#the entire time I was thinking about how to get myself into inpatient or some sort of help

[rosicheeks]

Been thinking about you hon, missed seeing you around. Glad to have you pop up in my feed again ❤️

[circe69]

heyyy! i love ur writingg sm I recently discovered ur blog - (I also love ur biooooo!), I had this idea and I thought I would share it w you!

imagine reader is simon’s wife/fiancé and a medic, and like an old married couple, reader tells Simon off in front of the rest of the 141 and he’s like lost for words 😭😭 that’s all, I just wanna hear your thoughts hahah! much love 💕

aww thanks so much anon! you're very sweet :3 hopefully this was what you wanted! sometimes i get requests and just run with it...lol enjoy!

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"You seriously should not have done that, Ghost. What were you thinking out there?" You shouted as you walked into the shared kitchenette. You were following Ghost and trying to keep up with his large strides, but you were not even close to catching up.

"I was being careful, Y/N, but even if I wasn't, that's what I signed up for when I took this job." He slammed his handgun on the table and started ripping off his vest and gear in an inpatient manner. You were too distracted to notice that the rest of the troop was also in the kitchen, eating quietly as you entertained them with your bickering.

"Look, I'm just trying to make sure you know you don't have to-" You paused, "risk your life all the time." You were making a cup of coffee as Ghost caged you in from behind, pressing his chest against your back and kissed the side of you neck carefully, slowly. All you heard was the clearing of throats, most likely coming from Soap, and the heartbeat steadily thumping from Ghost's chest.

"Don't worry about me so much, Miss Medic." He started walking away as you slammed your mug down on the counter, "Well, you can't just tell me to not worry about you! For goodness' sake, I would've killed myself if you'd died." Tears were starting to brim at your waterline, and they would've poured if Captain Price hadn't abruptly stood up, "Simon, a word?"

Ghost rolled his eyes, reluctantly following Price like a little kid getting in trouble. All you saw was the two of them walk into Price's office and the door shutting behind them.

You turned back around to mix sugar into your now-cold coffee. "Don't worry about it too much, miss." Soap said as you sniffled, "As brilliant as the man is, he doesn't think he's worthy of being looked after."

Soap got up from his seat, folding the newspaper he was reading, and walked over to you. Putting his hand on your shoulder, " 'Ts not his fault though." He patted a few times before sliding the newspaper underneath your coffee mug, letting the spilled coffee soak through the material.

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"Simon, you have to remember why that woman does what she does. It's not 'cause she needs you to be unwounded for insurance reasons, it's not like she needs you alive to stay hired. That woman loves you," Price said, pointing at the door signaling he meant you, the said woman standing in the kitchen.

Ghost sat down in a chair, leaning his elbow on an armrest and leaning his head on his hand.

He sighed aggressively, "I know." He rubbed his face with a gloved hand before he repeated, "I know, Price."

"Well then, do something 'bout it!"

Ghost looked Price in the eyes for a good minute before nodding slightly and standing up from his seat and opening the door to the kitchen. Price sneaked out from behind him, leaving the kitchen after whispering, "There's some paperwork that's calling me." Simon smirked knowing good and well that every paper he'd need was in the room they were just in, but quietly watched as Price walked off into a different room entirely.

You sat at the table, with your cup of coffee and blank eyes staring into space. Ghost stared back at you, hoping some satellite would signal to your brain that he was sorry, that he really did love how you needed him, but staring alone wasn't going to get through to you; he was going to have to speak.

He sat down in the chair across from you, the metal screeching at his size, his knees slightly bumping the table and making your coffee ripple.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. You finally looked up at him, resting your head in your palm. He loved the way your cheek looked smushed against your hand, the way your eyes looked at him when you wanted to say something but didn't know exactly what.

"It's okay. I was probably being a bit overprotective. Over someone that doesn't really need it." You said, gently placing your foot on top of his giant boot underneath the table.

He smiled at the action and started slowly bouncing his foot up and down, moving yours on top of his. "Who said I don't need it? I get into trouble all the time, you know that."

Chuckling at the thought, you said, "You're reckless," underneath your breath. He noticed, however, "So bloody reckless," he repeated as he stood up from his seat and circled the table around to you.

Ghost towered over you, and as you stood up, he still was over a foot taller than you. His chest was at your eye level, and he loved the way your chin upturned in order to look at him properly. Sometimes he'd pick up your jaw for you and hold it in place with his giant hand.

"You forgive me?" He said, leaning down to your face.

"Of course." You stepped a little closer, slightly teasing him by pushing your body against his.

