#prevent memory disorders

[paularoseauthor]

Unlocking Your Potential: 6 Essential Tips for a Sharp Mind as You Age.

Challenging your brain every day can have incredible long-term effects.

Increase Your Memory Capacity Challenging your brain every day can have incredible long-term effects. Here are why it’s essential to keep your brain sharp. When you keep your mind sharp by challenging it to learn new things, your brain works harder. As a result, your memory capacity increases. A well-known and exciting study that you can find on London taxi drivers and bus drivers: a structural…

[soft-serve-soymilk]

I feel the problem with texts like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Sunset Boulevard, and The Memory Police is that my analysis feels too off-the-wall compared to what they want us to regurgitate ._.

[ad-caelestia]

Crystal Meanings A - Z 🔮 [long post]

Correspondences for commonly used / mentioned crystals and minerals (updated 9/6/24)

A 

Agate (All types): Protection, good luck, balance body/mind/spirit, perceptiveness, strength, inspiration, awaken talents.   Healing lore: Insomnia, teeth/gums, digestive/circulatory/endocrine system, stamina. 

Ajoite: Peace, harmony; heal old emotional wounds, overcome sorrow, anger, and fear; connect with Higher Self, meditation, remove and release negative energies, transformation.   Healing lore: Powerful healing booster. 

Alexandrite: Inspiration, willpower, self-respect, self-esteem, purification, renewal, creativity, imagination, soothing emotions.   Healing lore: Reproductive system, nervous system, endocrine system, liver stimulation, detoxification. 

Amazonite: Truth, honor, communication, integrity, and trust; Enhances intuition, psychic powers, creativity, intellect, and psychic ability. Lessen stress and self-destructive behavior by calming and building self-esteem. Heals emotional disturbances and trauma.   Healing lore: Preventive energy for general health, colic, cardiovascular problems, calcium deficiency, pregnancy, eczema, muscle cramps, nervous system, decreasing tooth decay, osteoporosis. 

Amber: Soothing, calming, cleansing, remove toxins, wisdom, purification, intellect.   Healing lore: Detoxification, addictions, alcoholism, stress and anxiety related problems, poisoning, bone problems, cardiovascular problems, circulation, ears, hearing impairment, endocrine system, fibromyalgia, intestinal/digestive disorders, renal system, genitourinary system, respiratory system, general healing. 

Amethyst: Addiction of all kinds; Stability, peace, calm, balance, courage, and inner strength. Protection against psychic attacks. Stimulates telepathy and psychic abilities; good for meditation and dreamwork, past life work, or to help visualize your life path. Ease pain and grief/bring upon happiness. Beneficial for legal problems and money issues/leads to prosperity and abundance. Protection for travelers.    Healing lore: Addictions, alcoholism, headaches, insomnia, arthritis, pain relief, circulatory system, endocrine system, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, immune system deficiencies, asthma, migraines, phobias, pregnancy/preventing miscarriage, menopause, PMS, and general healing. 

Ametrine: Intellectual stimulation, attunement, optimism, remove negative energy, releasing, dispelling tension, connecting, psychic abilities, remove prejudice, inner peace.   Healing lore: Boost immune system, chronic fatigue syndrome, blood cleanser; repair DNA/RNA, depression. 

Andalusite: “The Seeing Stone;” Clarity, scrying, enhance memory/recall; brings chivalry, moderation, and balance. Helpful for meditation and centering.  Healing lore: Immune disorders, eye problems, deficiencies in calcium, iodine, and oxygen; water retention, edema. 

Anthophyllite: Releasing, especially when things to be released cause problems or pain, cleansing, aura cleansing, writer’s block.   Healing lore: Colon/lower digestive tract issues, absorption of nutrients. 

Apatite: Intellect, achieving results, healing, insight, humanitarianism, meditation, balance, creativity.   Healing lore: Skin/nails, allergies, arthritis, bone problems, cellular regeneration, calcium absorption, teeth/cartilage, suppress appetite, raises metabolism. 

Apophyllite: Spirituality, mysticism, meditation, astral travel, purification, protection, mindfulness, self-realization.  Healing lore: Stress, anxiety, respiratory system. 

Aqua Aura (aka Aqua Aura Quartz): Psychic skills and awareness, meditation, telepathy, psychic healing, distance spiritual energy healing, communication, awareness of one’s own motivations, success, prosperity, protection from psychic attacks.   Healing Lore: Throat problems, stress-related illness, immune system deficiencies, and thymus gland. 

Aquamarine: Courage, luck, purification, peace, intuition, inner strength, self-expression, balance, relieve fear, calms communication, angel communication, preparedness, protection during travel on water.   Healing lore: throat, speech, chronic fatigue, eyes, eyesight, fluid retention, edema, headaches, intestinal/digestive health. 

Aragonite: Magick charms, increase energy, boost self-confidence, diminish anger, and relieve stress.  Healing lore: Chronic fatigue, hair loss. 

Astrophyllite: Self-acceptance, self-awareness, breaking bad habits, grounding, calming, protection, honesty, fidelity, positivity, astral travel.  Healing lore: Hyperactivity, weight loss, seizures, cellular regeneration. 

Aventurine: Healing, money, mental agility, see potentials, happiness, peace, opening heart, creativity, imagination, motivation, leadership, friendship, gambling luck, good fortune, career success, protection.   Healing lore: Strong healing, vision/eyesight, blood flow, headaches, sleep disorders, circulatory system.

Azeztulite: Very high vibration, angelic, ascension stone, raise vibrations, expand consciousness, light energy, project positive energy, never needs cleansing, remove energy blocks.   Healing lore: Disease of all kinds, cellular regeneration and rejuvenation.

Azurite: “Stone of Heaven”, intuition, dreams, healing, insight, stilling the mind, concentration, self-transformation, meditation, control energy.   Healing lore: Prevent cancer, liver, arthritis, joints, depression, sinuses, and skin problems.

B 

Binghamite: Good fortune; holds the energy of Elves and Fairies.   Healing lore: Regenerate energy flow in the body; cellular regeneration, Theta brain wave patterns, burns, convulsions.

Biotite: Rationality, responsibility, mental clarity.   Healing lore: Disorders caused by disorganized cell patterns, eyesight, shrink growths, bile regulation. 

Bloodstone: Courage, survival, adaptability, release blockages, renewal, strength, victory, intuitive decision making, banishing, and abundance.   Healing lore: Intense healing, emotional trauma, anemia, blood diseases, blood pressure, cardiovascular system, endocrine system, renal system, genitourinary system, physical trauma, post-surgical recovery. 

Blue Lace Agate: Tranquility, grace, higher spiritual planes, calming, gentleness, ease communication, public speaking, perform miracles, protection.   Healing lore: Arthritis, headaches, digestive issues, skin issues especially eczema, growth, and bones. 

Bronzite: Protection, grounding, self-confidence, harmony.  Healing lore: Emotional/mental disorders, muscle tension, iron assimilation  

C 

Calcite: Amplify energy, lessen fear, reduce stress, purification, peace, calming, emotional healing, compassion, memory, awareness, and appreciate of nature.   Healing lore: General healing, physical energy, back pain, physical strength, teeth/bones. 

Carnelian: Creativity, sexuality, manifestation, good luck, precision, analytical capabilities, verbal skill, protection, protection from anger, jealousy and fear, peace, spirituality, reduce sorrow.   Healing lore: Abrasions/scrapes/cuts; tissue/cellular regeneration, rheumatism, kidney stones, other renal problems, gall stones, colds, pollen allergies, neuralgia. 

Celestite (Celestine): Angelic communication, serenity, verbal skills, healing, compassion, calming, growth, intuition, hope, emotional protection, decrease negativity.  Healing lore: Eyesight, mental disorders, detoxification, digestion, cellular disorder. 

Chalcedony: Relieve depression, lessen hostility, kindness, miracles.  Healing lore: Emotional and mental stability, heavy metal toxicity, senility, dementia. 

Charoite: Spiritual growth, dreams, endurance, courage, emotional healing, inspiration, transformation.   Healing lore: Headaches, hepatic problems, detoxification, muscle cramps, cardiovascular problems, insomnia. 

Chrysocolla: Easing heartache, harmony, stamina, wisdom, peace, love, communication, vitality, inner strength, purifies a place, removes negativity, reduce fear anxiety and guilt.   Healing lore: Asthma, emphysema, TB, pneumonia, muscle cramps, arthritis, childbirth, pregnancy. 

Chrysoprase: Good fortune, prosperity, balances opposing energies, love, grace, compassion, clemency, personal growth, mend broken heart.   Healing lore: Eyesight, immune system, fertility, gout, mental illness, fevers, temperature regulation, reproductive health. 

Citrine: Success, intuition, comfort, creativity, physical energy, wealth, mental awakening, clarity, protection, good fortune / luck, decrease nightmares, remove toxins.   Healing lore: Depression, mood swings, trauma, digestion, sleep disturbances, thyroid, general health, heart, kidney, liver, muscles, strength, endocrine system, circulatory system, tissue regeneration, genitourinary system, immune system, fibromyalgia, addictions, OCD. 

Coral: Diplomacy, wonders of nature, creativity, optimism, understanding of purpose, quieting emotions, visualization.   Healing lore: General healing, blood disorders, circulatory system, renal system, genitourinary system, epilepsy, bones/bone marrow disorders, eyesight, respiratory system. 

Covellite (Covelline): High energy, psychic, intuitive, meditation, past life recall, rebirth, see solutions to problems.   Healing lore: Depression, anxiety, ears, nose, mouth, sinuses. 

Cuprite: Awareness, teaching, spiritual messages, will power, security, confidence, sexuality, morality, past life experiences, heals father relationship.   Healing lore: Thymus gland, cardiovascular system, blood metabolism, muscle tissue, skeletal system, oxygenation, stamina, renal system, menstrual cramps, vertigo, water retention, edema, addictions, alcoholism. 

D 

Danburite: Peace, stress relief, interdimensional travel, love, calm, tranquility, acceptance, positive outlook on life, restful sleep.   Healing Lore: General healing. 

Diamond: Courage, strength, healing, protection, spirituality, mental abilities, love, bond relationships, abundance, amplification, hope.   Healing lore: Genetic disorders, bed-wetting, lower cholesterol, flatulence, constipation, exhaustion, hair loss, lower fever, athlete’s foot, prevent gallstones and kidney stones, gout, dizziness, seasickness, rheumatism, shingles, lumbago, hot flashes, sciatica, corneal inflammations, knee pain, headache, varicose veins, bronchitis, indigestion, paralysis, cramps, prostate, back pain, strains, sunburn, gums, cysts. 

Dolomite: Calm, balance, focus, grounding, optimism, emotional stability, generosity, kindness, alleviate negative emotions.  Healing lore: Cardiovascular system, circulation, oxygenation, reproductive health, hearing impairment, muscle/bone strength, adrenal glands, renal system, insomnia, calcium/magnesium balance. 

Dumortierite (Blue Quartz): Self-reliance, mental clarity, stamina, patience, recognition of potential, understanding, communication of ideas, spiritual development.   Healing lore: Throat, thyroid, parathyroid, detoxification, overstimulation, blood, spleen, hyperactivity, endocrine system. 

E 

Eliat Stone (King Solomon’s Stone): A combination of Chrysocolla, Malachite and Turquoise from Israel near Eilat. Aligns subtle bodies; heals hurt, fear, stress, and loss; stress relief and anti-depressive.  Healing lore: Cardiovascular system, respiratory system, depression, thyroid, bones, fevers, sinuses. 

Emerald: Love, domestic bliss, sensitivity, loyalty, memory, mental capacity, harmony, focus, eliminating negativity, romance, memory, faith, truthfulness.   Healing lore: Remove mental causes of disease and unwellness, general healing. 

Epidote: Transmutation of negative energy, memory, enhancing energy, manifestation, attracts the same energy you put out into the world.  Healing lore: Clear energy blockages/congestion, balance energy, absorption of nutrients, digestion, general healing and recovery, immunity, dissipating tumors, weight loss from modifiable source. 

F 

Fire Agate: Vitality, creativity, sexuality, implementation, safety, calming, attraction, expression, protection.  Healing lore: Circulation, depression, lethargy, concentration, metabolism, digestive system, endocrine system, sexual activity, sleepwalking, epilepsy. 

Fire Opal: Passion, creativity, sexuality, vitality, removal of negative energies, removal of emotional/mental toxins.  Healing lore: Adrenal glands, PMS, menopause, renal system/detoxification. 

Fluorite: Stability, peace and calm, impartial reasoning, responsibility, concentration, spiritual wholeness, psychic development, meditation, mental blocks, aura cleansing, protection from psychic attack, self-love.   Healing lore: Overall health, skeletal system, muscular system. 

Fossil Stone: Accomplishments, business, communication, innovation, breaking old habits, quality, excellency, telepathic.   Healing lore: Paranoia, schizophrenia, abuse recovery. 

Fulgurites: Direct and channel energy, leadership, weather manipulation, communication with extraterrestrials.   Healing lore: Immune system, ears, nose, and throat ailments, eyesight, thymus gland, tumor reduction. 

G 

Galaxite: Protect and cleanse aura, astral travel.   Healing lore: Stress-related illnesses, anxiety disorders, CNS disorders, digestion, metabolic illnesses. 

Garnet: Remove negativity, romantic love, passion, sensuality, intimacy, career success, self-confidence, protection from evil, awareness, commitment, regeneration, order, insight.   Healing lore: General health, cellular regeneration, blood disorders, cardiovascular system, respiratory system. 

Goldstone (glass): Calming, easing emotions, generating energy, deflecting unwanted energy, manifestation, achieving goals.  Healing lore: Circulatory and skeletal system. 

H 

Hematite: Mental attunement, memory, calming, balance, grounding, centering, focusing energy and emotions, peace, inner happiness, transforming negativity.   Healing lore: Temperature regulation, blood disorders, CNS disorders, insomnia, spine alignment, mend broken bones, and anemia. 

Hemimorphite: Empathy, emotional healing, communication, joy, bliss, personal growth, good fortune, self-esteem, psychic visions, enlightenment, balancing feminine/masculine energies, banish regret.  Healing lore: Overall health, blood disorders, ulcers, hormones, PMS, weight loss. 

Herkimer “Diamond” (Herkimer “Diamond” Quartz): Attunement, Mind/Body/Spirit Balance, manifestation, power, inner vision, purification.   Healing lore: Pain relief, metabolic disorders, cellular disorders, physical exhaustion, immunity, eyesight. 

Howlite: Awareness, calm, emotional expression, observation, patience, eliminating negativity, selfishness, creativity.   Healing lore: Bones/teeth, calcium levels, leg cramps. 

I 

Infinite Stone: Soothing, calming, healing, protection, revitalization, regeneration.   Healing lore: Strong healing, emotional/mental stress relief, pain relief, fatigue, joint pain, connective tissue damage, cellular regeneration, restful sleep. 

Iolite (Water Sapphire): Intuition, spiritual growth, balance, releasing discord, awakening to inner knowledge, visions.   Healing lore: Strong healing, addictions, sobriety, detoxification, sore throat, varicose veins, blisters. 

J 

Jade: Fidelity, dreams, realization of potential, peace, accord, resourcefulness, accomplishment, emotional balance, protection.   Healing lore: Cardiovascular system, renal system, general illness. 

Jasper (All Types): Protection, nurturing, joy, awareness, relaxation, tranquility, wholeness, astral travel, Yin/Yang.   Healing lore: Hepatic system, digestive system, gallbladder. 

Jet (Black Amber): Grief, mourning, protection from evil negativity and psychic attacks, banishing, financial safety, depression, sympathy.   Healing lore: Epilepsy, migraines, stomach pain, colds, glandular problems, lymphatic problems. 

K 

Kansas Pop Rocks: Release blockages, energy alignment.   Healing lore: Arthritis, back pain, general healing, cellular regeneration, adrenal glands, chronic fatigue. 

Kunzite: Understanding, communication, heals “broken heart”, stress, anger, love, peace, harmony, removing obstacles.   Healing lore: Strengthen circulatory system, respiratory disorders. 

Kyanite: Energy alignment, channeling energy, altered states, dream recall, visualization, loyalty, honesty, tranquility, diminish anger, ease confusion, and remove energy blockages.   Healing lore: General healing, cardiovascular system, throat, eyes. 

L 

Labradorite (Spectrolite): Alignment, attract success, dreams, reduce stress and anxiety, spiritual connection, transformation, clarity, peace, progression, psychic development, discernment.   Healing lore: Stress related illness, sensitivity to cold, anxiety disorders, gout, colds, rheumatic fever, blood pressure regulation. 

