#my therapist says adhd but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

down-in-devildom · 3 years

Note

if You don’t mind, could you do a therapist MC who diagnosed Mammon with ADHD, BPD, and major depressive disorder? I happen to enjoy projecting onto mammon and I wonder how the brothers would react. if you feel like you wouldn’t be able to do a certain disorder justice you can skip it.

First and foremost, I would like to say that I needed to do a lot of research in order to touch on this prompt and even then, I am not an expert. Please understand that my portrayal of Mammon’s behavior and diagnosis is based on limited research and some personal experience (with ADHD and general anxiety). I will be sure to link any resource videos I used for my education below. My primary focus will be on the ADHA, BPD, and I substituted major depressive disorder with some signs of bipolar disorder. Doing 3 and 3 for now and will link part 2 with it is completed. Thank you so much for the request and the challenge!

Mammon with ADHD, BPD, and possible Bipolar Disorder feat. Lucifer, Mammon, and Satan

Lucifer

Lucifer was not a demon to have immediately thought that someone like Mammon may have had an outside force that was causing his erratic behavior. He just assumed that Mammon was unable to pay attention for very long on anything outside of planning get-rich-quick schemes and MC. Lucifer felt like maybe the diagnostic was incorrect. The second brother was just hyper, not hyperactive

It was only a few days after Mammon talked about possibly having the mental disorders in the brothers’ group chat, and asking them if they knew anything about it, Lucifer felt compelled to do his own research. It only took a bit of snooping in Satan’s room to find a few psychology books that may be of use to him.

When Lucifer really sat down to read about ADHD, he was not really surprised with what he found. He knew what it was, just not all of the nuances of it. He then started to think of instances where Mammon would seemingly just keep talking regardless of whether there was anything to be said. Mammon’s speech would get progressively faster and faster, almost like he was running out of time to talk about why, exactly, hellfire cup noodles were the perfect dinner. He would then just randomly stop sometimes in the middle of the sentence as if he had completed his last thought and either look at Lucifer expecting some kind of response or would walk away like the conversation was over.

Lucifer did not feel the need to do additional research for the moment, he had paperwork to get done for Lord Diavolo, after all, but he did try to show a little bit more leniency towards Mammon and his meaningless ramblings. Lucifer does not let up on his punishments, per say, they were just as cruel as usual, he just did not feel the need to hang Mammon by the rafters whenever he felt the need to waste Lucifer’s time talking about Goldie having the perfect ratio of metallic shine and rich color.

Mammon

Mammon did not accept what MC said what he may have at first. He could kind of get the ADHD part of it, that was just having a lot of energy, right? But the more he learned about it, the more he understood his supposedly impulsive behavior.

He talked a few things out with MC and really tried to reflect on his behavior. The term that MC used to describe his endless energy was almost manic and the stigmatized word scared him. Manic made him seem crazy. MC then had to explain that real mania was more of a bipolar disorder trait, and not what they were describing and still not something to fear. When MC talked more about his money schemes and seemingly sudden life alternating plans, he kinda understood a bit more.

There was a certain point in time when Mammon was convinced that he could become the owner of a club that was a thousand times more popular than The Fall and rake in massive amounts of Grimm. He spent a massive amount of his brothers’ money on buying furniture and alcohol and marketing even before he secured a building. The idea wouldn’t leave his mind but evaporated in a day or so. It wasn’t even like he took the time to research how to open a club in the Devildom, he just assumed that he could do anything in the moment and nothing would stop him. Unfortunately, Lucifer did stop him when Mammon’s new furniture collection started to pour out into the hallways of HoL.

Mammon wasn’t all that sure what he could do to maybe help manage his symptoms. MC suggested stimulants to see if he can see a change in his ability to control his impulsiveness. He had to think about it for a bit though. He did not really like that his “manic-like” episodes were impeding on his ability to enjoy his life but he did figure it may have an impact on the people close to him. He is glad to have MC around to help him with this new journey to better managing his mental health.

Satan

Satan was acquainted to some extent with a variety of mental disorders and have thought about a few possible diagnostics for several of his brothers. When Mammon told everybody about his comorbid diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and ADHD, Satan was very interested in talking to MC to find out a bit more information about the conditions.

Satan was intrigued by how BPD was able to impact how Mammon approached his relationships. The impulsiveness was something that could be attributed to the ADHD, but his seemingly unnatural, wholehearted devotion and idealization of MC shortly after they arrived was something he could now see in perspective. Call him a cynic, but Satan thinks Mammon attached themselves to MC a little too fast.

When MC was assigned to be in Mammon’s care, Satan was very quick to notice that his tune changed relatively quickly after just a few days. Mind you, MC really was a great and outstanding person and it was no wonder that the brothers all came to like them as much as they did. However, this was the first time in centuries that Mammon met a human that wasn’t after some sort of advancement in life, so his suspicions should have been high. Next thing Satan was aware of, Mammon was practically walking on Mc’s heels trying to please them or expecting MC to do almost impossible feats just because they stood up to Lucifer for him once. Impressive, yes, but not worth the stars in Mammon’s eyes.

Satan was also aware that there was a major possibility that Mammon would experience the flip side of the idealization and assume that MC was the worst person in existence. It hasn’t happened yet, but Satan keeps an eye on Mammon. Maybe just because demons have a different internal rhythm than humans, this switching between love and hate hasn’t happened nor will it happen. Either way, Satan found comfort in knowing just a bit more about his brother.

------

So, mania is defined as symptoms lasting for more than two weeks. Wanted to clear that up as to why it was manic-like and not mania. This is where the bipolar disorder hinting came into play. Resources below. Thank you for reading and hopefully part 2 will be out soon! -Leo

Bipolar Disorder Vs Borderline Personality Disorder

ADHD Vs Bipolar Disorder

Anxiety vs Mania

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #shall we date lucifer #lucifer avatar of pride #lucifer #shall we date mammon #mammon avatar of greed #mammon #shall we date satan #satan avatar of wrath #mammon headcanon #obey me headcanons #obey me requests

142 notes · View notes

male-fanfics-for-days · 4 years

Text

Pierced By Cupid

Tsukishima x Reader

A/n: I may have spent waaayy too much time on this one, so sorry if it seems like it was dragging on. Tsukki is a charater I went from hating to loving mostly bc I relate to him so much. Anyway, enough on that!! This has not be prof read so sorry for mistakes!!

ENJOY!!

EDIT: I made a part 2 which you can find here! The Jealous Type

At first, he didn’t really notice. He wasn’t looking for anything so there was no reason he really would have noticed, but when he did he was actually shocked by how he didn’t notice before.

A boy, only what he could guess was an inch shorter than Nishinoya with h/c hair and his school jacket off, was in his class studying at the time. Not surprising, however, it was a college prep class. But it was the way the boy kept glancing up at the clock that got Tsukishima’s attention, bouncing his feet and twirling his pencil in his hand while seemingly only somewhat paying attention to his studies.

The only reason Tsukishima was at all looking at the boy was because he was annoying, the boy just wouldn’t stop moving which reminded him of a certain ginger boy the made him groan in his head, prying to any god that he didn’t believe in that this boy wasn’t like the short, excitable spiker on his volleyball team.

Somehow, he got vibes that this boy was different, though he didn’t want to jump to a calming conclusion.

Soon the bell rang and he stood from his desk as it was time for him to get ready for the after-school volleyball club activities. The boy he was watching before, despite seeming anxious to get out of class, was calm in collecting his things. He put away his notebooks and pencils in a neat and orderly fashion, setting them all gently in his shoulder bag that looked brand new.

“Tsukki?”

Tsukishima blinked a few times, refocusing and looking down at his long time friend, who was staring up at him in confusion.

“What?” Was Tsukishima’s blunt response, starting to put away his own things as well, which were not much.

“You were drifting is all,” Yamaguchi muttered out, looking around the room as the other students left. “You were pretty far gone too.”

“The guy who sits behind you wouldn’t stop moving.” Tsukishima replied honestly, adjusting his headphones on his neck and making his way out of the room, Yamaguchi following by his side.

“The guy behind me?” Yamaguchi thought out loud, looking to the ceiling as they both made their familiar path to the club room to change. “You mean L/n-san?”

“I don’t know his name,” Tsukishima tisked, rolling his eyes while stuffing his hands in his pockets. “He was just moving so much and staring at the clock, it was annoying.”

“Hm, it’s probably because his petition for a club creation got accepted and it starts today.” Yamaguchi theorized, and despite his refusal to believe, Tsukishima found himself getting curious.

“... I didn’t think a first year would be allowed to do that.” He simply stated, both to keep the conversation going and to state a fact that he really didn’t know. Yamaguchi chuckled softly and nodded his head.

“Apparently it took a lot of convincing, both on L/n-san’s part and apparently his middle school teachers and a therapist.”

“And where did you hear all this?” Tsukishima prodded. Not to say he wasn’t interested in this tale, but it was an odd amount of information for his shy, freckled friend to have. “Gross, please don’t tell me you are gossiping now?”

“E-eh! N-No Tsukki!” He stammered, flustered. He waved a hand and looked up at Tsukishima. “The others in the class were talking about it while we were eating lunch… I wasn’t eavesdropping! They weren’t quiet about it!”

“What club did he want made, anyway?” Tsukishima swiftly changed the subject, much to the relief of Yamaguchi’s heart.

“Archery.”

“Archery?” Tsukishima echoed back, stopping his walking in the hallway just outside the door that led into the club room and gave Yamaguchi an inquisitive look. “Why archery?”

“I’m not sure,” Yamaguchi shrugged. “But, if it involved a therapist, he probably has a reason he likes archery.”

Tsukishima stood silent for a long moment in thought, which surprised Yamaguchi a small bit. Tsukishima was never one to show an interest in a subject that he wasn’t himself already interested in, but for him to be thinking about not only someone else, but what that someone else was interested in was like seeing a blue moon.

Finally Tsukishima gave a grunt and a shrug, opening the door to the club room and thereby bringing an end to that conversation.

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

The next day, Tsukishima found his gaze unwillingly going back to the boy from before. It seemed he wasn’t as anxious as before, though still bouncing his legs and twirling his pencil, he looked far more at peace today. Tsukishima wondered if it was because he got to do his archery club yesterday after school, like it was an itch that wasn’t satisfied until he had a bow and arrow in hand.

Tsukishima then began to wonder what that was like, to hold a bow and an arrow in hand, to release an arrow into a target several feet away from you. He’d never done it before so he let his mind wonder.

Was it fun? Did he get a lot of people to join the club? Is it like playing volleyball or like playing an instrument? What type of techniques does he do to hit the middle of the target with one clean release of a bow string?

The more he thought, the more his curiosity grew. He knew it was probably pretty obvious he was burning holes into the back of the boy's head, but he couldn’t help getting lost in his own head.

“Y/n-chan!”

A girl came bouncing into the classroom and Tsukishima was immediately annoyed, she was far too perky compared to the boy whose head raised at the sound of his name.

“Hello, Nachi-san… Why are you here?”

Tsukishima felt the corners of his mouth lift up at the boy, Y/n L/n’s, reactions. The girl gave a dramatic pout while placing her bento on his desk.

“We are supposed to be eating lunch together!”

Y/n looked up at the clock, then down to his desk, and then up at her before averting his eyes to the desk once more.

“I don’t remember saying that…”

“You don’t remember a lot of things.” She sassed back, putting her hands on her hips. Y/n glanced at her before bouncing his feet and twirling his pencil once more, the girl, Nachi, started to speak again.

“You also said we were going to study after school. I have a test coming up for math and you know how much I suck at math, really it’s as if it’s a whole other language. Speaking of language, we should study English together as well. You’re so go at it, I don’t think you have ever gotten below a 95%!”

As the girl rambled on with pointless conversation, Tsukishima could tell that Y/n wasn’t at all listening to what she was saying. It looked as if he just turned off his mind, eyes slowly drifting around the room, never on the or anyone for that matter. It was like he was seeing a different world before his eyes, and this was all while the girl continued to prattle on.

Tsukishima couldn’t stop the low chuckle that left his throat as he watched, the girl just now realizing that the boy she was speaking to had no idea she was even speaking in the first place.

“Y/n-chan!!”

Said boy flinched at her loudness, his hands going to his ears as he blinked rapidly at her, his brows frowning as she huffed at him.

“You were spacing out ag-”

“You should eat your bento before lunch ends.” Y/n dropped his hands to his desk, leg beginning to bounce once more as he looked at the clock. “I’ll be at archery after school, so I won’t be studying. Oh.”

Y/n then smiled at the girl, completely overseeing the fact that he cut her off and wasn’t listening to her.

“I bought a new bow yesterday with my father after the club, it is larger and is a more western type of bow. It has been really fun to use so far and I really can’t wai-”

“Did you even hear a word I said?”

The girl cut him off, glaring down at him with arms crossed. Y/n lost his smile and looked at her confused.

“When?”

“Just now!” She called out. “I was talking to you then you cut me off!”

“Oh…” Y/n’s joy that was once there faded quickly and he dropped his head in a bow. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to… I just had-”

“Never mind, Y/n-chan.” The girl sighed, shaking her head and picking up her bento. “I’ll go have lunch with my other friends.”

Y/n watched her leave silently, Tsukishima himself watching as well. He didn’t really understand it, but he was angry at the girl. Tsukishima himself was not someone with an overabundance of patience but even he could understand Y/n was not someone who could focus easily.

It was obvious that Y/n had a type of ADHD, the lack of focus on conversations, the constant moving, covering his ears with loud noises, interrupting mid sentence and rapid movement from topic to topic.

Despite all this Tsukishima was even more curious about the archery boy, and not for the reason he was before. Before he was curious on a basic level, why archery, why start a club, why so much movement, and so on. Now he knew more about it and was more curious on a deeper scale, why do archery if you had trouble focusing, why be in a college prep class that requires a lot of focus and study, why was it so difficult for him to start a club (despite the obvious fact of only being a first year).

Yamaguchi wasn’t at school for a family reason, as he had told Tsukishima threw a text, so when the day was through and time for him to go to his own club, Tsukishima found himself walking down the hall to a different gym then his usual.

It was went he heard solid swift thuds through the open door way of the gym that he found what he was looking for, in the blink of an eye, he saw arrows pass the view of the door then a satisfying thunk of the arrow finding its target.

Tsukishima stood in the entrance of the gym, looking from one side of targets to where the arrows were being shot from. Despite being in the view of Y/n, he was far too focused on the grip he had on the arrow and bow string to care about someone at the entrance of the gym.

He released the arrow with a breath out, and instead of a thunk deep into the target and Tsukishima expected, he instead he a snap and crack. Looking to the target, he allowed himself to be in shock.

The arrow just released had gone straight through the back of an already embedded arrow, leaving the first arrow split in two while the second arrow was stuck between the two split pieces.

“Wow, you’d better hope that’s not school property.” Tsukishima snickered, giving Y/n his ever famous smirk. Y/n looked a little shocked that anyone was there, let alone watching. He held his bow by his side, placing the arrow he was about to take out back in his quiver.

“It’s my own equipment.”

“Ah, so were you just trying to impress me?” Tsukishima continued to smirk, Y/n looked to the floor and shook his head before looking back up at Tsukishima.

“I didn’t know you were there… I don’t suppose you're here for the Archery Club?” Y/n mood seemed to shift from anxious to relaxed as he spoke the words archery, but Tsukishima shook his head.

“No, I’m on the volleyball team. I just came to see what the noise was, I’ll be leaving.”

He turned and walked away from the gym doors, his mind already thinking up an excuse for having to show up late for practice when he heard Y/n’s voice.

“You can come by anytime you want,” Tsukishima turned and looked at Y/n with a blank face, Y/n smiled a small corner smile. “The club was just made, so it’s only me. The teachers are going to find other students who want to join… Until then, it will just be me.”

Tsukishima and Y/n both stared at each other for a moment, Tsukishima not breaking his blank faced facade. He turned and walked away, throwing a comment over his shoulder before he fully walked away.

“We’ll see.”

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

Y/n changed the times for his club, so instead of having it just after school he asked for the early morning as well, before school truly started. He was the time he set up so him and Tsukishima could spend more time with each other without Tsukishima getting in trouble for missing practice.

Their meetings have been happening for about 4 weeks, Yamaguchi formally meeting Y/n a week after Tsukishima had already been hanging out with the archer.

In such a time Tsukishima learned a lot about Y/n.