His finger met your jaw, tracing the soft outline of it, while staring dead at your mouth, "Good." Ghost started to lean into you even more and put his lips on yours until the door opened, "WAHOOO THEY MADE UP! GAZ GET IN HERE NOW." Soap exclaimed at the sight of you and Ghost in close proximity, the way you should be. You heard Gaz running down the hallway, his dog tags rattling against each other before he slid on his toes into the room. He slammed a hand on Soap's chest, "See, I told you they'd be fine. They're practically already married anyways; nothing could break the old geezers."

[sadieshavingsex]

hi everyone. I think I have figured out the “real problem” in my life. I am really starting to understand myself, I think, in a new way. I understand how my entire concept of life fits well into the ideas of borderline personality disorder, codependency, fearful or anxious attachment, boundary issues, and more.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot this morning. Here is what I think is the root problem: i am literally, no hyperbole at all, clinically debilitated by my all-encompassing obsession with love.

What I mean by this is that I am so obsessed with finding a partner, attaching to a partner, stressing about a partner, discarding a partner, and starting the cycle over again that I feel I need some kind of clinical treatment, whether it’s inpatient our outpatient, whether it’s therapy or meds, or I need to join some kind of group like SLAA, whatever I can do to stop this uncontrollable issue that I have accidentally allowed to control my life for years.

I cannot stress enough that I am literally unable to experience life without these obsessions, and I see very little point in living without or outside of this cycle of romantic attachment. The advice to find a new hobby, see my friends more often, or take some time to relax by myself will never be enough—despite hanging out with people or working on a project, I will mentally be in a different place, wondering about my partner/crush or worrying about our relationship. The times are very few and far between when I am genuinely able to forget or not focus on this near-constant train of thought, and it usually happens when I am very busy or have a lot going on in some way. Even when I achieve this state, the moment that I am back to “normal” life with less demands or less concerted focus, the thoughts rush in again. And, much of the time when I am having these continuing obsessive thoughts, I genuinely believe that these thoughts are the most important thing I can focus on in my life, so I will sometimes have difficulty focusing on other stuff, participating in activities with others, or getting things done without these thoughts constantly playing in my mind.

I mean this in the most serious way possible. I am LITERALLY OBSESSED with romance and objects of affection. It sounds like I’m overexaggerating and I think that when I have become vaguely aware of this issue in the past and tried to tell people about it, it has generally been met with the assertion that I MUST be overexaggerating this in some way. And, if I’m not, then it is honestly something that seems super embarrassing to admit or talk about. But the truth is that I feel like I can’t overstate or overexaggerate the impact that this has on my life. I feel like it takes up every moment of my free time and then some, and it has ever since I was a child.

I know this issue essentially fits into all of these diagnoses and issues I’ve been experiencing and reading about, but I somehow feel that it transcends them as well. Like, THIS is the thing that makes normal aspects of life debilitating. THIS is the reason I let my boundaries fall by the wayside so easily. THIS is the reason I repeatedly find myself in situations that make no sense with what I’m actually trying to achieve. THIS is the problem. This singleminded uncontrollable OBSESSION with loving and being loved is INSANE. It is driving me actually nuts and running my life into the ground. It needs to be dealt with and it honestly cannot go on!!!!!!!!

Anyway. I feel encouraged by realizing that but I have no clue how to actually fix it. Thank you very much for reading lol.

[justanothersyscourse]

Live Reaction to the McLean video, including important quotes

So, I did it. I watched the whole thing. Below is an outline, including direct quotes, explanations of the videos and their use, and some of my thoughts.

I hope this helps if you can't watch the video yourself, and satisfies your curiosity.

Major misconceptions: all videos used were to illustrate one single behaviour that was uncharacteristic of patients that clinicians currently see, that was further discussed and described to the audience based on the example video.

The audience isn't who you think it is, this wasn't meant to be a public video, clearly.

There was no direct fakeclaiming, none of these systems were being singled out. They simply had a video that displayed the behaviour he was looking to discuss.

I don't agree with using uncensored videos from tiktok.

It's important to note that he skips several parts of the presentation due to time. These portions may have contained information that might change the way this presentation is viewed, either for the better or worse.

A lot of statements are in regards to "patients they currently see and treat," and I experienced this first hand as an older system finding communities online. This is a video that focuses more on the emergence of a community that is open and proud of being systems, and how different that is from the community of people with DID they currently treat.

A lot of what was said in the video are things I've discussed on this blog myself. All in all, it wasn't bad, it brought up a lot of good discussion points that I think warrant conversation. Could it have been done better and in a more ethical way? Absolutely.

This is probably going to be disjointed and full of spelling errors. Please forgive.

0:01 - Grand Rounds - Okay, right off the bat, this changes things. This video is a training video. Grand round presentations are: “a methodology of medical education and inpatient care, consisting of presenting the medical problems and treatment of a particular patient to an audience consisting of doctors, pharmacists, residents, and medical students.”