Lapis Lazuli: Manifestation, wisdom, truthfulness, openness, communication, inner power, intuition, spiritual evolution, virility, self-confidence, objectivity, dreams, purity, serenity, guardian spirits, love & fidelity within marriage, protection.   Healing lore: Sinus ailments, insomnia, depression, recurring fevers, vision, hearing impairment, throat, lungs, immune system. 

Larimar: Freedom, peace, energy.   Healing lore: Throat, upper respiratory system, schizophrenia. 

Lepidolite: Hope, stress reduction, birth, peace, acceptance, spirituality, physical strength, luck, protection, emotional balance.   Healing lore: Bipolar disorder, stress, anxiety, depression, manic-depression, despondency, PTSD, anger, traumas, panic attacks, addictions, glands, immune system, skin, nails, hair, DNA, enzyme balance, alcoholism recovery, pregnancy/childbirth, general healing. 

M 

Magnesite: Meditation, visualization, relaxation, calm, harmony, self-love, recognizing unconscious thoughts,   Healing lore: Detoxification, magnesium absorption, muscle cramps, headaches, clotting disorders, heart disease, regulation of body temperature. 

Malachite: Transformation, insight, spiritual evolution, protection during pregnancy and childbirth, clarifying emotions, fidelity, loyalty, practicality.   Healing lore: Radiation sickness, asthma, arthritis, tumors. 

Marble: Charitable actions, original thinking, alleviation of sorrow, universal love, ancient wisdom, self-control.   Healing lore: Postpartum depression, bones/teeth. 

Merlinite: Luck, magic power, subconscious thought, clear psychic visions, past life recall, cleansing, wisdom, balance.  Healing lore: Skeletal system, improves blood flow, physical growth, lymphatic system, respiratory system. 

Mica: Recognize flaws with love, improve visions, mystical clarity, eliminate negative personality traits, enhance flexibility in all realms, personal growth, lessen anger and nervous energy.   Healing lore: Purposeful fasting, insomnia, mononucleosis symptoms, dehydration. 

Milky Quartz (Snow Quartz): Good fortune, calming, soothing, meditation, looking within, purification.  Healing lore: Immune system health. 

Moldavite: Enhance inner journeys, channeling, cosmic consciousness, crystal consciousness, extraterrestrial and interdimensional contact, transformation, raise vibrational level.   Healing lore: All healing, hair loss, fertility issues, promotes new cell growth. 

Molybdenum: Reliability, stress relief, communication, balance.   Healing lore: All types of healing, stress-related illness. 

Moonstone: Introspection, reflection, beginnings, insight, tenderness, harmony, peace, travel, intuition, psychic abilities, protection (especially during pregnancy, childbirth, travel at sea), substitute for pearl in crystal healing.   Healing lore: Pituitary gland, digestive system, obesity, water retention, edema, hormonal problems, menstrual problems. 

Morganite: Angel stone, heart stone, bring love or rekindle old love, communication with angels, compassion, empathy, self-control, patience, ease separation pain.   Healing lore: Emphysema, tuberculosis, cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems, throat problems. 

Mother of Pearl: Mental clarity, intuition, sensitivity, imagination, adaptability, cooperation, psychic, protection of children, purify environment.   Healing lore: High blood pressure, dizziness, vision, cataracts, wound healing. 

N 

Natrolite: Spiritual growth, psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, clairsentience, clairaudience, and automatic writing, absorbs toxic energy.  Healing lore: CNS disorders, water retention, edema. 

Nebula Stone: Memory, removes fear, let go of the old, grounding, vitality, “cosmic window.”   Healing lore: Vitality, detoxification, emotional balance. 

Nuumite (Nuumit): Protection from negative energy, shielding, remove energy blockages, clear aura, synthesizes psychic wisdom and intellect.   Healing Lore: General healing, infections, purifying blood, kidneys, insulin production regulation, eyesight, and CNS disorders. 

O 

Obsidian: Clarity, deflecting negativity, protection, healing, grounding.   Healing lore: Buried emotions causing illness, stomach, intestines, muscle tissue, bacterial infections, and viral infections. 

Ocean Jasper: Transmutation of negative energy, stress relief, relaxation, physical/emotional healing, tranquility, clear thinking.  Healing lore: Internal organs (including reproductive system), PMS, teeth/gums, tumors, skin conditions, digestive and lymphatic system. 

Onyx: Self-control, decision making, conquer challenges, intuition, recognition of personal strengths, grounding, and protection.   Healing lore: Stamina, childbirth, wound healing. 

Opal: Creativity, inspiration, hope, spontaneity, relationships, memory, happy dreams, changes.   Healing lore: Eyesight, Parkinson’s disease, depression. 

P 

Pearl: Purity, faith, charity, innocence, integrity, focus, wisdom, spirituality, sincerity.   Healing lore: Fertility, childbirth, digestion, muscular system. 

Peridot: Warmth, friendliness, understanding, openness in love and relationships, regulation of cycles, ESP, find what is lost, protective shield.  Healing lore: High healing energy, slow aging, ulcers, digestion problems. 

Phenacite (Phenakite): Extremely high energy, third eye, clear energy centers, meditation, intuition.   Healing lore: Spine, throat, hypothalamus, amygdala, carotid arteries, and jugular veins. 

Phlogopite (Phlogopit): Speed evolution, flexible perception, adaptation, channeling, remove spiritual blocks.   Healing lore: relieve mental anguish, back pain, muscle relaxation, dental health, and mononucleosis symptoms. 

Pietersite (Tempest stone): Relaxation, relieves worries, courage, improves memory, tenacity, work with angels, astral travel, and release deep emotions calmly.   Healing lore: Body fluid balance, nutrition, gastrointestinal functions, endocrine glands, hormones, PMS, menopause. 

Psilomelane (Crown of Silver): Gazing, scrying, astral travel.  Healing lore: Correct behaviors/emotions that are not useful/harmful, lungs, pneumonia, diabetes. 

Pyrite (aka Fool’s Gold, Healer’s Gold): Defense, prevention, protection from negativity, leadership, psychic abilities, memory, shields from physical danger.   Healing lore: Physical wholeness, lungs, inflammations, stamina, digestion, circulation. 

Q 

Quantum Quattro Silica: Healing, grief, depression, trauma, energy alignment.   Healing lore: General healing, immune system. 

Quartz (Crystal Quartz, Rock Crystal): Power stone, intensify energy, spiritual development, healing, raising consciousness, protection.   Healing lore: Pain, arthritis, bone injuries, depression, fibromyalgia, digestion, mental and physical energy, stamina, physical strength. 

R 

Rhodochrosite (Rhodocrosite): Love, emotional balance,“Stone of Love and Balance”, cleansing, renewal, relaxation, expansion of consciousness.   Healing lore: Digestion, kidneys, thyroid, pulse rate. 

Rhodonite: Grace, elegance, peace, generosity, attention to details, calming, unconditional love, service to mankind.   Healing lore: Emphysema, joint inflammation, light sensitivity, strep throat, cardiovascular disorders. 

Rainforest Jasper (Rhyolite): Change, variety, progress, creativity, transcending barriers, Yin/Yang.   Healing lore: Hepatic cleansing, throat, general healing. 

Richterite: Calm, relaxation, strength, anxiety, balancing action and reaction, deeper meditation, internal communication, higher states of awareness.   Healing lore: PTSD, circulation, glandular problems especially thyroid, respiratory problems, parasites, fevers, typhoid. 

Rose Quartz: Love of all kinds including self-love, protection during pregnancy and childbirth, peace, happiness, gentleness.   Healing lore: Emotional wounds, cardiovascular system, circulatory system, fertility, headaches, renal disease, migraines, sexual dysfunction, sinus problems, throat problems, depression, addictions, ear aches, slows signs of aging in general, reduces wrinkles, spleen problems, fibromyalgia, and reaching one’s ideal weight/weight loss. 

Ruby: Integrity, generosity, nurturing, spiritual wisdom, attainment of values, economic stability and prosperity, protection from distress, home and contents protection.   Healing lore: Emotional problems, fever, constrictions in circulatory system, cardiovascular system, blood flow, muscular system, throat, parathyroid glands, CNS. 

Ruby in Zoisite: Energy amplification, psychic power.   Healing lore: Cardiovascular disorders, physical vitality. 

S 

Salt (Halite, Sea Salt, Volcanic, Himalayan, and others): Protection in general, protection from evil, protection of the home, purification, dispelling negativity, magical and traditional rituals, and clairvoyance. Release attachments, grounding and centering, abundance and a rich home life.   Healing lore: Blood disorders, hypotension (low blood pressure), diarrhea, physical strength, intestines, and to stimulate the meridians. 

Sapphire: Joy, peace, beauty, creative expression, meditation, intuition, prosperity, fulfillment of dreams, mental clarity.   Healing lore: Relieve depression, lower fevers; reduce inflammation, burns, hearing impairment. 

Sardonyx: Optimism, confidence, strength, courage, creativity, mental clarity, grounding, integrity, absorbing information, will-power.  Healing lore: Respiratory system, allergies, immune system, water retention, edema, skeletal health, depression, anxiety.  

Schorl (Black Tourmaline): Ground excess energy, purifying, transform negative energy, protection, protection from black magick and the evil eye, deflect radiation from electronics, dispel fear.   Healing lore: Obsessions, neuroses, emotional stability, immune system, heart disease, arthritis, brain tumors, and gout. 

Scolecite: Manifestation, improve relationships, inner peace.   Healing lore: Circulation, blood clotting, clogged arteries, bruises, mental imbalances, eyesight, respiratory system, intestine, misaligned spine, and removing parasites. 

Selenite: Mental clarity, mental flexibility, decision-making, angelic guidance, access past lives, good business practices, removes energy blocks, love, clear and charge other stones.   Healing lore: To remove blockages for healing, skeletal system, seizures, epilepsy. 

Seraphinite: Regeneration, self-healing, angelic connection, love, personal relationships, conflict resolution, peace, harmony, understanding.  Healing lore: Respiratory/cardiovascular system, systemic illnesses, improves blood flow, hepatic/renal detoxification, release of tension in the neck and back. 

Serpentine (aka “New Jade” and other trade names): Attract love and money, emotional cleansing, psychic powers, protection vs snakebite, poison and venom, meditation, restore self-confidence.   Healing lore: Parasitic infections, snakebite, venom and other poisons, cellular regeneration, balance hormones, milk production in those who are nursing. 

Shungite: Purification, protection, healing, grounding, calming, relaxing.  Healing lore: “Cure-all:” benefits all body systems. 

Silver: Soul mirror, intuition, psychic, improve speech, eloquence, enhance and store energies of gemstones, draw out negative energies, moon energies, feminine/yin energy.   Healing lore: Hepatitis, detoxification, headache, rheumatic pain, nausea, gastritis, obesity, diabetes, increase assimilation of vitamins A and E. 

Smithsonite: Stress relief, relaxation, soothing, emotional healing, rebirth, love, guidance, protection.  Healing lore: Anxiety, depression, panic attacks, immunity, skin problems, respiratory/reproductive/endocrine/digestive issues, addiction. 

Smoky Quartz: Dissolving emotional blockage, clearing the mind, cooperation, grounding and centering, banishing, personal pride, joy in living, attentiveness to the moment, protection, and good luck.   Healing lore: Renal system, digestion, pancreas, reproductive organs, menstrual cramps, fertility issues, water retention, edema. 

Snowflake Obsidian: Balance, serenity, protection, gently brings issues to the surface.   Healing lore: Veins, skeleton, and smooth skin. 

Sodalite: Wisdom, logic, calmness, healing, stress reduction, companionship, self-esteem, work in groups, heal communication breeches, truth, intelligence, knowledge, learning.   Healing lore: Glands, digestive system, insomnia, calcium deficiency, head colds. 

Sugilite: Love, emotional healing, spiritual growth, wisdom, psychic advancement, calmness, peace of mind, dispelling negative energy, protection.  Healing lore: CNS disorders, mental disorders, learning disabilities, inflammation, headaches, pain relief. 

Sunstone: “Leadership Stone;” Alleviating fears & phobias, energizing, cleansing, strength, decrease stress and depression, good luck, abundance, negative energy and psychic attacks turn to positive energies, personal power, life force energy, animal guides, spirit guides.   Healing lore: General health, physical energy, sexual dysfunction, increases sexual energy. 

T 

Tanzan Aura: Atomized Indium, Gold, and Niobium permanently bonded to quartz to create its beautiful indigo to violet color. Powerful aid for developing intuition and psychic abilities, inner vision, contact angels and spirit guides, inter-dimensional travel, overcoming boredom, reclaiming passion.   Healing Lore: CNS disorders, connective tissues, strength. 

Tanzanite: “Workaholic’s Stone;” Communication, intuition, protection, symmetry, decision-making, spirituality, slow down and take it easy, relieve stress, composure, harmony, poise.   Healing lore: Stress-related illness, high blood pressure. 

Tektite: Wisdom, knowledge, withstand mental or emotional “stumbling,” overcome challenges with mental processes, extraterrestrial communication, astral travel, lucid dreaming, strengthening one’s energy field. 

Thulite: Emotional healing - physical abuse, emotional abuse, abandonment, neglect, self-harm, eating disorders.  Healing lore: Central nervous system; coordination, concentration, dexterity. 

Tiger’s Eye: Self-discipline, practicality, protection, grounding, peace, clarity, intelligence, intuition & psychic powers, new experiences, financial stability, calmness, releasing inhibitions, integrity, willpower, prosperity, personal power.  Healing lore: Heal wounds/bruises, digestion, stomach problems, eyesight, night vision, pain relief, alcoholism, reproductive system. 

Tiger Iron (Mugglestone): Artistic abilities, creative projects, balance, beauty, endurance, motivation, vitality.   Healing lore: Low energy, tiredness, muscular system, white/red blood cell balance, natural steroids in the body, chronic fatigue. 

Topaz: True love, success, manifestation, understanding of interrelationships, expression of ideas, trust, health, personal expansion and growth, creativity, individuality, hope, spiritual peace.   Healing lore: Gout, blood disorders, hemorrhages, poor appetite, tuberculosis, reverses aging, tissue regeneration, endocrine system. 

Tsavorite: Manifestation, destiny, prosperity, spiritual world, benevolence.   Healing lore: Cell growth, quick healing, cardiovascular problems, disorders of the five senses. 

Tourmaline: Energizing, soul-searching, releasing, banishing, flexibility, happiness, objectivity, serenity, dispel negativity, ease grief, calm nerves, charisma, compassion, tolerance, psychic channeling, protection, raises vibrations.   Healing lore: Endocrine system, reproductive system, cancer, genetic disorders, peaceful sleep. 

Turquoise: Spiritual attunement, cleansing, communication, healing, protection, valor, soothing, peace of mind, guidance through the unknown, romantic spontaneity.   Healing lore: “Master Healing Stone”, prevents illness, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, all health issues in general. 

U 

Ulexite: Clairvoyance, balance, actualization, telepathy, channeling, creativity, inspiration, imagination.   Healing lore: Eyesight, pineal gland, balance, nervous system. 

Unakite: Balance, rebirth, foresight, emotional balance, release blockages.   Healing lore: Reproductive system, healthy pregnancy, development of unborn child. 

V 

Variscite: “True worry stone;” eases fear, anxiety, tension, worry, impatience, stress and depression. Provides inner strength and self-reliance. Psychic perceptions, meditation, intuition.  Healing lore: Cell/tissue strength, hematological issues, nervous system, renal system, musculoskeletal system, reproductive system, impotence. 

Vauxite: Peace, relaxation, calm, mental clarity, memory recall, meditation, trance, easing nightmares,   Healing lore: Nutrition, renal system, fevers. 

Verdite: Growth, harmony, past lives, joy, enthusiasm, calming. Healing lore: Eases vertigo and dizziness.

Violet Flame Opal: Spiritual awareness, clairvoyance, clairsentience, intuition. 

W 

Wavellite: Clarity, enhanced decision making, logical thinking, self-acceptance, calms anger, unveiling suppressed emotions.  Healing lore: Improves blood flow, stabilizes blood counts, dermatitis. 

Wulfenite: Transfer energy, white magic, emotional blocks.   Healing lore: Reproductive system, energizing and revitalizing the body systems. 

Z 

Zoisite: Trust in the universe, release fears, dispels laziness.   Healing lore: Vitality, adrenal glands, reproductive organs, and strengthening the heart. 

© 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟺 𝙰𝙳-𝙲𝙰𝙴𝙻𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙰

[writers-potion]

Writing Mad Characters

Okay this is a bit awkward because I had this question copypasted into Google Docs I use to draft my answers, and I realized I've lost the question in my inbox (which is being flooded).

