#my mental health got like. dangerously serious bad from december to most of january but i've been in recovery and im a little better rn

[stargloom]

i lived, bitch

[leiakenobi]

Title: Inhale, Exhale Fandom: Inside Llewyn Davis Pairing: Llewyn Davis/Reader Rating: Teen (warning for some fairly heavy discussion of mental health) Word Count: 1.8k Summary: Llewyn doesn’t like Valentine’s Day, and he won’t tell you why.

A/N: Happy Valentine’s Day to @be-the-spark-flyboy, who I got matched up with in @sergeantkane’s Oscar fandom Valentine’s fic exchange! You described Llewyn melting when you touch his hair, and this concept actually came to me almost immediately. Pretty dang heavy on the hurt part of hurt/comfort, but I hope the fic brings you some joy. I had an absolute blast writing for you. Also posted to AO3 here!

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Llewyn doesn’t like Valentine’s Day, and he won’t tell you why.

Frankly, you should have realized sooner. It first came up around three months into your relationship, when he asked whether you’d seen a film, and you told him that you saw it on Valentine’s Day with an old boyfriend. He soured at once, but you explained it away—you probably shouldn’t have mentioned an ex on a date. What a bad, bad idea.

Then again, around seven months in. December began, winter was setting in in earnest, and you lamented the fact that the season made Manhattan feel so dreary. “At least we have Christmas and New Year’s to help keep up the cheer. And then obviously Valentine’s Day.”

Again—Llewyn tensed. This time, you assumed it was that he still felt a little strange about commitment. It had been a while since he had much of a serious relationship, you knew.

But January eases into February, and you flip over your kitchen calendar. Llewyn’s in the shower and you call out, “We should probably make a reservation soon.”

“For what, sweetheart?” His voice echoes around the walls of the bathroom and carries out to you. It’s warm and rich and God do you love him.

“Valentine’s Day, babe. Most of the good places will be full before we know it.”

Silence. Long stretch of silence. You’d been in the middle of preparing your breakfast, but you find yourself standing still, straining to listen. As though maybe he’s just replying very, very quietly. (Absurd.)

“Can we talk about this when I get out?” he calls at last.

You hesitate. “Okay.”

What follows is the longest ten minutes of your life, during which Llewyn finishes up his shower. When he comes to join you in the kitchen, he’s clad only in pants; he pulls on an undershirt after sitting down across from you at the kitchen table. “You’ve hardly touched your breakfast,” he remarks, looking down at the food in front of you with concern.

“Not really hungry,” you murmur. How were you supposed to eat while wondering why the hell he doesn’t want to celebrate Valentine’s Day with you?

It seems to hit him, then, how his reaction has come off, because his eyes widen, and he grabs your hands from the tabletop and clutches them tight. “Shit, I’m sorry, babe. I promise it’s not about you, or anything to do with us. I’d take you out to a nice dinner and spoil you rotten any day of the week, I really would. Just…” His brow furrows, and he licks his lips as he hesitates over his next words. “I’m not really a fan of Valentine’s Day. What if we just had a quiet night in on the 14th? And then we could go out some other night.”

From his soft, cautious tone, you can tell that he knows his request might not thrill you. And, well, he’s right; you feel almost certain that there’s something he’s not saying, and it’s taking everything in you to not run through some rough possibilities…

Most of which end in – please God no – “break-up.”

But you pull yourself back from that whirlpool of dangerous speculation, and you swallow, and you nod. “Sure, babe. If you want a quiet night, I want that too.”

You tell yourself it’s not a lie, and to some degree, it’s not—but you want him to want a special night out as much as you do. You want him to tell you why he doesn’t.

Llewyn laces your fingers together, his eyes searching your face. There’s so much love and affection there—how could this be about doubting your relationship? Surely he wouldn’t look at you that way if he were thinking of ending things. “Pick the place, and I’ll make it happen. Just not on Valentine’s Day.”

So you pick a place, and he presses gentle kisses to your forehead, your cheeks, your lips, before getting up to finish his morning routine.

Neither of you mention the holiday for several days after that. You try not to even think about it, and for the most part, you manage, except for a gutting moment when your co-workers ask if you and Llewyn have any Valentine’s Day plans and you have to smile and light-heartedly say, “We decided to do a quiet night.”

A chorus of, “Oh.” Unable to conceal their surprise and disappointment. Oh, they didn’t realize that… Llewyn was cheap? A bad boyfriend? That things had soured between you? No doubt several options run through their heads, although they’re gracious enough not to express any of them to you.

It hurts.

You try not to let it.

You go out for dinner the weekend before Valentine’s Day, and Llewyn is… beautiful, and tender, and warm. He takes you to a Broadway play afterward, and he can’t stop grumbling about the incidental music as you take the subway home.