Archery was one of the only things that ever allowed Y/n to focus with an almost superhuman accuracy. It was also one of the ways he would study, more likely to remember the answers to a review if he nails a bullseye. Another thing he had learned was that Y/n was just as sarcastic as Tsukishima himself, the only difference is that Y/n never said it out loud.

Y/n had trouble with noise, specifically loud noises or the sound of multiple people talking at once. He once described the feeling to Tsukishima as he was cleaning his bow and arrows.

“When I hear a loud noise or a crowd of people, my whole body goes stiff. It started to become hard to breath and not matter how hard I try to block it out, I can’t move.”

Y/n sighed, letting the bow rest on his lap and on his crossed legs. He sat across from Tsukishima who was looking through Y/n’s notes, Tsukishima looking up at him pause.

“When that happens, I kinda… black out. My whole body suddenly feels like the energy was just sucked out of me,” Y/n looked at Tsukishima in the eyes as he gave a somewhat weak smirk. “I usually pass out when it happens.”

“... that sucks.” Tsukishima responded, Y/n giving him a blank look before rolling his eyes and standing.

“No shit, aren’t you supposed to be the smart one?”

Tsukishima smirked and looked up at the boy while raising a brow.

“Keep that attitude and I won’t let you eat my spare sweet bread.”

Y/n immediately turned back around, almost entirely forgetting he was supposed to be doing archery.

“WAIT YOU HAVE SWEET BREAD?!!?”

In the classroom, they simply acted as strangers. Not ignoring each other, but also not making a show of friendship. Tsukishima and Y/n both realized they were the same in that they didn’t really need to interact with each other constantly to know the other is still a friend.

Yamaguchi said how nice it was to see Tsukishima gain more friends, which Tsukishima quickly shot down as him not ‘making friends’ like a child. One of the reasons Tsukishima was quite upset with Yamaguchi about saying this was that he said it during volleyball which meant his other teammates heard it and were relentlessly teasing him.

Sure, he was good at dodging their questions and instead riling them up the way they tried with him, but his teammates genuinely wondered who this mysterious new friend of Tsukishima’s was.

None of them thought they would meet this friend today.

They were maybe 1/4th of their way into practice when they heard a soft voice call out to Tsukishima from the gyms door way, everyone in the gym turned their heads to see a short h/c boy standing with a shoulder bag over his shoulder, his uniform jacket around his waist and a grey notebook in his hand.

“Um… Tsukishima… You forgot your notebook in my gym.” Y/n held up the notebook as if to show proof of why he was interrupting their practice, he gave a deep bow to the coach and the other volleyball players. “Please excuse the intrusion.”

“You’re fine, kid.” Coach Ukai said, but the end of whatever he was going to say was drowned out by a few people Tsukishima never wanted meeting Y/n.

“Are you Tsukki’s new friend we’ve heard about?!” Tanaka called out, going straight up to Y/n who flinched a little at his loud voice, flinching more as Nishinoya jumped up and down next to him.

“Ah! You’re shorter than me!! I’m not the shortest anymore!!”

“You’re still the shortest on our team, however.” Tsukishima cut in, making his way over to Y/n who only relaxed a little more as Tsukishima stood next to him, taking the notebook.

Nishinoya was irked by Tsukishima’s comment, but it was Hinata that set off a bomb of questions aimed at the already slightly overwhelmed boy.

“OOOOHHH!!! You’re the first year that started the archery club, aren’t you!?!?”

“Uh… y-yea-”

“ARCHERY?!?! LIKE THE KIND SAMURAIS USE?!?”

“Well, not all the time but-”

“You’re the leader of that club right?? How many people have joined so far?”

“No-”

“Alright, calm down.”

Daichi tried and failed to calm the rambunctious trio, even Kageyama was muttering out questions. It took a moment to realize that this was what kind of chaos Y/n couldn’t listen to, and when Tsukishima looked down at the boy he could tell immediately he was not well.

His chest visibly stuttered, showing he was not breathing right, his skin went and lighter shade and his eyes were moving rapidly to each person who was talking and speaking over each other.

Tsukishima swiftly turned away and walked over to his extra school bag he brought with him, thanking his past self for finding a reason to bring it.

“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi softly called his friend, but Tsukishima was too focused on something else.

Tsukishima pulled out his headphones, an extra water bottle, his phone, and his black volleyball jacket. Standing back up and turning back to Y/n, who looked to be getting worse by the second, he put his plan to action.

Without even acknowledging the other people in the room, he put his headphones over Y/n’s head, placing them over his ears, plugging it into his phone and playing whatever music was available. He picked up Y/n’s hand and placed his phone in his grip, then put the water bottle in his other hand before putting one of his large hands over Y/n’s eyes, then glaring at the group that was round them.

Y/n leaned into Tsukishima’s hand that was over his eyes, his breathing slowly going back to normal, with puffs of air as he tried taking deep breaths.

“You’re all overwhelming him, idiots.” Tsukishima almost growled out, glaring at a specific four people. “Do any of you know what personal space is?”

He didn’t wait for a response as he took his hand off Y/n’s eyes and guided him to his bag, Y/n kept his eyes closed and took sips of the water before allowing Tsukishima to lower him to the ground next to his bag. Y/n curled his legs to his chest, putting the bottle beside him and clutching Tsukishima’s phone close to his chest, Tsukishima then placed his black jacket over Y/n like a cover, successfully blocking out the harsh gym lights.

Once he stood at full height, watching Y/n for a moment for any other signs of discomfort, he turned to his team and glared.

“If I knew you were all going to try and kill him, I would never have let you even know he existed, not that I wanted to in the first place.” His last comment was directed at Yamaguchi, who looked down.

“Gomen, Tsukki.”

“We didn’t try to kill him!!” Hinata cried out. “Will he be okay?!”

“Not if you keep yelling, you walking, human orange.” Tsukishima snapped, making Hinata irritated but covering his mouth.

Sugawara was the one that came over to Tsukishima, glancing down at the covered, curled up boy.

“Is he really okay? What was that?”

“He’s sense’s are hypersensitive. Like I said, he was overwhelmed.” Tsukishima replied, looking down at Y/n and sighing, before looking off somewhere else. “He’ll be fine, he just needs time to recover.”

“Would it be best for him to move to the club room then-”

“No.” Tsukishima quickly answered, cutting off Sugawara who seemed taken back by his quick answer. “Let’s just keep practicing. He’s fine here.”

There was a thick silence before Coach Ukai clapped his hands and told them to continue. Kiyoko and Yachi stood by Y/n as he hid away in Tsukishima’s jacket, making sure no stray volleyball hit him while he was recovering. The boys were also cautious of being too loud, especially Hinata, Tanaka, and Nishinoya, the loudest of their team.

Practice went on like normal and finished just the same, them all getting ready to change and go home. Tsukishima kneeled down in front of Y/n, who was still curled up and had his jacket over his head, and he slowly took the jacket from off him.

What he saw made his heart skip a bit in a way he never felt before.

Y/n had his arms crossed over his knees with his head laying on them, Tsukishima’s headphones still on his ears playing music while he slept peacefully. His cheek was pressed to his arms and his mouth was slightly one, little out tiny puffs of air.

He looked so small, so at peace. A peace Tsukishima has never seen on someone before, and watching his eyelashes flutter somewhat in his sleep as he dreamed, Tsukishima quickly realized what this feeling in his chest was and felt a heat rise to his face in response.

Slowly peeling his phone out of Y/n’s hand and taking his headphones back, he placed his hand on top of Y/n’s head and spoke softly to the sleeping boy.

“Hey, we’re leaving.”

Y/n didn’t stir for a moment, which made Tsukishima softly run his hand over Y/n’s head in a gentle pet to wake him up.

“Y/n.”

It was then that Y/n’s eyes fluttered open, Tsukishima moving his hand back to his side and watching as Y/n slowly woke up. He opened his mouth and let out a yawn, then lifted his arms over his head in a cat like scratch, letting his legs stretch out as well. He made little noises of someone just waking up, rubbing his eyes and he took in a deep breath, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.

Tsukishima would first be found dead and as tall as Nishinoya before he would ever admit to thinking Y/n was currently the cutest being he has ever known and has ever existed, and he was really glad no one else was left in the gym to see it. He would never admit that he would have been jealous to know others saw Y/n’s cute display, to know that Y/n was like a plushy in human form.

“Your practice is over?” Y/n rasped out, his voice still soft from sleep.

To avoid being seen blushing, Tsukishima quickly went about packing his things.

“We are leaving now.”

“Oh… okay.”

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

There was little to no talking among the two as Tsukishima changed and got ready, Yamaguchi had stayed in the club room to tell them both that the team was buying meat buns as an apology for what they did earlier.

Yamaguchi spoke with Y/n casually as they made their way down to their coach's store, Tsukishima only half listening to what they were saying, half thinking deeply to himself.

Did he really fall in love with this archer boy? Half of his mind reasoned with him that it wasn’t that surprising, seeing as they had a lot in common but they were also very different. That part of his mind admitted full force that he was in love and that he was allowed to have nice things like then.

Then came his logical side, with a list; they were both boys was the biggest, Tsukishima had never looked at guys romantically before, he knew Y/n for 4 weeks, outside of school he barely knew anything about Y/n outside of the small things he’s been told, Y/n himself doesn’t know much about Tsukishima since he never really made and effort to explain more about himself outside what he thought was needed, the team would probably never see him the same again, people in class would probably talk which was more annoying than anything.

He started thinking the same way he thought for volleyball, why try if it was going to end poorly, for both him and Y/n. Why risk all the bad things that could happen, no, that would happen.

‘I’m not in love’ He thought to himself conclusively looking down at the boys conversing next to him, but unfortunately for him, his heart had other plans.

Y/n had a tired smile that made his face shine in the most beautiful way, a gentle laugh leaving his chest as something Yamaguchi had said. His eyes squinting into crescent moons with crows feet wrinkling his slightly flushed cheeks, making them look soft in the moonlight. Then, he turned to look up at Tsukishima.

He knew at that moment that no matter how many times he would say it’s not true… he was pierced by this small cupid boy, and Tsukishima now knew what it felt like to be one of Y/n’s targets. Though, he was not complaining.

His eyes reflected the moon and were glossed in a still sleepy way, his eyes still crinkled at the corners and a smile now more soft than cloth could ever be. He was looking up at Tsukishima as if he had just handed him the earth and sky, and as dangerous as the feeling was, Tsukishima could feel in his chest that if Y/n asked for it, he would give him just that.

“I’m sorry if I made your practice more difficult, Tsukki.” Y/n said gently while shrugging his shoulder, unknowing of the effect of his voice and words on the tall boy's heart.

“... Tsukki?” Was the only thing that could leave his lips, his brain using every ounce of control it had not to turn into a blushing mess. He was so whipped for that small archer, and Y/n had no idea.

“Oh, sorry,” He bowed his head with a slight laugh. “Yama-san calls you that, so I thought I could as well.”

Tsukishima glanced over to his long time friend, who only gave a small chuckle in response.

“Mm.” Tsukishima didn’t risk his voice, knowing if he tried to say anything at the moment, he would in fact let loose that Y/n was more than welcome to call him anything.

“Oi! Tsukishima! Yamaguchi! Archer-san! Over here!”

The trio glanced up and saw the rest of the volleyball team outside the store, each eating a meat bun. Without knowing it, Tsukishima walked closer to Y/n’s side, and the only reason Y/n noticed was the warmth and was radiation off him.

They got closer and Daichi stepped forward, bowing to Y/n who became even more flushed then simply the evening air.

“I would like to formally apologize for overwhelming you before.”

The rest of the team bowed as well, making Y/n back up into Tsukishima, resulting in Tsukishima gently placing a hand on the small of his back.

“O-oh, it’s okay.” Y/n looked down and away, avoiding eye contact. “You’d be surprised how often that happens to me, I’m just glad Tsukki got to me before I collapsed.”

“Eh?! Would you have died?!” Hinata exclaimed in sheer worry, but flinched after seeing Y/n flinch himself from the loud tone of his voice. Hinata was hit in the head by Kageyama, who scowled at him.

“You’re too loud, boke.”

“Ugh! I--” Hinata was about to yell as just a natural reaction when talking to the dark haired setter, but glancing at Y/n who was slowly starting to hide behind Tsukishima, he growled low and glared at the ground. “...I know that.”

“Here,” Asahi came over to Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, and Y/n, handed them a bag filled with meat buns. “I got one for each team member and two for...eh...uhm.”

Asahi had to peek around Tsukishima’s back, everyone now noticing that Y/n basically hiding behind Tsukishima and staying close to his back while watching everyone. Y/n blushed and stuttered.

“E-eh, my names L/n Y/n.”

“L/y-kun.” Asahi finished, smiling shyly back at Y/n who gave one as equal.

Though it would go unnoticed as Tsukishima going into the bag to grab a meat bun held by Yamaguchi, what it really was was Tsukishima blocking everyone's view of Y/n.

Sugawara spoke next, smiling at everyone.

“As nice as it would be to get to know L/y-san, we have early practice tomorrow and it's getting colder.”

“Right,” Daichi said, “Tomorrow morning will be one by one training seeing what each of us can work on, so get well rested.”

“Yes sir!!”

Tsukishima gave the meat bun bag to Y/n and covered his ears, everyone else sheepishly looked on and replied again more quietly.

Yamaguchi said he needed to go to the grocery store to get a few things for his mother before he went home, so he told Tsukishima and Y/n to go without him. This left the two boys to walk home together, alone.

Y/n quietly munched on the meat buns while they walked, unknowingly shivering as he stared up at the evening sky, then to the buildings around in a distracted way. Tsukishima didn’t really know what his plan was, but he stopped Y/n from walking with an arm in front of him.

Y/n bumped into his arm, not seeing it before, then looked up at Tsukishima.

“What’s wrong?”

“You were going to trip over that.” Both Tsukishima and Y/n looked down and saw a large branch from a nearby tree in the way, Y/n went to pick it up but Tsukishima just used his foot to kick it out of the way.

He then began taking off his jackets and placing it on Y/n’s shoulders.

“You are also shivering.” Tsukishima looked ahead, acting as if this was no big deal. But he caught a glimpse of Y/n snuggling into his jacket more and had to look away, a silent cuss mouthing from his lips.

“Thank you, Tsukki.” Y/n said, continuing to munch on his snacks. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were being nice to me.”

Tsukishima, stopped walking, in turn making Y/n stop walking and look up at him. Tsukishima then places the back of his hand on Y/n’s forehead, Y/n himself looking on in pure confusion.

“Uh… Tsukki-”

“If you think I’m being nice, you must be sick.”

Y/n snorted and let out a hearty laugh, swiftly swatting away Tsukishima’s hand and stomping down the road like a child, all while Tsukishima hid a smile behind a smirk.

“You’re dumb.”

“Wow,” Tsukishima snarked, walking next to Y/n and looking down at him with his signature smirk. “Did you think of that one all by yourself? I’d say I’m proud but, I don’t care.”

Y/n laughed again, shaking his head, not noticing the look of pure admiration Tsukishima was staring at him with.

Despite the nervousness he felt of his feelings being found out, Tsukishima felt as if their conversation was as smooth as any. It wasn’t forced or uncomfortable, Y/n laughed freely and comfortably while Tsukishima joked and sent sarcasm his way. He would have thought that after knowing how attracted he was to the boy, he would have stopped being natural or at least would not be talking as much as he was at the moment.

But everything with Y/n was natural, as natural as the moon is to the stars. Their conversations switched and changed often, though Tsukishima felt no irritation as the excited glimmer in Y/n out weighed any negative thoughts.

Tsukishima hadn’t even really realized it until he and Y/n stopped in front of a house, that he was walking Y/n home and this was where they went their separate way.

Y/n neatly folded the bag that was now empty of meat buns and put it in his pocket, slowly taking off Tsukishima’s jacket and handing it back to him.

“Here, thanks again for letting me use it. And it was nice to meet your team.”

Tsukishima took his jacket back, flushing slightly at touching Y/n's hand and looking off.

“Even despite the fact they almost made you pass out.”

“Well, in truth they did make me pass out, but luckily you were there so I didn’t collapse and make a fool of myself.”

“I don’t think that is what makes you a fool, Y/n.”

Y/n puffed up his cheeks and slightly hit Tsukishima’s arm, Tsukishima not feeling anything and just smiling it off. Y/n turned to his house and walked to his door, not wanting their fun to end but they would see each other again tomorrow.

Knowing they would be together again tomorrow, even for a short while, made Y/n’s chest swell with joy.

