to bed. She cheerfully, and entirely unsleepily told me she would. And then I heard music. And then she was getting up and going into the bathroom. I knew she wasn’t going to bed, but I had no idea she was in her room self-harming and trying to commit suicide. (For the record, all the medication and sharp things are locked up.) I was trying to just let her be a kid, but finally something in me took over and forced her to answer me as to what she was doing. And she fell apart and started crying. So I knew I had to take her in, but she told me, “What if my brain makes me run away from you outside?” and I knew that she was telling me she didn’t feel safe enough for me to drive her myself.

 Do you know what happens if you cannot drive your own kid to the ESU? You call the police and they take her away in handcuffs. It’s traumatizing for everyone involved. Luckily, we DID know that is what would happen so we weren’t blindsided by it. But it was still awful.

 I followed them to the ESU and it turned out to be a very, very late night. I wound up falling asleep on a couch there and they woke me at 3am to talk with the doctor about admitting her. I believed she would be hospitalized. I didn’t expect what actually did happen, though.

 There is a place at the same facility that ESU is at. It’s called Intensive Respite Program (IPR) and it’s not quite a hospital in that the kids there have more freedom. They can have some belongings, they can have visitors at any time, they can even leave for awhile. We got to have her home with us for Thanksgiving, which was wonderful. It is very small – three kids max and each get their own room. They spend all day doing work from therapy to DBT to sensory experiences (they have a whole room devoted to sensory stuff). It’s really a beautiful program.

 But my favorite part is the people. The director, Hillary, is amazing. The therapist there is, too. They have reacted appropriately to our story. That is to say that they are appalled. They have made the decision to keep my daughter there until her services on the outside are in place (about another week). They have given me the number to a special ed lawyer to help me prepare to talk to the school. They are coming with us to the school. They have already met with us and our wrap team (a program called Families Forward). I am so grateful to them.

 I don’t know where this will lead. Maybe we will get dumped again. I mean, why not?

 But I don’t think so. They’ve already shown us they are with us.

 But here’s the thing. Repeatedly I have had to check on people, to make sure they are doing their jobs, to ask them to do their jobs.  It’s ridiculous. I’m a single mom. I’m quite poor right now. I’m a full time student. I have TWO kids with special needs. I have no family support. I have enough to do without doing the work other people are paid to do.

 I have been praised multiple times by various sources (some genuine and some probably less so) for my advocacy for my children. But that only goes so far. When you face one brick wall after another there’s not a lot you can do.

 I don’t know if this happened (is happening) to us because we are poor, or because this is mental illness we are dealing with (would a physical illness get the same treatment? to the same degree?), or if it’s just the way things are for everyone, but it’s not acceptable. We MUST stand up for healthcare, for mental health, for children. This is just not okay. It nearly broke me, and may still do so. Please. Someone. Fix the system.

[selfiecharmedlife]

RE: Process posting vol 1: Why did this bum me out so much

               I don’t have a goal in mind for this post, but I have a starting point and I want to see where I end up. Recently, I saw a movie and anyone in the same discord servers as me is likely aware that I felt a pretty strong reaction to it. I just can’t quite figure out why. Maybe a writing exercise will help me unpack what’s going on in my broken brain.

                Background stuff: Hibike Euphonium is a show about a high school band that follows a freshman euphonium player as she goes through high school. Egos clash, characters grow, and they play music together as the main set of characters get older and transition from being mentees to leaders. As a former 1st chair, band was a huge part of my high school experience. Euphonium’s accuracy to what it’s like being in a high school concert band is almost frightening at times. One of the seasons of the TV anime had the main character grilled in front of the band for continuing to fail a part. I’ve been in that position and the tone the band director’s voice actor took sent me back to my high school band days. When the scene was over, I realized I had been holding my breath. As the band performs, you can hear the kinds of mistakes a high school band makes and even minor things like the sound of a tuning slide moving are put front and center. Those little touches mean so much to me. The animation is also stunning. Basically, I highly recommend it and could gush for multiple posts. 

               As per most of the shows I write about, it’s also got some gay. The protagonist, Kumiko, and the band’s star trumpet player, Reina, are middle school classmates entering high school with distance between them that gradually closes. Kumiko admires Reina unabashed desire to stand out and express her talent. When a trombone player makes it obvious that he’s interested in Kumiko, she doesn’t return his affection and instead keeps developing an increasingly intimate relationship with Reina. Several scenes across the two seasons of the anime suggest their interest is more than platonic so much that other characters comment how comfortable they are with each other. 