It should feel perfect, and you tell yourself it does.

On the 14th, you wake up to Llewyn curled around you. He holds you tight, his fingers splayed across your stomach and his face buried in your hair. And when you try to get up, he pulls you close again. “Not yet,” he whispers. “Please.”

You close your eyes and lean into him, linking your fingers with his. He presses sporadic kisses to the crown of your head, and you feel so damn safe.

Finally, he lets you get up.

“Do you want the shower first?” you ask him.

“No, you go ahead. I’ll be up in a bit.”

He’s not. He’s dozing when you get out of the shower, and still after you’ve prepared and eaten your breakfast.

You hesitate in the doorway, looking over him, before crossing the room to sit on the bed. You trace your fingers through his hair, watching him blink slowly to look up at you. His eyes crinkle softly. “Are you feeling alright?” you whisper.

“Sure I am,” he whispers back. “Just tired.”

“Are you sure? Because I can call in a sick day if you wanted me to stay home and look after you.”

Llewyn scoffs, rolling his eyes at you. “Go to work. I’m getting up soon, I promise.”

You give him a slow nod. “Call me if you change your mind?”

“I won’t change my mind.” With a stern look from you, he sighs and grabs for your hand, pulling you down to kiss you gently. “But if I do, I’ll call you.”

So you nod, kiss him once more, and leave.

What is it that you’re missing, here? You puzzle over it on the subway, and then at work, thinking about how close he held you. How counter-intuitive his tenderness seemed when he’d balked at the idea of making anything romantic out of the holiday.

You clear out for lunch, and you’re about halfway to your favorite diner when you decide to redirect your course and rush down the nearest entrance to the train.

This is ridiculous. Llewyn doesn’t do this—maybe he’s not always the most forthcoming person in the world, but you can’t remember another time when he’s been needlessly opaque. So you should be up-front about the fact that he’s both confused and worried you. Because honestly, you still can’t shake the feeling that something was wrong this morning.

Your apartment is quiet when you ease the door open. You don’t go home for lunch often – too many meals-turned-quickies that made you get back to work late – but you’re used to the place being filled with music by now.

Either Llewyn, practicing in the living room, or playing records and whistling along while he does food prep.

Now, though, the silence is eerie.

“Llewyn?”

He doesn’t answer.

Check the living room—not there. Kitchen and bathroom—same.

It is very clear, from the moment you return to the doorway of your bedroom, that Llewyn hasn’t moved since you left. He’s lying on his stomach, cradling his pillow under his head with one arm while his other arm is outstretched.

Reaching out for where you should be.

“Baby,” you breathe. You retrace the same path that you made earlier, stepping into the room, settling on the edge of the bed. Your hand smooths over his head, and as you tenderly card through his curls, he begins to stir.

He makes a muffled mmf noise into his pillow and scoots closer to you, pulls you closer—his outstretched hand finds your waist, holding you tight while his head settles against your thigh. “What’re you doin’ home?” Voice creaky from sleep.

“Needed to talk to you,” you tell him gently. Your fingers winding around his hair absent-mindedly. “I think it’s time we talk about Valentine’s Day, don’t you? Whatever’s got you like this.”

Llewyn doesn’t say anything for a long, long time. Maybe you’d have thought that he’d drifted off to sleep again, but his thumb is tracing circles over your hip.

“Mike died on Valentine’s Day, babe.”

Oh.

Your stomach drops at his words, because shit, you should’ve known. Here you’d been overthinking his reticence to celebrate a stupid holiday and it hadn’t even occurred to you…

“Five years ago,” he offers up, too. “I didn’t… Last year was better. Even the year before that was okay. I felt weird about doing something extravagant, but I didn’t expect to hurt so much today.”

“I don’t know if that’s how it works,” you whisper. “Doesn’t it just… come back sometimes?”

“Not like this.” And you know what he means—you’re both remembering nights when he got listless, threw on If We Had Wings and poured you both a large drink. Hell, even the time you had to run up to Yonkers for the day to meet a client, and he decided to come with you… only to get a glimpse of the George Washington Bridge on the drive home.

He’d blanched and gone near-silent for the rest of the night.

Yes, the hurt comes back sometimes, but not like this. Not this bad.

Pressing a soft kiss to your thigh, he says, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I really didn’t think I’d feel this way right now.”

“God, please don’t apologize.” You might laugh if it weren’t so damn serious. As it is, you just climb into bed in earnest, kicking your shoes off and tucking yourself under the covers with him, still fully clothed. “I was scared this was about me, babe. But Mike…” Mike, whom he almost never talks about without a drink in him, even now. “I get why you didn’t tell me.” Softer, as you curl yourself around him: “I’m glad you told me now, though.”