So...I'm so sorry for whoever asked this question. Sorry for the delay because I was struggling with life in general for the past month and definitely SORRY for losing your question (－‸ლ)

Q: I'm writing a story where a major character is slowly spiraling into madness where small details kinda hint into the downfall right before the bigger details appear and then it the floodgates open. Is there anything I should avoid? Anything that I should keep in mind? Anything that I should research?

Things to Avoid

“Mad” or “Insane” is too general. Writing a cliched ‘crazy’ character who randomly talks to imaginary people and lashes out at strangers, you’ll offend a whole bunch of people who've gone through/have mental illnesses. Read up on existing mental conditions (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic disorder and borderline personality disorder, etc.) to see what your character might have. 

Words like “mad” “crazy” or “insane” aren’t enough when you’re describing their status. As mentioned, these words hardly mean much when it comes to providing a clear description.

Contradicting yourself. Throwing random unhinged symptoms here and there wouldn’t work. In fact, you must have a clear arc on which they’re traveling and ensure that your “hints” are all getting at something.

Making the character overly destructive or harmful to others (when nothing really justifies it)

Justifying damaging behavior with this “madness”. Mad or not, your character will still have motives and goals that drive them forward. 

Making them look incompetent just the fact that they have a mental condition that makes them appear “mad” to others shouldn’t prevent them from achieving success. In fact, they may be even more cool-hearted and logical when it comes to their obsessions/goals. 

Research Tips

Narrow down the mental conditions your character experiences. Even if it’s a fictional condition, try basing it on existing ones and building on top of them. 

Take some time to study characters and/or real clinical cases that resemble the kind of madness you’re going for. 

- Anxiety Disorders: excessive fear and dread (ex. phobias) - Mood Disorders: persistent swings in mood or persistent feelings that interfere with daily life (ex. Depression, bipolar) - Psychotic Disorders: disordered thinking (ex. schizophrenia) - Eating Disorders: extreme emotional attitudes toward food (ex. Bulimia, anorexia) - Impulse Disorders: unable to resist urges (ex. Kleptomania, pyromania, gambling) - Personality Disorders: extreme inflexible personality traits (ex. Anti-social disorder, OCPD) - Past Traumatic Stress: persistent, frightening memories leading to emotional numbness 

Does your character have empathy?  

A sociopathic kind of madness is different. 

General Writing Tips for Spiraling into Madness

Establish a Baseline 

A lot of factors (stress, family history, innate personality, trauma, etc.) can contribute to madness, but it is not going to happen in a week. Define the existing mental and physical conditions your character has, and start from there. 

If you’re aiming for suicidal tendencies at the end, you want to start with symptoms of depression (a condition that may lead to suicide) - growing apathetic, erratic sleeping patterns, irritability, etc. 

This is also the stage where you want to plant some triggers that’ll go off later.

Trigger Events

A perfectly sound character suddenly spiraling down the madness route due to a single accident or traumatizing event isn’t convincing. 

A madness “snap” denies the reader the experience of watching the character’s journey into madness and how they feel about it. 

Internal Conflict (antagonist in himself) 

You must remember that madness is incurable. If someone could “cure” themselves by eating healthy, exercising and taking a few pills, it wouldn’t be much of a madness, would it? This means that the worst antagonist is going to be the character themselves, or the part of them that’s been taken away. 

Show how they are frustrated with themselves, scared of themselves, angry at their “alternative self”. The experience of not knowing yourself is a whole journey of its own.

Physical Manifestations/Quirks

If your character has a routine, show how they break down. 

They might develop habits that they otherwise would never allow themselves to have, perhaps as an effort to “keep this madness out”

Deteriorating Relationships

Depict how the character’s madness impacts his closed/loved ones. In the earlier stages, those close to him might be faster to notice and accept the signs of madness, even if the character denies it him/herself.

The first signs of madness might show when the character is trying to deal with difficult relationships - like losing patience and being unable to pick up subtle social clues.

Choosing Obsessions Over Primal Urges 

For these characters, obsession can take over a person’s normal urge to eat, sleep or even live. This can lead to, more or less, suicide. 

Example: In Black Swan, Nina’s obsession with becoming the perfect ballerina drive her to insanity, to the point where she doesn't mind dying on stage for the show.

[effetsecndaires]

— 𝐭𝐨𝐤𝐲𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡. (𝐡𝐜𝐬)

INCLUDES | takashi mitsuya, manjiro sano (bonten tl), chifuyu matsuno, shuji hanma, tetta kisaki, haruchiyo sanzu.

CONTENT WARNING | sanzu's contains nsfw, mention of eating disorders. fem!reader.

NOTE | all characters are in their 20s, english isn't my first language! (divider by cafekitsune)

— MITSUYA.

Mitsuya has a hard time getting over your death. He's constantly haunted by the feeling that he somehow failed to protect you, even though your death had nothing to do with him and everyone around him always insists on the fact that there's nothing he could have done to prevent it.

His grief gets so bad that taking care of himself becomes the last thing on his mind. He neglects his appearance and barely eats anymore, he simply can't find the motivation to carry on with his life as if nothing happened. The only thing he looks forward to every day is going back to sleep.

His dreams have become a sanctuary, a safe place where death doesn't exist and the two of you can finally reunite.

— MIKEY.

Mikey keeps a stoic expression the entire time he's being told the news. He's biting his tongue, trying not to let his emotions show.

He feels his heart break into a thousand pieces as fear, anger, and grief all overtake him at once. He wants to scream, to lash out, to hit something. But he doesn't say a single word. He closes his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to calm himself down.

He then nods curtly before exiting the room and heading to a quiet place where he can gather his thoughts. The world around him feels distant, everything turning into white noise as he struggles to come to terms with what he's just been told.

Mikey hadn't been in touch with you for nearly a decade and he's unsure if he's even supposed to mourn you as intensely as he does, not knowing if you still remembered or even cared about him after all those years.

All he knows is that he did still care about you, and your death feels like a cruel joke life played on him, a punishment that cuts him to the core for all the crimes he's committed.

— CHIFUYU.

Chifuyu completely isolates himself from the world. The moment he hears about your death, he breaks down and cries inconsolably for a solid hour, completely shattered by the loss of yet another friend.

He blames himself for not having done enough to save you, and your death brings back the same overwhelming emotions he experienced when he lost Baji.

With a heavy heart, he visits your grave every day and places a single flower on top of your gravestone, silently expressing his love and respect for you. He takes a moment to collect himself then heads to Baji's resting place where he repeats the same ritual and prays that the pain of losing his best friends will eventually get better.

— HANMA.

Hanma acts like he doesn't care. He'll put on a tough façade, tell everyone he never even cared about you and laugh in their faces when they try to offer condolences. He goes so far as to get defensive when anyone dares to suggest that he had any emotional attachment to you.

You were nothing but a careless brat who threw herself head first into the lion's den despite having been warned of the risks beforehand. Why would he feel any sort of empathy? Why would he care?

But this façade crumbles down as soon as he's alone in the funeral home, staring down at your open casket.

He slowly takes a step closer, looking at your lifeless body, the memory of you lying on the ground, blood pouring out of your wounds flashing through his mind.

He reaches out a shaky hand to cup your face but retracts it right away when he feels the coldness of your skin, a single tear escaping from his eye.

He doesn't let it show, but he spends the rest of his life missing you.

— KISAKI.

Kisaki doesn't react. At least, not from the outside. He keeps his head down and continues flipping through his papers, as if the words he just heard held little to no importance to him.

He might even hum dismissively and wave off whoever brought him the news, not bothering to say anything else.

But anyone who knows him knows that Kisaki is seething with anger beneath the surface.

He doesn't allow himself to dwell on it for too long, though; instead, he channels all those hidden emotions into plotting the perfect revenge. He meticulously devises a plan to make everyone involved with your murder pay, calculating each step to ensure maximum damage.

Regardless of how long it takes, whether it be months or even years, Kisaki will make sure that your death doesn't go unpunished.

— SANZU.

Sanzu tries to forget by sleeping with other women. He wants to move on, and he wants to do it fast.

But he'll be damned if forgetting you was an easy task.

He might try to convince himself that it's not intentional, but he often finds himself gravitating towards women who resemble you in some way. Whether it's the color of their skin or similarities in hair color or style, he can't deny that he still longs for you and looks for you in every woman he picks.

He'll take them from behind and pretend they're you, the palm of his hand softly sliding up their back as if you were suddenly the one moaning for more underneath him. He'll probably moan out your name at some point, not giving a damn about getting a negative reaction from the nameless girl he's using.

[furiousgoldfish]

When you're a kid going trough a scary, non-understandable traumatic experience, your child mind contextualizes it in a way that doesn't seem that scary. Like we don't tell small children when their relatives are dead, they're just traveling; it's easier for a child's mind to comprehend that someone is just gone for a while, and will be back.

When you're a small child living in abuse, not only does it seem normal to you, but your brain will find a way to put it into context that you can understand and live with. Your worst experiences of abuse might be foggy, forgotten, blocked off, or seem like it was a dream; not something you need to worry about or be wary of. Your parent, who violently attacks you, calls you names, turns on you and at times feels very dangerous and hateful, that's not their real self! They just 'turn' into this other person, and the times when they do that just need to be not taken seriously, you firmly believe that their true self is safe, okay to be around, necessary to love and understand at all costs, and not someone to be afraid of. You might want to keep all the bad memories away whenever things are good, so you'd be able to enjoy the moment when it feels normal, non-scary, so whenever they're not aggressive and scary, it feels like they never were in the first place. You feel like those times are made up, unreal, something your mind refuses to linger on.

Sometimes this defense turns against you. It can turn an experience out of your control, into something you could have potentially controlled if only you did things differently. If you never made a mistake, never broke anything, never said or did that one thing that set the abuse off - it wouldn't have happened. And so you have to focus on what you're doing wrong in order to 'prevent' future events of abuse. It ultimately plays into the idea that the abuse is 'your fault', and invokes deep feelings of guilt and shame; you end up feeling like you're the one causing yourself all that damage.

Abusers know this child mind defense, and fully expect to get away with anything they've done, by insisting the child imagined or dreamed it, and it didn't really happen. They know the event was traumatic for the child and makes them look bad, so their best luck is to convince the child it really was just made up, and to never recall it or show any consequence of it. They even go as far as trying to convince, now adult child, that the parent's own actions of abuse, were the child's fault. Something an adult can tell right away is not true, because you can now connect a cause and consequence, and you know a child is incapable of controlling adults in any way. But being told something as despicable as that will cast doubt and deep emotional damage.

Every time such experience is suspended and blocked off, the child loses a bit of their vitality, energy, health, trust, feeling of safety, feeling of connection. When these experiences accumulate, eventually the child might experience dissociation, or a full amnesia, not even being aware that anything more is happening, because they cannot handle even one more event of abuse. And these experiences won't stay suspended forever; soon they'll cause the development of anxiety, depression, ptsd, cptsd, and other related disorders. And eventually the truths can no longer stay hidden, the child will remember and struggle to add new context, to realize what exactly happen, because now they have a chance of knowing the truth and surviving it.

If someone attempts to make you feel like something they did to you as a child, was your fault, this is what they're trying to push you into. They'd prefer you never being able to put your life and experiences into context, never be able to recover from keeping trauma inside, just so they wouldn't have to look at what they've done to you and take accountability. If someone is telling you that the events you remember are made up, imagined, a dream, something you shouldn't think and talk about - but it's only like that when you're remembering abuse, they're trying to use your own defenses you had as a child against you. You needed to believe it back then in order to survive it, but you need to correctly contextualize it now, if you ever hope to feel okay again.

You can trust in your own mind, and your own defenses to get you trough this. You are not wrong in looking back and seeing things a different way. You are right say 'that was fucked up'. They shouldn't have done that to me and they know that.

[chu-diaries]

100 days of mental healthcare: day 100/100

Well, it's over! I genuinely can't believe it's been 100 days since I started this challenge (even more than 100, since I skipped a day or two when I couldn't post).

For those who just arrived, I started this challenge in April, the day after my birthday, when I was really in bad health. I had severe panic attacks about 4 times a day, which made me unable to do anything. I dealt with constant suicidal thoughts, I barely slept anymore and I was spending everything I had on doctors, self-knowledge courses and therapies. I found myself with two options: the first was to invest in medications that would make me dependent and drugged, but that would fix my brain. However, there was a risk that I wouldn't get the dose or medication right in time and my situation would get worse. The second option was longer and more difficult: studying how my body, my brain and my limits worked, and then adjusting day after day what wasn't going well. You know that I chose this option and that I created the 100-day mental healthcare challenge to track my progress on this.

In these 100 days I learned a lot that I want to share here. As we are all unique and different human beings, you may not agree with what I applied in my life, but I ask for respect and empathy, because all of this saved me. Also, some points have a scientific basis in research I did and books I read.

1. mental health and nutrition

This was one of the first things I learned. I realized that when I was hungry, my body didn't give me clear signals. Probably due to my autism and ADHD, I was always disconnected from my body's needs and didn't know how to identify hunger (which I expected to be something like a growling in my stomach, but it never was that way). What actually happened was that, instead of hunger, I had a critical increase in my intrusive and suicidal thoughts, which made mealtimes much worse than they should have been. Our mind is more vulnerable when the body is not properly fed and hydrated, and many of us neurodivergent people will not feel hunger like neurotypicals do. Our body wants us to move to find food, so it sends us successive stimuli through our brains to fight for our lives and, well, eat. Some of these stimuli can be very negative and, instead of propelling us forward, they drain our energy and make us even more depressed, which also doesn't happen to the same extent with neurotypicals, who deal with this type of thing much better. To avoid this, I started eating every 3 hours, and not because a doctor told me to, but because I realized that my crises happened with this frequency. By eating regularly and preventively, my body stopped depending on this resource to nourish itself and I became more mentally stable.

2. mental healthcare and intestinal system

The gut is not our second brain for nothing. The health of our mind is completely connected to the health of our gut. You have certainly heard the phrase “you are what you eat” and it is true. What surprised me most in my studies was discovering that neurotypical and completely mentally healthy people develop mental disorders if their gut microbiota is altered. In other words, we must nourish our gut to maintain our mental health. The more diverse our microbiota is, the better our mental health will be. This means eating various foods per week, as colorful and natural as possible, because food industrialization is also partially responsible for the number of mental disorders that exist today.

3. mental healthcare and eating meat

This is a difficult topic, since I was a vegetarian for many years, but I want to share what I learned with you. The incidence of mental disorders is directly associated with the levels of omega 3, taurine and tryptophan. Omega 3 is a good fat and essential not only for maintaining memory, but for all of our cognitive functioning and, although it can be supplemented in a vegan way, it is not as accessible to everyone in the appropriate dosage as fish. Similarly, meat has high levels of taurine and tryptophan, which regulate anxiety and depression and improve sleep. For many years I did not eat meat, supplementing protein with vegetables and whey, and for all those years I suffered from anxiety and depression. I never imagined that my blood type would also suffer more from this lack of protein: blood type O struggles more to maintain mental health and ideal mood levels with vegetable proteins. It is a blood type that needs animal protein. Going back to eating meat was not an easy decision, but I decided to test it out: even though I ate a small amount of animal protein per day, my cognitive function improved a lot in these past 100 days. I became more mentally stable and stronger, my mood improved, my gut responded positively and suddenly the things that haunted me were no longer so big. I never thought that mental health and animal protein had any connection, but I was very surprised to discover that eating meat (or not) influences our mind.

4. mental healthcare and intrusive thoughts

Well, I studied psychology, but it was a theory that didn't deal with intrusive thoughts. In these 100 days I discovered this term and delved deep enough to understand that we all have intrusive thoughts. Neurotypicals deal with them better, while neurodivergents deal with them much worse. Unfortunately, I suffered a lot with these thoughts and suffered even more trying to understand why this was happening in my head. If you suffer from intrusive thoughts, start by understanding that they are not real and that they do not come from you consciously. An intrusive thought is something that crosses your mind and is similar to a scary radio station that you accidentally connected to. It does not belong to you. I learned to think (and I like this theory) that this is a way for the brain to prepare itself for various possibilities, even the most absurd and impossible ones. We are animals and our body wants to survive, so I understand that the brain explores various probabilities to always be prepared, no matter what happens. Of course, for anxious and depressed people this has the opposite effect and makes us want to die. Over time, you learn that you can’t control when these thoughts appear, but you can control how much power you give them. I deal with obsessive intrusive thoughts every day, but each day I’m becoming more and more able to not get emotionally involved with them. “It’s just a glitch in my brain,” I think, taking a deep breath.