               It’s one of my favorite series so when the movie came to American theaters last week, I got my gay ass together and went to see the gay band girl movie. The first scene has the trombone boy Kumiko had previously shown romantic disinterest toward confessing to her. She has a surprised reaction and the opening credits play. We don’t see her response, but throughout the movie there is a running sub-plot where we find out she agreed to date him after the concert season is over before further ultimately postponing it further at the end of the movie after he tries to kiss her. This was contrasted against other scenes more typical of the series where Kumiko and Reina seem extremely comfortable with each other. Apparently, a third season of the anime is in production so whomst can tell what’ll happen with these characters. As I walked back to my car, I felt myself getting more upset. This was the first time I felt like I had been queer baited. A previous side character jumped in front of two seasons of wlw momentum during the very first scene of the movie and the previously disinterested protagonist is now jealous when he shows attention to someone else.

That’s the crux of what I wanted to process via writing. Why is it that I was having that reaction to this pretty mundane movie? Even now, it still bugs me. Like I said earlier, I was the 1st chair trombone of my own concert band and a lot of the story, characters and sets of this show feel nostalgic for me. The hot summers at marching band camp, the small problems that felt world ending at the time, learning from older students and then finding out you have younger students looking up to you. I grew a lot as part of being in band and I consider it the defining part of my high school career. It was also the only co-ed activity in my all boys high school. The girls from out sister school would take the bus every morning to practice and as they would pack up and leave after morning practice, I’d often wish I could go with them. It’s how I met my first girlfriend who deserved much better than an insecure, dysphoric and jealous adolescent.

               Outside of band, high school is where I best learned to hate myself. In the four hallways (and science wing!) of my tiny high school, I transitioned from an awkward and bullied kid that loved anime to basically the same person but more depressed, better at faking manhood and ashamed of liking things. That shame would take years of therapy to start to unwind. One of my classmates would years later describe it as going to school in a locker room.

               I didn’t want to go to that school. In middle school, I was savagely bullied by my public school classmates. In grade school, I was the member of my grade that kept being friends with a flamboyant kid in our class through his own terrible homophobic bulling. Eventually, he would transfer to a different school and the I was the new “fa**ot.” In middle school, I would regularly get insulted, shoved into lockers or jumped and beaten up. One time a group of kids even followed me home from school where I waited home alone while they knocked on all the doors and windows trying to get me to come outside. My parents tried to pull me out of the school, but I stuck it out and graduated. Even though I wanted to continue in public school, my parents put me in a private high school to get me away from that bullying.

               Maybe those bullies were onto something though, throughout middle school and grade school I would have dreams where I relived my day as a girl. It felt nice. It felt so nice that I felt guilty about it and developed an anxiety disorder. Sometimes I wonder what could have been if I had been able to express myself during those meetings with a therapist. What if I could have trusted that my parents could be supportive? What if my mom hadn’t been in the room for some of those visits? What if the therapist that might have suspected what was up pushed me just a little bit into really admitting what I wanted? Sometimes I feel that there is a near timeline where I was able to express my feelings. Maybe I would have been able to start puberty blockers. I could have started them in middle school and still graduated. Maybe I’d start HRT near the end of middle school and get a few months under my belt before high school. My parents could still have put me in a different school and I would have had a chance to have the high school life of a girl. Maybe they would have put me in the sister school we did band with and I’d still have had that experience. 

               In my head, I know that timeline isn’t as close as it feels. My parents wouldn’t have supported me then that just like how they don’t support me now. In my heart though, it feels good. It’s when you make a pizza for dinner after skipping lunch and pull it right out of the oven. It’s hot and burns your mouth, but it’s meeting some other need. As much as I used to think I didn’t want to relitigate my history, these fantasies are fulfilling while also extremely painful. 

As my old high school world religions teacher used to say, back to the point of departure. I’ve written before about how people connect to media to work out their own issues. People are really good at it and sometimes do it without realizing it. Euphoniums attention to detail on the experience of high school band, the significance of band in my own high school life, the hints of gay and the reality that I can’t have the experience I wanted to all sort of mush together into a ball of pain and feelings that I didn’t perfectly realize was there. An emotional knot rooted from my past that I need to work on untangling in the present. I guess that rounds out why I was having that reaction and gives me some things to work on. 