The video itself is a livestream to the same audience that couldn’t be in physical attendance.

Either this video was never meant to be public, or the presenter didn’t know it was going to be public. There isn’t much point in censoring things when your entire audience is supposed to be held to the medical standard of confidentiality.

Should he have still censored it? Absolutely. But I’m not shocked he didn’t anymore. Also, I’m pretty sure the use of the videos falls under fair use.

Let’s continue on!

02:50 - The presenter states, “I cannot, from afar, verify or deny who does or does not have DID, and I’ll be showing examples of online content for illustrative purposes only. I don’t claim to know anything about the individuals portrayed, beyond what they share freely and publicly online.” ***popping back up to say: I believe he’s talking about the specific behaviour seen, in the single instance, and not the people themselves or their behaviour as a whole. For example, at 5:05, he discussing the specific behaviour being shown. Nothing more, nothing less. He's not talking about them in particular, but the behaviour.

3:55 - The presenter explains that he has a number of patients that are confused by the people they’re seeing on TikTok, and I get that. I was already in therapy when I came across my first DID space online. Very, very soon after that, I found the endo community. In both cases, it was a complete shock to the system (HAH) because all I had ever known was shame and guilt. I had spent my life trying to hide what was happening to me, and here were these people! Putting themselves in mortal danger by announcing that they were a system! THE HORROR! Finding the communities initially triggered a HUGE, negative reaction in us. It actually, genuinely terrified us to see people being so open and honest.

4:25 - The presenter explains that patients they currently see are often distraught and confused, etc. True. The vast majority of people in therapy are my age and older. The people in the online communities are only just now entering the clinical world. It’s a shock not just to the patients, but to the doctors, too, to see this massive, POSITIVE shift around the disorder.

5:05 - The presenter states, “I want to show you this video so you can see how the online behaviour contrasts with what we know about our own DID patients”.

5:23 - The first Tiktok video. A partner guessing which alter is fronting. Both are clearly much older in age. They're laughing and smiling.

6:10 - Presenter states that in the patients they currently see, switching is distressing and confusing, and is an intrusive symptom related to flashbacks and trauma related memories. “In this example, we don’t see confusion or conflict about the switching. Instead, it’s almost treated as if it’s a game with her partner.” This doesn’t seem to be negative from his tone, more just a statement.

7:05 - “They are self reporting as DID, but many do not report a trauma history, and they often have elaborate descriptions of parts or alters that are almost character-like. They freely discuss these parts displaying different manner of dress and appearance and so in this following video, I want to show you an example of someone displaying different manner of dress and appearance in a character-like fashion.”

7:40 - Second TikTok video. A very, VERY colourful room and outfit, puppy style makeup, fursuits, dancing, loud music, 8 different styles. “These overt changes are not characteristic of the patients we treat, and these changes and manner of dress are not characteristic of the patients we treat.”

8:05 - “So how do we make sense of overt changes and people changing their hairstyles, tone of voice, appearance, dress and role, when we know from years of clinical and research work that nearly all patients with DID are reluctant to discuss their symptoms, and tend to feel ashamed and conceal what is happening to them? Do these social media content creators actually have DID? If they’re not genuine cases of DID, what are they? And what role is social media playing in self diagnosis and the perpetuation of these online depictions of DID that do not fit with our understanding of the diagnosis?”

That was the introduction. We’re not even in the video proper yet. These aren't his questions, they're introducing the topics.

8:40 - What is dissociation and DID? Descriptions and definitions of normative dissociation. “Traumative dissociation, on the other hand...” “DID is the most severe form of trauma related dissociative disorder.” Nice. Talks about amnesia and alters. Talks about subtle presentations. “So to reiterate, we rarely see obvious signs of overt DID or switching.” Also true. Something like only 5% of system were overt, though it’s noted that the number is on the rise (obviously). And this also makes sense to me, because until I started therapy, and until I found the online community, I didn’t even know I had DID. I was so covert, I was tricking myself, hich for decades is how MPD/DID worked. I made a post fairly recently about how people could go their whole lives and never notice before they internet became common use. There wasn’t access to these new resources to be able to form any kind of communication without help.

11:05 - “Amnesia is really about trauma related information being compartmentalized.” Nice. Note that down, people.

11:45 - “Most often, switches are provoked by trauma related content.” True. He very carefully chose the words “most often”, and I appreciate that.

11:55 - “Identity alteration is what many media portrayals have sensationalized. People that we work with are so afraid of their own thoughts and feelings and memories that they displace them onto a personified aspect of themselves.” I feel kind of called out. Wow.