5. mental healthcare and joy (which is worth more than solving problems)

I've always had a very fast-paced mind, cluttered with things and addicted to solving problems. In recent years I thought I should focus more on relaxing and opening up spaces in my mind, but I discovered that an empty mind can be treacherous for neurodivergent people. Our mind is, in fact, addicted to solving problems. That's how our species evolved and prospered. Our mind has an organizational structure that seeks, through connections and associations, to process past and future events, resolve pending issues and find solutions for what was left behind. We do this with everything, even with things that are not in our control. I spent a lot of my life trying to solve what was going on in my head and I was unsuccessful because I wasn't the one who created this situation. Although solving problems is a pattern of the mind, it is a sweet illusion. Many things are not actually solved, we only think they are. I discovered that the time I invested trying to solve mental problems that I did not create could be used to create happier foundations to strengthen myself. I learned that it is actually joy that heals, not obsessively thinking about the problem until it is solved. Every time I focused my energy on doing something good, laughing or contemplating nature, I became a little stronger and remembered who I am. I won't deny that I felt guilty - the cognitive rigidity of autism screamed at me that I was ignoring my problems and that I was creating a silly fantasy world. Even so, I fought to break out of this pattern. It is still difficult. But today I believe that I’m meant to be happy and that cultivating moments of joy makes life worthwhile.

6. mental healthcare and feeling useful

Feeling useful is essential for mental health. We all want to be part of something and be recognized as necessary. In these 100 days, I decided to resume some volunteer work within my community and I also opened a new company, with handmade products, so that I would also have the opportunity to produce something that was not only in the intellectual field (handicrafts are very good for those who suffer from anxiety). Having a dynamic routine in which you have an important role is great for mental health and your sense of self-authority. Also, getting in touch with other people's personal stories helps to decentralize our gaze from ourselves, which is very useful if you suffer from OCD. As tiring as it may be, the more diverse activities we do, the better our cognitive function becomes.

7. mental healthcare and moving the body

It's interesting that to take care of your mind, you need to get out of your head and move your body. Many of the tensions accumulated in our minds can be released by running, walking or playing some sport. It doesn't matter what it is, but move your body. We were not designed to stay still, but to do various strength, balance and endurance exercises. Our ancestors walked for days in search of shelter and food, and that's how our bodies evolved. Especially for those who suffer from anxiety, high-impact exercises not only help regulate your mood and release neurotransmitters, but also generate a stress spike that will do your body good for the rest of the day. When we trigger these spikes, our body answer quickly and creates new pathways to respond to stress, which helps us better deal with anxiety, depression, instructive thoughts, etc. Our sleep also improves, as we use our stored energy and tend to think less before going to sleep.

8. mental healthcare and sleep hygiene

I have always tried to force myself to be silent. I forced myself to meditate for many years, without much success, but after the panic attacks returned, meditating and being silent were torture. It was as if I made room for all my inner demons to dance in my mind and I always felt worse. I recently discovered that neurodivergent people struggle more with silence and that it does them a lot of good to distract their minds with sounds, images and other stimuli that allow them to emotionally engage with something real and outside of themselves. I see that it is a controversial topic, but I no longer believe in sleep hygiene without screens and complex content. My best nights of sleep were those in which I distracted myself with something until I fell asleep or listened to someone talking until I fell asleep. So if you want to test what works best for you, know your limits and do not blindly obey the orders that someone has set. Maybe you work better at dawn, maybe you only need 6 hours of sleep, maybe you are different from the average. Your life's work is to discover yourself and be true to it.

9. mental healthcare and developing self-authority

This was very important to me. I have always had low self-esteem and I have always believed in others more than in myself. I sought answers and cures for what I suffered from various doctors and therapists, but all of this only made my situation worse. I became dependent on diagnoses, consultations and sessions that never really helped me. At a certain point I decided that I would educate myself on the subjects that bothered me. I studied, and studied a lot, about psychology, neurology, neuroscience, nutrition and about the functioning of the body as a whole. Today I no longer accept any diagnosis about myself because I have developed my own authority. I am the authority when it comes to myself, you know? I don't need others to tell me what I am feeling because now I know what it is and where it comes from. I also know, fortunately, how to solve it. When I go to a doctor or have an exam, I know what I am investigating and what I need to achieve. It is very sad that today medicine is just a search for money and that you only get good care if you pay a lot for it, so it is important to get educated about yourself so you won’t fall into standardized speeches that will lead you to the ever-increasing consumption of pharmaceuticals and drugs without, in fact, looking at the cause of the problem.

10. mental healthcare and time

There are things that only time can heal. There is nothing like letting time pass. A few months ago, all I could think about was how I wanted to end my life and it was tormenting to think about living for even one more day. Waiting for time to pass was difficult, but I was rewarded. Time has a way of overcoming some things if you allow yourself to create new memories, new connections and new laughs. If you are suffering a lot, wait a few more hours. Live one more day. Let time pass and life bring you better things.

See you guys again on my next challenge (maybe a productivity one?). Thanks to everyone who liked and reblogged my previous posts! 💕

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER NINE: FOWL

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, Daddy kink, implied child abuse, self harm

This is chronologically the ninth chapter in the series. Author's note: the timeline of this AU is vague, being that some events in season two has happened, implied to be a year ago, but neither Will or Hannibal have been to jail.

-‐-

“So,” says Hannibal, pouring scarlet wine into Will's proffered glass. “How much closer are you to establishing the identity of the Silicone Lover?”

The three of you are in the living room, as is customary on Will's frequent visits. The men sit so near to one another as to be almost touching, sensual in the incline of each listening ear and dancing strand of conversation.

You, conversely, inch as far into a corner as you can afford to without reprimand, your fist to your chin, a flimsy artifice of feigned disinterest in their chatter.

By this time, you are sobering into shame of your despair in Will's grudging embrace. He, for his part, seems near sick with regret of it, swallowing and rubbing at his temples like a poet over some gloomy work. Not once has he looked at or spoken to you since you slipped, cringing, from his lap, but you know that he thinks of you, his contemplation extending outwards on a phantasmal limb.

Still, it is of his case alone that he speaks aloud, dredging words up from a cistern in himself with a halting effort.

“I’ve been so deep inside the Lover’s head that I could almost... be him,” he says, through a wince. “Not a place I’d like to be for long. He’s looking for the perfect doll. None of his creations so far have lived up to the idealisation he has in his mind. That’s why he uses the silicone, and cuts the abducted women down to size. He wants them small. Biddable.”

Will sips at his wine. A red bead of it is a winter berry on his lips before he wipes it away with his rough thumb, spoiling the brevity of its mite beauty.

“Either the Lover is trying to form the girl of his dreams,” he says, “or recreate someone that already exists who, for whatever reason, he can’t have.”

“So they are substitutes,” says Hannibal. “As several young women were for Abigail Hobbs. Could the girl on this new pedestal also be a killer’s daughter?”

You glance up at the mention of the familiar name, and Dr Lecter meets your gaze, granting you silent entry into the discussion. He's had half an eye on you since your collapse into Will’s bitter mercy, intrigued by your burgeoning alliance.

Evidently his antiphon is to consent where his friend would deny you, and though you know yourself a tool in Hannibal's craft you allow such use, sensing it may benefit your cause.

“The Lover’s attachment to his muse isn’t incestuous,” says Will. “Not by blood. She’s inaccessible either because his proximity to her would make it too suspicious if he abducted her, or because to ravage her the way he does his other victims would destroy her, and that isn’t what the Lover wants.”

“What does he want?” you ask, and Will starts, a furrow creasing his brow.

“I was talking to Dr Lecter,” he says, shortly; he doesn’t turn to address you. “Don’t interrupt. It’s rude.”

The urge to laugh has you twisting your lips in towards your teeth, afraid to release the sound, lest you crack his scarce tolerance of your presence. The cinder of Will’s palm across your cheek is charred in memory, the impulse of his anger.

Hannibal says, “Perhaps it isn’t that the Lover’s paramour cannot be touched, but that to consummate that initial contact is a frontier that could never be reversed.”

Coaxed back into debate, Will considers the notion.

“He’s afraid he’ll kill her.”

“Perhaps he believes he will have no choice. A wild animal, having fled from its menagerie, is often destroyed to prevent what it may unleash upon those it encounters.”

“The only danger she poses is to the Lover,” says Will, and drains his glass. “He can’t stand the thought of giving up his profession.”

Dr Lecter’s face tilts rather dotingly aside.

“If our murderer had his betrothed in his arms, then perhaps he would practice another trade. Killing is a mere formality to the Lover. A means of disposal, not his preferred indulgence.”

Hannibal stands to walk the length of the room; Will’s head turns with a near imperceptible movement to follow, entranced, through his scepticism. Unable to look away.

“Consider the labour spent upon sexual assault and mutilation,” says Dr Lecter. “The comparative carelessness with which the Lover evicts his darlings when he exhausts their use.”

“That carelessness is their punishment,” says Will, “for daring to be anything but her.”

You lean forward in your chair, scarcely cognizant of what you do.

“Who is she?” you ask, and Will grimaces, his visage taking on a tuberculous cast.

“I– I don’t know,” he admits. “I can’t see her yet. She’s the only doll without a face.”

You are fascinated by the disquiet that has come over him, a reflection of what it is to wear the wants of killers until they feel almost his own. Hannibal, returning to his seat, decants another glass of wine, holding it in his own hand a moment as he examines his friend over the rim.

“How have your episodes been, Will?” he asks. “Have there been any more instances of you waking outdoors without knowing where you are?”

Hannibal’s gaze rests briefly upon you, and you realise, at once, that the topic has been raised partially for your benefit.

Will takes his glass with a terse fist, his eyes lowered.

“I’d rather not go into that while your patient is present.”

Patient. He is forcing distance between you, armouring himself against his illness, and your potential use of such knowledge.

Hannibal does not allow it.

“After all the ways in which you’ve held our guest, can you fairly exclude her from family matters?”

Will sneers, finally looking at you with as much ire as he can muster in his dishevelment.

“Is this a family?”

“No,” you whisper.

Hannibal says, “It’s becoming one. Time is required for the covenant to form.”

The younger man emits a sardonic laugh.

“If you say so.”

You find yourself struck by something far too like betrayal for your liking.

“Do you think she is a substitute for what might have been with Abigail Hobbs?” asks Hannibal.

“No,” says Will, firmly. “This is something else. I see the parallels you’re making, Dr Lecter, but they don’t align.”

Stung, you interject, “Yeah, because you wouldn’t have fucked this Abigail, right?"

The younger man almost writhes in discomfort, and shakes his head.

“No,” says Hannibal, coolly, more jarred by your coarse phrasing than by the question itself. “That wasn’t what she needed from us.”

The subtle emphasis on the pronoun discourages you from objection, being that you know what he has seen, in your house. What you have watched, while touching yourself in restless hours, your own hand to your throat.

“On the subject of your requirements,” Dr Lecter continues. “You don’t have to join us for dinner tonight, little one. I’ll prepare you a light lunch of seared fish and vegetables, and then you may retire from company early.”

Both you and Will turn to Hannibal, briefly united in your surprise.

“So we’re encouraging her, now,” Will says, and Dr Lecter chuckles, all loving indulgence.

“Far from it. Fasting can be practised in a healthy manner. Self-discipline need not be punitive. Our little one should learn this for herself.”

Considering the statement, you attempt, without success, to understand the machinations of his reprieve.

You cannot find it in you to thank him for the coal with which he has stoked the old flame of starving. But you are grateful for that fuel, no matter its source, and do not know which God of many to kneel to in acknowledgement.

Hannibal would think himself such a lord, with you and Will as his parishioners. Yet again, it may be that Dr Lecter is the churchgoer between the two men, the one who, as in your dream, may acquiesce, hands clasped, to a lover’s word.

“Am I allowed to do what he says or not, daddy?” you ask of Will, in the end, who tsks and all but flounces in defeat.

“Go ahead,” he says. “I’m not qualified to oppose Dr Lecter’s care. But when you regret it, I won’t be there to comfort you.”

You no longer believe him. Like Jack, Will has a partiality for the vulnerable, and though he may deride your other qualities, he aches for you in your suffering even as he worsens its sting.

*

In the auburn night you attempt The Idiot again, tearing through one chapter to the next as hunger rides you like death on horseback, a test against the grindstone of will. You’ve gone longer than this without eating, before, a day or two on water alone, and only sips of it, at that.

But the new frequency of meals in Hannibal’s home has reawakened your appetite, and your gut wails in craving of all that you abjure.

You think of descending the staircase and asking sheepishly for an invitation to dinner, but you would rather see the grave than the humiliation of admitting such hunger before your jailors.

Sleep is an impenetrable country, food the geographic distance between you and its gentle hold. By two in the morning you’re marching the room, yearning to weary yourself beyond appetite. Knowing that after the assaults and the erasure of your outside self you haven’t the mettle to maintain the long walk as once you could.

As you do every night around this time you try your bedroom door, a routine of soothing repetition. Again you find it open, which you have known in your soul that it would be since Hannibal had made his golden offer to you that afternoon.

Surely this, like the time before, is an experiment in what you will do in the slumbering house. You daren’t try for an escape— Hannibal will start from his bed at the sound of a window shattered, a door forced at the lock, and will catch you, barefoot in your lace nightgown amidst the night damp of fallen leaves.

Perhaps, knowing this, he thinks you’ll creep to him or Will instead for want of a love of which they’re bereft. The notion of familial synergy is the absinthe dream that Hannibal chases, shared blood in the appetite of lust rather than parenthood. 

You should remain abed, deny the doctor and his accomplice their entertainment. But hunger shoves you by both shoulders down the staircase, towards the kitchen door, and it lies open.

As in a fairytale you enter, thoughtless, moth-drawn to the flame that is food, in Hannibal’s refrigerator, prising back the hinge to reveal the luxuries within. Pretty displays of fresh vegetables and salad, labelled bottles of milk and cream, truckles of cheese, sliced meat—chicken, beef, ham—

You sway in the song of your hunger, attempting to bid yourself away with thoughts of how firmly you’ve stood against it, thus far, how strong you are, how in control.

In a moment your hand is on the shelf and unwrapping a pale slab of chicken, and then it’s in your mouth, and sectioned between your teeth, and swallowed. The taste of it isn’t chicken, but something else, and you don’t care until you see your face reflected in the refrigerator door, and realise the beast you are. What you have done.

You clutch your throat, attempting to calculate the calories—seventy, a hundred, a hundred and fifty, small numbers to a person not possessed by the spirit of disorder, but to you a devastation, the shattering of your sturdy fast.

It is Will and Hannibal’s fault, you decide, both having pinched you in a vice of brick with its store of feasts, intentional, evil. They have pushed you to break this vow of hunger you have made to yourself, and in that second of despair you thirst to be avenged.

Across the kitchen sits the knife rack, blades of ranging sizes and uses, each ground to a killing edge. You seize one from the middle and return to the stairs, pausing on the landing to consider the closed doors beyond.

Hannibal, you know, would overpower you with flippant ease, but Will, for all his protestations, is fragile. Breakable.

You approach his room and try the door handle with caution. Another left unlocked— fate has passed through the house before you, a goddess on gossamer feet.

In reverential silence you cross the room to Will’s sleeping hump on the bed and stoop over him, the knife raised in both hands, watching him twitch through unpleasant dreams.

In the dark Will’s face is corpse-like, ailing; you almost marvel to think this same man capable of the savage acts you’ve come here to kill him for. Perhaps his death will rinse you of the filth and pain that braids you into so gruesome a shape as you find yourself in. Perhaps his death will distract Hannibal enough that he tends to the cadaver rather than pursues you from his door—

You know not whether to slash Will’s bobbing throat or stake his chest, nor how hard to strike to ensure his death over injury. A mistake may be your end, not his, yet you lean with one knee upon the bed, the knife like a steel flame igniting the dark.

You contemplate how it will feel to kill, whether your form will throb with joy in excelsis, or if you’ll merely recoil, sickened by the blood, by the sounds and the many smells of dying.

But what of afterwards, when you have run, and Hannibal has turned to the police? He has the force in his pocket, and being that there is no mark of Will’s crimes upon your person you will surely be imprisoned for murder.

Tattle Crime will call gleefully of the act: “ANOREXIC CHARGED WITH STABBING RECLUSIVE SPECIAL AGENT IN SHOCKING ATTACK”.

Your family, your parents, stained and shunned for having raised a killer—

The reluctant knife withdraws, and you make to climb down off the bed. Disturbed by the lifting of weight from the mattress, Will stirs, muttering, then takes a seizing breath that jolts him suddenly awake. His eyes roll, glazed, before fixing upon you, a gothic figure in a pallid nightdress, holding a blade.

He tussles upright, rigidly alert. His expression is terror and fury, disbelieving.

“What are you doing?” Will demand, and snapping from the spell that holds you fast, you break for the door, thinking, even as you run, how few places there are in the house for you to hide that he will not find you.

Will follows in a sleep-numbed stagger, a corpse revived from the grave. He ought to be slow, but he is on you before you’ve gone further than the nearest corridor, shouldering you against a wall so hard that a shelf of ornaments jingles in ominous response to the collision.