****

I wrote this out Wednesday night and woke up this morning to find out KyoAni, the production studio was the subject of a deadly arson attack. I’ve been thinking about it all day. The works they put out were beautiful, evocative and series I’ve treasured many years after viewing them. They are a standout in the animation industry for treating employees well. As of right now, there is a gofundme up for donations but it isn’t clear when or how that money will get to KyoAni (https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kyoani-heal/). A more direct way of supporting is purchasing from their online store. There is a guide here: here  pic.twitter.com/N8pPN6uo72

[audiodiaryofasuperhero]

About that Unannounced Hiatus...

Hi, y'all. Remember us? We took a pretty long unannounced break from… well, just about everything to do with the public side of this show.

While we can’t go back & make this hiatus have never happened, or hell, even go back and handle it better, we can explain how & why it happened. If we can’t fix it, we can be honest about it. Maybe we can even bring about a little awareness in the process.

Note: This post is almost entirely about the past year & a half. We will write a separate post covering what’s going on now & what’s next for ADoS. We don’t want to cram those things onto the end of this long post when those are the things worth getting excited about!

Now, to do this, I need to address you as Laura Henderson, the writer/producer/nearly everything on this show. Because the reasons behind the Unannounced Hiatus of Suffering pretty much all have to do with things that were going on in my life.

Hang with me - this is a long explanation.

Some content warnings before proceeding. This explanation includes anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, mania, hypomania, dislocations, & doctors being shitty people who are bad at their jobs.

I made an announcement right before the hiatus, publicizing what was meant to be a small break in production while my household dealt with a clusterfuck of a moving process. What I didn’t mention was the fact that I was struggling with some worsening anxiety & depression issues as well.

As soon as we’d moved, when I was meant to be finishing episode six, three different things happened. 1) I got caught in one of the worst depression spirals of my life. Like, I hadn’t felt so terrible since middle school. I struggled with awful focus issues, self-harm, & suicidal ideation. 2) I got a promotion to sales lead at work. This sounds fancy, but it functionally means that I became the lowest tier of management at my store. With our staff numbers dropping post-Holidays, my hours ratcheted up to 35 hours a week. Plus school. Plus chronic illness. Plus mental health issues. Which all feeds into - 3) I wasn’t happy with the draft of episode 6. I needed that script to do five different vital things, & at the time, it did maybe two of them. I recorded that draft, but ended up deleting it out of frustration at what it didn’t set up for later plot. With everything else going on, it was easiest just to… put it down.

Spring came & my depression receded, although my focus issues increased. This was just in time for me to dislocate my knee pretty majorly. With EDS (an illness I share with Adira), dislocations are pretty commonplace. But most of them are small, slide back in nearly immediately with little to no intervention, & do very little damage to the tissue surrounding the joints. Others are major, where the joint slides farther out of place than usual & stays out of socket until manipulated back into place, doing a fair bit of damage to the surrounding tissues. This was definitely the latter. I was in pain for weeks, & all my spoons were spent trying to get through my shifts at work.

The knee eventually healed. My first night out dancing after it healed, some asshole stepped on my ankle & dislocated it. Not my foot, mind you - my ankle. (I am still very salty about it.) Wash, rinse, repeat from above.

Then things really started to go to hell.

In late June, I started seeing a psychiatrist for my focus issues. My dad has ADHD, & we’d begun to wonder if I may have inherited. The psychiatrist, understandably, chose to start by treating my depression and anxiety instead. She also indicated that she suspected I may have a bipolar disorder. She prescribed me Zoloft, & told me I should call her immediately if I started experiencing suicidal ideation or mania.

Lucky me, I got both.

By week two, I was drifting into a mixed affective state, where I’d be slightly uncomfortably energetic but also a bit depressed. By week four, I was on a little carnival rollercoaster. I was energetic, anxious, depressed, & had a very small voice in my head suggesting awful but non-fatal things I should do to myself. By week six, I was riding a Six Flags thrills rollercoaster, with celestial highs & infernal lows. I felt like I was going to vibrate out of my skin, I went from aggressive cheer to rage at minor provocations, and the voice in my head was nearly indistinguishable from my regular thoughts, telling me all the different ways I could & should kill my self. I was manic. I would have been suicidal if my friends hadn't been acting as voices of reason. I called my psychiatrist in tears & left a message with her receptionist. She never called me back. I stopped taking the pills.