12:13 - “DID is really about the “not-me” experience.” Oof. “And for wanting to do anything for that trauma to not have happened to them, and to not have to experience the overwhelming trauma related content so they can get through their day.” Sucker punched.

12:30 - Media and Hollywood portrayals like United States of Tara, Split, Moon Knight have dramatized and exaggerated the “not-me” experience-- or the identity alteration featured in DID. This has contributed to a lot of misunderstandings and harmful myths-- We’re dangerous, unpredictable, superhuman, have the potential to get away with illegal activities, and that all of this would happen outside of our awareness. Unlike what’s seen in media, “Our patients most often feel identity confusion and experience identity alteration quietly, subtly. They don’t want people to know that something has shifted or changed for them.” True. Masking.

 13:47 - “DID is considered a posttraumatic developmental disorder, and it develops when a child, who happens to have an innate capacity to dissociate (likely a genetic predisposition), is repeatedly exposed to intense, chronic trauma or abuse at a very young age, usually before the age of 6.” True facts. Oooh, he talks about disorganized attachments. That it’s not enough for trauma to happen, but that the combination of parents who don’t provide restorative care is a contributing factor.

14:30 - Presentation of DID in children, how and why it develops. A child depends on this dissociation for survival, for keeping in touch with the same parents that provide them food and shelter while also causing pain and confusion, and they depends on keeping this dissociation hidden. “DID is a disorder of hiddenness, and that’s true into adulthood.”

16:17 - “And that’s why it’s surprising to see people online coming out or celebrating receiving a diagnosis, as in the case in this video.”

16:26 - Third video. A person with rainbow hair states they got diagnosed with DID “a few days ago”. Unsure how to tell people or come out about it, they get a “Happy DID Diagnosis” cake. “As you can see, there's not much fear or conflict about receiving the diagnosis or being labelled as such.” Times have changed and so has our understanding of the disorder.

17:43 - There’s a long history of controversy surrounding DID. Discusses the history and controversy of various time periods, from late 18th century to current. Freud and his edible fantasies, false memory syndrome, hysteria, all the fun stuff. The change from MPD to DID is not because we have more than one personality, it’s because we never developed a fully cohesive and consolidated sense of self across contexts. I like that statement.

22:26 - The recent trend of self diagnosis and the advent of social media representation have continued the legacy of delegitimizing DID.” Judging by the fact that he states in the beginning the bit about “no trauma history,” I’m kind of getting the feeling he’s getting endos confused with DID systems, and as an anti-endo, endo shenanigans have always scared me, especially the prospect of it further stigmatizing DID. Here’s a clinician voicing that, but I’m not sure how I feel about it, though he finishes with, “And so, still today, at the heart of this controversy, are two models of dissociation. One, that asserts that DID is a product of trauma and reports that childhood abuse are genuine and true, and one that believes that dissociation and trauma memories are largely made up or false due to fantasy proneness and suggestibility.” So rather than go the endo route, we're still in iatrogenesis. Interesting.

23:00 - The Trauma Model explained

23:55 - The Fantasy Model explained

24:55 - While the Fantasy Model has no backing, the Trauma Model has been supported in multiple ways, discussions of neurobiological research.

28:10 - Social media and online depictions, the rise of social media

28:50 - While there have always been communities for DID, they were previously niche, and social media platforms have changed that, reaching billions worldwide. The algorithm is part of the problem, because as you like DID content, more shows up in your feed. Additionally, COVID and the pandemic drove us to spend more time online-- especially youth. In four months since his last presentation, views on certain hashtags for DID have increased by 200-400 million, showcasing how quickly these trends are growing online.

30:35 - Internet and social media pros and cons. A picture of this one helps:

Information on DID has become widely and readily available, and there are safe spaces and online communities. “There’s been a general destigmatization of DID online, and this is a good thing. The dominant narrative is no longer a skeptical one.”

32:00 - “Individuals, especially young people, may attach clinical significance to normal experiences, they might elaborate on or manifest symptoms of DID, instead of acknowledging that they may have another problem.” Connection within these communities helps. Creating elaborate inner worlds and characters helps them connect with others and themselves. I've said this before.

“There’s a lot of online harrassment for these content creators and while that’s harmful to the individuals, it’s also harmful to our patients with DID who might stumble upon someone accusing another person of making up their symptoms, which is a common fear that people with DID have.”

33:30 - Social Media Dynamics that enforce trends. “It’s possible that social media is allowing people with genuine DID to express themselves, however, it’s also very possible that the social media internet trends are contributing to increased DID claims that are not genuine, and the dynamics of social media encourage this by rewarding people who create attention-grabbing content, regardless of how truthful or real the content they portray is.” This is important, because on this blog, I’ve always pushed HEAVILY for well-informed self diagnosis, and encouraged everyone I’ve spoken to to consider other options before settling on DID. These aren’t wild takes, it’s things we’ve all said and thought before.