You think nothing, only the animal blank of facing the bolt gun, the huntsman’s cur.

The knife rises, erect, between you, and Will folds your arm against the wall. His other hand wraps across your mouth, cupping your rising scream like the sea in a shell.

“Do you want Hannibal to wake up and find out what you did?” asks Will, in a coarse semi-whisper. “No? Then be quiet.”

His stare flenses the tallow darkness with a nocturnal literacy. He’s no longer trembling. The danger in him is well lived in, inherited from the killers whose minds he’s made his crown, and from his friend, in all his tutorship.

It’s what makes them so close, Will and Hannibal, almost one, synonyms of a pagan death.

You turn your jaw from your attacker’s hand and coax him down from his ire in a pleading moan.

“I’m sorry. I'm sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I was upset. I don’t know why I did it. I wasn’t really going to—”

“Oh, I know you were never going to go through with it,” Will spits. “You’re not capable. Killing isn’t in your nature. You’re too soft for that. Aware of the consequences.”

He looks you up and down with a sour leer.

“You wish that you were a murderer. You held that knife and prayed for something to come over you, a holy, righteous need for revenge. But it didn’t. Couldn’t, because you don’t believe that you deserve to be released from what others have done to you.”

His grip squeezes your wrist, and you gasp into his hand, smothered by your own breath.

“Next time you pull a knife on someone, you’d better hope that you’ve gained enough self-esteem by then to see it through,” says Will. “I don’t plan to kill you tonight, but someone else might. Maybe that’s what you were hoping for, after all.”

He leans into you, curls falling in dark links across his brow. He smells of bed, the damp pelt of animal, and bottled scent. His white t-shirt is nearly black with night sweat, his stale breath metallic against you.

There is a joist of firm flesh at your thigh.

He likes this. The chase and capture, even the knife meshed between the bones of your slippery fingers and his, the knowing that he could make a gushing rose of your throat with the most delicate turn of it— he loves it all, the rut-hunger of all creatures that look death in the eye and survive.

You look sideways at the blade, and with leaden reluctance, Will turns to a nearby bookcase to set it down.

“Little girls shouldn’t play with knives,” he says, and you give a hysterical laugh.

“Hannibal isn’t here. You don’t have to try and impress him.”

The young man chuckles softly.

“What makes you think Dr Lecter isn’t trying to impress me?”

“I guess he is. He brought me here for you.”

Will sneers.

“An unwanted gift. You make it difficult not to be ungrateful.”

Mirroring the cruel twist of his expression you attempt to glide away from him, along the wall.

Will’s arm shoots out, blocking your path.

“Let go of me!” you cry, but your voice has no force to it, only mounting fear.

“You think I’ll just let you go to bed after threatening to kill me?” asks Will, incredulously.

“Why not? You deserve it. You even said so. And maybe you’re wrong about why I didn’t do it. Maybe I don’t want to be like you and Dr Lecter.”

Something shifts in Will’s expression, a murky wind of silhouette.

“What does that mean?”

“You’re murderers,” you spit. “You killed somebody. Garret something.”

“Garret Jacob Hobbs was the Minnesota Shrike,” says Will, almost defensively. “He killed and mutilated girls all over the state. His wife became his victim, and he slit his own daughter’s throat. I had no choice but to shoot Hobbs. I acted. It had to be done.”

“And Hannibal?” you ask, trembling in Will’s hold. “He’s killed before. I know he has. I know. Please don’t lie to me.”

For a beat you think that Will won’t answer, his eyes shifting to some point down the hall.

Then he says, “It was self-defence. A serial killer named Tobias Budge. He broke into Dr Lecter’s house. Would have killed him if Hannibal hadn’t overpowered him. How do you know about that? He didn’t tell you.”

“Self-defence,” you repeat, ignoring the question. “I bet Dr Lecter liked it. I bet you both liked it. That’s why I’m here. So whatever you feel when you murder people you can feel with me all the time.”

You grope along the wall for the knife, half-heartedly, knowing your captor will never let you take it. He pins your hand down with a scrambling clumsiness, damp fingers locked into yours.

“Is that how it feels?” Will snarls. “Like we’re killing you? Because it should remind you that after all you’ve done to your body you’re still here.”

Then, as he speaks again, he invokes your dream, as though by psychic synthesis you conceive the same thought at once.

“It should remind you that Hannibal and I are the reason you’re still alive.”

You let out a cry of fear, involuntary and absolute, and again Will binds your mouth with his palm until you taste the dirt of his sweat, and cannot breathe.

Suddenly the heart of shadow that is Will’s face is mud and thunder, and he lets go of your arms to rustle your nightdress to your waist in an tenor of cotton and ribbons.

You struggle and strain against the wall, knotting your legs over each other against him. With ease Will parts them again and runs two fingers beneath the trim of your panties until they are buried in your satin angst.

They move with skill, with spite, with will to wound; tears start from you like a spring from mountain rock, and the cruel young man observes as they fall without sympathy, still playing your cunt with his hand.

He does not strike you as a man that beds women often, yet he has done so, to know how to smith such pleasure from even unwilling flesh. You can do nothing but submit to him, a blót to such gods as have taken you to bleed.

Sensation, salt-sweet, unburdens you of pain, and you find you can only stand through Will’s hold upon you. Cannot speak, cannot scream, as he cuts his pleasure from you. Like a sorcerer beneath the waves he has stolen your voice, as well.

Will widens your legs with the jut of a knee, loosening himself from his undergarments as he may take some drill from its hellacious box. You stare into his eyes, begging, without words, for him to revoke his darkness. The dark stares back, the mouth beneath like something dreamt of by heathens in its fathomless cruelty.

“You’ve earned this,” says Will. “Take it with grace.”

He lifts your right leg and clips it to his waist, unlatching access to your heat. With his sneer close to your cheek he runs you through, his cock a barbarous girth to which you cannot acclimatise, cannot accept as a thing that must be.

The bones of your back bruise against the cool wall, and your breath, beneath Will’s palm, is a simian pant-hoot of woe and suffering lust.

You do not want him, but to be propulsed into this place without agency is your liberty: what you feel is his fault, and you come apart like a snarl of soot in the working of his evil.

Will’s hand impresses its print upon your hip. His mouth comes to the crook of your neck in a bite, a kiss, or something worse. His slim body snaps like a birch switch against you, and he opens your centre to his girth until your mind is a vapour of fright and climax, wetting your legs in the rotten release of it.

Your captor feels the quake of your orgasm and, in recognition, follows, his groan muffled by your neck, his frame a trap against you, shaking into stillness.

Then he steps away from you, turning his head as you rearrange your dress, oddly chaste.

You look at him in numb silence, unable to move from the wall without his word.

At last Will picks up the knife again and nods towards the staircase.

“Let’s put this back in the kitchen,” he says, “before Hannibal gets up and notices that it’s missing.”

You follow him downstairs, soundless as a wraith, close to his side, as though by hurting you he has somehow bound you to his flank. Will returns the knife to its rack with meticulous care, considering it for a long time before he speaks again.

“I doubt this’ll be the last time you contemplate murdering one of us. That’s as far as I recommend you go.”

You search yourself for the ability to answer him.

“Why?”

“Wolves kill their rivals' pups to keep them in check,” says Will, “and Dr Lecter is not above emulating that behaviour if he thinks it’ll keep you in line.”

As usual, you cannot tell if he’s being literal or not. You settle to nod, and Will glances around the kitchen, his eyes falling on the refrigerator door where a greasy smear remains in the autumn moonlight.

“Your handprints?” he asks. “So you stole food. Should have asked to join us for dinner.”

You lean against a countertop, your head hanging, truly ashamed.

“I messed up.”

Will picks up a hand towel and rubs at the door until your fingerprints vanish.

“You live here,” he says, grudgingly. “It’s not exactly a capital offence to eat from the fridge.”

“No,” you say, in a piteous wail. “I mean I shouldn’t have eaten at all. I gave in. I ate. No self-control.”

You see Will’s shoulders drop, and he says, with pained neutrality, “That isn’t true. You gave your body what it needed.”

Half-sobbing, you pull at your flesh through your nightdress, gathering up handfuls of skin.

“I don’t know why you even want to touch me. I’m so disgusting.”

“No,” says Will, and this time he speaks firmly. “You’re a lot of things, but that isn’t one of them. I don’t want to hear you say that again.”

He passes a hand across his face, an exhausted reflex.

“Go to bed, One,” he mumbles. “And tomorrow you’re going eat again. I’ll see that you do.”

The next morning, red-eyed over coffee, Will watches you attempt your breakfast. He makes no comment, only waits as you masticate each scrap of beetroot and artfully scrambled egg twenty times until the slow process meets its finish.

Hannibal turns Will an unreadable look across the table.

“You look weary, this morning,” he says. “I thought I heard you wandering the house last night. Was anything the matter?”

You drop your fork with a frightened loss of coordination, expecting to be handed over to him for further hurt. Yet Will only puts down his coffee cup, folds his arms across his chest, and says, quite casually, “She was hungry, just like I knew she’d be. She went looking for food. I sent her back to her room. Nothing to write home about.”

It’s only when Hannibal carries your dirty plate back to the kitchen that you look up at Will, softening your eyes against the flint of hatred within you.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

An almost smile turns the edges of Will's mouth.

“I’ll tell him, someday. Just not now.”

[covid-safer-hotties]

Experts Call Long COVID in Kids a Public Health Crisis. Why Is It Being Ignored? - Published Aug 26, 2024

For years, public health experts have said that COVID-19 infections in children are “mild.” According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the most common symptoms of COVID in kids are a fever and cough. While some children with the coronavirus are admitted to the ICU and there are pediatric deaths, studies have found that underlying medical conditions including obesity, diabetes, cardiac and lung disorders, increase the risk of severe outcomes.

This research has contributed to how COVID is managed in schools. However, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association sheds light on the effect a coronavirus infection can have on children over a longer period. While many people recover quickly from COVID, some don’t, experiencing symptoms that can last for months or years. This condition, known as long COVID, not only affects adults but also children. The new research helps us understand the extent kids experience these debilitating conditions — and how we can treat it.

“This is one of the first large-scale national studies to do research related to long COVID across the entire lifespan, with a particular focus on children and understanding the differences in long COVID in different aged children,” Dr. Rachel Gross, an associate professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Population Health at NYU Langone and the study’s principal investigator, told Salon.

In the study, led by the National Institutes of Health’s RECOVER Initiative, researchers asked caregivers to tell them about the symptoms that their children or teenagers had been experiencing more than four weeks after a coronavirus infection. For some children in the study, that meant their symptoms went on for three months after their COVID infection. For others, it was up to two years. Researchers looked at the symptoms in those children with persisting symptoms and compared them to children who had never been infected with the coronavirus in the past. They then identified similarities in the prolonged symptoms and found they were distinguishable based on age.

“In school-aged children, we heard commonly that children were experiencing trouble with their memory, focusing, headaches, having trouble sleeping, and stomach pain,” Gross told Salon. “And in the teenagers, we were hearing about symptoms related to fatigue and pain, having body or muscle or joint pain, being very tired or sleepy, having low energy, as well as having trouble with memory and focusing.”

A unique symptom the researchers saw in the teenage group was changes in or a loss of smell or taste. Additionally, researchers found clusters of symptoms that are unique to school-aged children and teenagers. The first were symptoms that affect every organ system in the body.

“These are the children with the highest burden of symptoms,” Gross said, adding that caregivers described these children as having a “lower quality of life and more impact on their overall health.” “The second type of long COVID we also saw across both the ages was predominantly characterized by fatigue and pain.”

Studies estimating its prevalence in pediatric populations are limited and conflicting, estimating up to 25% of children infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could go on to develop long COVID. A study published in 2024 estimated that up to 5.8 million young people have long COVID.

“This is a public health crisis for children,” Gross said. “We know that child health is so critically important for how children grow and even as they become adults, that chronic illness during childhood and adverse experiences during childhood greatly affects the adults that they can become.”

Gross said the U.S. will see the “long-term impacts of experiencing long covid In childhood for decades to come.”

Dr. Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases and associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, Davis, told Salon he agreed long COVID is a “public health crisis” for children.

“Some of these kids with long COVID, they are severely affected, they can’t do their normal activities, they fall behind school, they can’t go to school,” Blumberg said. “And then in this study, they highlighted a lot have had some neurocognitive effects, and that really interferes with with learning.”

For Blumberg, the takeaway from this study, he told Salon, is a “call to arms to increase vaccination rates,” which among children, he said are “abysmal.”

According to a recent KFF survey, while both flu and COVID vaccines are recommended for school-aged children, flu vaccination rates were over three times higher than COVID vaccination rates. While COVID-19 vaccines are recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in the pediatric immunization schedule, they aren’t required for school attendance. According to one study published in the journal Pediatrics, vaccination reduced the risk of an acute infection, but it is less clear whether it protects against long COVID. The latest COVID vaccines were approved by the Food and Drug Administration last week, which the CDC recommends for anyone six months or older.

Now, researchers will be tasked with figuring out why long COVID affects children differently based on their age. When it comes to adults, some studies have shown that subsequent COVID infections increase a person’s risk of getting long COVID. The CDC estimates that one in 13 adults in the United States currently have long COVID symptoms.

Gross told Salon she hopes this research raises awareness for both healthcare providers, as well as schools and educators, that “long COVID in children is not rare.”

“That they are likely to have children experiencing these prolonged symptoms within their healthcare systems and their schools,” Gross said. “And that many of the symptoms that I’ve described, trouble with memory and focusing, headache, trouble sleeping, these are symptoms that you know can impact a child and their schooling.”

[thescreamcorner]

Sometimes it's really really concerning how much anti-psychiatry and anti-recovery rhetoric exists-- and for once I'm not just talking about endos, but even within the OSDDID internetsphere, especially in actively pro self dx circles. It's not to say that you can't or shouldn't work on things away from a healthcare team, but with chronic and intensely debilitating disorders it is rare, if not impossible to fully be "fine" without help.

Like. If you're experiencing dissociative amnesia or memory/identity issues in general (even when caused by things as innocuously treated online like ADHD if it's at a debilitating level), you NEED someone who isn't affected by those things in order to have a sense of grounding and heal. And it's vital for that to be someone who has a baseline understanding of how dissociative disorders work.

My caseworker calls are sometimes the only thing giving me any sense of the passage of time, and she remembers things during calls that I completely forget or dissociate through. Not even my partner can consistently provide this because of her time blindness, vs the professional who reaches out, doesn't have a disorder affecting her memory, and takes notes during our calls.

My therapy visits, as infrequent as they've been lately, are some of the only reason why we've made progress toward one of our alters no longer making contact with our abusers when she fronts, and that fight isn't over yet. My partner can't stop her from doing it-- she'll wait until they're asleep. They also don't have the resources or bandwidth to address with her why doing this is bad, and if they intervene incorrectly it increases the chance that one day I wake up in another state.

I get from firsthand experience that healthcare, especially in the US, is notoriously inaccessible, and in some places the facilities available are full of inexperienced, incompassionate tools who don't care about their patients. But instead of using that as an excuse to stop trying, instead of pushing others into not seeking care and not trusting doctors, that needs to get channeled into finding and providing resources.

Many states have government funded healthcare available for those below the poverty line. Many facilities offer payment scaling plans even without insurance. A fair amount of insurance companies that "don't cover this" will make exceptions if you go through other channels and get professional referrals. It's not easy, it's not always free, and it's not fast. For those underage, it may be awhile before you can legally access it.

But for the love of all that is sacred on this burning planet, do NOT discourage trauma survivors from trying to get psychiatric help over the potential of a bad experience or a bad doctor. You are not helping people heal and learn to love themselves. You are creating paranoia and enforcing a regressive mentality that can prevent someone from reaching out before its too late.

[pyrondeeznutz]

Ticci Toby Headcanons

PT.01

Toby Rogers past, upbringing, pre-proxy headcanons. See proxy era headcanons here ⬇️

CW: Slight mentions of animal abuse, domestic violence, psychosis, bullying, car crash, gore

<NOTE> Im a psychology nerd so I tried to make it as realistic as possible. This is my first time doing anything like this but I have a lot of thoughts about Tobys character. Its not proofread so ignore any typos or grammatical errors. Also… its very long… I have… so many thoughts…

BIOGRAPHY .

PATIENT NAME: Tobias (Toby) Erin Rogers

BIRTHDATE: April 28th, 1994

AGE: Currently 19 years old

HC/EC: Brown hair, brown eyes

ETHNICITY: White American

BIRTHPLACE: Denver, Colorado

FAMILY: Connie Rogers (mother), Dan Rogers (Father), Lyra Rogers (sister)

DIAGNOSIS: Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA), Tourettes Syndrome, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Bipolar Disorder (Type 1, psychotic)

THE GURNEY .