Needless to say, I found a new psychiatrist, an awesome guy who believes in evidence-based practice. We started experimenting to find a good balance of meds. We started with the assumption that there was a low but substantial probability that I had a bipolar disorder, but that it was more likely that Zoloft was responsible for most of the mania symptoms. As the milder medicines mostly failed to stabilize me, we adjusted the probabilities of bipolar upwards, eventually concluding with a diagnosis of bipolar 2. 

While we were still in the early stages of medication experimentation, & I was mentally stable enough to sort of function & get a bit optimistic, my body decided it was its turn to be a melodramatic little bitch. 

Everything started dislocating. Everything. 

My knees, normally prone to minor dislocations around 4 times a week or so, started going out constantly. And then my hips got in on it. And then my ankles. And my ribs. And my shoulders. I went from using a cane, to using crutches, to using a rolling walker. I usually had more joints out than in.

I tried to work through all of this, but it was a nightmare. At one point, I was sitting in my walker at the cash wrap, twisted around to grab something from behind me, and both my hips popped out with an audible “snap.” I tearfully handed the guest what I’d been grabbing for them, then backed myself away from the register to cry for a moment.

Right at the end of October, I asked for a medical leave of absence from my job, with the intention of seeing my rheumatologist to update her on the situation and see what could be done.

When I went to see her, I had a list of ten things that needed to be accomplished. I managed none of them.

When she arrived in the little room, I started explaining what had been going on with my joints for the past two months. She cut me off.

“I can’t help you with that,” she said impatiently. “I can’t help you.”

She went on to add, “But I see you’ve been losing weight - that’s excellent.” (I’d been in too much pain to eat.) “And I’m glad that you went dancing,” (referring to the ankle dislocation from June that had been giving me so much trouble since). “You should exercise as much as possible.” (Ignoring that I’d been trying to tell her I could barely move.)

At this point, I was very teary. My joint doctor was telling me that she could not help me with my joint condition.

“You should look into being treated for depression. You seem very upset.”

To say I left her office devastated is a bit of an understatement. I sobbed in my car in the parking lot for twenty minutes.

I called my auxiliary brain, my most rational, anti-suicide friend. 

“Please, come keep me company. Make sure that I don’t do anything stupid,” I pleaded.

He had some errands to run, but I sat in the car with him. On the interstate, I had to fight the urge to open the car door and throw myself into traffic.

But he got me through that awful day. The next month and a half was a long, drawn-out depression swing.

At the beginning of December, my manager called me. 

“Are you coming back?” she asked.

“I - I don’t think I can,” I admitted.

“I’ll consider this your notice, effective immediately,” she said. “Get better, Laura.”

Things slowly got better. My body calmed down. One of my psych meds was able to pull double-duty as a joint pain medication. I could walk again, even if I wasn’t quite comfortable dancing. I became happier, and if I was hypomanic or in a mixed affective state more so than even-keeled, it was better than being manic or depressed.

I withdrew from my college program, and applied to an online program. While the new program was not my beloved data science, combining information technology with mathematics was close enough.

I was accepted too late to start spring classes.

In early February, I managed to find a new rheumatologist, after calling four offices who explicitly said they weren’t comfortable treating me. She didn’t do terribly much for me, but she explained what she was going to watch for. She referred me to an orthopedist.

By this point, I was thoroughly bored of sitting around the house. I re-applied at my old work place, and was welcomed back with great enthusiasm.

Then my psychiatrist cancelled an appointment. It was nearly impossible to get ahold of his office to reschedule over the phone. Every time I went in person to reschedule, there was no one at the desk. I started rationing my medication, and then I ran out. Things, rather predictably, went pear-shaped.

A few weeks ago, summer classes started for me. I finally got back on medication. My work place started a big hiring push, which reduced my hours to my betterment.

After all that shit, I’ve finally begun to feel like a person again. It was rough and it tested me in ways I hadn’t been tested before. It made social media seem like an overwhelming prospect. I couldn’t manage a huge undertaking like my beloved podcast. But now....

Audio Diary of a Superhero never once left my mind, and now I’m ready to get it up and running again, better than ever before. I’m healthier, happier, and very motivated.