“Y/n.” Y/n had just put his hand on the door handle when he heard Tsukishima’s voice.

“Yeah, Tsukk--”

He turned to face Tsukishima, but he didn’t expect him to be so close. Practically pushed up against the door, Y/n looked up only in time for Tsukishima to lower his head and made their lips touch.

Y/n’s eyes immediately fluttered shut at the warmth that suddenly filled him body, the smell of Tsukishima intoxicating him just as his jacket had been for so long.

In truth, if it were anyone else, Y/n would not have calmed down so quickly, he would not have felt comfortable enough to fall asleep just anywhere, he would not have felt comfortable letting just anyone touch him the way Tsukishima had.

And in return, Tsukishima didn’t know anyone that made him open up as fast as Y/n did, not even Yamaguchi, his childhood friend. He had always been closed off and unwilling to put his whole heart into things, with fear of failure, heart break, rejection. But through this kiss, through connecting his lips to Y/n’s, he was saying that his heart was open to Y/n and only Y/n. Somehow, through the 4 weeks of knowing one another, it was like cupid's arrow was destined to pierce them both.

They pulled apart, the breath mixing as they stayed close, the lips brushing over each other as they soaked in what had happened.

“Kei.” Tsukishima’s voice came out in a hushed tone, one that made Y/n swoon.

“Wha--”

“If we are going to be together,” He continued, standing straight and looking down at Y/n’s flushed face with a smile. “Call me Kei.”

Y/n stood in shock, but as many things in his head, he was quick to smile back and Tsukishima. He allowed his heart to swell with the only thought of the tall boy with glasses and a sarcastic attitude, Tsukishima too allowing his mind, body, and soul to be only filled with the short, just as funny, archer boy who stole his heart in record time.

“Well… goodnight then… Kei.”

“Goodnight, Y/n.”

#haikyuu x male reader #haikyuu!!#tsukishima x reader #x male reader #tsukishima x male reader #tsukishima kei #haikyuu x reader

518 notes · View notes

jpegjade · 4 years

Text

Physical Therapy - Ch. 1 (Spencer)

WELCOME TO PHYSICAL THERAPY!! in honor of this bish starting physical therapy in real life (and missing it bc i can’t drive and my mom and i’s schedules not being synched on google calendar all the time) i’ve decided to write a fic about it. it will be a little series with a goal (yes, an end game) and it’ll be cute. some of it is based on actual things that happen and some is literally just the story. ENJOY.

gender: neutral

tw: nothing that i can think of

genre: fluff | angst

Description: After getting shot in the leg, spencer goes through physical therapy before he can get back in the field completely. What happens when he starts to fall for his physical therapy assistant?

__________________

Two honks at 6am meant that it was time for Spencer to get going. Derek was downstairs, in the car, waiting on boy wonder to crutch his way out of the apartment complex. Derek wasn’t sure how to feel about this trip considering he missed his early morning run for this but he knew how nervous Spencer was for his evaluation today so he didn’t mind as much as he could have minded.

Spencer was patiently waiting in a pair of very short shorts, mismatched socks, and running shoes. He threw on a t-shirt and looked in the mirror, noting how tired he looked. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately for some reason but he couldn’t be sure why. He combed out his hair one more time before he and his crutches headed to the elevators.

“Ready, kid?” Derek said, opening the front door for Spencer like a world class chauffeur would if Spencer was a celebrity.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Spencer mumbled.

In truth, Spencer was more than ready to get started on his physical therapy journey. He wanted to get back in the field full time, adrenaline pumping, connecting with victims, walking again. He didn’t mind the assisted mobility but it was hard for him to know that the best he could do sometimes was stay back in the office or hang out in Garcia’s batcave.

The car ride was filled with a comfortable silence between the two men. Derek was thinking about how he could make up his missed morning run by doing another type of high cardio workout while Spencer was just trying to figure out why it had to be him. He wouldn’t wish the frustration of his recovery process on anyone else on the team but the frustration of the recovery process just got to him on some days. Today was one of those days.

Derek pulled up to the physical therapy clinic sooner than Spencer hoped. Part of that was because Derek was a very fast driver while the other part was because Spencer wasn’t paying attention for most of the drive.

“You owe me one.” Derek said, completely joking. Well… Partially. That morning run was what kept him awake during the day, energizing him for work.

“Do you want to come in?” Spencer said, looking down at his hands in his lap.

Spencer’s hands were tapping his leg as he awaited Derek’s answer. He was nothing short of a nervous wreck on the inside. All he could think about was how much pain he would be in once the evaluation was over and the physical therapist had finished poking and prodding at his knee. He hated to think that it would be worse than everything else going on. Plus he still had to go to work today.

“Sure, kid.” Derek said.

Derek wasn’t going to sit in the car and do nothing the whole time so he might as well support his friend.

Climbing out of the car, the boys slowly made it to the sliding glass doors of the physical therapy clinic. Much to Spencer’s surprise, it was nothing like he originally imagined it to be. Some part of him thought it would somewhat resemble the clinic where his mother resided but it was completely different. There were floor to ceiling walls for over half of the first floor building. High tech equipment was stationed everywhere from anti gravity treadmills to hand bike motors, medicine balls and so much more. Spencer stood in the doorway, leaning on his crutches, while he took everything in. There was so much light in the air, it was almost like the feeling of recovery was airy and not meant to bog him down. This was a strange feeling for him to comprehend...

“You coming, pretty boy?” Derek called, taking a break from chatting with the pretty receptionist.

Spencer and his crutches walked over to the front desk and grabbed the paperwork that covered how much pain he was in today. He filled it out quickly, hoping to get everything over with sooner than later. He was already here so he might as well just finish everything quickly so he could get out of the place.

When he finished writing everything down, he returned the paperwork to the receptionist who slipped him a piece of paper and pointed to Derek. Spencer already knew it was the receptionist’s personal phone number and he didn’t even need to look at the paper. Sitting down, Spencer handed Derek to a very confused Derek before it hit him what it was. Derek winked at the receptionist, who blushed before answering the phone.

“Spencer?” A voice called his name shortly after he sat down.

It was nice to know that here, he didn’t have to be a doctor. He was just another person healing. He didn’t have to be smart, he could just exist.

“Good luck.” Derek said, noticing that Spencer’s hand was shaking in the slightest bit.

“My name is Nora and I will be your lead physical therapist.” The woman said, walking Spencer to a vacant padded table. It reminded Spencer of the types of tables you lay on when you get a massage.

He only got a massage once when Garcia got stood up on a couples’ massage date. He spent half of his part of the massage giving the masseuse facts about how their job could actually give them an infection from the amount of germs in the air and on the table. His delivery of facts caused the room to be incredibly uncomfortable and bleach the table very thoroughly. By the time he and the masseuse finished, only 5 minutes were left in the massage and Garcia was left horrified and amused at the same time.

“Don’t worry. We bleach the tables every time someone finishes a session.” Nora said, noticing the look on Spencer’s face. Spencer visibly relaxed and sat on the table.

“So, Spencer, tell me a little bit about yourself.” Nora followed up, pulling up a backless roller chair.

“Well, I was on a case and the unsub, unknown subject, shot at a dad but it ended up hitting me in the leg instead and…” Spencer paused, looking at Nora’s amused face.

“No, I mean tell me about you. Your hobbies, what you do for fun, things like that. I need to do a complete profile for you so I know how your quality of life has been affected and which exercises you can do at home so we aren’t pushing too fast.” Nora smiled at Spencer.

“I work.” Spencer said in a matter-of-fact tone. He didn’t really have anything else to say.

“Okay. So you’re a workaholic.” Nora wrote. She was about to ask a new question when you came quickly walking to Nora.

Spencer was left dumbfounded. There seemed to be a halo of light radiating around you, making you glow. He knew it was the sun finally rising but his brain short circuited as he continued to gaze at you.

“Hey Nora?” You said, looking down at your boss. “Mrs. Gillespi wants to know why you haven’t come back to check her form. She doesn’t trust me because, her words here, I ‘look like a child who doesn’t know their left foot from the color orange.’”

“Sure. Here, you can take over Spencer’s evaluation.” She handed you her clipboard.

You looked at the detailed notes on the paper and then up at Spencer, who looked like one of the youngest people here.

“It’s not often we get cute guys in this place. Other than Kyle. But Kyle’s an asshole who could almost be my dad.” You blurted, not realizing you said it outloud as soon as Nora left.

You noticed that he started blushing and looking at his converse and you realized that you said something. You usually spoke your thoughts out loud but the people you worked with were used to it so no one bothered to say anything.

“What?” You asked, confused.

“You called me cute.” Spencer said. “Which is fine. I don’t understand the appeal but I do believe that your blurting of what you perceive as a fact is a coping mechanism. It can also be tied to ADHD, which is a common mental disorder that causes your brain to impulsively say things.” Spencer paused, looking at your face.

“What?” You asked, again, confused.

“I’m not saying you have ADHD. I’m a doctor but not that kind of doctor. Although I could get another Ph. D. Prove my father wrong. And…” Spencer realized he was rambling.

“Cute and a talker.” You said, writing that down.

You wrote something down on the paper that Spencer couldn’t see but he was curious about.

“Let’s check out that leg.” You said, pulling out an instrument that looked like a compass.

You asked Spencer to move his knee certain ways and it wasn’t as bad as Spencer thought. You were gentle, soft even. Your hands were delicate and you ended the session massaging his leg and smiling at him.

“You were a good patient today, doctor Spencer.” You said, smiling at him.

Spencer blushed, unable to meet your eyes.

“You… I mean… I enjoyed our session.” Spencer said. “Which I don’t normally enjoy. Not that I’ve been shot before. Or had physical therapy. Or been here. Or even worked out really.”

“You’re funny, doc.” You smiled. “Your next appointment is Tuesday of next week according to the schedule so I guess I’ll see you then. I can’t wait.”

Spencer stared at you as he wondered why you were so excited.

“Why?” Spencer asked.

“It’s not every day I get the case for a cute guy who is smart and awkward. It’s almost like the heavens have answered my hopes and prayers.” You joked, looking up at the ceiling and putting your hand on your heart.

“I believe in science.” Spencer stated, grabbing his crutches.

“A man of science. Does it get any better? What’s your star sign?” You joked.

“Scorpio.” Spencer stated.

“Oop. All the scorpios I know have been some hoes. You better not be a hoe, doc.”

“I’m definitely not a gardening tool, if that’s what you’re referring to. Otherwise, I’d like to thing my lack of dating skills doesn’t qualify as being a… hoe? Although, I don’t believe in the use of the word to describe someone who enjoys spending time with multiple people. I’d like to think the use of the word is meant in jest and fun for a term of endearment.” Spencer stood up, balancing on his crutches.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” You said, walking slowly with Spencer to the front desk.

“What’s your name?” Spencer asked, turning to you. He realized that he never got your name.

“Y/n.” You smiled.

The clouds must have parted again because as soon as you turned to walk away from him, towards Nora, you were covered in another halo. And just like that, you were gone again.

_____________________

Future tag list:

@ellvswriting @sageandberries-png @l0ve-0f-my-life @rexorangecouny @kennedywxlsh

Want to be added? Tell me!

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #cm

164 notes · View notes

tinydancer-busyday · 4 years

Text

ADHD and girls

My friend got me into TikTok about a year ago, which in hindsight was excellent timing because the last year has required every single dopamine boost that time-eating app can give me. In the last few months I found myself on ADHD TikTok and thinking, wow, I identify with a lot of this stuff, like, with all of this stuff. Interesting...

So I stayed on ADHD TikTok and learned enough that I started Googling and going through symptom lists and taking self-report questionnaires and thinking about my childhood... It seemed increasingly obvious to me that I was one of those girls in young adult life realizing it really isn’t this hard to keep up for everyone. Just because we weren’t outwardly hyper and disruptive didn’t mean our minds were also calm and undistracted.

I love knowing why’s, how things work, and what motivates what, and so I wanted to look into getting a diagnosis. If so many of the things I struggled to change were ADHD symptoms, maybe tackling ADHD as the root cause would help change things. Better to tackle the source rather than the product, right?

But I’d seen the videos and read the articles from women telling how hard they had to fight for their diagnosis, how they had to convince doctor after doctor, and were misdiagnosed or ignored. I was worried. I’m non-confrontational by nature, fighting an authority figure to see things my way is terrifying.

So I prepared. I created a five page document of symptoms from lists I’d found and that I experienced. I found the most legitimate, professional self reports I’d found, the kind that say to give them to your doctor when you’ve filled them out, and I put them all in a cloud folder so I could immediately pull them up on my phone or email them to doctors if they asked. And then I waited for my doctor’s appointment.

My doctor is great. A younger woman, who sometimes wears WonderWoman graphic tees, she almost unquestioningly gave me a referral to a psychiatrist, even referencing the now known fact that ADHD is under-diagnosed in girls and women. As the first hurdle, this was so reassuring.

Shockingly quickly, only a couple weeks later, I heard from the psychiatrist’s office to book an appointment, only two weeks away. They had me fill out a 40 minute online questionnaire. It’s a good thing I like personality tests and questionnaires!

This past week the day of the appointment arrived. I reread my curated symptom list and questionnaires, hoping I wouldn’t have to argue my case, but hoping to be prepared if I did. For an hour two doctors asked me question after question. They were both very friendly, thankfully, but it still felt like a very personal intense job interview.

At the end the psychiatrist simply said, so it looks like you fit the criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder and ADHD, to which the other doctor agreed.

I was a bit taken aback. I would've been shocked not to get a diagnosis in the end, but I didn't expect to get it on the first appointment! Also, GAD? Not a surprise in the slightest, but having got the referral for ADHD in particular I wasn't even aware that was on the table! Can’t slip anything by a psychiatrist, I suppose!

So now I have my root cause. Two in fact! I can tackle them with the many tips and tricks from therapists, psychiatrists, and fellow ADHDers and GADers, or I can go the medical route, or I can chose both. It’s a bit of an anti-climactic relief to finally have some answers. My brain is actually wired different and going at it in a neurotypical way won’t help, as evidenced by the last twenty-odd years of my life. Hopefully now I can find a way to go at it that feels more natural, and works with it instead of fighting it.

So many of the stories I found were people having to fight for diagnosis and of doctors refusing to listen. While those experiences do happen way more often than they should, maybe this can comfort a future undiagnosed ADHDer getting ready to pursue a diagnosis, it’s not always like that. Sometimes it’s downright easy.

#adhd #undiagnosed adhd #adhd in women #adhd in girls #neurodivergent

56 notes · View notes

beanmochiii · 2 years

Text

By god I must info dump

Ok so this is abt an au I’ve made for my city under the rails story. In canon near the end, shorty stabs keoni while being kind of possessed by the crystal. This may not make sense but basically shorty is possessed by a corrupted angry god. In canon keoni breaks down wailing/screaming because of the pain and stress of being attacked by ur best friend, and this snaps shorty out of the possession. But in this au, keoni instead just takes the pain kinda, and says to shorty that it’s ok, he forgives them, he knows they don’t mean it, and so on. Shorty comes to after keonis died, and theyre very dazed. Their brain isn’t really letting them process what’s happening.

The crystal(who is now uncorrrupted because hero did the sacrificing herself to heal the crystal thing still) feels bad so it like elevators shorty back up to the surface forest. Shorty stumbles out of the forest back to their city and is quickly recognized. They’re back with their parents(strict n not great tbh) and they can’t remember what they were doing in the forest for the past *7 months apparently.*

Through the next few months shorty struggles to adjust back to normal life, they don’t like geology anymore and they don’t know why, they sometimes forget whole days for seemingly no reason at all, and they’re imagining a friend. He’s witty and good company, so shorty doesn’t really want to stop imagining him. Shorty is slowly losing their old friends, and it’s their own fault. They’re too different after the forest. They start imagining keoni almost every part of the day.

Until, suddenly they’ve lost a week and a half of memory and keoni doesn’t come around anymore. No matter how hard they try to imagine him.

Shorty gets a therapist.

Things aren’t really adding up, they have images in their phone with time stamps that date them during the forest that they just can’t see and are terrified to show anyone else. They don’t understand this overwhelming sickening fear they get when they try to see the photos, try to think about their time in the forest, try to imagine up keoni. They’re forgetting more and more days. They start to keep a journal.