Toby was in and out of hospitals from a very young age due to his wide range of physical and mental health concerns

His earliest memory was when, at age 4, he hit his head after falling onto cement and didn’t cry, scream, or even really acknowledge that he was hurt

After seeing the bloody mess her young child was in, Connie ran Toby to the hospital where tests were ran to determine what caused his lack of pain response

Finally at age 8, Toby was diagnosed with CIPA. This condition not only prevented his brain from generating a pain response but also responses to extreme temperatures (frostbite, heat burn, etc)

Due to these dangerous health issues, and his neurotic mother, Toby was put in homeschooling from a very early age. Connie was too protective of her son to allow him to go out on his own at his age

His earliest memories revolved around roaming hospital halls, his parents fighting over medical bills, being talked to by social workers and doctors, having tests done, minor surgeries, etc.

DEAR OLD DAD .

Dan Rogers was a difficult man. He never admitted he was wrong, he spent his evenings drinking on the couch, and always had something to complain about. The best words to describe this man was angry, bitter, and reckless

He wasn’t a father by any means. To Toby, the man was more of a nuisance than anything. An alcoholic manchild who stood in his way

The boy never got along with Dan. His father would see him as a burden, bringer of unnecessary medical costs. He severely emotionally and physically neglected his children from their birth. Dan never wanted to be a father.

Due to the costs of Tobys medical problems, Dan would continuously attempt to “prove he was faking” his CIPA, and yell at the boy for his strange twitches due to Tourettes. On one occasion, Dan put his sons hand in a pot of boiling water to try and elicit a pain response that never came.

As Toby got older and more independent from his mother, he would often mouth off to his father, talk back, or straight up ignore him. There was never a moment of peace between those two

Being the money maker in the house, Dan was usually very overworked and stressed. He turned to alcohol to relieve this, and his bad temper got worse when he drank. Often to the point his outbursts would lead to physical violence against his family

It was like walking in a minefield for Toby and his family. And since the supposed “man of the house” was a drunken mean old man, Toby took it upon himself to protect his family from his fathers wrath.

He would purposely act up to direct Dans fist towards him. The boy couldn’t feel it anyways, and being hit, pushed, grabbed, was better than having his sister or mother be hit or yelled at.

The young boy spent his childhood in a rage, he was powerless against his father.

MOTHER DEAREST .

Unlike her husband, Connie was a quiet woman who cared deeply for her children

She was well-mannered, motherly, and kept to herself. And while she was a good woman, she had her fair share of flaws

You would catch her dead before you ever caught her losing control over her emotions. Connie grew up quick and that stuck with her. From a young age she took care of her manchild of a husband

She couldn’t afford to lose herself to silly things like emotions. She had a family to care for, a house to clean, meals to cook. Her priorities lied on appearance over her health

This was one of the many reasons she couldn’t leave her husband despite the years of abuse

Despite all the violence, berating, assault. This life was her own and it was just another thing she had to live with

Toby loved his mother, he really did. He knew she did the best given the circumstances. Connie kept her children fed, clothed and housed. Thats all he could really ask for

But he despised from the depths of his soul how she could just sit by and let the abuse happen. How she never left Dan. How she never cared enough to leave despite not knowing what lied in store for them beyond that house

To her, Dan was a safety net. He provided money, insurance, he paid the bills, put food on the table. Connie quit her job in order to homeschool her son. There was no choice

To Toby, his mother was a coward who never stuck up for herself. And god forbid he ever turn into that

So Toby fought the battles his mother couldn’t. He said the words his mother didn’t dare to speak. He took the beatings and his mother did nothing but ask her husband to stop

SOUL SISTER .

In the chaos of that household, Lyra was something of fresh air for Toby

While the two did fight as any siblings do, they had a mutual care and understanding for each other

Lyra would keep a makeshift first aid kit under her bed for whenever Toby got into minor accidents or if their father went too far some nights

Like her little brother, Lyra had a lot of anger in her. She would always try to stop Dan from going too far and she was good at talking Toby and their father down from ripping each others throats out

She would channel this anger and frustration into sports like boxing, soccer, rugby. It was easier to express her feelings through physical means than ever talking about it. The girl was a perfect mix of her parents

When he was younger, Toby had a very bad and hostile relationship with Lyra. He was young and didn’t have any clue how to handle his emotions and would often threaten or physically hurt his sister

But as he grew up, and they bonded over the related abuse, and they would be there for each other, Toby developed tender care for his older sister. If she got a boyfriend, he would be ready to attack at any sign of disrespect. If she brought over friends, he would stay in his room not to embarrass her.

Just as he was with his mother, he was very protective over Lyra. She did so much for him, and he wanted to keep her safe. It was a tangled, messy relationship but they made it work despite her attitude and his anger

CONDUCT .

Toby grew up completely isolated from other kids, families, etc. The most socialization he got was going to family events or being dragged to the grocery store with his mother.

All he knew growing up was violence. And so when he was around other people, he would project everything he learnt from his father onto other kids

From a very early age he was made to feel small and insignificant in his own home by the people that were supposed to take care of him. And so whenever something challenged him out of the house, he would do whatever he needed to do to put them below him

Sometimes Toby would project this violence onto small animals, occasionally moving onto bigger animals such as cats. The feeling of killing something smaller than himself with his own hands gave him a sense of power and control he never had

Due to his untreated ADHD, the boy would often be loud, hyperactive and intrusive. He would have temper tantrums and outbursts as well, and his mother never knew how to handle it

He was a problem child from birth. Not only causing problems for himself, but for everyone around him

Toby would talk back, curse, say strange and vulgar things, refuse to apologize or admit he was wrong, and would run away from home occasionally.

But despite these behavioural issues, Toby always refused to touch alcohol. Despite all the anger, dread and frustration he felt he swore he’d never become the kind of man his father was

BULLY .

Around 12 years old, Toby’s parents decided it would be best for him to get properly socialized and placed him in a public school

He was now old enough to recognize that bleeding is bad and how to check for injuries despite his CIPA, which allowed Connie to calm down tremendously when it came to her anxiety surrounding her boys health and safety

Despite his mothers insistence that he would love public school, he’d make so many friends there, and that everything would be fine, Toby knew damn well he wouldn’t do well there. He was already bullied by his own father, imagine how other kids would react. He’s seen the movies.

And of course Toby was right. Due to his Tourettes, his tics would often confuse, scare and gross other kids out. They would either straight up treat him like a diseases rat or ruthlessly bully him

The boy was called every name in the book, from “twitchy freak” to “ticci Toby”

Alongside the ostracism and harassment from his peers, his tics and behavioural issues would cause him issues with his teachers. They would often scold him for being a disturbance in class

Making and keeping friends was near impossible for the boy. Talking to a “creepy loser” like him was practically social suicide. He was weird, strange, and given his history of fighting the other kids he was probably dangerous too. No kid wanted to be around that.

On occasion, the other boys would get physical with him and he would always hit back, leading him to get in more trouble with the school staff

Toby would be beat down at school and go home to have it done to him all again by his father

Eventually the school year came to an end and Toby was put back in homeschooling

Even though the torment in middle school came to an end, that didn’t mean the bullying stopped. He was now a known freak and the perfect target for kids who were a bit too much like him. They would harass him online until they got bored, and god forbid he saw any of them in public

It made the angry, powerless boy feel even worse in his own world. There wasn’t a night that went by where he didn’t think of going off and getting his revenge. Make them pay for ever fucking with him.

THE CRASH .

When Toby turned 17, he had finally got himself medicated for his recently diagnosed Bipolar Disorder which caused manic / depressive episodes

He was put on antipsychotics and stimulant medication for his ADHD

While he was being treated, his sister got a job and so did his mother. Outside of all the familiar instability and violence his father caused, life was good

Toby was going to be 18 soon and his sister promised that when he became a legal adult, she would take him to move out with her

He didn’t have any friends, he didn’t really have any plans for his life, but he had a life ahead of him regardless and that was enough

The boy was working through pain too great to imagine, he was carrying 17 years of fear and dread, he was so young holding on to so much

But he had a way out. He was going to get a job and move out with his dear older sister and maybe even go to college. He was going to overcome this

That was his views at least up until the crash

Lyra was driving Toby back home from a doctors appointment when it happened

His tics were acting up, it was rather distracting

He was so caught up in his own little world and trying to get through the frustrating twitches that he didn’t even have a second to process what happened

The next thing Toby knew, the car was swerving right into a lamppost and the air bags were deployed

And the next thing Toby saw was his sisters mangled, bloody body. The force of the steering wheel crushing her bones and shards of glass piercing her skin. The physical trauma near shattered her ribs

And the next thing Toby heard was the pained groans and wheezing from his dying sister

Thats the last thing he remembered before he woke up in a hospital bed with his broken arm being patched up. The doctors wouldn’t even let him see his sister who was under surgery in the emergency room

He didn’t get to be there by her side when she died

He didn’t get a goodbye

And while he was surrounded by family, his aunt Lori was even there to support his mother, Tobys father was nowhere to be seen

Dan was too drunk to drive, and too lazy to call a cab. He didn’t care about Toby and he didn’t care that his daughter just died. One less burden.

In one afternoon Tobys entire life slipped through the cracks of his hands

HIM .

The grief was sickening. It was heavier than the weight of the world. The silence that flooded his once loud house from his sister blaring her Beatles albums was deafening

These were the kinds of things that only happened in movies. People didn’t really lose their family members, and these things didn’t happen to people like him

It wasn’t fair

The one good thing in his miserable life, the moment things were finally getting better. There was no hope anymore, Toby was hopeless

He thought of ending his life every night as he stared at the ceiling, not getting a wink of sleep. But he couldn’t do that to his mom. She never showed it, but it showed clearly from the weight in her steps, the tired look in her eyes. He knew she was carrying a burden too great to bear

He couldn’t take away both of her children

So he would lie there night after night hoping to wake up from the gutwrenching dream just to hear her laugh, sing, blast her shitty music. He never really liked The Beatles, but she did. But she did.

It was all too much for him. From the moment Toby stepped out of the hospital he hadn’t felt real. The boy was living two steps away from reality like there was a sheet of plastic in between him and the world

Days would go by where he would forget to take his medication, or where he would simply just sleep the entire day away

On the days he was awake, Toby would feel like he was going insane. He wouldn’t feel real, he would see things out of the corner of his eye

Sometimes he’d swear he saw something outside his window at night

A strange creature standing under the streetlights

And it only got worse from here. Toby would almost always refuse to leave the house, he stopped sleeping, he felt like something was watching him

The boy would spend hours staring outside his bedroom window. The forest in his backyard had eyes and they were watching him

A wave of sickness overtook Toby. He would wake up with bloody noses sometime and no medicine would get rid of his strange cough. Sometimes he would sleepwalk and end up waking up on the edge of the forest behind his house, cold and alone in the dark of the night

It all added up. It was too much. The anger, the fear, the paranoia. The little voice in the back of his head telling him to just do it. Get revenge. Make him pay.

ABLAZE .

The years and years of abuse. Everything his father had done. He wasn’t there. He was never there.

Why should a man like that deserve to live? 17 fucking years of making Toby feel small and insignificant

Not today. And not anymore. The world was in the boys hands now, and so was a knife. And that night was the night Toby Rogers killed his own father.

No words could describe the feeling of adrenaline and rage that overtook the boy that night. There was no other option, this was the way it was always going to happen

Everything Toby has ever been through has led up to this. It was his own divine prophecy

And God showed no mercy that night

23 stab wounds drilled into his fathers chest, his face bloody, beaten and unrecognizable. Toby smashed his tiny bruised fists ruthlessly into his fathers now deceased body.

The only thing that stopped him was the scream of his mother. It was something primal, something deep from the pain in her gut.

Toby ran into the garage and grabbed two axes that belonged to his father, one old one new. Alongside that he grabbed gasoline and matches. He was going to do what he knew best. He was going to destroy everything.

And so the boy ran down the street of his neighborhood pouring the gasoline along his way and dousing the rest over the trees as he stood at the edge of the forest

Striking a match, the dry grass and trees caught on fire and immediately exploded into flames. The heat and blaze engulfed the boy and soon it began catching onto the rest of the forest

This was the end, he thought. Strangely enough, even though his heart was beating in his throat and his body was shaking, he felt calm. He had no regrets and he was fine with this being his ending.

His mind went blank, everything felt like a static screen, he could feel himself getting dizzy and there was a loud ringing in his ears

The last thing he saw was a tall, faceless creature in the midst of the smoke and fire as he collapsed to the ground.

And that was the death of Tobias Erin Rogers.

[devildom-moss]

Im so happy the request box is open again /gen

Could i request a fic where MC has an ed (Eating Disorder)?

Im struggling with eating atm and would love to read about the characters (especially Beel) comforting the MC about it

Thats all, have a good day!

Lots of love, anonymous M /ref

Anon, I'm so sorry that you're struggling. Please do your best to practice harm reduction in regards to your specific eating disorder. I hope that you are able to get the help you require.

I also hope that this fic will be a comfort to you. I tried to keep the specifics of the eating disorder vague since there are so many types and I didn't know which you had. There are some mentions of binging and restricting, so I hope that is okay. The format of this was kind of experimental, so I hope it came out okay.

I love you. Take care (to the best of your ability).

MC with an eating disorder

(SFW) (unspecified eating disorder with mentions of restriction and binging) (could be read as platonic) (all characters) (half fic/half headcanons?)

Word Count: +3,900

You couldn’t hide this forever. They were bound to figure it out eventually. The unfortunate thing about being a person is that no matter how careful you were – how hard you tried – secrecy, subtlety, and perfectionism were not without clumsiness. Even if you wanted to hide this from them forever, you were going to slip up – do something suspicious. Most sicknesses have symptoms, and someone will find them.

Or maybe you had a moment of pure courage and decided to tell them: you needed help. Maybe you understood – even if it felt like a lapse in judgment – that the best outcome for your health and happiness would not be achieved alone. You needed someone – some understanding source of love and support.

The truth leaked out to everyone eventually – and eventually seemed to crash into you like the final domino in an elaborate setup. The most knowledgeable and observant of the bunch couldn’t keep quiet for long. It’s hard to bite your tongue when someone you love is suffering.

You were hardly prepared for the talk they all felt was necessary. Barbatos called for a meeting with you “to discuss a personal matter of utmost importance.” To be fair, they all made the decision not to overwhelm you by not allowing everyone to take part in the meeting.

When you arrived at the castle for the meeting (mostly to prevent nosy eavesdropping), Barbatos escorted you into a room with Simeon, Solomon, Lucifer, and – surprisingly – Mammon. Initially, Lucifer had no intention of allowing Mammon into the meeting, but “being MC’s first” and the fact that he had been the one to alert Lucifer to your struggle held enough sway to expand the meeting size to six.

On your long walk back home, during which you were escorted by Lucifer and Mammon in a miserable, awkward silence that Mammon made multiple attempts to alleviate, you couldn’t stop clinging to their words during that meeting.

You couldn’t remember who spoke first – who had the guts to interrupt such a solemn, all-knowing silence. Lucifer or Barbatos? No. They planned this, so maybe they pushed the softest approach on you – forced a tender heart to confirm that the time had come to talk about your eating (or lack thereof). In that case, it was probably Simeon. Your memory was already so hazy. Maybe you shut down and dissociated. Maybe you would remember if your body wasn’t going through hell. Then again, if it wasn’t, maybe you wouldn’t have had to have that conversation.

– Got bad enough for them to notice, I guess?  That was a shitty thought to have. The sooner it gets addressed, the better. No one should have to get “bad enough.” You knew that. –

In truth, they had planned ahead, and Simeon was supposed to ease you into the conversation. Mammon couldn’t let him, though. “Ya know, I don’t care how strong ya get. I still think it’s my job to protect ya. You’re sick right now. All tha signs are there. Ya keep hurtin’ yourself doin’ shit like this. I’m doin’ an awful job keepin’ ya safe, so we’re gonna get ya some help. And we’re gonna be right there with ya the whole time. I’m gonna be there – whatever ya need.”

Simeon was relieved that Mammon spoke first – even if it wasn’t the perfect, delicate approach. Simeon had been something he hadn’t been for a very long time: afraid. They all were to some extent – if not afraid, then nervous. However, with Mammon’s interruption, the structured plan crumbled, and they all spoke in cautious yet clumsy intervals. It seemed suitable, then, that the rest of the meeting only existed in messily cut up pieces that you shoved together. Your brain was the young, sickly protégé of Victor Frankenstein and your recall-creature arose as a bloody, poorly constructed monster. There was no chasing this monster off. It clung to your waist and shadowed your every step. It was a sad, hurtful little creature, but there was love in every bone and mass of flesh.