I’m not going to talk about what comes next in this post. But it’s coming. Look out.

[mamaredd123]

Save Myself

A/N: This is not my best work so sorry about that. Also, not beta’d, all errors are my own.

On a side note, I had never heard this song before I signed up for Lexi’s challenge. But I totally loved it. You can listen here if you don’t know it Save Myself by Ed Sheeran

@mysteriouslyme81   Ed Sheeran Challenge

Song Prompt:  Save Myself

@impalaimagining  3K Celebration Challenge

Prompts: Cry Me A River by Justin Timberlake  and “You risked my ass on a hunch?”

@casbabydontgoineedyou    1K Follower Challenge

Prompt: “You’re the insufferable one.”

@butiaintgonnaloveem   Baby’s Big 50 Writing Challenge

Song Prompt: Doing it for my baby by Huey Lewis

@little-red-83   Red’s Love Your Flaws Writing Challenge

Prompts: anxiety, chronic bitch face, quiet, tall and How Do I Live by Trisha Yearwood  

PAIRING: Dean x Reader

WARNINGS: angst, character death

WORD COUNT:  2443

I stormed into the bar and plopped my ass on a stool. Angrily, I motioned for the bartender to get me a double shot of bourbon. I glanced around the bar and was relieved to see that it was fairly empty. The music was definitely not the best I thought as I listened to the melody coming from the jukebox in the corner.

‘Don't it make you sad about it? You told me you love me Why did you leave me all alone Now you tell me you need me When you call me on the phone Girl I refuse You must have me confused with some other guy The bridges were burned Now it's your turn, to cry Cry me a river’

That damn Dean! I seriously wish I had never met him. Sometimes I think he does things to deliberately piss me off. Just like tonight.

The hunt wasn’t an easy one but we knew that going in. We all knew what we were supposed to be doing though. Dean, the all mighty, decided at the last minute decided to change it up. So instead of us catching the werewolves off guard, they heard us coming and one got the jump on me as I was going for the back door.

I gently rubbed the bandages under my jeans. The cut had been deeper than I thought originally. It would heal but it was going to hurt like a bitch in the morning. I motioned for another double shot and was nursing it when I heard the door to the bar slam open. Great, four bars in this town and he had to come to the one I was in, I thought to myself.

“What the fuck is wrong with you Y/N?” Dean asked as he sat beside me.

“Me?” I asked unbelievingly. “How about what is wrong with you?”

“I had a hunch so I jumped on it.”

“You have got to be kidding me. You risked my ass on a hunch?”

“Sam had your back.”

“I didn’t need Sam to have my back. If you would have just done like we were all supposed to then it would have all been fine,” I practically screamed at him. “But no, Mister I Know Better decided to change the plan at the last second and now my leg is slashed wide the fuck open.”

I swallowed the last of my drink and slammed the glass down on the bar. Without even taking another look at Dean, I skyrocketed out of the bar and away from him. If he knew what was good for him he would keep his distance from me for a while.

Limping down the street, I pulled my headphones out and plugged them into my phone. I seriously needed to calm down before I got back to the motel. Putting my playlist on shuffle, I headed over to the dock. Good old Huey Lewis began singing in my ears. I hummed along to the lyrics as I walked.

‘Early in the morning, I'm still in bed She comes to me with sweet affection Wakes me with kisses, hello sleepyhead Gets me moving in the right direction I do my best to give her love that lasts forever It seems like everything I do I'm doing better Doing it all for my baby Because she's as fine as she can be I'm doing it all for my baby’

By the time I reached the dock I was calmed down somewhat. I leaned against the railing and stared out across the water replaying tonight’s events. As I stood there thinking about everything, I realized that I probably did over react.

‘How do I get through one night without you If I had to live without you What kinda life would that be Oh I need you in my arms, need you to hold You are my world, my heart, my soul If you ever leave Baby you would take away Everything good in my life And tell me now How do I live without you? I want to know How do I breathe without you?’

Trisha’s words detoured my memories back towards when I first met Dean. The world hadn’t been too kind to me back then and I had made sure to return the favor. Abandoned at birth and raised in an orphanage, I learned early on how to fight. I have always been tall, for a woman five feet eleven inches was too tall unless you were some hundred pound Victoria Secret’s model and the word model would never be used to describe me. This wonderful attribute of myself, combined with my weight, made me forever a target by those around me in the orphanage.