Entry 47

i had a dream last night where I can’t see anything but red. I can hear keoni speaking to me, saying things like “it’s ok” “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t mean it” I think this is close, I feel like throwing up just writing-

Slowly, theyre able to remember more and more. They don’t have to write down every thought that feels treacherous. They think they’ll actually start talking with their therapist about this stuff.

(These arent necessarily set right then^ they’d probably have to get a few more clues to piece it together)

(gonna rb with more images cuz tumblrs image limit) (writing the dialougue cuz my handwriting has that adhd scrawl

shorty; i think i might’ve… killed someone… it’s- its hard to think about.

therapist; understandable

shorty; yeah well- god you look like him sometimes. My brain keeps fucking me over. Forgetting it all. I wouldn’t be surprised if i’ve figured it out before.)

2 notes · View notes

particularemu · 5 years

Text

Insanity | A Hwang Hyunjin Series | Part 1

Part: [Prologue] [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13] [Part 14] [Part 15] [Epilogue]

Word Count: 5046

Type: Angst

Warnings: violence, drugs, descriptions of anxiety, panic disorders, fucked up hospitals, a sassy Jinnie boi, and corruption.

Author’s Note: Without further ado, I present part 1 of Insanity. Please understand that I’m no doctor, and I have 0 medical knowledge, so if I make a mistake, shoot me a message and school me so I can fix it :3

Hyunjin’s eyes widened as he stepped off the bus, hand tugging his suitcase behind him. There it was — Rosewood Psychiatric Institution — the medical facility he was going to stay and work in for the next couple of years. Hyunjin would stay longer, but he had strict plans to start his own institution after getting some work experience. Judging by the beautiful landscape — it looked like he picked the right place.

The land rolled smoothly under the thick, luscious grass, the picture-perfect landscape looking as if it was sculpted by the gods. There were several colorful plants and shrubs along the cobblestone path, leading Hyunjin directly to the gates. After being waved through by a couple of nice-looking guards, Hyunjin made his way over to the living quarters for the staff. Thank goodness the way was pointed by various golden signs, otherwise, he’d surely get lost in the big institution made up of several buildings.

Hyunjin’s lips parted in surprise as several sprinklers turned on, watering the beautiful lawn for the first time that morning. Wow… they obviously had a passionate landscaper who thrives on taking care of all these plants. It must take the man (or woman) all day to water the plants, cut the grass, and pull each and every weed out of the landscape.

The institution was incredible. Most mental health facilities he visited during his university years weren’t this large — or as aesthetically pleasing. The boy couldn’t help but gawk at the beautiful architecture.

Hyunjin cursed as his watch beeped, signaling the start of his shift in the next hour. He opened the door to the living quarters, gasping at the luxurious decor coating the walls. This doctor must make loads of money off this place to be able to afford decor this nice. It was nice to know that Dr. Douglas took care of the staff. Hyunjin quickly made his way over to room 108, grateful that he wouldn’t have to drag his suitcase up 3 flights of stairs. Hyunjin tucked his suitcase under the bed, brows creasing when he saw the pure white uniform laying across his bed.

Fuck, he hated white. Of course, he expected he’d have to wear the typical white coat, but usually, he was allowed to wear blue scrubs. Why the hell were they forcing the staff to wear some 1950s style uniform? Oh well. Hyunjin changed into the uniform.

Dr. Douglas must be obsessed with the look of white — Hyunjin assumed because all the rooms were coated with white paint, decorated with white knick-knacks, and beds were made with white sheets and comforters. Hyunjin would have to find a poster or something to go on the wall, or he might have to check himself into the institution.

Hyunjin rushed out the door, checking to make sure it locked before heading over to the main building. From what he could tell on his map, he would be working in the largest building. Hyunjin headed inside, eyes scanning the room for some sign of where he should go.

“Hello, how can I help you, sir?” A kind woman dressed in some 1950s looking nurse uniform caught Hyunjin’s attention.

What is with these old-fashioned uniforms? Maybe they were trying to keep things timeless for those who’ve been in the institution a while? Or perhaps Dr. Douglass just enjoyed vintage things. Either way, Hyunjin thought the uniform choice was odd. Throw some dirt, grime, and blood on them and the uniforms would look like they’re straight from a horror movie.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Hyunjin. It’s my first day. I’m supposed to start today.” Hyunjin couldn’t help but gawk at how clean everything looked. All hospitals should be clean but this — this institution looked as though it was scrubbed top to bottom with bleach. There was no scuff mark, footprint, or speck of dust in sight.

“Ah, Dr. Hyunjin welcome.” A kind-looking man on the other side stepped out. “Come on over.”

Hyunjin squeezed through the door and shook the man’s hand. “Nice to met you Dr?”

“Dr. Henry.” The man smiled at Hyunjin. “We’ve been understaffed for so long. I’m happy they finally have someone to take over the day shift for Miss ______.” Dr. Henry handed Hyunjin a medical chart packed full of your medical history.

Hyunjin’s eyes widened as he scanned the papers. Twenty-five sedations? In just over two months? “Umm, excuse me for asking, but why has she been sedated 25 times in the past couple of months?”

“She is a feisty young thing. If she doesn’t get her way she starts hitting and screaming.” Dr. Henry laughed. “So we typically have to sedate her before she hurts one of the doctors or herself.”

Hmm… That still doesn’t sound right. Hyunjin brushed it off until he spotted an obvious problem in your chart. “Hey, why is she getting a stimulant?” Hyunjin frowned.

“What do you mean?” Dr. Henry leaned over Hyunjin’s shoulder to look at your chart.

Hyunjin pointed to a spot. “It says right here that she’s dealing with intense anxiety, panic attacks, manic, nightmares, and I’m not sure why it says etcetera there, we should be listing all her symptoms.” Hyunjin paused and pointed to another section on her chart. “Then over here, it says she’s taking Adderall — a stimulant.”

“The doctor prescribed it for her ADHD.” Dr. Henry smiled.

Hyunjin pursed his lips. The chart claimed that she had no memory of her life before the institution — and there were no notes stating she was diagnosed with ADHD. “We might want to consider taking her off of it. Stimulants can increase panic episodes. If she’s still having intense panic attacks, why are we still giving her Adderall?” Hyunjin pulled a pen out of his breast pocket. “We should remove that from her list.”

“Don’t do anything yet.” Dr. Henry pat Hyunjin’s shoulder. “The doctor has to approve any prescription changes.”

Hyunjin cocked his head in confusion. They were all doctors… Why did they need to have medication changes approved? All doctors had the ability to prescribe and change prescriptions. Whatever… Maybe it’s just a safety precaution?

“You guys have her on a steroid too.” Hyunjin pointed at your list of medications once more “Betamethasone? What’s she taking that for?”

“You know what? I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask the doctor about that.” Dr. Henry smiled. “I only started working with her recently, so I’m not aware of her entire medical history.”

Okay, is this guy really a doctor? Hyunjin sighed in frustration as he scanned your chart. How could this man be taking care of you, and not even care about your previous medical history? Hyunjin couldn’t help but feel grateful that he was taking over your care. Maybe he could give you a fighting chance.

“Ergotamine? Does she get migraines?”

“I don’t know.” Dr. Henry sighed, crossing his arms in annoyance.

“The reason I’m asking is Ergotamine contains caffeine. Adding prescriptions full of steroids, stimulants, and caffeine is only going to make her anxiety worse. No wonder she’s having such a hard time.” Hyunjin couldn’t help but glare at the man.

“Like I said. Take it up with the doctor.” Dr. Henry snapped. “Why isn’t she getting a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor?” Hyunjin was baffled. SSRIs are typically given to patients who suffer from panic attacks. The medication prevents serotonin from being absorbed by the nerve cells in the brain. Stabilizing those serotonin levels reduces anxiety and panic. “She should be taking Prozac or Lexapro,” Hyunjin mumbled as he flipped through your chart.

Dr. Henry scoffed. “She doesn’t need an SSRI. The doctor doesn’t like prescribing those unless the patient has gone through a successful therapy session.”

What the fuck equals a successful therapy session?

Hyunjin flipped through your chart, spotting the therapist’s notes over the past few sessions. Sure enough, panic attacks, anxiety episodes, refusal to cooperate, violence — you had it all. Hyunjin decided that he should sit through one of your therapy sessions to see what might be triggering your panic episodes.

“Okay, then give her a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor?” Hyunijn sighed in frustration. “Those prevent the absorption of serotonin and norepinephrine. It’ll calm her down in stressful situations.”

“I know what they do.” Dr. Henry slammed his hand on the counter.

“Okay, then why aren’t you giving her any?” Hyunjin raised his voice as well.

“There aren’t any that are approved by the drug administration jackass.” He scoffed.

“Yes, there is dumbass.” Hyunjin sighed and slipped your medical chart in his bag. “Venlafaxine. If you don’t have any in this hospital you need to get some.”

“We have it, but it’s an SSRI.”

“No, it’s not.” Hyunjin raised his voice and pointed to one of the computers. “It’s an SNRI. Look it up.” He frowned, “Besides, there are so many other options out there for her. You could give her tricyclic antidepressants, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, or beta-blockers instead of letting her suffer.” Hyunjin spat.

“Take it up with the doctor.” The man yelled back in Hyunjin’s face.

Hyunjin leaned forward, piercing eyes glaring at the other man as he crossed his arms. “Fine, I will.”

“First, come meet your patient, then you could see if she’s worth the trouble.” Dr. Henry turned and walked down the hall.

“What?” Hyunjin asked as he followed the man. Everyone is worth the trouble. Even if you were a psycho looking to attack everyone in that hospital, you were a human being. Besides, Hyunjin could imagine you weren’t being treated the best under Dr. Henry’s care — based on the way the asshole was treating him.

“Here she is pretty boy.” Dr. Henry gestured in the room.

Hyunjin’s heart broke at the sight. You were huddled in the corner, arms wrapped around yourself as if it was the only comfort you had in this mental institution. Your room was empty, save for a bed and a thin blanket that probably provided little to no warmth. Your arms were filled with scratches, from what he assumed to be your nails — but in this hospital, there was no telling.

Hyunjin slowly stepped into the room, smiling at you as your big glassy eyes met his. “Hello there,” Hyunjin spoke in a low even voice, hoping to prevent scaring you further. “I’m Dr. Hyunjin, your new caretaker. I’m looking forward to helping you the best I can.”

You quickly got up and stumbled towards the man, tears running down your cheeks as you frantically clawed at his chest. Hyunjin gasped and wrapped his arms around your waist to steady you, heart-shattering when you wrapped your arms around his neck and cried, “Please you have to help me. You have to get me out of here, please.”

Dr. Henry grabbed your arm and practically threw you across the room. “No touching the doctors. Do you want another session in the lightning room?”

You grabbed the bedpost, body shaking as you cried, “No I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“Hey!” Hyunjin yelled, pushing at Dr. Henry’s shoulders. “That wasn’t necessary, she’s just scared.” He darted to your side, resting his hand on your arm to try and soothe you. You flinched away from his touch, mumbling apologies here and there. “Shh, you did nothing wrong,” Hyunjin whispered.

“What is the lightning room? Is that electroconvulsive therapy? Do you have the right permits to do that?” To say Hyunjin was concerned was an understatement.

“Of course.” Dr. Henry scoffed.

“Why are you using it as a punishment?” Hyunjin raised his brow. “Electroconvulsive therapy is quite beneficial if done right. Do you guys put the patients under with anesthesia?”

Dr. Henry crossed his arms over his chest, eyes filled with pure hatred as he looked at Hyunjin. “No, we mainly use it to get their act straight.”

“So you’re inducing seizures on your patients to get them to stop rebelling?” Hyunjin scoffed. “Smart.”

“Look smartass, I’m just doing my job. If you have a problem with it, take it up with the doctor.” Dr. Henry stormed off, leaving Hyunjin alone with you.

Thank God he’s finally gone.

“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you.” Hyunjin reached his hand out to you, pausing a safe distance away so he wouldn’t frighten you. “When you feel comfortable, I’m right here.” He held his hand out to you, palm facing up, giving you full control over the situation.

You turned to look at the beautiful man, noticing the way his eyes lit up when you made eye contact. He sure was gorgeous. Most caretakers wouldn’t have stayed this long, but Hyunjin stayed in front of you, hand out for you to touch when you were ready. You slowly lifted your shaky hand and gently pressed your fingers into his palm, making Hyunjin smile brightly.

“That’s it.” His voice sounded like heaven to your ears. You felt safe in his presence, even more so when he slowly closed his fingers around yours. God, it’s been months since you’ve felt such a comforting touch. “Will you let me check your vitals?”

You cocked your head to the side, confusion evident in your features as Hyunjin chuckled nervously. “Oh sorry, you might not remember. I’m going to check your pulse, your temperature, your respiration rate, and your blood pressure just to make sure everything’s okay. After all, you did get thrown to the ground and since we don’t know what triggers your panic episodes I want to make sure you aren’t experiencing any symptoms of anxiety or panic which could be increased heart rate, temperature and —” Hyunjin paused a second. “Sorry, I’m rambling. I do that a lot. I’ll just check your temperature.” Hyunjin pulled a thermometer out of his bag and placed it in your mouth, hand resting on your forehead for a second to make sure you didn’t feel abnormally warm.

You found the gentle touch comforting as his hand shifted to rest on the pulse point on your throat. His beautiful lips moved as he counted, eyes fixed on his watch. You couldn’t help but notice the beauty mark underneath his eye. That’s not something you see every day — especially in here. It felt like everyone looked the same — well… from the few people, you’ve seen during your various attempts to escape this godforsaken place. You flinched when Hyunjin pulled out his stethoscope, which didn’t go unnoticed by the ebony-haired beauty.

“You look like you’re breathing fine.” Hyunjin smiled softly as he shoved the stethoscope back into his bag. “Why don’t we skip that for now.” Hyunjin pulled the thermometer out of your mouth and smiled at the results. “Good. It’s normal.”

You sighed in relief and pulled your sore body up off the floor, plopping on the bed so you could rest. Hyunjin stood up and scanned your knees, noticing the bruises already starting to form. He couldn’t just sit there and let these damn people hurt you like this. “I have a couple of things I need to talk to your doctor about. Will you be okay here?” Hyunjin smiled when you nodded. “Awesome. I won’t be long.”

Hyunjin slowly closed the door behind him before rushing down the hallway to Doctor Douglas’s office. He was only here an hour and he feels like he’s starting all sorts of trouble. The hospital was filled with incompetent doctors — or so he assumed judging by the information in your chart. And then there was Dr. Henry…

Hyunjin nearly opened the door to the doctor’s office when a woman stepped in front of him. “Doctor Douglas is busy now sir. Please come back later.”

Of fucking course. “I’m so sorry miss.” Hyunjin smiled. “He called me down here, so I thought I’d come right away. It sounded urgent.”

“Oh, I must be mistaken. Go right ahead.” The woman moved out of the way and sat back down at her desk, obnoxiously typing a response to an email.

Wait, that actually worked?

Hyunjin quickly slipped into the office before she could see the victorious grin on his face. He frowned when he turned around, spotting Dr. Douglas sitting in his chair, playing a random game on his phone. Yeah, okay he was real busy.

“Welcome Hyunjin!” Dr. Douglas beamed. “I was hoping you’d make it here okay. I trust the drive up wasn’t too bad?”

“Thank you, sir. The drive was fine.” Hyunjin shook Dr. Douglas’s hand. “Pardon me for intruding, but I have a few questions about my patient.”

“I expected a few.” Dr. Douglas laughed. “Why don’t you introduce yourself first?”

Hyunjin ignored Dr. Douglas’s request and pulled out your chart. “After. This is urgent. You have my patient on Adderall, Betamethasone, and Ergotamine, all three are known to have anxiety and panic episodes as a side effect.” Hyunjin paused, wracking his brain for information. “There was this case study a few years ago —”

“Hyunjin please.” The doctor gestured for him to stop. “Why don’t we get to know each other first?” He chuckled. “I’m Dr. Douglas. I’m sure you know that I run this hospital, considering I was the one who hired you.”

“Yes,” Hyunjin shook his hand. “But sir, we —”

“Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin sighed dramatically, feeling like a two-year-old ready to throw a tantrum. He felt like his childish nature was justified, considering no one in this damn hospital seemed to care about your condition.

“I’m Dr. Hwang Hyunjin. I was top of my class at Southfield University and I dedicate my time helping my patients.” Hyunjin’s brows creased as he shoved your chart forward. “The one I have now needs help and I need you to approve some things so I can help her.” Hyunjin’s eyes hardened as the Doctor laughed, acting as if none of this was a problem.