Lucifer had promised to assist with doctors’ orders, keep an eye on your condition, and accommodate you while ensuring his brothers fell in line. What you remembered was the scent of Demonus that lingered on him when he pulled you against him and told you, “Whatever will ease the burden during the hardest parts of your recovery, you’ll have it.” He had had a drink or two to settle his nerves before you arrived.

Barbatos had promised to get you good human doctors – medical and psychological – who specialized in your particular condition. What you remembered was the unfamiliar look of sorrow on Barbatos’s face as he held your hand and promised, “We will prioritize your comfort – no matter how many doctors you have to go through. You’ll get the treatment you need.”

Solomon had offered his magical skills to assist with your commitment to recovery and to ease any pain or side effects that your eating disorder had and would cause. You remembered him gently holding your face and telling you, “I’d never let anyone hurt my adorable apprentice – and that includes you.”

Simeon had offered you a constant and understanding ear to listen. He was the best alternative when you wouldn’t or couldn’t turn to a professional. Simeon had even promised to help Luke and Raphael navigate your recovery as best as he could. You remembered the grave concern on his face – almost frightening – as he told you, “We love you, and you’re hurting. Please let us help you however we can.”

They hadn’t pressured you to explain everything you were doing or understand all of it on your own. They hadn’t even forced you to respond right away. Everything else they had said – and anything you had said – seeped out your ears until you were left with the sound of your own voice giving them one ashamed and heartfelt “okay.”

The conversation probably hadn’t even happened in that order, but it was a hard one to have, and you couldn’t be faulted for jumbling it up.

“Here, take it.” Mammon interrupted the cacophony in your mind by throwing his jacket over your head and gently petting you through the fabric.

You felt something wet running down your cheek. It must have started to rain while you were thinking. No, wait, am I crying? When did that happen? It wasn’t a lot, but a few stray tears escaped you. You tried to blink them away, but now that you had a way to hide, they flowed easier. “Thanks, Mammon.”

You were scared that you would never like yourself no matter what happened, but they loved you, and that was a start.

When you returned to the House of Lamentation, you hid yourself away in the attic where you could cry alone without the protection of Mammon’s jacket. It was getting hot under there, anyway. Despite their attempts, you still felt overwhelmed by the confrontation, and you just wanted to hide from everyone – well, maybe not everyone.

It was a comfort when you heard a soft knock at the door and saw that fluffy orange hair peeking in. “MC, can I come in?”

He found you, and something about that melted your heart, even though you thought you wanted to be alone. You wiped any stray tears from your eyes and cleared your throat. “Yeah, you can come in, Beel.”

Surprisingly, when he sat down next to you on the bed, his lashes stuck to his skin like he had been crying, too. There was a long silence, during which he just stared at you. Sometimes, you liked it when he looked at you. You’d see all the affection on his face and recognize the love behind it. Other times, it made your skin crawl as insecurity squirmed around through your veins like a parasite. You saw everything you deemed wrong with yourself, and there was no way to hide it. This time, it felt different – some slow-cooked stew of guilt and sorrow. You imagined an inflated, tainted feeling of pity in that look where it was absent. In reality, “pity” from Beel used that word in its purest, sweetest form; there was no negativity or disregard – only sympathy and compassion.

Beel leaned down and bonked his forehead against your shoulder, leaving it there. His breath was slow and even, finding comfort in the physical touch, as he built up the courage to speak.

“Do I make your eating disorder worse? I’m always eating and talking about food.”

“No . . . well yes – but no.” Beel pulled back to look at you, doing everything he could to not look hurt and sorry. You felt the cracks in the dam begin to burst. Either you patch them up now, or you lift the gates and relieve some of the pressure. You chose the latter. “You made it easier to hide it. I could give you my food whenever I was restricting, and you were so happy to be fed that you never worried about me being hungry. Then, I got to watch you eat. It was cathartic – watching you do something I couldn’t do. You made it easy to cover up a binge, too. No matter how out of control I felt, I couldn’t make a dent in the amount of food you ate. That kind of made me feel better, but it enabled me. The extra food I ate, the snack boxes and wrappers, the disappearing food – everyone assumed it was all you most of the time. It saved me a lot of embarrassment, I guess, but it didn’t take away the shame. And to be honest, I’m kind of jealous of you. You’re out of control when you eat sometimes, and then you have all the control in the world to work out. But you look amazing, and you seem happy. I can see my impulses in you, and I think, if it was just a little different – maybe if I was better and more disciplined, I’d be more like you and less like me. I know that isn’t how it works; it’s just how I see things.”

You hadn’t expected all of that to come rushing out. Then again, neither did Beel, but he sat there firm and strong through it all. For a brief moment, a cruel and twisted feeling popped into your mind. What is he doing? Is he one of those idiots who stands in the path of a tropical storm because they think they can take it? He’s going to get hurt. Just move out of the way. You knew better than that train of thought. Beel would make himself an immovable structure through all of this if you’d let him. Hell, he’d make the effort even if you didn’t.

You cast your eyes down to the bedspread and the way Beel laid his hands down on it in front of him, with one cradled in the other while he ran his thumb along the side of his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Beel interrupted. “It’s a lot to process, but thank you for telling me.”

Beel let out a calm, steady breath before standing up. He offered you his hand with a rueful smile.

“What is it?” you asked with your brow furrowed in confusion.

“Do you want to dance for a bit? I know we don’t have music, but I think better when I move.” Beel was embarrassed by the admission – but more embarrassed by the strangeness of his request. He added, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“We can dance.” You took his hand and let him make the clumsy attempt to lead. He wasn’t close enough nor graceful, but he was trying.

“I’m not very good at this, but I want you to get better. I hope you don’t mind learning together.” He had never had to help someone recover. You had to learn how to get better, and he had to learn how to support that.

“I don’t mind.”

“Even if I mess it up?” Even if he said the wrong thing or accidentally triggered you? Even if he couldn’t protect you every time? Even if you found a new place to hide and he didn’t come find you right away?

“You don’t have to be perfect.”

“Neither do you.” Beel had sharpened his words for that one, and all you could do was give him an apologetic chuckle. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t –”

“– I could, and that scares me. I love you so much. I will still love you during recovery. I’ll love you through relapses. I’ll love you when – and if – you fully recover. There’s nothing wrong with your willpower or your body. You’re sick and hurt. We’ll be okay.” Beel had added the last part for his own comfort before he pulled you closer. He stopped trying to dance and just held you against him, as if to remind you that he was there.

With the professional help came the personal support.

Lucifer keeps track of you and your meds. He checks in with you and your doctor and ensures you take your medication in a timely manner. He removes scales from the house or keeps them safely hidden from you. He keeps his brothers up to date on your recovery plan (with your permission), so that you don’t have to deal with it. He gently pushes you along when he catches you staring in a mirror unfavorably.

Mammon magically removes all the nutrition information – barring ingredients and allergy information – from groceries and snacks whenever someone does the shopping. He also walks you to all your medical and psychological doctor’s appointments. More importantly, he keeps you distracted when you feel bad – movies, games, dancing in clubs, you name it. However, he won’t take you gambling with him anymore, horrified that you might jump from one maladaptive behavior to another.

Leviathan, whose entire existence is antithetical to normie values, musters up the courage to remind you that he thinks you look amazing and that you don’t have to worry about what normies think. He is almost always there to play games with you or read manga or watch anime – especially when binge urges come. He’s happy to spend time with you, so don’t be ashamed of the reason you need a distraction. He makes and buys cosplay outfits for you and spends half an hour hyping you up so that you feel confident – even if you never end up wearing it outside.

Satan helps monitor your nutrition and plans meals that will help you avoid malnutrition. He works especially hard on this during the first few months of recovery and after relapses when it’s the most critical. He reads up on eating disorder treatments and studies anecdotal success stories so that he can help equip you with more tools to ensure your full recovery. He also offers distractions when you need them. Sometimes, he even reads to you.

Asmo compliments you endlessly – almost daily if you let him. He finds cute clothes for you that fit you in ways that make you feel comfortable and look amazing. He does your makeup and hair if you want it – anything to make you feel better about yourself. He’ll take pictures of you if you let him. Hell, he’ll arrange a full boudoir photoshoot for you if it boosts your confidence. Asmo has always been able to find beauty in anyone, so he tries to lean into body positivity and prove to you that there is beauty in every body because being alive is majestic all on its own. It’s equally important what Asmo doesn’t do, though. He stops body checking and talking about diets around you. He diets less, and when he does, he keeps the details of it away from you. This isn’t exactly supportive, but he will offer to praise you in bed and make you feel so gorgeous and so good that your mind has no room for self-doubt.

Beelzebub eats meals and snacks with you – especially when you are having trouble eating. He’s great to have around when you want to try eating something or multiple things off a menu, but you’re worried about feeling the need to keep eating after you’re full. He’s always happy to eat the leftovers. He constantly tells you how happy he feels when he sees you enjoying food with him. He also exercises with you – taking special care to ensure that you aren’t pushing yourself too far. He just wants you to get the movement that supports your health. He probably also teaches you something like boxing to help you release anger and anxiety during your recovery. Additionally, it’s hard for anyone to make you feel weird or bad about your exercise levels when Beel is around to level them if they so much as look at you the wrong way. Alternatively, he also accommodates you by helping you exercise in private (a home gym or body weight exercises; if your mind is in the gutter, that’s fine too).

Belphie walks you home from all your appointments. Mammon could do it, and it’s a lot of effort for him to walk you home, especially when he wasn’t already out and about, but he wants to show you that you are worth the effort. He threatened to curse and beat up Mammon if he didn’t let him walk you home. He likes the idea of you knowing that after a check-up or a draining therapy session, you can expect to see him waiting outside for you. He’s never late, either. He watches the stars with you and reminds you that you are beautiful to him but in the vastness of the universe, your body, your weight, your sense of control – none of it matters as much as you think it does. He is also an anarchist, and that especially includes diet culture. “Fuck society. I just want you to be alive and to take naps with me.” Also, he thinks your body is incredibly comfortable to nap on, but he tries not to actually say that.

Diavolo employs the best doctors he can find for you – with help from Barbatos. He adores complimenting you, so you can expect him to continue reminding you how amazing you are – both mentally and physically. He doesn’t have as much time to spend supporting you, but if he can provide you with any services, he’ll do it. His favorite thing to do is to take you shopping and buy clothes and accessories for you. If you like it and wearing it makes you feel better, he’ll get it for you. It’s a good distraction, and seeing you smiling in outfits that he got for you warms his heart. When he does have spare time, he’ll try to spend it with you so he can check in and see how you’re doing – but also so he can just be around you.

Barbatos offers to make lunch for you sometimes. Once he gets your permission, he makes adorable and appetizing dishes so that when you see them, you’re actually happy to eat them (usually. Some days will just be bad, and there’s nothing more he can do). He listens to you without judgment. He’ll pour you a cup of tea, offer you something to eat, and let you pour your heart out. He also sews outfits specifically for you, using it as an excuse to both provide personal attention and to tell you how incredible and breathtaking you look.

Luke has a surprisingly good grasp on the situation thanks to Simeon, Solomon, and his own reading. He offers to accompany you to the store when you have to buy groceries. He also does activities with you that don’t involve food – mostly games, puzzles, and going on walks. However, if you’re okay with it, he brings you into the kitchen to cook and bake with him (and sometimes with Barbatos, Simeon, and/or Beel). Maybe it’s because he’s younger, but unlike Simeon or Barbatos, Luke has more courage to invite you into a potentially stressful situation for your eating disorder in an attempt to help you establish a healthy relationship with food and cooking.

Simeon is always there to listen – especially once he figures out how to make a proper video call. He also provides you with plenty of distractions. As the author of the bunch, he’s obligated to encourage you to write or journal to help process your recovery (and just for fun). Consequently, you have a lot of chill writing dates. Sometimes that means relaxing in Simeon’s room with him while you both quietly write your own things. Other times, he invites you out to pretty or interesting locations. When you go out, he does everything he can to ensure your comfort. You’re free to bail whenever you feel the need to.

Solomon, like Satan, does extensive research on eating disorders. He’ll go so far as to interrogate other sorcerers about any magic they might know that will help your chances of a full recovery. If a solution exists, he’ll find it. If it doesn’t, he’ll try whatever options he has to improve your chances of living a long, happy life. However, his studying usually happens behind your back. One of the most important things Solomon does is treat you like normal. It can be a comfort. Unfortunately, on the occasion that Solomon offers you food he’s made, when you refuse, he gets worried about your eating disorder. My guy, it’s not the eating disorder; it’s your atrocious cooking.

Thirteen monitors your candle closely, looking for faster or slower burning rates to gauge your health on her own. If something seems off, she knows it’s time to speak up. She brings you adorable and delicious food and drinks – with your permission – and eats with you so that you can try to enjoy food. If you have concerns about drinks and liquid calories, she will try to help you ease that by offering you sips of her drinks and reminding you that it’s okay. If you like the drink, she’ll happily let you have the rest of it. She will also invite you out to eat and, like Beel, she’ll eat whatever you won’t finish. Outside of food, she distracts you by letting you in on her trap building process and bringing you along to test them out. Your laugh when one of her traps successfully ensnares someone is precious to her. She is another good confidant when you need someone to talk to.

Raphael uses his magic to heal you whenever you’re in pain (if eating hurts your stomach, heartburn, if your body is sore from exercise, etc.). He puts blessings on you – sometimes without your knowledge – to help you feel better mentally, too. Like Barbatos, Raphael sews new outfits for you, but he mostly focuses on trying to tailor your existing clothes to accommodate how your body might change during recovery. Some clothes can be irreplaceable, and he wants you to still be able to wear them no matter how you change.

Mephisto is probably the last person to find out, which annoys him. To compensate for being last, he writes up and prints an entire report, highlighting your positive, admirable traits. It’s practically a love letter. However, this one isn’t for the paper, so don’t worry about being perceived by others. In fact, he’d be embarrassed if anyone else found out about it. He just wants you to have a reminder of how amazing you are whenever you begin to doubt yourself. He’ll be more lenient about you hanging out in the newspaper room whenever you want. Although he won’t admit it, Mephisto asked Satan for a list of safe foods and drinks he can keep around that you’ll eat, and now there’s always safe food in the newspaper room.

A/N: This one was kind of heavy, so I'll try to pick a more lighthearted request next time. Also, just as a reminder, you can still provide input for what to do to celebrate the 1 year anniversary next month. Check the post "Input request" for more info (under the tag #moss update)

[cosmicmatter]

Types of Triggers

Following you will find an explanation of different types of triggers.

Time-related triggers. 

You may have heard of “anniversary reactions,” in which a person has a predictable and involuntary reaction on or around the anniversary of a traumatizing event. This experience is most well known in people who have intense grief reactions each year around the anniversary of the loss of a loved one. But anniversary reactions may be evoked for a wide variety of other events. At first, you may not recognize an anniversary reaction, but you or your therapist may begin to notice that you, for instance, become depressed, or very anxious, or feel suicidal around the same time each year, time after time. 

Time-related triggers may also involve a time of day or a particular period of time, such as weekends or holidays (see also chapter 16). For example,  some traumatized people may become increasingly fearful and anxious as it becomes dark each evening, related to overwhelming experiences that may have occurred around that time.

Place-related triggers. 

Many people find it hard to return to places where they were abused or had other highly distressing experiences. This avoidance can generalize to other places that remind them of the original situation, prompting them to evade more places and experiences to prevent triggering. For example, if a person had been robbed or assaulted on a bus, he or she might be inclined to avoid all busses. And eventually, this person may come to avoid any public transportation, including trains, trams, and planes. 

Many traumatized people regularly report that they are upset or overwhelmed by crowded spaces, such as shopping malls, long checkout lines, or crowded waiting rooms. Their aversion often has nothing to do with a traumatic memory, but rather they feel overstimulated and trapped, which may be similar to inner experiences they felt during traumatic events in the past. Even though some parts may be triggered by certain places, other parts may not be; they may even enjoy, for example, riding in the train or flying, or being at the mall. These contradictory experiences may set up internal conflicts, because some parts may dismiss or even be unaware that a trigger is problematic for other parts.

Relational triggers. 

Relationships themselves are often triggers. Relationships and any perceived threat to them evoke the most powerful feelings in everyone, for better or worse. When you have been mistreated by others, intense feelings of abandonment, rejection, humiliation, shame, panic, yearning, and rage are often easily triggered by the minor ups and downs that are a natural part of even the best of relationships. And when a serious relational disruption occurs, it can feel catastrophic. Some parts of you may always be on guard, looking out for any cues that perhaps you are being rejected or criticized, and thus they may overlook important cues to the contrary. Others may desperately seek out relationships, not attending to whether they are healthy (see chapters 28 and 29 for more about relationships). Many patients with complex dissociative disorders rightly felt criticized, lonely, and misunderstood as children. Anger or critical remarks by a partner or a friend in the present may quickly give rise to a partial reliving of old experiences, such as intense fear of being abandoned or misunderstood, or fear that you cannot speak your mind without terrible consequences.