Llewyn exhales shakily. Maybe a laugh? Almost? “Never about you, sweetheart. You’re exactly what I needed today.”

“Then you’ve got me,” you whisper. “Anything you want, I’m here.”

He swallows and blinks at you. “Just want you to hold me, babe. Please.”

You take in a long, slow breath, and you nod.

Llewyn buries his face in your neck, and the two of you exhale almost as one.

[disaster-goose]

This is the story of how I tried to access mental health help in the United States and how it only made everything so much worse. It’s not meant to discourage anyone from asking for help or from taking medication if they need it. I just need to write it down, because at the moment I am on the verge of a panic attack and I need to do something with my hands. So I’m going to tell you the story. 

This is a long post, so I’ll save you all and put it under a “Keep Reading”

Content warning: This post contains discussions about mental health, including suicidal ideation and self harm. 

A little background: I was diagnosed with depression and PTSD when I was 14. I spent my teens and early twenties on various SSRI Antidepressants that only made things worse. I was extremely emotionally unstable. I was so unstable that I had a modified education plan in high school. My therapist had meetings with my school. That’s how serious it was. 

Sometime in my twenties, I stopped taking medication. I went to therapy. I got a degree in Psychology. I went to grad school. I left my abusive ex. I came out to my family. I got away from the toxic people in my life. My depression went into remission. I say remission because once you have depression, you’re always at risk of another episode. That’s just reality. 

Last fall a lot of things went wrong all at once. I had a huge falling out with my family after I put my foot down and refused to tolerate my mom’s manipulative behavior. I was on the verge of going no-contact. Two weeks later my dad was diagnosed with cancer. I was consumed by guilt. 

At the same time I was dealing with financial problems, physical health problems, and a variety of life stress that I wasn’t coping with very well. 

In October I spent two weeks in my home town while my dad received cancer treatment. Being in my home town was hard. I revisited a lot of painful memories. 

In November... Well, we all know what happened in November.

In December I called my mom. It was a few days before Christmas and I called for a friendly chat. I had decided we wouldn’t talk politics. She decided that we would talk politics. It was bad. I hung up the phone and fantasized about all the ways I might kill myself. I can’t even remember Christmas. 

In January I saw my primary care physician (Lana) for a follow-up on my various health conditions. In the fall I’d been told that I was critically anemic, so anemic it might kill me if I didn’t get it under control. By January not much had improved. Because I’d previously disclosed a history of mental health issues, my appointment included a depression screener. I was severely, dangerously depressed. 

Lana said she would refer me to the in-house counselor (Bret) who would then refer me to the in-house Psychiatrist (Colleen). Both of these people were so overbooked and overworked that it would be months before I could see them. I was hopeful. I wanted counseling. I wanted someone to sit with me while I unpacked my guilt and grief. 

Lana warned me that she was leaving the practice soon and that while she would be comfortable prescribing medication for my depression, none of the other doctors in the practice would prescribe psychiatric medications until I saw the Psychiatrist (in three months). 

I didn’t know how I would survive those three months of waiting, but I didn’t want medication either. I just wanted a counselor. I told her about how bad I reacted to SSRI antidepressants. I told her about the instability, the self-harm, the constant suicidal ideation. She agreed that SSRIs were a bad option for me, she thought I had Bipolar 2 (which is like classic Bipolar except the manic episodes are less severe. People with any kind of Bipolar disorder should not take SSRI medication alone. It causes exactly the kind of mood destabilization I’d experienced. 

Lana told me about a drug I’d never tried before. Lamotrigine. It’s a medication for seizures that has shown some promise in treating bipolar disorder. Before agreeing to take it, I did tons of research. A lot of people liked it. A lot of people called it a miracle pill. It had very few listed side-effects, as long as you weren’t one of the rare unlucky people that got a potentially deadly rash. 

I filled the prescription for Lamotrigine, but I waited to take it. I wasn’t sure. I had managed to get an appointment with Brett sooner than I’d expected, so I waited to see him. 

In the meantime, my most recent lab results came back. I was still severely anemic, and apparently I was also severely vitamin D deficient. Anemia can cause symptoms that mimic depression and low vitamin D can actually cause depression. 

I had my first appointment with Brett. I hated him instantly. He was smug. He didn’t listen to me. He was more concerned with filling out his case notes than actually talking to me. He was upset that I hadn’t started the Lamotrigine yet. He was dismissive of my concerns. He put “Noncompliant” in my chart. He talked down to me. I told him that I had gone to grad school and studied counseling psychology. He still talked down to me. 