“Prestigious school Mr. Hwang.” Dr. Douglass sighed and looked at your chart. “What do you need approved?”

“I want to take her off all the excess medication and put her on Prozac. I believe the mixture of Adderall, Betamethasone, and Ergotamine is making things worse for her. She’s already dealing with so much in an unfamiliar place — so let’s put her on Prozac and see if it helps.”

“And what will Prozac do that Venlafaxine won’t?” Dr. Douglas’s eyes bore into Hyunjin’s, making the boy nervous.

“E-excuse me?” Hyunjin stuttered.

“She’s taking Venlafaxine.”

“Umm, no she isn’t.” Hyunjin panned through her chart and pointed to your list of medications. “She’s getting these six medications, which is way too much for someone without existing health problems.”

“She’s in a mental facility.” Dr. Douglas chuckled. “They are all to help her.”

“Yeah? What does this one do?” Hyunjin pointed to a drug on the list. “Peroproxine?” Hyunjin frowned. “I’ve heard of Proproxen, but that’s an anti-inflammatory drug.”

“Peroproxine is an anti-anxiety medication.” Dr. Douglas stated as if it was common knowledge.

Okay, what? Hyunjin couldn’t stop the obvious annoyance taking over his features. He spends a LOT of his free time researching new and existing medications out there. If there was a drug by the name of Peroproxine, he probably would have known about it. “Why haven’t I heard of it?”

Dr. Douglas laughed. “You’re new in the business son.” Hearing the word ‘son’ come out of that man’s mouth pissed Hyunjin off. “I’m not your son. Please just approve this so I can help her.”

“I can’t do that.” Dr. Douglas sighed. “She’s improved drastically since she started taking those medications. I won’t set her back again. It’s just not humane.” He chuckled.

“Sir, she’s been here six months, and it appears her mental stability has gotten worse. And, Dr. Henry is being violent with her. He threw her to the ground —”

“Hyunjin enough!” The doctor slammed his hand on the desk, startling the boy. “Give her the medications on her list, or you’re fired.”

Hyunjin paled — it was clear he crossed a line.

“I will not have you slandering one of the most trustworthy doctors in this institution. Get back to work.” Dr. Douglas turned in his chair, cutting off the conversation. Hyunjin’s heart dropped as he left the office.

Sure, he could always quit and work somewhere else that wasn’t fucked up, but he couldn’t leave you. Something told him that you shouldn’t be there — that something else was the problem. He sulked down the hallways until he felt someone grab his arm and pull him into one of the Janitor’s closets.

The beautiful man flipped the light switch, allowing the dingy old light swinging above their heads to flicker on. So there was a dirty room in the institution.

Hyunjin scanned the man in front of him, noticing the name tag on his chest that read ‘Minho.’ He could tell Minho worked at the hospital — unless he was a crazy patient who murdered his caretaker and stole the uniform.

“Look, you’re a very beautiful man, but I have to get back to work,” Hyunjin muttered and tried to push past Minho.

“What? No, you dumbass.” Minho paused a moment and smirked, wiggling his eyebrows before saying, “But thank you.” Hyunjin rolled his eyes and tried to push past Minho once more, only to be shoved back against the brooms and mops hung on the wall. Minho blocked the door with his arm. “I’m trying to help you keep your job because someone is looking to get fired.”

Hyunjin sighed. “I don’t want to get fired, I just want to help my patient.”

“I know.” Minho’s mood shifted — a melancholy look replacing his once emotionless expression. “Just listen for a second.”

Hyunjin nodded and leaned back against the wall. “Ok fine, you have five minutes.”

“First of all, I’m older than you so you can fuck off with that attitude.” Minho snapped. “Second of all, you need to stop asking questions.” Minho paused, trying to figure out how to word his next sentence. “Just keep your head down and do your job.”

“How do you know I’m not older?” Hyunjin snickered.

“Dude really?” Minho sighed. “You look fifteen. Out of all that I said, that’s what you decided to comment on?”

Hyunjin couldn’t help but chuckle at the older boy’s expression. “Look, I’d be happy to keep my head down if my patient wasn’t suffering.”

“I know.” Minho paused. “But this hospital isn’t like the others. You have to keep your head down or you’ll be admitted.”

“What?” Admitted to the hospital? That doesn’t make any sense…

A loud scream echoed through the hallway, frightening the two boys. “Fuck… That sounds like it’s coming from my patient’s room. Here take this, it’s her medication. Please tell her to take it.” Minho opened the door and rushed down the hall.

Hyunjin stepped out of the closet and stared at the little plastic cup in his hands. From what he could tell, he had two options. One, he could give you the medicine, keep his job, and allow your mental health to deteriorate until you were clinically insane. Or two, he could simply dispose of the medication and see if you improve. His feet took him to your room, figuring it’d be best to give you the medicine for now and speak to Minho later. Perhaps the older boy could give him more information about you.

From what everyone has told him, you were a pain in the ass to deal with. Hyunjin just saw a girl who was confused and scared. He couldn’t imagine you being violent and deliberately trying to hurt someone.

Hyunjin opened the door, smiling sadly when he saw you curled up underneath the thin blanket. “Hey, it’s time for your medicine.”

“Don’t want it.” You mumbled into the blankets, turning your back to Hyunjin.

“I don’t blame you...” Hyunjin trailed off.

You turned to look at him, eyes wide with surprise. Usually, the caretakers would hold you down and force the pills down your throat. They didn’t have any mercy at this hospital — they’d do whatever it takes to get you to take your pills.

Hyunjin chuckled at your surprise and slid the pills into his bag. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

There was something about that smile of his that made you feel like you could trust him. Hyunjin wasn’t forcing you to take anything, he seemed genuinely concerned for your mental health, and he was treating you like a real human being.

“Can I sit next to you?” His soft voice shook you out of your thoughts.

“Yeah.” You sat up in bed, giving him space to sit beside you.

Hyunjin stayed silent, trying to think of questions he could ask you. He needed to know more about your medication and how you feel after taking them, but he didn’t want to trigger any painful memories. “Do you feel anxious after you take the medication?”

You thought about it for a minute before nodding. “It comes out of nowhere. I’m usually fine until I have to take my medicine during the day.”

Okay, so the medication is definitely giving you anxiety. Was it the mixture of Adderall, Betamethasone, and Ergotamine, or was it that new drug… Peroproxine?

“Are you feeling anxious right now?” Hyunjin asked in a low voice.

You nodded before mumbling. “A little bit. I don’t know you very well.”

“I’m so sorry, I completely forgot to introduce myself.” Hyunjin chuckled. “Would you like me to tell you a bit about myself?”

You nod, noticing the way Hyunjin smiled at your answer.

“Well, I’m Dr. Hwang Hyunjin. I graduated at the top of my class from Southfield University.” He paused. “My father committed suicide when I was young, so I decided that I was going to study psychology so I could help people struggling with depression. Then I discovered that the medical side of psych would give me the ability to prescribe and help those at a medical level.” Hyunjin chuckled nervously. “You probably don’t want to know about all that though.”

“No, I don’t mind.” You smiled. “I hear about how crazy I am day-in and day-out, so it’s refreshing to hear about someone else.”

Hyunjin frowned. “Do they not give you time to socialize?”

You tucked your hands underneath your thighs, “Well, I get to talk to my therapist. The caretakers don’t like us to socialize with other patients. They said that we could get crazy ideas or something.” You frowned. “I don’t really remember.”

“That’s not normally how things work.” Hyunjin pursed his lips.

“Yeah?” You cocked your head to the side. “How do they normally work?”

“Typically you live in a room with a roommate — someone with a similar mental illness...” Hyunjin trailed off. “But you’d also have meals with the other patients and usually there’s a rec room where you guys can play games and chat.”

You bounced on the bed, eyes filling with excitement as you grabbed Hyunjin’s arm. “We have the gardens!”

Hyunjin couldn’t help but smile at your excitement. “The gardens?”

“The doctor likes pretty things, so he has a big garden in the back of the asylum filled with all sorts of flowers. He has some exotic ones in there that smell really good.” You smiled brightly. “I like to go see the pretty flowers, but we aren’t allowed without our caretakers. Dr. Henry would never go with me.”

So Dr. Henry was your old caretaker... Why did that asshole lie about not knowing your information? He’ll have to look into that later.

“I’ll take you to the gardens as often as you want. I love to look at flowers.” Hyunjin smiled. “Actually do you want to go now?”

You smiled sadly and shook your head. “I’m feeling tired. I want to sleep.”

“That’s fair. You’ve had a big day so far.” Hyunjin smiled. “Can you answer one more question for me?”

You nodded, a smile tugging at your lips when you saw Hyunjin’s boyish grin.

“Thank you. You’re such a big help.” Hyunjin rested his hand on yours. “Do you remember how you got here?”

You closed your eyes, thinking about it for a moment. This was the question you’ve been asked every single day over the past six months. You never had an answer. Your brain only showed you flashes of a van and your cries for help, but the whole memory was foggy and unclear.

Hyunjin paled when he felt your hand shake underneath his. “Hey, hey it’s okay.” He rubbed soothing circles on your back, smiling when you opened your eyes.

“I’m so sorry I don’t remember.” You panicked, tears running down your face. “Please don’t tell them I’m not cooperating. I’m trying my hardest.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Hyunjin’s eyes widened when you crawled into his lap, head resting on his chest as you sobbed. His heart completely shattered with every tear that ran down your face.

He couldn’t imagine being in your position. Everyone at the hospital sucks, you weren’t allowed to talk to anyone, you were being given horrible medication, and to top it off, you had no one you could trust. Hyunjin felt honored that you trusted him enough to be this close to him on the first day.

“Your missing memories aren’t your fault.” Hyunjin ran his fingers through your hair, noticing the way you melted into his touch. “Some stressful experiences are so traumatic, the memories hide in the back of your brain like a shadow. So they can’t be consciously accessed. There are exercises and treatments we could do to retrieve those memories, but for now, I think it’s best that we get to know each other a bit more.”

“I don’t feel safe here.” You sniffled and nuzzled into his chest.

“You shouldn’t.” Hyunjin rubbed your arm, brows creasing as he tried to figure out his next move.

The door slammed open— the loud noise startling the two of you as Minho ran into the room.

“Hyunjin! There’s an emergency. I need your help.”

#hwang hyunjin imagines #hwang hyunjin #hwang hyunjin scenarios #hwang hyunjin angst #hwang hyunjin x reader #hwang hyunjin x you #stray kids x reader #stray kids x you #stray kids scenarios #stray kids #skz #hwang hyunjin fanfictions #stray kids hwang hyunjin #stray kids hyunjin #stray kids angst #skz angst #kpop angst #angst #my writing

223 notes · View notes

juiceastronaut · 3 years

Text

Okay so mostly just rambling, maybe hoping for a response because I'm just stumped about this. I'll try a read more tag.

My therapist recommends me to go get a psych evaluation so I'm like okay I go get one done

I sit down and I tell this guy "Hey I think I have ADHD, but I know I have anxiety. I am open to hearing other diagnoses but those are the ones I think I have"

So he makes me go through this questionnaire and I complete it (took two times going in cause I didn't have time). When I finally go in and talk about my results, I have:

Tested Positive for Bipolar, have a score that makes it "probable" that I have ADD/ADHD, but overall he did not diagnose me with any of that, and says that my psychological distress is due to a "Thought Disorder." And that there could be multiple causes of a thought disorder that we could get to the bottom of. He sort of just states these to me and opens the meeting with that. I had thought we'd discuss the questionnaire and maybe reach a diagnosis at the end of the session but ig not.

He seemed surprised I didn't try to actively contest it, but I don't know what I have that's why you're here? So I asked for more information about the symptoms and he's like "well I can't list them all right now" but why wouldn't you read up on the disorder youre giving your client that youre meeting? So he prints out an article and I do my own reading.

Every article I read listed Thought Disorder as a comorbid/parallel diagnosis with schizophrenia. I have not once said anything about hallucinations or anything like that. There's a handful of symptoms that sort of match me but it doesn't make any sense that I have this thing that's attached to schizophrenia. I severely doubt I have schizophrenia. I doubt that I have bipolar but I apparently tested "positive" for it whatever that means because he didn't diagnosis me with it.

Oh, and on top of all that "Thought Disorder" is listed to be the "most difficult disorders to diagnose and to treat" so this guy would've met me for less than five total hours and he's going to diagnose me with one of the most difficult to diagnose disorders? To me that makes no sense.

I just feel so frustrated. I'm trying to get help psychologically and it seems everywhere I turn there's something not fitting, not going right. I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong, if it's my fault somehow. And it's an extra blow because this is the field I want to go into. It's like a person dreaming of becoming a chef and having food poisoning at every restaurant they go to. I know I need to find a person that'll fit for me but it really seems like I'm running out of options.

I thought I'd at least be able to say "I have x" so I can conceptualize to other people what's wrong without the imposter syndrome of saying I had something without being diagnosed. But this feels even more confusing than where I was before. Idk if it's confirmation bias but I feel like I go into the ADD/ADHD tags the symptoms make sense to me and I feel like they apply to me. I don't get that with "thought disorder"

It's listed mostly as a communication issue, and as I said sometimes I blank or stall or not make sense with what I'm trying to say but it's not all the time certainly. Plus I think I overall have an okay time relaying what I mean to people. So it double doesn't make sense to have a disorder that directly impeded with that.

It just seems to me he didn't want to diagnose me with add/adhd and grabbed at the first slightly plausible thing to diagnose me with instead. Is there a big trend with add/adhd being misdiagnosed as thought disorder? I know it's misdiagnoses in general but I thought that now I'm an adult it would be diagnosed accurately. Or maybe I am crazy and I'm just making it all up in my head.

#personal #adhd #add #anxiety #thought disorder #psychologist #therapy #please don't reblog this #you can reply or send me an ask tho #focusing on it probably isn't helping but whatever #i just feel like im at the point that I'm going to be like this forever and there's no hope for me

2 notes · View notes

mumblino · 3 years

Text

My self discovery journey

Heyo!

This is not what most of my posts are gonna be like, but I felt like it was important to talk about, and pride month is a perfect time to tell my (summarized) self discover journey~

My name is Brandon, although I don’t care if you call me Mumble. My pronouns change a lot since i don’t really know myself that well, but currently, they are He/Him, They/Them and It/Its. There are also days where I don’t really identify with any 3rd person pronouns, I’m just me, and that’s what I mean when I say No Pronouns.

I have Depression, Anxiety and Combination Type- ADHD, which is why i am on the internet a lot.

This is a very long post, so buckle up

//TW: Transphobia, Enbyphobia, Homophobia, Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, Disordered Eating, Racism (not a huge part, but there are mentions of it), Self Harm, Mentions of a Psych Ward, Medication

I am a trans-masc, afab teenager. I am a romance-neutral aromantic (my interpretation of that is that I don’t mind romance, but I don’t actively want one or seek one out), and a sex-repulsed asexual (I am completely repulsed by the idea of engaging in sexual intercourse with anyone). and I am currently out to my friends, my mother, and my step-father, and am in the beginning-middle of my transition.

I started questioning my gender identity when I was in early 7th grade, after my friend Saturn (pronouns are They/It/Bun) first came out to me as Non-Binary, and asked me to use They/Them pronouns.

I’ve never really actively considered myself straight. I’ve always seen love as between two people, and while I usually thought of a man and a woman, I have always been open to same sex couples. My best friend in 2nd grade actually introduced me to the LGBTQ+ community (not directly, but she did talk about those types of things quite a bit), and while I don’t want to assume her sexuality, I am fairly certain she experienced attraction to both boys and girls.

Before this, the only thing I really knew about trans people was that they existed, and I didn’t really care that much. However, my brother and my father had the idea that most LGBTQ+ people are “snowflakes” and since I didn’t know anything else, I believed them.

However, I wanted to learn more about Trans people, and how to be respectful and supportive of them. I did, at the time, consider myself to be LGBTQ+. In both 5th and 6th grade I thought I was either a lesbian or bisexual, since I didn’t know the difference between aesthetic attraction and sexual attraction, and well, people are pretty!

I also had this need to be very masculine, and I always have. I’ve always wanted to be a tom-boy, to be the masculine one in the group, be the Buttercup of my friends! And during th grade, as I started to learn more about LGBTQ+ people, I wanted to be the top. I wanted to be the stereotypical lesbian. The one with the androgynous style, chill attitude, and the one that scares the shit out of guys.