34:10 - “It encourages self-categorization and connection to certain identities and networks, and it encourages performance of those identities to belong or fit in with the online community. There’s a significant amount of self-commodification, where a person can generate income by gathering more followers and social cache, and I’ll show you a video with millions and millions of views.”

34:50 - The fifth video. Popular system. “A day in the life of someone with DID,” alter woke up and got coffee, 8:30, someone switched in, 8:40, someone else switched in, “people ask how we know who switches in and out because we have amnesiac barriers,” yes, they say that, “I am gatekeeper of the system so I’m able to keep track a little bit-- it doesn’t always work.” On and on, 1pm, “I’m here, I’m not entirely sure who’s been out, been really switchy today. I’m going to have to ask the keeper.” 2pm, switch again, in bed because of panic attack. 3pm. Switch again. “We’re so tired, I blame the keeper.” Switch again.

JESUS. There was a period of time where we switched that much, but we were in a baddddd living situation.

36:25 - The system from the video has a merch page and a cameo account and it’s on screen. “So it’s possible that some social media influencers, like X, may be malingering or have factitious disorders.” Explanation of malingering and fictitious, including monetary gain and attention.

37:25 - “We also see self commodification in this video.”

37:35 - Another video-- the same system from the 7:40 mark, advertising merchandise to their followers.

38:00 - “So again, to reiterate, these are not characteristics of people with DID that we see in the patients that we are treating. While some individuals are likely aware they’re exaggerating or fabricating some or all of the symptoms of DID, some online users may also present with dissociative symptoms and genuinely believe that they have DID.” Imitative DID.

38:30 - “Individuals with imitative DID may benefit from psychological and social gain in some way, and therefore, social media platforms are ideal places for imitative DID to thrive.”

It can help to see the slide :

“The DID narrative helps these people explain frequent confusion about who they really are.”

39:53 - “Another example of what might be imitative DID includes plurality or multiplicity in so-called endogenic systems.” Brings up astaeasweb. I'm genuinely surprised here. This video is taking a turn. ***Popping back up here to say, wait until the end, I'm happy with the conclusion

40:40 - “Here’s a video of someone welcoming others to the plural community, offering resources and tips”.

First line of the video, “Welcome to community, I definitely recommend looking up The Plural Association.” Ohohohoh, you have my attention. Where is this going.

Nowhere, sadly, but I can see why the TPA involved themselves.

41:40 - “It’s almost a how-to guide to being plural, but people with DID-- they don’t choose this, they don’t wish for this, their symptoms developed out of a need for survival.”

41:45 - What is endogenesis - multiplicity that is non-pathological, development of multiplicity that does not have a trauma origin. Promotion of plurality as a healthy mindset, and an identity. “Some don’t identify as having DID, but many do, and more work is needed to understand if these cases are genuine DID, imitative DID, or something else.”

43:55 - “Switching is actually very rare in the way that it’s portrayed online, and it does not characterize most cases of DID. I’m going to show you a couple examples of dramatized forms of switching, which again, is not characteristic of the people we treat.”

44:20 - Video. Person sits back in car to wait for a switch to go into a store. *starts dissociating*. I’ve always hated these kinds of videos. They make me so uncomfortable. Person blinks. Their head falls forward. Wrong alter switches in. “This is how we don’t always know who’s going to front.”

45:02 - “And another example.” We’ve all seen this system around before. I’ve talked about their videos and how... the whole... “no one in the body” thing is weird. Like, can you just imagine if you literally crumpled into a heap on the floor every time you switched? They’re wearing a nametag and saying, “I can feel it coming.” Goes crosseyed. Their head falls onto the desk. They finally sit up and start swearing, before smirking and ripping off the nametag. “Guess the player”.

I agree. This is... very heavily dramatized switching. I hate this video. I'm not calling this system fake, I'm saying I hate this stupid video. I don't want to be associated with it. Just because they're being young and "cringe" doesn't mean they're faking, and on a more positive note, I wish I had the self-confidence they have. Good for them.

45:45 - “In both examples, we see an uncharacteristic process of awareness of the process of dissociation, in such a way that they can plan for and video tape it happening.” Switches in the patients they see are often subtle and unnoticed by outside observers.

46:43 - “In this video, we see someone who has developed a really creative or elaborate way of showing their parts or alters.” I think it’s the same system we just saw, showing off picrews of their alters.