Lana had said that Brett would do an intake and refer me to a counselor. “I just have to suffer through one intake with him,” I told myself. As it turns out, there are no other counselors. There isn’t a single other counselor within 50 miles of me that takes my insurance. The “counselor” Brett referred me to was himself, and because of the overburdened mental health system, I was entitled to just 20 minutes of “counseling” every two weeks. Five to ten of those 20 minutes were spent on a depression screener and the rest were consumed by Brett tapping away at his computer to fill in his case notes. 

During one session Brett told me to choose a word that represented a “safe place” and to repeat that word to myself when I was anxious or upset. In another session he told me to dunk my head in a bucket of water when I was having a panic attack. 

After a particularly bad session wit Brett, I go home in tears and call my insurance company and every counselor in my town. No one accepts my insurance. No one can help me. 

In four months of bi-weekly sessions with Brett, he has never once asked about the events that precipitated my depressive episode. He never asks me about ANYTHING except my work life and my relationship. Every session he forgets the details of both. 

After two horrible sessions with Brett, I caved and started taking the Lamotrigine out of pure desperation. Because of the risk of a life-threatening rash, I had to increase my dosage very slowly over the course of two months. In those two months nothing improved and my anxiety actually got worse. 

In May I finally increased my dosage of Lamotrigine to a theraputic level. I met with Colleen (the psychiatrist) and liked her immediately. She listened to me. She respected my autonomy. She considered the physical, psychological, emotional and social aspects of my depression. She told me to give Lamotrigine a try and see her again in two months. 

It’s June and I’ve been on a therapeutic dose of Lamotrigine for a month now. Every day feels worse than the last. I am so anxious that I have to take sleeping pills to get to sleep at night. I’m so depressed that I just want to lie down and go to sleep in the middle of the day. I cry over small frustrations. I am plagued by intrusive thoughts and obsessions (new symptoms that I’ve never experienced before). I put clothes in the dryer and obsess over the idea that the dryer will catch fire. Car headlights flash in my bedroom window and I am consumed by the idea that home intruders are coming to kill us all. 

In the evenings when I’m done with all of my responsibilities, I obsess over the idea that if I just cut myself I’d feel so much better. The thought replays through my head over and over, like a fucking Linkin Park song that won’t get out of my head. 

I feel dull. I feel flat. I can’t enjoy anything. I feel emotionally disconnected everyone around me. I have two emotional states: numb and angry. 

I try to distract myself with my hobbies, but I’ve lost interest in everything. I play Stardew Valley for hours. I don’t enjoy it anymore, but it’s calming. It’s something to do. It’s something to keep my hands occupied. 

Besides all these psychological symptoms, I’m physically sicker than I was before. I have headaches every day. I grind my teeth and now have to wear a night guard so that I don’t wake up in excruciating pain. My neck is so tense that I can’t turn my head. 

A few days ago I had another session with Brett. I tell him all of this in detail. I describe the intrusive thoughts, the new symptoms, the misery. I tell him I feel worse than I did before. He taps away on his computer, sending a message to Colleen. 

Brett reframes my statements and says that my mania is well controlled but that my depression is lingering. I wasn’t manic to begin with, so how is my mania now well controlled? I tell him firmly that this isn’t lingering depression. This is something new. It’s horrible. It’s intolerable. It’s worse than it was before. I look at his screen as he types away. I’m now “high risk”. 

This morning I woke up to a call from Colleen. Despite all my efforts to explain things clearly to Brett, the message he sent her includes none of my own words. He’s told her that the medication is controlling my mania very well and that I have lingering depression. His notes don’t include anything about the new symptoms, the obsessions, or the intrusive thoughts. 

I spend 30 minutes explaining myself all over again, but Colleens’ judgement has already be clouded by Brett’s assessment. I can already imagine exactly what my case notes say. “Non-compliant, poor insight, high risk.” I know what my case notes look like because I had peers just like Brett when I was in grad school. Arrogant pricks who couldn’t listen to what their clients were saying. I wouldn’t be surprised if my file also includes something like “suspected borderline personality disorder” because even though I don’t meet any of the criteria, I’m a woman, I’m queer, and I have a history of self-harm. Often, that’s all it takes. 

Fortunately, Colleen isn’t like Brett. She respected my autonomy, and though her tone indicated that she thought I was making a mistake, she respected my decision when I said I wanted off the Lamotrigine. I explained to her that I wanted to consider the possibility that this depressive episode was triggered by physical problems (Anemia, Vitamin D deficiency). She said she understood, but she seemed skeptical. She gave me instructions on how to safely discontinue the Lamotrigine, and what dosage of Vitamin D to take. 

I see Colleen again in a month.  She will probably be waiting for me to crash and burn before I agree to try another medication.

I see Brett again in two weeks. He will write “Non-compliant” in my case notes again and probably tell me to stick my head in a bucket. 

I still have no access to a counselor.