When I was finally released out into the world on my own, I still had to fight and claw for every single thing I needed or wanted. It wasn’t too long out on my own when a friend of mine had me committed for six month to have my anxiety and depression treated when I let it all get to me too much and had a nervous breakdown. To this day, I don’t know which place was worse, the orphanage or the psych hospital.

After that little vacation, I was back out and fighting again. It always seemed like the world was fighting against my actual existence. Nothing was ever easy and nothing ever went as it should have. Clothes designed for girls never fit me right, not with shoulders like a man. Job openings that I was qualified for? Never got them. Trying to find men that weren’t looking UP at me? Not too many of them. Sex? Well, I won’t even go there. I was literally on the verge of giving up completely, ending it all, when I had my first run in with the “supernatural”. That was when I met Dean.

My first run in with all things creepy as hell was a real life werewolf. Evidently Dean and Sam had been tracking it though and they swooped in and saved me. I don’t know what Dean ever saw in me, especially since he has always teased me about my resting bitch face. But he saw something and has kept me around ever since.

Dean has been my rock and I never do anything but give him hell about it. Some girlfriend I turned out to be. Shaking my head, I decide to head back to the motel and apologize. I turn around, still humming along to the tunes in my head, and limp my way back.

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

“Dean?” I called out as I opened the motel door.

“In here,” he answered.

I walked in the and crossed the room to the bathroom. Leaning against the door frame, I watched as he finished shaving. He was standing there with a towel wrapped around his waist, droplets of water still lingering on his skin.

“Feeling better?” he asked with a touch of sarcasm.

Silently, I nodded.

“Don’t get quiet on me again. You sure had plenty to say earlier.”

“Don’t Dean. I came to say I’m sorry not for you to get me riled up again.”

“God, Y/N. I can never win with you can I?” he asked as he wiped the shaving cream from his face.

My stomach started knotting up as I heard that tone of voice. I hated suffering from anxiety. It always had me wound up way before anything happened. I knew he wasn’t going to make this easy for me I could tell already but I really didn’t want to fight with him anymore. I just wanted to make peace and feel him love me.

“Dean please,” I begged.

“No damn it. I have had enough. You never talk. You always have those fucking migraines from stressing over everything, over nothing really. Then, when you are in enough pain to put an elephant down, you lash out at me like everything is my fault. I have had enough Y/N. I can’t do this anymore.”

“What are you saying to me Dean?”

“I'm done. Just like I said, I can’t do this anymore.”

I stood there looking at him and had absolutely no idea what to say. Deep down I think I knew this day would come but part of me had hoped that destiny had planned this out in a good way for me. I should have known better.

“Why Dean? Why now? Seven years down the road, nothing has changed with me. I am still the girl you found. Anxiety, depression, mood swings, everything is still here. Why are you just now at odds with who I am?”

“Because I thought time with us, time understanding how things were, would help you realize you weren’t alone. I have been here for you, mile after mile, night after night, but nothing I do has helped. I’m sorry.”

“You did help me Dean but you know what, it’s all good and well. If this is how you really feel, I don’t need you at all.”

“Damn it Y/N you are insufferable!”

“No, you’re the insufferable one!” I yelled back at him.

I reached for the keys on the dresser and snatched them up. Storming once again, I raced from the motel room. As I approached my truck I caught a glimpse of Sam peaking out of his room. Guess I slammed the door closed a little too hard.

I tried to jam the key into the door handle but it wouldn’t go. I must have grabbed his keys instead of mine. So be it! He wanted to show his ass then that was fine. I would take his Baby instead of my truck. Marching over to the Impala, I had no problems fitting the key in the lock. Slamming the door behind me, I turned the engine over.

As I backed out of the parking lot, I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw Dean and Sam both standing at their doors.  The only thought that went through my mind was good, this will show him.

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

I don’t know how long it has been since I left the motel. All I remember is driving through town. There had been a red light I think. I tried to shake the fussiness from my brain as I tried to sort out what had happened.

The light had been green as I approached it that much I was sure of.  As I grasped at the seat belt holding me in place I recalled the other vehicle. It seemed like it was a truck because the lights set up higher. There wasn’t much else I could remember after that. I guessed that the truck had run the light and hit me.