47:40 - The final video. It’s the couple from the original video. Used to showcase how in imitative DID you might see uncharacteristic awareness of parts and switching. It’s a joke video. They’re figuring out who’s fronting and they pull out that old “guess who” game?? The one where you flip down the little pictures.

49:45 - Final slide

He skips this part due to time, but references the above paper.

“It’s incredibly difficult to decide if these cases are genuine, malingering, factitious, or something else. I can’t say from afar. And again, I don’t know anything about these people aside from what they put online.”

“Even if they don’t actually meet the criteria for DID, they might still have trauma, and they may feel invalidated by not having that recognized in the way they wish.”

“Based on the number of reports and referrals that we're getting, accurate online information and professional education are more important than ever.” Discusses the concern that imitative DID will delegitimize and undermine current research and progress, and those with genuine DID.

Question period: ***I wrote very fast as he was talking, this is not quite word for word, but it's extremely close and cuts out some extra rambling

1) Does what people get angry about when they’re denied a diagnosis indicate why they might be imitating? There isn’t enough research into this.

2) There’s another community that’s expanding and growing, how do we approach treating these individuals? (I think this is in reference to endogenics). It’s a minefield considering the controversy. The online community is very against questioning of their diagnosis and perception. We did this presentation 4 months ago and there was a lot of discussion online about it and how we were “questioning validity”. These people don’t need classic DID treatment, but they may still need treatment in general. They don’t have PTSD and they don’t have a DD, so you’re right, there’s a new community emerging who will need something, and it might be a combination of treatments that already exist, but it’s not for PTSD or DID. 

3) What would healthy empowerment on social media look like? We’ve had our own patients involved in patient advisory groups, and there are very established and legitimate ways for people with  DID to destigmatize and provide good information-- there’s a lot of accounts online that DO provide good information, and there’s a space for it, and we do want people talking about and have awareness about DID. It’s about doing it responsibly. For our patients, it’s too distressing for our patients to sift through content to see what’s good and what’s not. I should have talked more about the accounts that provided accurate information about DID.

[findingmypeace]

I’m done with my work now but so often I find myself in this predicament where I intend to say something and then I start judging myself so hard that I don’t really feel like I can talk or say anything. This happens a lot when I’m talking about personal stuff. I just kind of stumble over my word’s until I can get enough of it out for what I’m trying to say to make sense.

That’s pretty much what I’m feeling now. I know what I want to talk about but I can’t get the words started.

Maybe if I try one word at a time. Insurance denied to cover inpatient because I’m a drama queen and completely “medically stable”. It’s all in my head. Okay, the words are starting to come…a little. 3 treatment centers where I live and that take my insurance. One won’t take me back, I’ve been to another twice, and the last I’ve never been to but it has no medical unit.

I filed an appeal with insurance and told them all about how I am feeling but tests results don’t like and insurance is pretty dead set on getting me to go to residential here, where I live, instead of going out of network for inpatient (as far as I know there is no inpatient unit where I live. There is one but the specialize in children under 12 and will only take people up to age 18. Like I said, I’m fine aka ‘medically stable”.

Yes, some of this is the whole “not sick enough” thing but it’s also that I just can’t agree to do residential again. No. Just I can’t. Then it’s also that the out-of-network inpatient place is 30-45 days for average length of stay. I can agree to that as long as I discharge to home. Spending forever long going through all levels of care is absolutely not something I’m willing to do again. I also just want to feel physically better. But, I mean, it’s all in my head so maybe it will go away on its own.

But the worst part is all the comments about my eating disorder and treatment through out my life. No one in my family agrees with treatment. They think I’m being reckless and irresponsible. My Dad’s comment about “rehab” making me worse was actually in regards to not having a high paying job and therefore struggling with my finances. That’s what it always comes down. “Can you keep your job?” “Will you be able to pay your bills while your gone?” Or I remember a comment from my Mom. She said I shouldn’t go to treatment because I “enjoyed” it. She believed that because she went to only one (in my entire life) parent group while I was in treatment once. I had a smile on my face and laughed. I guess that means I “enjoy” treatment and therefore I don’t take it seriously and shouldn’t be there.

And this is on top of the most recent comments from my brother. And doctors telling me I need to lose weight. I guess my disgustingly fat body is the problem. Maybe I’ll go back and get the Wegovy. I’m just a drama queen and basically act like a victim. I’m fine. It’s all in my head.

[symptoms-syndrome]

5, 10, and 19 for the ask game? 💜

Sae!!! 💕💕💕 Hiii

5. With close(and safe) relationships, is it important to you to disclose about your parts? How much involvement are you comfortable with, if at all?

Hhhh ideally I wouldn't tell anyone ever. I think. Or maybe ideally I wouldn't feel scared to tell people. Ideally I think I'd like to be able to tell people I'm close with without the whole baggage of explaining what DID isn't.