Internal triggers.

People who have a dissociative disorder have typically learned to avoid much of their inner experience in order to avoid traumatic memories (see chapter 5). Any inner experience may be triggering, such as the sound of another part talking or yelling, certain emotions (anxiety, anger or shame, and so forth), sensations (such as pain, sweating), needs (such as wanting to be comforted), or thoughts (such as “I wish I was dead” or “I am not happy in this relationship”). Some parts may even provoke other parts as an internal reenactment of old experiences. For example, a highly critical part might scream that you are stupid when you are trying your best to cope with a difficult problem at work. This inner experience may be quite similar to some you may have had as a child. 

Sensory triggers. 

Body sensations are a particular type of internal trigger. These may resemble similar sensations that occurred around the time of a traumatizing event. Smells are particularly potent triggers. Other sensations include pain, the racing heart and breathlessness of anxiety, feeling too hot or cold, nausea, thirst, hunger, stomachache, the need to eliminate, or even certain body postures. Some women may be triggered by the sensations that accompany menstruation. The sense of being touched by another person may be especially triggering from some individuals.

Triggers for Positive Experiences

Triggers are usually thought of as negative, but some triggers evoke positive feelings and memories. For example, looking at pictures of a nice holiday that you enjoyed, the smell or taste of a specific food, or particular music may all evoke positive memories and feelings of contentment or warmth. Positive triggers are important because they can help you find some enjoyment and calmness in the present. In fact, your personal anchors are positive triggers that help you stay in the present.

Coping With Trauma Related Dissociation

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

Today's contribution for Disability Pride Month

Obligatory "I don't have this disorder. I'm raising awareness because I'm so fucking sick of women that drink while pregnant bitching about how hard it is being an 'autism mom'". (Autism mom in quotes because a) it's probably not autism and b) the phrase "autism mom" to describe "mom if an autistic kid" is stupid.)

(I'm going to use the term "women" instead of "uterus haver" not to be exclusionary or transphobic. But because I have a severe headache effecting my ability to find words. I am trans-masc. Don't cancel me. I'm not a FART.)

(This is not to demonize people that suffer from alcoholism. Addiction is a very real disability. This is to raise awareness for one of the only known preventable birth defects and hopefully seek help.)

Thank you for the people at @bfpnola discord for checking my post to make sure this doesn't sound eugenics-y.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)

FASD (previously known as fetal alcohol syndrome) is a disability that can range from mild to severe dependant on how much the mother drank while pregnant. It only takes one glass of wine while pregnant to cause this disorder

I already know what the fuck this is. Why are you talking about it?

Because your only know about the severe cases diagnosed as fetal alcohol syndrome. You THINK you know what it is. But the reclassification has only come up in like... 2003? Fetal alcohol syndrome is like... the far end worst severity of FASD. And since the new information of it being a spectrum disorder, estimates have the disorder as high as 5% of the population (and I really think it's higher based on some information I'm about to share).

Fine. So what is this... spectrum disorder?

Very good! So this disorder is HIGHLY misdiagnosed as autism. So all those boomers bitching about "the rates of autism going up?" Yeah they probably caused it. Symptoms include low body weight, facial differences, poor coordination, difficulty maintaining attention, poor memory, poor emotional regulation, slower development, poor reasoning skills, issues with the heart, bones, and kidneys, shorter height, shorter head size,

I have all of those things. How do I know it's FASD and not the autism?

That's kinda the issue. The only real way you can know is ask your mom if there's ANY possibility she's had a drink while she was pregnant. I can't stress this enough IT ONLY TAKES ONE DRINK. For instance I have a lot of those issues, but my mom was so paranoid she wouldn't even dye her hair or drink coffee. Like there's NO WAY.

Like what do I do about it?

Mostly get your accommodations met and raise awareness. Like people are still actively drinking while pregnant because they are still under the pre-2000 belief that just a couple of drinks are okay. It's really not. Not to mention most women don't know they're pregnant until 4-6 weeks in. So they shouldn't be drinking if they're actively trying to have a child. Because that increases the risk.

What the fuck. People are drinking while pregnant? I don't believe you.

Each of these claims are linked.

30.3% of all women reported drinking alcohol at some time during pregnancy, of which 8.3% reported binge drinking (4+ drinks on one occasion)

According to the Center for Disease Control, one in 10 (10.2%) of pregnant women in the United States reports drinking alcohol in the past 30 days.

Despite clear evidence that primary prevention of FASD is possible if prenatal alcohol exposure is avoided, up to 80 % of women drink during pregnancy, many before pregnancy recognition

What? Women are drinking while pregnant? That's fucked up.

This is not to say people with FASD are lesser than.

But all of this "curing autism" when most of this "autism" is caused by a pregnant person's ability to stop fucking drinking for literally 5 minutes. THESE WOMEN THAT ARE DRINKING WHILE PREGNANT ARE THE ONES CAUSING ALL OF THIS GIVING "AUTISM". IF YOU DRANK WHILE PREGNANT. IF THERE'S EVEN A SLIVER OF A CHANCE THAT YOUR DRANK WHILE PREGNANT? ITS PROBABLY NOT AUTISM. ITS PROBABLY THIS DISORDER.

I'm just really fed up with all of these "autism moms" that also make "wine mom" jokes and making light of literal alcoholism bitching about how hard it is to be an "autism mom" because YOU'RE THE PROBLEM. STOP LAUGHING ABOUT YOUR ALCOHOLISM AND PUT THE DAMN GLASS DOWN.

But my parents are literally autistic

So they don't really know the generational effect of FASD because the new knowledge is so new. But since FASD is literally genetic issues caused by alcohol while you're in the womb. It's assumed that it can cause issues that are passed down.

But like this diagnosis is SO NEW that we really don't know much.

-fae

[furiousgoldfish]

I wrote a very pained, depressive and dark post, even maybe too dark for this blog, but I ultimately decided to publish it, just because this pain has always been invisible in me, and I want to be able to say something. If you're going to read it, there's a lot of mention of death and contemplation of suicide in it, and a lot of painful emotion. Maybe someone will resonate with it and find words to describe their own pain. I also want to note that even though every word of it is true, I am most of the time completely dissociated from this, I'm not actively thinking it, and it came out now because my parents are actively trying to find me and disrupting the life I've tried to make for myself.

What my parents did to me is worse than death, they erased me. When I escaped I didn't know who I was, I had no hope to survive, I didn't think I was worth anything, I felt ashamed to even exist. I was suicidal, i thought I'd be dead within a month even if I don't do it myself. I didn't think I had it in me to survive, to be alive, to be anything. I was a less than a ghost, I didn't even have memories to remember of who I once was because there was no warm memories, only violence, blame, guilt, shame, pain, terror. I was supposed to be a person, and they put me in a state where I knew nothing about being a person, only property and a target, it was my entire life. I was told I deserved this, I was a monster, there was never anything else that is correct to do to me, but hurt me. I thought it was my job to be endlessly harmed. They knew I was suicidal and didn't stop. The only reason I didn't kill myself was the dissociative disorder that functioned like a suicide prevention measure, I physically could not have done it because I have been split into pieces and one of the pieces prevented me from doing it. I would have died otherwise.

What would a quick violent death be compared to this? A fucking blessing. I was slowly tortured until I was willing to kill myself in order to end it. They didn't want to dirty their hands with my murder, they planned on torturing me until I did it to myself. I had an intense drive to survive despite everything, and even that was getting erased. My basic instincts were being erased by the amount of pain I was in. My personality was gone, I didn't even have a personality, it was all overwhelmed by pain and desperation to both survive and end it all, I walked trough life looking death in the face the entire time, it felt so close, so close to me, like it would claim me any second, but I had to stay stoic, calm, me staring down death had to be invisible, I couldn't let it show. It shouldn't have mattered to anyone what I was experiencing. I was torn between life and death, stuck in constant anticipation of it and it couldn't have mattered.

Take a person, any person, imagine them having a life, family, friends, interests, hobbies, desires, dreams, loved ones, support, community. Now imagine that same person isolated, everything stripped away from them, and them being hurt until they can no longer remember anything they wanted to live for. Even their basic instinct to survive is stripped frm them as pain is too large for them to be able to sustain themselves, there's no longer anything in this person's life worth living for, nothing they remember about who they were, no warm thought they can think about themselves, and they're repeatedly told they deserve this, they've wanted this. Until there's nothing of them left.

That was me, but from the start. I didn't get to experience having a life, family, loved ones, interests, dreams, community, or any of that first, I didn't get to know how it was to have any of that! From the very start it was pain and being told that this is all there is, and that I'm stupid for ever thinking there would be anything more to life, that it is in fact, only terror and death and I'm a weakling for not taking it better, everyone else is dealing with this just fine. Shame and guilt were the only traits I could have, I didn't know anything further about me. Nobody knew me because nobody saw me being abused. Nobody could know I was worthless, it had to be my private hell. I would have to live only to the point where it was decided that it was enough and I had to die, or until the point where I couldn't take it anymore and take my own life, even though I so strongly didn't want to, even that basic desire was tempered with and overwritten by pain.

Who would want a life like that? Life of not only being aware that nobody cares about you, but everyone around you is willing to inflict pain on you until you wish to die, but can't. Where crying and screaming is forbidden even when you can't breathe from the amount of pain you're in; you're not even allowed to cry out. You fight with yourself every day on how badly you want to die and why you can't, and it doesn't help, you get lost in magical thinking in order to escape from the hell you're in, but you're brutally reminded of it every time you interact with anyone, when they find you hiding under the bed and dreaming. You don't even know that you're supposed to have loved ones, be safe, be unharmed, that life is supposed to be different, that you're not alive only to be a target, that you're worth anything. You don't even know that you're supposed to have more freedom in life than to choose the manner and time of your death, this is all that's dealt to you. And now, live, see how far you can get before you die. Would anyone choose that? Would anyone decide to be born into a life like that? Wouldn't you choose not to exist at all rather than be put trough that? To be erased and then having to keep on living while thinking you in fact, deserve death, and should do it yourself, and you know if you do die, it won't matter, just like your life didn't? Because people around you regularly nearly kill you and then laugh about it like it was a funny joke? They humiliate you for how ugly you look close to death? You're scared that your last moment will be humiliation for how unseemly your corpse looks and you're hoping you'd be able to die alone, to not be berated as you're dying.

Death is nothing to me compared to this. Waiting to die is worse than death. Endless anticipation of pain is worse than death. Having everything about you erased by pain is worse. Not knowing anything about yourself except that you are incredibly shameful existence and that you need to feel guilty all of the time, is worse. Watching people around you receive care and warmth while you're stuck watching death in the face silently, pretending it's not happening, and trying to not have anyone's attention on yourself because someone noticing means more pain, more shame and guilt. It's worse. Kill me any fucking day. But this will always be worse. Every time I face the reality of my life I wish I had died in the womb, at childbirth, I wish I had died when I was 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 12, any time before I experienced all this. It would have been so much less pain. It would have been so much easier on me.

And I've already given up on ever having a place in anyone's heart, because at this point, I don't have it in me to make people love me. I have nothing about me that is other people find worth caring for, I made peace with it. There will be no loved ones, and thats fine. But at least then I should get to live my life alone the way I want it. I should find joy in being who I found I am, and doing what I want to do. I should get to do things that give me a little bit of pleasure and enjoyment, and I should be safe, and death should no longer come knocking at my door, staring me down like I owe it something. If I can't even have that, then to hell with everything. What is the fucking point of anything if all my life is a continued slow torture until I can no longer bear it. I have nobody to bear it for, nobody would be harmed by my death. But I also don't deserve to die, because I want to live, and this should be mine. Who the fuck dares to try and take this away from me again. I want to fucking explode. If I have to make my own justice then how do I do it. I literally just want to live. And I see other people having at least that much secured for them. Why can't I at least have that much. I am seriously asking for the bare fucking minimum.

[allzelemonz]

Keepsake: Tom Riddle X Male Reader

Prompt: Kinktober Day 5: Mind Control/Dub/Non-Con Pronouns: None mentioned except in summary Physical Sex: AMAB Rating: E/Smut Warnings: Dubious consent, non-con vibes, mind control, drugging, Viagra potion, Tom Riddle being Voldemort in the early days, oral sex, anal sex, bottom reader, multiple orgasms, hopeful open ending, not proof read Summary: Tom Riddle met a nice boy at Hogwarts. One he couldn't let get away. He keeps him away from his work and uses him as he sees fit.

You don’t quite remember a lot from your time at Hogwarts before meeting Tom. You do remember meeting him. His rare but bright smile and his handsome features brought you in and begged you to stay. Who were you to object?

His kindness knows no bounds. Before he leaves for the day he always makes you your favorite morning drink in only the way he can. There’s something special he does that you’ve never been able to do when you make the drink. He says it’s a secret. When he’s away from home he keeps an eye on you through the mirror and there’s always one of his most trusted followers not too far away. Again, another secret. You’re a secret. Only a few of his followers know what they’re protecting. When he comes home he’s attentive as always. He ensures you’ve had something to eat and that you’ve behaved as he desires. And as the day winds down he prepares you for a sleepless night.

He makes you another drink, whatever you want before bed. He always adds that special touch that only he can. He leads you to bed after that. He sits on edge and you follow his silent commands. He draws you down on your knees, his hand remaining on your head as you unfasten his pants. You know he doesn’t like to be teased, you would never have any intention of doing so. You take his hardness in your hand, preparing him with a few soft pumps before wrapping your mouth around him.

His hand tightens into your hair, pulling it as he guides your movements. It doesn’t take much for him to move a simple blowjob into fully fucking your face. He relishes in using you. Even as he unloads down your throat he still keeps his hand harshly fixed in your hair with shrap thrusts. You swallow every drop he gives you, he would have it no other way. He keeps you there, mouth around his now soft dick for a moment, as he tugs at your hair and looks down at you. He loves this sight. You used and beneath him.

He leads you backwards, allowing your jaw to rest as his dick slides out. He pulls you up and you know to undress before laying on your back with your head resting on the pillows. He watches your every move, blinking very sparingly. He moves to your bedside table and pulls out a potion bottle. He holds it to your mouth as he does every night and watches as you swallow it.

You watch as his hand moves to your soft dick and begins to stoke it. He hates how long it takes for the potion to work, but it’s all he has. He told you long ago that you have a disorder that prevents you from getting hard on your own. There are fuzzy memories that vaguely contradict what he’s told you, but why would he lie?

He moves upwards and places his body over yours, laying almost fully on top of you. He begins to kiss you and you kiss him back, your hands moving to his hips just like you know he likes. He grinds against you as he feels you harden beneath him. There’s shuffling as his kisses get sloppy. He’s positioning himself, hard once again. He enters you without warning and his lips leave yours in time for you to let out a cry from the pain.

“Who are you, my dear?” His hand rests on the side of your face, his thumb stroking your cheek.

“Voldemort’s”

One too many times you’d answered “Tom Riddle’s” and gotten punished. You know what he wants to hear now. His hips move sharply inside of you, bringing another cry. He sets a pace, a harsh one right away. He pounds into you without mercy, moving to just the right angle above you to slam all the way in.

He grabs your chin, stalling after a particularly harsh thrust. “I should be hearing my name.”

His voice is harsh, almost a growl.

“Voldemort,” You moan in response.

He smirks and resumes his harsh pace. His name continues to fall from your mouth, your eyes now closed as you try to process the sensations of pain and pleasure. There is a sudden, tight grip on your dick and you know he’s pulled out his wand. His spellwork in bed is well-practiced and he has you cumming in less than a few minutes. With the potion’s help you remain hard and Tom makes you cum over and over again with his magic and the harsh fucking. After your dick is finally spent he angles your hips up so he can further fuck into you and he cums within the minute. He fills you and leaves himself inside for a moment before muttering a spell with a wave of his wand, then he pulls himself out and not a drop of his cum leaves you. He usually plugs you up, he just likes to have part of him inside of you as much as possible.

When he sits back on his knees and releases your hips you fall back onto the bed and take heavy breaths. Tom watches you as he always does. His hand lightly stroking your thigh and watching your chest rise and fall. You hear him mutter something again before you fall asleep.

Most mornings he wakes you up and makes you your drink, but today he’s gone. When you wander into the kitchen there is a note by your favorite cup. He must have had something important come up. There is something in the back of your mind that tells you not to drink it as you always do. It’s so strong that you dump the liquid down the sink before you head off to the shower.