I leaned against the seat, having no strength at all to try to unbuckled the seat belt. My vision was fading in and out. I could hear people around me but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I strained to look out the windshield but I couldn’t see much. I saw some feet and a ton of broken glass everywhere. Nothing I was seeing made any sense. Most of what I could see was so blurry except one lady. She was crystal clear as she leaned over and looked at me through the crumpled door frame. I heard her whisper ‘It’s time Y/N. Let’s go.’

Dean! Dean was the only thought I could coherently process. He was going to be so pissed because I wrecked his Baby. Would he remember how much I loved him? Or would the only thing he remembered be that I totaled her?

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

Two years later……

“Dean you have to snap out of this shit,” Sam said.

“I don't have to do anything but keep fighting.”

“Dude I love you but enough is enough.”

Dean looked at his brother and then walked away. Y/N’s death had hollowed out a space inside him that nothing would ever fill. He had loved her so much. Dean walked over to the juke box and looked over the selections. After settling on one, he deposited his coins in the coin slot. As the lyrics came through the speakers he leaned against the wall and tried to make his soul understand the words.

‘I gave all my oxygen to people that could breathe I gave away my money and now we don't even speak I drove miles and miles but would you do the same for me Oh, honestly?

Offered up my shoulder just for you to cry upon Gave you constant shelter and a bed to keep you warm They gave me the heartache and in return I gave a song It goes on and on

Life can get you down so I just numb the way it feels I drown it with a drink and out of date prescription pills And all the ones that love me, they just left me on the shelf, no farewell So before I save someone else, I've got to save myself

I gave you all my energy and I took away your pain Cause human beings are destined to radiate or drain What line do we stand upon cause from here it looks the same? And only scars remain

Life can get you down so I just numb the way it feels I drown it with a drink and out of date prescription pills And all the ones that love me, they just left me on the shelf, no farewell So before I save someone else, I've got to save myself

But if I don't then I'll go back to where I'm rescuing a stranger Just because they needed saving, just like that Oh I'm here again, between the devil and the danger But I guess it's just my nature My dad was wrong, cause I'm not like my mum Cause she'd just smile and I'm complaining in a song, but it helps So before I save someone else, I've got to save myself

Life can get you down so I just numb the way it feels Or drown it with a drink and out of date prescription pills And all the ones that love me, they just left me on the shelf, no farewell So before I save someone else, I've got to save myself And before I blame someone else, I've got to save myself And before I love someone else, I've got to love myself’

Dean sipped at his beer and thought to himself that maybe that guy had it right. Maybe if he had saved himself first, maybe he would have been able to save Y/N.

Forever Peeps (If you want on the tags, click here and add yourself or send me a message and I’ll add you if you can get to google docs)

@megansescape @madamelibrarian @atc74 @chelsea072498  @jayankles  @feelmyroarrrr @docharleythegeekqueen  @crowleysdemonknight @motleymoose  @sumara62  @mrstheorossix3 @evansrogerskitten  @waywardjoy  @dwaynii @jensen-jarpad  @deathtonormalcy56  @ruprecht0420 @charliebradbury1104 @codename-petrova  @wonderange @sandlee44  @tom-is-in-my-tardis @kmb99t  @summer-binging-spn @posiemax @purgatoan @ohmychuckitssamanddean  @thedevilinthedetails @bohowitch  @tmccarney @dragon-tail  @suli155 @mrsbatesmotel53  @petrovadixon @thewalkingmombie @mogaruke @spontaneousam   @cenagirlsrda @lessons-of-love

[whitethroat]

Mental Health Awareness Week UK ( My story)

I should preface this novel by mentioning that I get a number of messages online from people suffering with mental health issues. I appreciate you reaching out to me and I’m proud of you for having the courage to use your voice and ask for help and guidance, it’s the first step. Talking about it and sharing what you’re experiencing is the first step to opening the blinds in the darkened room and letting the light in. Go you! I’m sharing here because it’s Mental Health Awareness Week in the U.K and I want to stand in solidarity with my friends, family and followers. It’s ok not to feel ok, but you don’t have to all the time. 