I’ve even said to myself (not knowing that being trans was a thing) that I want to be a boy. I’ve always identified more with the guys at my school. Not in a pick me girl way, but in a “I relate to you a lot, and I feel like I fit in with you” way.

And to some extent, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is because of how often feminine guys are made fun of. I would not be surprised one bit if this is because femininity has always been demonized to me, especially if a guy is being feminine.

Anyways, through this dive into the Alphabet Mafia, I found out about asexuality. It really resonated with me, because I always found sexual things gross, but that also confused me. If I was asexual, why did I want to be masculine so badly? Why wasn’t I like the other girls? I’ve always felt like an outcast around most people, but especially girls. I never related to them. I always related to more masculine people, and boys especially.

After this, I decided to start looking into trans culture, and FTM culture especially. Through this I found Kalvin Garrah. I know now that he is very much a toxic influence on the Trans community, but he taught me a lot about trans culture. I also found Sam Collins and Jammidoger through him, who also taught me a lot (and are much more positive influences.) These FTM youtubers taught me a lot, and I started to realize, that I might be trans.

Because of this, I decided to ask Saturn if they could refer to me by They/Them pronouns. I went with They/Them because I didn’t feel like I passed well enough to use them. My hair was still long, I wasn’t out to my family, I still acted feminine sometimes, etc.

I would also like to make note of the fact that at the time, I was not very accepting of most gender identities outside of the “binary” and didn’t consider it a spectrum. I had a very close minded and rigid view of gender, and this is mostly due to family influences. This view is why I didn’t want to use He/Him pronouns, because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I have since grown out of that viewpoint, reflected, and tried to do better when trying to understand other people’s identities.

This stress of my identity crisis, untreated mental conditions, toxic friends, and general struggle with school caused me to develop disordered eating habits. I have never been diagnosed with an eating disorder, however I’ve struggled with disordered eating for a long time. During 7th grade, I started to struggle with binge eating. The moment I would get home, I would immediately start a binge. It was uncontrollable, I felt horrible, and eventually, my mom had started to notice that I was eating an unhealthy amount.

A few months after this, I started to see a therapist, and at the end of my first session with her, I came out to my mom. I could not be more thankful for how supportive of me she is. She has only shown love, and care for me, and the only time she’d no to a step in my transition, is out of a genuine concern for my physical and mental health. She is also religious, but she loves me for the way that I am, and has a very loving and positive viewpoint when it comes to that.

I didn’t do much for my transition at the time (other than switching my pronouns to He/They at some point) and focused more on school, depression, and my romantic orientation.

This was a part that really confused me. I’ve never had a crush (except for one that came from peer-pressure) and I’ve never had an interest in romance. (Keep in mind I had no idea what ‘Aromantic’ was) So what was I? For the time being I decided to consider myself either bi-romantic or hetero-romantic, because like I said, people are pretty, and I tended to notice pretty girls more than pretty boys.

There was also another hurdle. My (now ex) group of toxic friends. These friends weren’t toxic in the way that they wouldn’t include me, they were toxic in the way that they would talk shit about any minority group, a lot of which i was a part of. They were racist (I am not a poc but it still made me upset and uncomfortable) ableist (they threw the r-slur around a lot) homophobic (this was the biggest one, mainly making fun of them, callng them ‘pixies’ and would say they would ‘burn them’) and transphobic/enbyphobic (they didn’t consider they/them pronouns valid, they threw around the ‘attack helicopter’ joke, and they would dehumanize trans people, and call them ‘transvestites’)

Over the summer, I still spoke to them, and tried to ignore all of their behavior, because if I had cut them off, I would be completely alone. I have an extremely intense fear of abandonment, so the idea of doing that was comparable to death.

Through the first half of 8th grade (I was doing school from home) I didn’t talk to many people other than them. I stayed in my room a lot, and the first half of 8th grade was a steady decline in my mental health. My depression and anxiety had significantly worsened over that time, and I was extremely lonely. This was also worsened by the fact that I have ADHD, and at the time, it was undiagnosed, so I was failing almost all of my classes.

The only way I was able to comfort myself was through my hyperfixations, and over the summer, I had a developed a hyperfixation on the Origins MCRP group. Because I had nothing else to do, I decided to pick up drawing again, and in October, I did an Origins version of Inktober. Every day, I would draw a different character from their series Fairy Tail Origins. I did not complete the challenge, however I did get through the first week, and I am proud of myself for that.

One one of the days, I had to draw a character named Brandon (partial inspiration for my name lel.) Brandon is a sky devil-slayer, and a co-guild leader of a guild named Divinus Magia. and I decided to draw him in a picture that symbolically showed his mental struggles with a devil named Jupiter. I posted it to the fan discord, and the actor and creator of the character (online username is ReinBloo) noticed my artwork. I was extremely excited about this, and decided to start drawing more and more.

Because of this newfound motivation to pick up drawing again, I decided to create my own persona. I decided to make my main persona a revised design of my profile picture at the time. It was an improvised character, but I liked the aspects of it, and in late 2020, (yes i am 14 shut up) I created my main Oc, Jupiter. (at the time he didn’t have a name and I landed on Jupiter because I like it, and it fit him.) Jupiter is a space inspired demon, with dark grey skin, white star-like freckles, pure white eyes, white hair (that is slightly purple) and light gray ram-like horns with gray stripes on the base and tip. His color palette is that of the Asexual flag, and this was originally unintentional, but since I like the colors, and my Asexuality is an important part of my identity, I went with it.

I fell in love with this character, and he helped me figure out a lot about myself. I continued to watch origins, and draw for them (mainly ReinBloo’s characters lel) and on January 27th of 2021, in the premier chat of one of the episodes of My Hero Origins, I met MissyLea (She also goes by Lea, and Vesper). We instantly became friends, and moved over to discord to continue our conversation. By February 10th, we were already planning on being platonic valentines. We related on so many things, she was so kind, and loving, and understanding, and very quickly, I grew a strong emotional bond with her.

By the end of February, I developed an emotional attraction to her. I wanted to be with her forever, and while I personally wouldn’t consider it romantic right now, at the time, I did. After a few months of identifying as Aromantic (I had learned about it by now, through the Asexual community) I decided to change that label to Demi-Panromantic. I realized that I didn’t really see her gender, I didn’t care. I love her, and that’s all that matters to me. Now, I feel as though it was more of an emotional and somewhat sensual love for her, but even so, I love her to the edge of the universe and back, no matter what our relationship is.

I have told her things I’ve told no one else. When I was struggling, she was there for me, with kind words, and an endless amount of unconditional love. She is the type of person everyone deserves to have in their life, whether they are a friend, a family member, a partner, or anything else, everyone deserves to have a friend with the amount of love in their heart that she has.

On March 19th, I decided to tell her how I felt. When she said she felt the same way about me, I was happier than ever. To have someone who feels the same way about me as I do about them is amazing. We started dating later that day.

It’s only been 3 months, but I feel like I’ve known her for 3 years. Vesper has made me feel complete when I’m around them, but they’ve made it so much easier to stand on my own as well.

Near the end of my 8th grade year, I officially cut them off, and came out to them (albeit in a very aggressive way) and I wouldn’t have been able to do this without Vesper’s support. Just one person has made it so much easier to cut off toxic people.

Vesper’s support also made it easier for me to be more open with my therapist. I began to tell her more of what I was struggling with, and it has made my mental health journey so much more bearable.

Over these past two months, I have finally gotten a diagnosis, and been able to truly know what direction to go in to properly treat my mental health.

I hope that by sharing my story you can better know me, and I also hope I can help create a safer environment for others to talk about their stories.

I hope one day people will be able to be themselves, and talk about their experiences, without the fear of judgement, or persecution, and if just this one post helps us get closer to that, I will be happy.

Happy Pride Month everybody! You are all amazing, loved and valid! 🌈💖

5 notes · View notes

cookinguptales · 4 years

Text

A long post about having undiagnosed ADHD as a little girl. And how we all need to talk a hell of a lot more about Reaction Sensitive Dysphoria.

(cw: mental illness, childhood punishment, discussions of childhood self-harm & suicidal ideation)

When I was a little girl, I was a crybaby. I didn’t know why I’d cry all the time. I just did. Everything always felt catastrophic, even if it was just a disagreement over what to play with my friends. People called me manipulative. I got made fun of at school. I was sent to the school therapist. Hell, the only time I ever had to go to the principal’s office, I was in kindergarten and would not. stop. crying. I was literally sent to the principal’s office for crying too much.

(Note. How did I respond to that? I cried. A lot.)

Here are a few examples of things that made me feel like the world was ending:

Once I came home sobbing and my parents asked me what was wrong. Why was I crying? Because the other kids had called me a crybaby.

Once at daycare (around age six), some older boys were making effigies of their teachers out of play-doh and then smushing them and convinced me to join in. The minute I did, they told me that they were telling my teacher, which made me about lose my damn mind.

I was a voracious reader and often ran out of reading material. Once I sneaked some of my mother’s romance novels that she’d left in the bathroom for light reading. They were Very Adult. I was so scared she’d find out and scold me for reading sexually explicit books.

Now, my parents think these are kind of funny stories. They say that I was very cute. But in truth, I was a nervous wreck. My life was pretty good in most ways, but I’d have these moments that just felt like cascading catastrophes. Anytime someone criticized me or my work or my ideas, the sky would just come crashing down. I’d cry so hard I couldn’t breathe. I’d cry so hard I threw up. I grew out of the crying by about age nine, but that sickening feeling of failure never really left.

About 8 years ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Severe ADHD. I believe the doctor’s exact words were “I don’t even know how you graduated from high school��. They tried me on ADHD medicine but it made my heart go dokidoki so I just had to live with being unmedicated. I wasn’t told a lot about ADHD at that point, or how ADHD symptoms differ for women, so I just kind of assumed that it was just focus and that’s it. Brain fog wasn’t exactly new to me, what with my other illnesses, so I figured I’d just live with it.

But about a year ago, I learned about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is a fairly common symptom of ADHD that no one ever told me about in my goddamn life! It essentially means that when you are criticized (or perceive something as criticism) by others or by yourself, your brain goes into absolute hyperdrive. You go from zero to “everyone hates me and I deserve that and probably don’t deserve to live too because I am just the worst” over like. literally nothing. And it’s not just like a mental thing you can train yourself out of. It’s characterized by actual physical pain. Y’all, I have anxiety and depression and this is not the same thing. This is your whole body seizing up and your brain going into a maelstrom that’s fairly similar to a panic attack.

Here’s the less cute side to all of those stories:

I had very few friends, and the friends I did have thought I was annoying and manipulative. The more I cried, the more kids stayed away from me.

After the Play-Doh incident, I cried for days. Days. And I was scared of my teacher for weeks. My parents laughed it off as a cute child thing, but none of it was cute for me. The older boys forgot about it by the next day, but it haunted my interactions with that teacher for weeks. It interfered with my education. I was a nervous wreck at school. I was so scared that she would hate me. That I’d be singled out in class. That I’d fail and my whole education would be upended and I’d fail out of school and my parents would hate me too and my life would be over. That’s... a lot for a six year old.

Those romance novels? That was a closely guarded secret that I kept for years. For literal years, I was afraid she’d somehow find out that I’d read those books. I would think of it when I was nine, ten, eleven years old and my whole body would stiffen up. I’d occasionally throw up. I cried about what might happen if my parents ever found out. Would they hate me forever? Yes, probably. They’d never love me again. I was a bad child. I finally told my mom about it a few months ago. I was 29. A small part of me was still scared I’d get in trouble. (My mom laughed about it; she was just like ‘wow, I should have put those books up higher’.)

When I was six, I went to an aftercare at a neighbor’s house for a while. (This predated the other daycare.) One day, one of the kids at aftercare didn’t get off the bus. The lady asked if anyone knew where he was. Trying to be helpful, I said I thought I’d seen him on the bus. (And like -- I really did think I did. But I was six and six year olds are uhhh not smart.) Surprise! He’d actually left school early for a dr’s appt. But she thought he’d missed his bus stop and spent like an hour on the phone figuring out what happened. And y’all. When she realized he hadn’t been on that bus, she was furious. When my other neighbor picked me up for my mom that evening, the lady told her that I was a bad child who’d purposefully lied to scare her. She said I wasn’t allowed to come back. And ohhh guys. I begged my neighbor not to tell my mom. (She did.) And then I begged my mom not to tell my dad. She was honestly kind of alarmed at how vehement I was about dad not knowing. (I was like a shaking, sobbing mess.) She asked me what I thought would happen. idk. Maybe he’d hit me. (My parents never hit me.) Maybe he’d throw me out of the house. Maybe he’d never talk to me again. He’d definitely stop loving me. I was so bad. So, so bad. I was a bad child. No one would ever love me. I was a worthless, bad child.

In short, I was hysterical.

When my parents finally talked to me about it, it was less of a talk about consequences and more talking me off the fucking ledge. They weren’t that concerned about the actual incident; they figured out pretty quickly that I’d just made a mistake. A temporarily scary one, but a mistake all the same. (I basically never misbehaved, so they were kind of confused by the whole situation, honestly.) But they were very concerned about my reaction to it. I knew they loved me, right? I knew that they wouldn’t hurt me, right? Why did I think that was a possibility?

I didn’t know. I still don’t know. It wasn’t rational. It was just my brain exploding into a thousand tiny pieces.

This is not a memory my mom laughs about. I think it really genuinely disturbed her. She’s still angry at that aftercare neighbor for doing that to me. As an adult, I realize that the person who actually fucked up in that scenario was the boy’s mother, who didn’t call to alert aftercare that he wouldn’t be coming. (Funnily enough, that boy’s mother was my first grade teacher -- the one I was so terrified of. Small town. I guess I was scared of her hating me, too.) But as a child, this wasn’t just bad. It was catastrophic. I genuinely considered hurting myself. I was six years old and I considered hurting myself. Suicidal ideation is often part and parcel with RSD. I’ve had to deal with that since elementary school.

RSD is real and it’s terrifying and it’s not unusual in children with ADHD. It’s still a problem that I struggle with. I’ve had friends not answer texts for a while and my brain just. assumes that I said something wrong. And now they hate me. Because I’m a bad person. And my whole body will shake. I’ll sweat. My stomach will roll. My chest will literally hurt like I’m having a heart attack. I still have to blink back those tears. Sometimes I’ll go for a walk to distract myself and burn off all that energy. Sometimes I’ll write a post like this. Sometimes I’ll just lie in bed. Shaking. Trying very hard not to think about doing Bad Things. It’s hard to say how it’ll go until it goes.

(Note: I’m okay right now! I was just talking about this with dad yesterday so I’ve been thinking about it.)

And this is not my friends’ fault! Or my family’s fault. This is no one’s fault. It’s just... mental illness, I guess. It’s hard to predict. Sometimes I can have a calm and reasonable discussion about my faults (which I fully admit exist) and sometimes someone disagrees with me on whether a tv show is good and my brain shits itself. (I’m dumb and stupid and this person probably hates me now! Because I didn’t love Avatar! Why did I open my big mouth? Now our whole relationship is ruined and I ruined it because I am a dumb relationship-ruiner!) Obviously, it gets worse when my physical and mental state is already fragile. I have a lot of chronic physical and mental illnesses, so like... it happens. But it’s very hard to predict, very hard to control, and all you can do is really talk yourself through it when it happens. Breathe. Focus on what’s real and what’s not. Distract yourself. Be as kind to your brain as you can because it will not be kind back.

Talk to people who love you. Try, whenever possible, to be one of those people.

idk. I wish I had concrete advice to finish this off. But it’s more just like... please learn to see the signs, especially in small children. I had far too many strong emotions for a child to figure out on her own. I really could have used some help. It’s too late for my childhood, but not for the other kids who are struggling with similar issues right now.

And if you read this and see yourself in it, do me a solid and talk to your doctor? Your brain might thank you one day.

#adhd #reaction sensitive dysphoria #RSD #just me #long post

53 notes · View notes

sadboyayeron · 4 years

Text

THE ONLY VALID MORIYAMA Nikoshi Doe

I came up with this Idea of Kevin having to raise Rikos son who’s name I decide would be Nikoshi Doe aka Niko

Enjoy

So If you Read “Tapping on my Chamber door”

You know Nikoshi’s mother, Naima Dixon was born in Jamaica but came to the states at a young age after her mom past away. She lived in the Bronx with her Aunt. She had tight curls aften in box breads or corn cornrows and dark skin with light brown eyes. She was 5’8. Had a muscular build from all the years of track and had a scholarship to run at Eager Allen University. She was soon to have a spot on the olympic team for long jump, 100, 200 and 400 meters. She was then pregnant with Nikoshi after her and Riko started there little hook up. The knew of each other but they first met in class. She noticed Riko looking at her.