I simultaneously feel it's important to disclose to people who are very close to me, while also feeling uncomfortable involving them. There's a lot of reasons. It feels vulnerable and scary. I don't even know a lot about it myself yet, or at least I don't know as much as I'd like to. I don't want to be patronized and I don't want my parts treated as different people. I don't like it when other people know more about me than I do, which has been an issue in general with disclosures. I don't want someone to use that information against me, like telling me I did/didn't do something with the knowledge that I would not necessarily know for sure. I don't want someone to feel bad for me or anything like that. I want to be seen as capable, and I feel disclosure often does the opposite.

I think in an ideal world I would like to disclose. But right now I don't. I'd like support but don't feel safe enough to accept it from someone who isn't my therapist.

10. If you had unlimited money and opportunities, is there anything you’d want to do for your parts?

I would want to take time off work/life/etc go to one of those really fancy residential programs, the ones where it's like a retreat more than a hospital. I've told my therapist I would want "dissociative boot camp," an intensive regiment of therapies and observation or whatever so someone can figure out all my shit for/with me. I don't even know if that's realistic. But it's a dream I have I guess.

19. How do you honestly feel about therapy? Have you had experience with it? If you have, what is/was your therapeutic relationship like?

I've been in therapy basically my entire life. I know at least since I was 6.

Much of that experience was very negative. Therapy was very punitive, and focused more on making me a Good Child than a happy one. It felt very much like someone saying "what's wrong with you!? Why are you acting like this!? Stop!" I also eventually went to a special education school ("school," honestly, and I went to a few, actually. Luckily I was able to take some classes at a mainstream school) for teens with "behavioral problems" with their own social workers and therapists. And I've been to partials/inpatient a fair amount.

When I got kicked out, I was homeless for a while and that was the first time I had not had therapy. I was conflicted about it, because it felt like such a central part of my life, it was like not eating. I debated whether I needed it or not. It took me a while to get a new therapist, but once I did I was really able to see what therapy COULD be. It was the first time therapy felt useful and helpful, because I was in charge. Therapy used to be my parents bringing up issues to the therapist and then them trying to fix those issues, and for the first time I could focus on what made ME upset. And that was really helpful. So I am very pro-therapy, for me, but can also understand why people are often frustrated with it/don't enjoy it/don't think it will help them.

But I'm still on a whole relatively anti-psychiatry. Which is complicated. But that's another post altogether.

[johnpeelsession]

Another one of my autobiography style writings I wanna share. Its about my suicide attempts in October and specifically how I tried poisoning myself so read with cation.

"I tried poisoning myself back in October" I said a bit too casually. I was lounging on the plasticy sofa in a psychologist office being evaluated for a new flashy type of therapy, a last resort sort of deal reserved for the truly borderline and "atypical" type. The truth was I had been trying to kill myself multiple times in October; pills, starving, going out late at night, walking into traffic, even searching up assisted suicide laws in my state but nothing worked or was too slow for me to even try (Imagine being picky about suicide!) so this was just the tip of the iceberg, this woman knew nothing.

"What did you use?" The click of her pen getting faster than before, probably waiting to write 'Immediate danger to herself- must be hospitalized.'

"Hydrogen peroxide and..." I rolled my eyes up to the brown ceiling trying to remember. "It made me vomit but I don't remember what else." I chuckled at my own failure to effectively end my own life. "But clearly it didn't work, I had to replace my rug!" There it was again, that casual every day tone I used to talk to my friends.

"And how did you find it?" God. I knew she'd ask that. She'd ask me how I found out this specific poison and why I knew it. "I dont want to be hospitalized" I thought, "Not this time, not after all the progress I've made." So I shrugged "It's just basic cleaning knowledge you shouldn't mix specific things together, it wasn't bleach though." I heard her hum in return and I felt immediate guilt for lying. In truth I had found a entire document about ways to poison yourself online and went with what I had in my cabinet. There was types of herbs, chemical combinations, flowers, and elixirs listed with a paragraph or two how fast it would kill you and how much you ingest, it was a very romantic way to go I thought. So I lit some candles, played some classical music, put on one of my favorite dresses, and swallowed whatever the concoction was. I remember smiling, thinking "Oh my god it's happening, it'll all be over now." Cut to 10 mintues later and I'm on the phone with my mother begging her to come downstairs because I vomited up the foamy substance on my new rug. She held me as the yellow bile mocked me, reeking of cowardice. Two weeks before I was sent to inpatient for trying to overdose on my mothers cocktail of medications, sure I didn't get any in my stomach but hey, at least that was threatening enough to be handled by cops.