My own experience with mental health issues started when I was quite young, maybe six or seven. The first panic attack I remember having was in an ASDA car park, it was a sunny day and I was wearing a white t shirt with blue jeans. I hopped down off my booster seat and got out of the car, waiting for my Mum away from the traffic. As I looked at the store I felt a tightening in my chest. It felt like my lungs weren’t filling up properly, I felt confused, disorientated and panicked because I had no idea why I couldn’t breathe. At the time I didn’t know how to process it so I looked down at my body, I saw my belly poking out the way little kids bellies do and tried to watch my breathing, I ran my fingers along the waistband of my jeans. “I can’t breathe properly Mummy my jeans are too tight” She took my hand and said it’s ok don’t worry, we will get them fixed, the tailor can make them fit you better or we can get you a new pair. I remember taking a few more bewildered steps and we got on with our day.

 This continued in to my teens. I would regularly “get low blood sugar” and become faint and breathless. There was no pattern, it didn’t care where I was or what I was doing, it didn’t care if I was at dinner with polite company or at a gig, or alone. I would feel it start and in my head I would begin pleading with it to go back down, not here FFS please not here, not at this table in this room with these people noooooooo!!!!! I learned to excuse myself and go sit down on the floor of the nearest bathroom or better yet outside and just wait it out. 

 When I’m not in the experience and I think about how it goes down it’s kind of amazing, everything is louder, my eyes see this glittery stuff and no matter how hard I try I can’t regain access to my body. I’ve exited and am hovering above, watching everything with this clarity. I feel freezing cold but also like I’m in the Sahara and I need to take all my clothes of immediately or I may burst in to flames… 🤷🏻‍♀️ What is that ya know ? Human body magic tricks. 

Anyways, when I was 17 it all got a little much. The dizzy spells, sleeping problems, fatigue and stomach issues. They tested me for Chrones disease, thyroid issues, diabetes, candida, cancer, aids, underlying STD’s, pregnancy, you name it they tested. But not once was I asked how I felt psychologically, was there a history of anxiety, depression or mental illness in the family. The answer would’ve been “actually…not good at all” and yes. Very yes but we don’t talk about it or acknowledge it as a possible cause of certain behaviours and symptoms (for the most part that has now thankfully changed) 

There was no conclusion to any of the tests and unfortunately my anxiety and depression was not diagnosed. I developed an eating disorder which travelled with me in to my twenties along with the aforementioned. I was feeling very alone during this time, I wrote constantly documenting my experience and many of those lines ultimately became my smash hit song Magnetic, in case you ever wondered. 

I went back to the doctor for my ED and was shocked to find that due to me not being dangerously underweight, like hospital thin, I was not able to receive treatment for my ED and because my clothes and hair were clean and I hadn’t yet made an attempt at suicide or “serious” self harm I was not able to receive treatment for accompanying depression and anxiety. If I had walked in to the doctors office looking the part of someone who is suffering with mental illness I would’ve received treatment. Because I looked ok to the doctors, I was not mentally ill and did not qualify for mental health treatment. 

 This happens everyday, I’ve seen it happen to friends and loved ones. We’ve lost people or watched them slowly fade. Young, old, male, female. Mental illness doesn’t discriminate so why on earth do we when treating it or even discussing it?

 I now have a therapist who has helped me tremendously in realising how to love myself, be myself, accept myself and acknowledging my truth and my experiences both good and bad. Anxiety is a thing, it’s not a part of me. I wasn’t born with it, I learned it. Reaching out for help, honesty and self care, self acceptance, self love …..they’re my dragon slayers! Hey guess what guys, I was my knight in shining armour! Sure I have my moments but they are shorter, less frequent, they are manageable, I know what they are so I can work with them! I’m happier than ever before and I feel like my life has finally begun, age 28. 

 I understand that everyone has different stuff, some of you may have pathological conditions, some of you not. I can’t speak for any of you or give you medical advice. All I can do is encourage you to reach out if you think there is something wrong, if you are struggling to cope or are feeling alone or hopeless, if something feels a little off. There’s Facebook groups, charities, blogs, forums, helplines, there’s a lot of places for us to go. I have found in person groups very helpful and some Facebook groups too, I will post links below. 

 Love you A x 

 MIND mental health charity: https://www.mind.org.uk/

 Over Eaters Anonymous (for anyone using food, not just over eaters): http://www.oagb.org.uk/ 

 SANE Mental Health Charity: http://www.sane.org.uk/ SANE helpline: 03003047000 

 Here is the UK board of registered Psychotherapists, this is where I found my therapist: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/