“Like what you see.” I was trying to catch him off guard but he didn’t even look surprise. But then he smiled. Something sharp that left me feeling tingly, similar to how I feel before racing.

“Not to bad, no.” He chuckled, looked me up and down before he landed back on my eyes, “Want to sit.”

He left me in a trance and I took a seat next to him and sat my books in front of me. I tucked some braids behind my ear and looked at him again, he was looking back with a smug smile on his face.

At first I was thinking Nikoshi was Rikos frozen sperm and his mother was forced by Rikos uncle to have him BUT I decide that Riko died before he knew about Naima being pregnant She found out she was pregnant and went to Riko’s uncle for help and he said to give him the kid and she could get her scholarship Back. So she agreed naming him “Nico” but sadly she died while giving birth from bleeding out. Tesuji doesn’t use that name and changes it to ‘Nikoshi’ stripping him of any last name (Doe) putting the kid into the system in the same place she grow up in Bronx. Ichirou is informed of Nikoshi ten years later after having his Uncle killed. Who then informs kevin.

Nikoshi is from the Bronx has a accent when he speaks. He knows Spanish because of the amount of Dominican and Puerto Rican foster parents he’s had. Kinda understands broken english two because one of his foster brothers was from Jamaica which is cool because he knows he’s half Jamaican and some type of asian. He wears beat up high top jordan 1s baggy ripped jeans and long sleeves with a baggy jacket. He plays soccer because the system put him on a team and he’s very fast. He didn’t have much clothes but his best ones are the uniforms and he’s fine with that. He also plays street basketball and baseball with some kids in the area.

Kevin has to take Nikoshi in, according to Ichirou. Bringing Neil and Andrew with him. Ichirou just sent him a picture a kid and he was confused until he got that call that explained everything. He doesn’t need to explain who the kid is because you can clearly tell from the picture. Though the kid has milk cholclate skin, and curly hair that falls around his head in a fro.

When he frist sees Nico he has a scrape scab on his cheek, bruises on his wrist and purple knuckles. His ears a surprisingly pierced.

They find out Nikoshi Doe goes by Niko, he likes chocolate and cafe con leche (coffee), he likes shoes, he likes the color green, he uses a lot of slang and sometimes uses broken english and spanglish words, he’s quite but hyper and doesn’t know how to say still, asks why a lot, he hates math and likes to read, he loves listening to music it’s his safe place, he was diagnosed with ADHD/ADD and takes a pill in the morning and after noon on school days, he doesn’t like the way the pills make him feel, he likes Bee, Bee suspects Niko my be Borderline but it’s hard to tell, Kevin explains Riko was too. When they go to pick up Nikoshi they are informed of his diagnoses.

“So Kevin Day, It is very nice to meet you my husband loves watching you guys play Exy,” She smiled at them and then opened a drawer in her desk pulling out two folders.“ Now these paper were just printed out today. One from Nikoshi’s Doctor and another from his psychologist.” Kevin straightened his back more at that.

“Psychologist?” She looked up at Kevin.

“Yes, a lot of children in foster care go to see a therapist. It helps cope with abandonment and makes sure the kids are transitioning well in their new homes.” She opened one of the folders. “Nikoshi saw a therapist who recommended him to a psychologist. He was diagnosed with ADHD/ADD and given medication. He went through three different medications before he was put on Focalin XR. His biggest issues are impulsivity, managing feelings, and energy. There is more information in the folder with getting the prescription at a pharmacy and things to know about his behavior. He takes Focalin every morning before school, its not needed on the weekends but to long off it isn’t the best idea. Though if you want him off the medication, if you ever come to adopting him you can do that.” She looked towards the other two. “Will you two be helping take care of Nikoshi.”

“Yeah we are, is there anything else we need to know. If he needs a therapist we already got that covered. We can send her the information.” Neil replied with a bored tone but

“Thats good to know, he just saw the doctor last week. He gained some weight and is now at a more healthier weight then he was before.” She sighed. “You have to reminded him to eat, he forgets to and he doesn't ask for food. The foster home he was just at was good with keeping a schedule, he ate, took his meds, ate at school, had a snack at home, soccer practice and then dinner. He gets distracted and has little habits that cause him focus to much on random things. The meds take away his hunger also, so it important that he finishes.” She then closed both folders and stacked them together before sliding them to Kevin.

Kevin didn’t know how to process that. This information sounded to familiar. He always had to remind Riko to eat something. Riko would go days without eating, or sleeping, or even both. It got so bad the master had to tube feed him because he past out and didn’t get back up. Niko always got back up. He was taken out of his thoughts when the lady, Jennifer stood. He picked up the folders and got up following Andrew and Neil out the door. Nikoshi was still sitting in his chair, he was singing his legs slowly and seemed fixated on his hands.

“Nikoshi, these gentlemen here are going to be your new guardians,” Niko looked up at them. He got a better look at there faces, now that the glasses were off he could easily recognize who the taller man was with the chess piece on his cheek bone. He was confused o say the least. This had to be some sick joke, or a stupid stuPID dream. He looked at the other too, the screw that littered the red heads tan face and the man with blond hair and black studs.

“Deadass?” He blurted out suddenly. Fuck. He did not mean to blurt that out. Kevin day looked taken back by his statement and the other too snickered from slightly behind him. The lady looked horrified.

Riko used to self harm, stop eating for days, wouldn’t sleep for days either. His uncle had to force him into a tube feeder once because of this. Kevin and Riko had to see a therapist and she diagnosed Riko. His uncle disregarded it and gave him sum type of pills that made Riko’s anger at himself turn down a bit but he was more depressed. He tried to commit 3 times after. Kevin made him promise not to. He flushed the pills and started to abuse others.

Kevin explains this to Neil and Andrew. They then try to learn more about BPD. They watch youtube videos, read articles and books on it till they had a better understanding of the disorder. They learn about the self-destructive tendencies and suicidal gestures that are quite common with the disorder. They all try there best to build a good support system.

Niko has a hard time with his identity and ‘who he is’, he tries to remember that Kevin wants him and isn't going to abandon him, he tries to keep his shifts in moods to himself but in only makes things worse. He tends to shut down in his room more often then not. He finds himself getting angry at little things knowing he shouldn’t but he still does. Anger attacks aren't as bad as the empty feeling he gets sometimes.

When Niko meets all the foxes he drifts more towards Nicky for whatever reason. He finds that he like Nickys happy vibes and feels it radiate from him. He likes to soak in it.

Niko likes talking to Neil, he gets candy from Andrew, and he likes playing Exy with Kevin. He didn’t like school and says it’s hard for him but he still makes honor roll no problem.

During the second month of school when he first started living with Kevin he expriences racism for maybe the first time. He didn’t have any friends, nor knew anybody. He could tell he was different from the other kids. They were mostly white with a splash of color here and there. The way they talked and walked was different then how he did. He didn’t grew up with white picket fences like they seemed to. They dressed different too. He didn’t like the stares he was getting from the kids in his class.

“Nice hair are you a girl?” One of the boys said, with his little click at his back. It was recess and Niko stuck to staying to himself drawling in his note book that Andrew gave him.

“No.” The boys continued to laugh. He hated when people talked about his hair. He didn't like his hair. Especially when his foster mothers always tugged and pulled on it. That wasn't just it though. It reminded him of his foster father Mr. James.

“Such pretty hair.”

The boys crept closers and Niko started to feel closed in. One of them pulled out scissors and two grabbed him by the shoulders. One talked about how there dad said them Black boys need to cut there hair. Another used a slur Niko heard a lot back in the Bronx, used it himself when with the kids in the neighborhood but he never heard it used like this. He started to struggle but another one grabbed his face and held him down so his face fell between his knees. He felt chuncks of hair being cut of from his head as they fell down his back and some at his feet.

He felt his eyes water and struggled harder. He kicked the one to his right in the shin, knowing how much it hurt from when he played soccer with out shin guards. The kids let go of that shoulder and he swung his arm hitting another kid. They all let go once they heard a teacher yell at them. Niko reached for the scissors and threw them in the grass. The boys ran away and Niko was left to look at the small and large chunks of his hair on the concrete. He didn’t mean to bother anybody. He didn't ask to have this type of hair. He didn’t ask to be different. Sometimes he missed the Bronx but then remembered his foster sister getting shot, and his doped up foster parents he used to end up with. He didn't want to go back, but he found himself missing it sometimes.

Nobody asked abut his hair during the rest of the school day. Not even his teacher. Its fine he didn't want to bother anybody. When Andrew came to pick him up he was wearing his hoodie. Today Neil and Andrew were coming over, so was Aaron. Aaron practically lived with him and Kevin now though. He said nothing on the way home. He didn't want to bother them. He was trying his hardest not to.

But then he got home he went straight to the bathroom and locked the door. He didn’t hear Kevin nor Aaron calling him. He stared in to the mirror and glared at himself. Disgusting. You look like a girl. He ripped off his hood and he felt something in himself crack. His hair was clearly uneven. Some areas you couldn’t tell but he could see how his curls on his forehead were shortened compared to the pieces on the sides. He could tell where every spot was that had been cut, like there were circles showing him where to look. A broken sob cut through his throat. The tears rolled down his cheeks. He always thought he was an ugly crier. He grabbed his hair and pulled. He kept pulling till he felt arms wrap around his torso. He wanted to fight who ever they were off but he couldn't. They grabbed his hands but they couldn't pry them from his hair. He heard someone calling his name and found a face to that voice. He noticed another person accompanied him in the mirror. Holding on to him. It wasn’t his voice he heard though. He saw the other three at the bathroom entrance but it was Aaron standing closest to him.

“Niko its okay, let go buddy.” He didn’t know if he meant his hands or his feelings but he let them go. He saw more pieces of hair fall through his hands but ignored it and them screamed. Kevin turned him around and held him again. Kevin lowered himself to his knees to let Niko cry and scream into his neck. He rubbed his back till he calmed down. Neil and Andrew left to prepare some ice cream and play music. Kevin noticed the hair that fell to the floor and so did Aaron. It didn’t match the amount that should still be connected to his head.

Niko told them what happened at school with less emotion then he displayed before. They were all furious but chose to keep it inside to comfort Niko. They called the school and told them what happened. The school apologized but Kevin still wasn't letting Niko go back to that school. He transferred Niko to another and reassured him it was okay and it was the same distance anyways. They took Niko to the babor shop and they evened out his hair. He got it cut some on the sides as well, allowing the back and top to be longer. His hair showed more off his forehead and ear piercings now. He felt more exposed, but was happy with the hair cut.

When he meets Dan she gives him oils and creams to put in his hair. Even showed him how to wash it too, Matt helps. He got to meet there kids.

Allison braided his hair down for when he graduated Elementary School. She teaches how how to do other things like twist, braids, and box braids.

When he goes to college Renee helps him bleach the ends of his hair blond.

He has nightmares often. And likes to have hot chocolate to calm his nerves. He gets irritated easily, they learn. When he gets irritated he stops talking and fidgets, tapping his foot and cracking his knuckles.

Kevin’s night terrors slowly fade as Riko’s dark shadow fades into Nikos warm glow.

Niko definitely learns how to skateboards when Aaron gives him his old one. Kevin likes to watch them practice it together. Just like Aaron likes to watch Kevin teach Niko Exy. He joins a team in Middle School. He's definitely going to be something.

Hope you guys like this. Leave ask and suggestions about Nikoshi Doe. I would love to hear about it and write the prompts.

39 notes · View notes

savingoursanity · 4 years

Note

hi i saw you answer this type of asks so i was wondering, have you ever heard of a mental issue such as feeling non-stop shame no matter what you do? I thought I was a super emberassing person because I felt guilty and ashamed after most of interactions with people (don't even get me started on how I was feeling when I actually did something embarrasing...) but according to what I see/hear from some of my friends etc. they did similar stuff and don't feel the same. Idk what to do anymore (1/3)

Since this ask came in 3 parts I’m just going to put the whole thing here first before answering so that the whole context can be better understood.

because it becomes a big issue for me. i can't talk with people about anything besides a small-talk or otherwise I will feel ashamed for at least two weeks. I can't talk about any of my issues/problems out loud because then I think I overshared and sometimes I avoid people I think I "overshared" to because I feel so much guilt. It really keeps me from doing a lot of stuff and generally i can't remember a time of my life where I wouldn't say I embarassed myself infront of someone/myself (2/3)

The only thing I found online was that it's linked with anxiety, but I 100% sure don't have anxiety. I'm actually very confident around people and I like going out and I like parties and I don't get panic attacks and I am not shy AT ALL. So it makes me wonder, maybe feeling this shame is normal? Or maybe I am just sensivite? Or is it actually some mental thing that may have a solution? Anyways thank you for reading this and i hope you have a good day (3/3)

Now that that’s all out there I have to say this was a really interesting ask so thank you so much for opening up about this!

I will be totally honest I do find it quite surprising that you mention not identifying with anxiety or anxious traits at all given how strong your feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment seem to be. Of course in the end you know yourself best so I’m not trying to contradict you here or anything.

However, I would like to suggest to maybe keep an open mind about it. Sometimes we have a very fixed idea of what something means or is and we don’t see how it applies to us until it does. This may not apply to you in the end but I know for myself that for the longest time the term adhd meant absolutely nothing to me and I would have never thought it would apply to me. But now that I actually know what adhd is and looks like and have talked to other people with it I see just how much it totally is me 100%. Again, this might not be your case, and honestly if it’s the label anxiety that bothers you then we can skip that and focus on the rest of the issue at hand.

I can’t say that I recognize any specific mental issue just with what you’re describing, but honestly having a set diagnosis or label for things might not be entirely necessary either so I’m going to work with what I’ve got.

First things first I want to reassure you that feeling shame, in essence, is not a bad or abnormal thing. All feelings have a reason and are allowed to exist. It’s when those feelings become excessive and start to take over your life that we start to question the presence of a bigger problem. In your case I’m fairly certain I can say that it seems you show stronger and more intrusive feelings of shame than the average person does. That doesn’t mean I think you’re broken or wrong or anything, just that that’s something you personally deal with, just like we all have our issues we also deal with.

The main thing that sticks out to me is that I’m very curious where all this shame, guilt or embarrassment come from. You might want to look into the term “cognitive distortions”, because I think you might see yourself in those. To put it simply, a cognitive distortion is when we convince ourselves of something that isn’t true or doesn’t reflect reality. In your case, it sounds like you convince yourself that you did something wrong when you overshare or do something that you feel is embarrassing, and as a result you feel shame.

The reason cognitive distortions are so strong is because the thought patterns are wrapped tightly in emotional baggage. By this it can mean that you have had personal experiences in your past that have greatly affected you (or even current situations still going on). In other words, someone somewhere at some point said something that stayed with you and became a thought pattern that causes an strong emotional reaction. How strongly someone reacts emotionally is a personal to each individual and is often described by how ‘sensitive’ a person is. In the end what sensitive really means is just how strongly are you affected by what happens around you (by events or what people say or what you believe they are thinking).

By knowing yourself well you’re better able to see what is more a you issue (aka your own emotional reaction) and what may actually be linked to the specific experiences you’ve had (like the type of upbringing you had).

So to come back to cognitive distortions. The good news is basically everyone has them to some degree. For some people though they’ll have a lot more and they’ll have a bigger impact in their life, which just might be what you’re dealing with.

Another good thing is that there are ways of working on cognitive distortions. One thing with that though is that you likely can’t go at it alone at least not completely. The thoughts in your head can seem very convincing after all, trying to not believe them when you’re the one who created them in the first place can quickly turn into rocket science. This is where having someone to talk about these kinds of things is super important. Sometimes all it takes is to say it out loud to someone else and hearing it to realize “hey, you know what, that thought makes absolutely no sense”. Other times the thoughts are harder to unstick and really require another person to be able to (gently and lovingly) call out your flawed logic and help you work through untangling the thoughts and emotions.

You’ve mentioned that talking about your issues/problems is something that is hard for you, so I feel like that would likely be one of the first hurdles you’ll want to focus on. You don’t need to have a bunch of people to talk about this kind of stuff either, even just one or two people can be enough to get the ball rolling. What you’re going to be looking for in someone to help with this is the type of person I like to call ‘sounding boards’. You basically want someone you trust and who is willing to listen to you just rattle off whatever thoughts are going through your mind, no matter what those thoughts may be. You’re going to want someone you feel comfortable with and who is able to reassure you that you aren’t oversharing if you talk about this stuff. I know non judgmental people can be hard to come by but they exist. Keep in mind that this is also where professionals such as counselors and therapists are very helpful as they are trained specifically for these kinds of things.

Now if the thought of talking to someone about this feels to hard or scary that’s okay. Putting all of this into an ask may already be a huge step for you so don’t feel the need to yeet yourself outside of your comfort zone all at once. This is why the online format is so nice, it can offer you a level of anonymity if that’s something that personally helps you feel comfortable enough to open up about these kinds of issues. You can also simply start out by writing your thoughts out in more of a journal style if you aren’t ready to share it with someone else just yet. However I do suggest that you try to find someone if you can because that is more likely to do the most help in the end.

Now for some shameless self promo where I say that I am more than willing to be an ear to you or anyone else who may need one and my dm’s are always open. I’ve been know to be a pretty decent sounding board and I assure you that I maintain a strict confidentiality clause (morally if not professionally). I’m not here to judge, I’m just here to listen, because we all deserve that.

I hope this could help in some form or fashion and as always thank you guys for trusting me with your asks and feel free to send them anytime. Take care all you wonderful people and remember that you are valid and that you matter <3

#ask #shame #guilt #embarrassment #cognitive distortions

1 note · View note

moodboardinthecloud · 4 years

Text

Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful

Here’s how to pull yourself out of despair and live your life

Tara Haelle

Aug 16·13 min read

https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is-depleted-it-s-why-you-feel-awful-de285d542f4c

Itwas the end of the world as we knew it, and I felt fine. That’s almost exactly what I told my psychiatrist at my March 16 appointment, a few days after our children’s school district extended spring break because of the coronavirus. I said the same at my April 27 appointment, several weeks after our state’s stay-at-home order.

Yes, it was exhausting having a kindergartener and fourth grader doing impromptu distance learning while I was barely keeping up with work. And it was frustrating to be stuck home nonstop, scrambling to get in grocery delivery orders before slots filled up, and tracking down toilet paper. But I was still doing well because I thrive in high-stress emergency situations. It’s exhilarating for my ADHD brain. As just one example, when my husband and I were stranded in Peru during an 8.0-magnitude earthquake that killed thousands, we walked around with a first aid kit helping who we could and tracking down water and food. Then I went out with my camera to document the devastation as a photojournalist and interview Peruvians in my broken Spanish for my hometown paper.

Now we were in a pandemic, and I’m a science journalist who has written about infectious disease and medical research for nearly a decade. I was on fire, cranking out stories, explaining epidemiological concepts in my social networks, trying to help everyone around me make sense of the frightening circumstances of a pandemic and the anxiety surrounding the virus.

I knew it wouldn’t last. It never does. But even knowing I would eventually crash, I didn’t appreciate how hard the crash would be, or how long it would last, or how hard it would be to try to get back up over and over again, or what getting up even looked like.

Psychiatrist and habit change specialist Dr. Jud Brewer explains how anxiety masquerades as helpfulelemental.medium.com

How to Live When Your Mind Is Governed by Fear

In those early months, I, along with most of the rest of the country, was using “surge capacity” to operate, as Ann Masten, PhD, a psychologist and professor of child development at the University of Minnesota, calls it. Surge capacity is a collection of adaptive systems — mental and physical — that humans draw on for short-term survival in acutely stressful situations, such as natural disasters. But natural disasters occur over a short period, even if recovery is long. Pandemics are different — the disaster itself stretches out indefinitely.

“The pandemic has demonstrated both what we can do with surge capacity and the limits of surge capacity,” says Masten. When it’s depleted, it has to be renewed. But what happens when you struggle to renew it because the emergency phase has now become chronic?

By my May 26 psychiatrist appointment, I wasn’t doing so hot. I couldn’t get any work done. I’d grown sick of Zoom meetups. It was exhausting and impossible to think with the kids around all day. I felt trapped in a home that felt as much a prison as a haven. I tried to conjure the motivation to check email, outline a story, or review interview notes, but I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t make myself do anything — work, housework, exercise, play with the kids — for that whole week.

Or the next.

I know depression, but this wasn’t quite that. It was, as I’d soon describe in an emotional post in a social media group of professional colleagues, an “anxiety-tainted depression mixed with ennui that I can’t kick,” along with a complete inability to concentrate. I spoke with my therapist, tweaked medication dosages, went outside daily for fresh air and sunlight, tried to force myself to do some physical activity, and even gave myself permission to mope for a few weeks. We were in a pandemic, after all, and I had already accepted in March that life would not be “normal” for at least a year or two. But I still couldn’t work, couldn’t focus, hadn’t adjusted. Shouldn’t I be used to this by now?

“Why do you think you should be used to this by now? We’re all beginners at this,” Masten told me. “This is a once in a lifetime experience. It’s expecting a lot to think we’d be managing this really well.”

It wasn’t until my social media post elicited similar responses from dozens of high-achieving, competent, impressive women I professionally admire that I realized I wasn’t in the minority. My experience was a universal and deeply human one.

An unprecedented disaster

While the phrase “adjusting to the new normal” has been repeated endlessly since March, it’s easier said than done. How do you adjust to an ever-changing situation where the “new normal” is indefinite uncertainty?

“This is an unprecedented disaster for most of us that is profound in its impact on our daily lives,” says Masten. But it’s different from a hurricane or tornado where you can look outside and see the damage. The destruction is, for most people, invisible and ongoing. So many systems aren’t working as they normally do right now, which means radical shifts in work, school, and home life that almost none of us have experience with. Even those who have worked in disaster recovery or served in the military are facing a different kind of uncertainty right now.

Americans are faced with more risk than ever. Understanding how the brain navigates this new reality can build…elemental.medium.com

Life Is Now a Game of Risk. Here’s How Your Brain Is Processing It.

“I think we maybe underestimate how severe the adversity is and that people may be experiencing a normal reaction to a pretty severe and ongoing, unfolding, cascading disaster,” Masten says. “It’s important to recognize that it’s normal in a situation of great uncertainty and chronic stress to get exhausted and to feel ups and downs, to feel like you’re depleted or experience periods of burnout.”

Research on disaster and trauma focuses primarily on what’s helpful for people during the recovery period, but we’re not close to recovery yet. People can use their surge capacity for acute periods, but when dire circumstances drag on, Masten says, “you have to adopt a different style of coping.”

“How do you adjust to an ever-changing situation where the ‘new normal’ is indefinite uncertainty?”

Understanding ambiguous loss

It’s not surprising that, as a lifelong overachiever, I’ve felt particularly despondent and adrift as the months have dragged on, says Pauline Boss, PhD, a family therapist and professor emeritus of social sciences at the University of Minnesota who specializes in “ambiguous loss.”

“It’s harder for high achievers,” she says. “The more accustomed you are to solving problems, to getting things done, to having a routine, the harder it will be on you because none of that is possible right now. You get feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, and those aren’t good.”

That’s similar to how Michael Maddaus, MD, a professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota, felt when he became addicted to prescription narcotics after undergoing several surgeries. Now recovered and a motivational speaker who promotes the idea of a “resilience bank account,” Maddaus had always been a fast-moving high achiever — until he couldn’t be.

“I realized that my personal operating system, though it had led to tremendous success, had failed me on a more personal level,” he says. “I had to figure out a different way of contending with life.”

That mindset is an especially American one, Boss says.

“Our culture is very solution-oriented, which is a good way of thinking for many things,” she says. “It’s partly responsible for getting a man on the moon and a rover on Mars and all the things we’ve done in this country that are wonderful. But it’s a very destructive way of thinking when you’re faced with a problem that has no solution, at least for a while.”

That means reckoning with what’s called ambiguous loss: any loss that’s unclear and lacks a resolution. It can be physical, such as a missing person or the loss of a limb or organ, or psychological, such as a family member with dementia or a serious addiction.

“In this case, it is a loss of a way of life, of the ability to meet up with your friends and extended family,” Boss says. “It is perhaps a loss of trust in our government. It’s the loss of our freedom to move about in our daily life as we used to.” It’s also the loss of high-quality education, or the overall educational experience we’re used to, given school closures, modified openings and virtual schooling. It’s the loss of rituals, such weddings, graduations, and funerals, and even lesser “rituals,” such as going to gym. One of the toughest losses for me to adapt to is no longer doing my research and writing in coffee shops as I’ve done for most of my life, dating back to junior high.

“These were all things we were attached to and fond of, and they’re gone right now, so the loss is ambiguous. It’s not a death, but it’s a major, major loss,” says Boss. “What we used to have has been taken away from us.”

Just as painful are losses that may result from the intersection of the pandemic and the already tense political division in the country. For many people, issues related to Covid-19 have become the last straw in ending relationships, whether it’s a family member refusing to wear a mask, a friend promoting the latest conspiracy theory, or a co-worker insisting Covid-19 deaths are exaggerated.

Ambiguous loss elicits the same experiences of grief as a more tangible loss — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — but managing it often requires a bit of creativity.

A winding, uncharted path to coping in a pandemic

While there isn’t a handbook for functioning during a pandemic, Masten, Boss, and Maddaus offered some wisdom for meandering our way through this.

Accept that life is different right now

Maddaus’ approach involves radical acceptance. “It’s a shitty time, it’s hard,” he says. “You have to accept that in your bones and be okay with this as a tough day, with ‘that’s the way it is,’ and accept that as a baseline.”

But that acceptance doesn’t mean giving up, he says. It means not resisting or fighting reality so that you can apply your energy elsewhere. “It allows you to step into a more spacious mental space that allows you to do things that are constructive instead of being mired in a state of psychological self torment.”

Expect less from yourself

Most of us have heard for most of our lives to expect more from ourselves in some way or another. Now we must give ourselves permission to do the opposite. “We have to expect less of ourselves, and we have to replenish more,” Masten says. “I think we’re in a period of a lot of self discovery: Where do I get my energy? What kind of down time do I need? That’s all shifted right now, and it may take some reflection and self discovery to find out what rhythms of life do I need right now?”

She says people are having to live their lives without the support of so many systems that have partly or fully broken down, whether it’s schools, hospitals, churches, family support, or other systems that we relied on. We need to recognize that we’re grieving multiple losses while managing the ongoing impact of trauma and uncertainty. The malaise so many of us feel, a sort of disinterested boredom, is common in research on burnout, Masten says. But other emotions accompany it: disappointment, anger, grief, sadness, exhaustion, stress, fear, anxiety — and no one can function at full capacity with all that going on.

Recognize the different aspects of grief

The familiar “stages” of grief don’t actually occur in linear stages, Boss says, but denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are all major concepts in facing loss. Plenty of people are in denial: denying the virus is real, or that the numbers of cases or deaths are as high as reported, or that masks really help reduce disease transmission.

Anger is evident everywhere: anger at those in denial, anger in the race demonstrations, anger at those not physically distancing or wearing masks, and even anger at those who wear masks or require them. The bargaining, Boss says, is mostly with scientists we hope will develop a vaccine quickly. The depression is obvious, but acceptance… “I haven’t accepted any of this,” Boss says. “I don’t know about you.”

Sometimes acceptance means “saying we’re going to have a good time in spite of this,” Boss says, such as when my family drove an hour outside the city to get far enough from light pollution to look for the comet NEOWISE. But it can also mean accepting that we cannot change the situation right now.

“We can kick and scream and be angry, or we can feel the other side of it, with no motivation, difficulty focusing, lethargy,” Boss says, “or we can take the middle way and just have a couple days where you feel like doing nothing and you embrace the losses and sadness you’re feeling right now, and then the next day, do something that has an element of achievement to it.”

“Our new normal is always feeling a little off balance, like trying to stand in a dinghy on rough seas, and not knowing when the storm will pass.”

Experiment with “both-and” thinking

This approach may not work for everyone, but Boss says there’s an alternative to binary thinking that many people find helpful in dealing with ambiguous loss. She calls it “both-and” thinking, and sometimes it means embracing a bit of the irrational.

For the families of soldiers missing in action in Vietnam that Boss studied early in her career, or the family members of victims of plane crashes where the bodies aren’t recovered, this type of thinking means thinking: “He is both living and maybe not. She is probably dead but maybe not.”

“If you stay in the rational when nothing else is rational, like right now, then you’ll just stress yourself more,” she says. “What I say with ambiguous loss is the situation is crazy, not the person. The situation is pathological, not the person.”

An analogous approach during the pandemic might be, “This is terrible and many people are dying, and this is also a time for our families to come closer together,” Boss says. On a more personal level, “I’m highly competent, and right now I’m flowing with the tide day-to-day.”

It’s a bit of a Schrödinger’s existence, but when you can’t change the situation, “the only thing you can change is your perception of it,” she says.

Of course, that doesn’t mean denying the existence of the pandemic or the coronavirus. As Maddaus says, “You have to face reality.” But how we frame that reality mentally can help us cope with it.

Look for activities, new and old, that continue to fulfill you

Lots of coping advice has focused on “self-care,” but one of the frustrating ironies of the pandemic is that so many of our self-care activities have also been taken away: pedicures, massages, coffee with friends, a visit to the amusement park, a kickboxing class, swimming in the local pool — these activities remain unsafe in much of the country. So we have to get creative with self-care when we’re least motivated to get creative.

“When we’re forced to rethink our options and broaden out what we think of as self-care, sometimes that constraint opens new ways of living and thinking,” Masten says. “We don’t have a lot of control over the global pandemic but we do over our daily lives. You can focus on plans for the future and what’s meaningful in life.”

For me, since I missed eating in restaurants and was tired of our same old dinners, I began subscribing to a meal-kit service. I hate cooking, but the meal kits were easy, and I was motivated by the chance to eat something that tasted more like what I’d order in a restaurant without having to invest energy in looking through recipes or ordering the right ingredients.

Okay, I’ve also been playing a lot of Animal Crossing, but Maddaus explains why it makes sense that creative activities like cooking, gardening, painting, house projects — or even building your own imaginary island out of pixels — can be fulfilling right now. He references the book The Molecule of More, which explores how dopamine influences our experiences and happiness, in describing the types of activities most likely to bring us joy.

“There are two ways the brain deals with the world: the future and things we need to go after, and the here and now, seeing things and touching things,” Maddaus says. “Rather than being at the mercy of what’s going on, we can use the elements of our natural reward system and construct things to do that are good no matter what.”

Those kinds of activities have a planning element and a here-and-now experience element. For Maddaus, for example, it was simply replacing all the showerheads and lightbulbs in the house. “It’s a silly thing, but it made me feel good,” he says.

Focus on maintaining and strengthening important relationships

The biggest protective factors for facing adversity and building resilience are social support and remaining connected to people, Masten says. That includes helping others, even when we’re feeling depleted ourselves.

“Helping others is one of those win-win strategies of taking action because we’re all feeling a sense of helplessness and loss of control about what’s going on with this pandemic, but when you take action with other people, you can control what you’re doing,” she says. Helping others could include checking in on family friends or buying groceries for an elderly neighbor.

Begin slowly building your resilience bank account

Maddaus’ idea of a resilience bank account is gradually building into your life regular practices that promote resilience and provide a fallback when life gets tough. Though it would obviously be nice to have a fat account already, he says it’s never too late to start. The areas he specifically advocates focusing on are sleep, nutrition, exercise, meditation, self-compassion, gratitude, connection, and saying no.

“Start really small and work your way up,” he says. “If you do a little bit every day, it starts to add up and you get momentum, and even if you miss a day, then start again. We have to be gentle with ourselves and keep on, begin again.”

After spending an hour on the phone with each of these experts, I felt refreshed and inspired. I can do this! I was excited about writing this article and sharing what I’d learned.

And then it took me two weeks to start the article and another week to finish it — even though I wanted to write it. But now, I could cut myself a little more slack for taking so much longer than I might have a few months ago. I might have intellectually accepted back in March that the next two years (or more?) are going to be nothing like normal, and not even predictable in how they won’t be normal. But cognitively recognizing and accepting that fact and emotionally incorporating that reality into everyday life aren’t the same. Our new normal is always feeling a little off balance, like trying to stand in a dinghy on rough seas, and not knowing when the storm will pass. But humans can get better at anything with practice, so at least I now have some ideas for working on my sea legs.

2 notes · View notes