"And was the poisoning why you ended up in inpatient?" The pen clicked again. I let out a small laugh "No."

"No? What was it?" Click. Retract. Click. At this point I was bored of the conversation, I had been telling the same story for months (years if you count my previous attempts as a child) so I shrugged again. "I'm sure Mrs [REDACTED] has it all on file. I don't feel like explaining."

"You're a perfect candidate for this" I heard this woman say to me as I walked out of the office. "I think you'd really benefit from this, keep in touch."

"Thats something normal to want and achieve." I thought as I got a cherry coke from the cheap store next door, mentally chuckling to myself.

[blocksruinedme]

Actual fic deadlines/priorities

Now till September 2 - My three hermitshipping bang fics are due, in a complete "can post if you got hit by a bus" version. Last possible extensions till September 8. I don't know if I'll get all three done. If I don't, I can't predict whether I'll put it down for awhile or try to get through it. If I want to wait to post, I can still possibly get the "doodle tier" of art and can add it to the collection, which is just so chill and cool of them, everything is chill and cool

September 3-18 - The burning man fics, god, I really want to post them during my (partial) top surgery and recovery. The current plan is to post chapter of three stories a day, that line up with time periods. (Like the first posting day covers approximately noon-2pm, etc). The current plan is for the final story to be posted on the final day. This means for anyone who pops in at the beginning, they can have three kinds of cliffhangers! I personally think it's super cool

September 19-late September - Recovering from surgery! If anyone has any tips, please let me know! I'm very excited! And I've had a "6 days inpatient three months recovery" surgery, so it's really about the detail of a different surgery recovery.

Late september-deceber: God, first my wips, my poor beautiful wips, along with the larper au (which might top out at three fics, we'll see... and immediately on writing that i got possessed with a flower husbands idea, very well! NO PROMISES). I'll also be editing my hermitshipping bang fics, which are allowed to be totally expanded on, including adding B plots, so... I might go off the rails there.

Onwards: If life goes to plan, sometime in 2024, probably late spring or later, I will have WAY less free time, and while I am very excited about the reason, it might stop fic entirely for awhile. @that-tall-queer-bassist has offered to help me (including up to cleaning up my speech to text into something like real notes or maybe prose). Part of why I push so hard to write is because my time having this much time is limited.

Crucial note about how I write: Sometimes what I need to work on fic is to go work on a different fic, and sometimes even publish it. I had a huge drought after limited life when i told myself I couldn't publish anything else, until i let myself do Driving After Dark and, well, I've published about 44k in 2.5 months. Sometimes I get stuck and all I can do is take a break. I now refuse to push myself hard enough on a fic that I burn out.

I genuinely have 20 wips that I want to publish. I acknowledge this is unlikely but they are all my weird little children. Things may appear in wip wednesday and never make it.

What does that note mean for you: Do not EVER pressure me to finish a fic. You may ALWAYS express enthusiasm for specific fic, and it may get it higher up the queue. Asking about timing is tricky. "i was wondering if you know when you might be publishing this one" - in practice has not upset me. "(affectionately) what happened to posting the next chapter in november?" - ruined my fucking day. Had to stop myself from a mean spirited essay about all the reasons it hadn't happened. I can not tell you how to ask this correctly. You now have this schedule here, and you can ask about how it's going (perhaps in an ask) if it's in a chill manner! I'll totally answer, including if any of the bang fics have been officially dropped from the bang (and thus i can tell you my neat ideas! all i'll say is there's some very me things and at least on surprise that might keep people from guessing it's me!)

Anyway follow @burningmanau for fun burning man pictures and fic stuff!

[acdsbff]

title: hoodie strings (1/4)

pairing: Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring

summary: Charlie relapses after a stupid and insignificant argument with Nick. Nick puts him back together.

Hi! This may be a fairly heavy read so please take care of yourself and read through the trigger warnings.

This piece is close to my heart as I’ve recently celebrated my third year self harm free and am only too aware of how relapses feel. I hope I’ve done this some justice as most of it is really borne from my experience.

This is a story about Charlie’s relapse after his hospital discharge in chapter 6 and how everyone in his life helps to glue him back together.

hoodie strings (on ao3)

They say that recovery isn’t linear.

They say that recovery takes on different meanings for different people and that it couldn’t possibly be a one size fits all process. There’s no how-to guide. It’s tricky and slippery, unforgiving most of the time, and so painful.

At least, that’s what Geoff, my therapist, tells me.

I think I’m supposed to find some comfort in this, knowing that my journey (the word he uses, by the way, not me) isn’t set in stone and can go one way or another. It all depends on me, how I choose to heal, who I choose to surround myself with, and how I deal with my brain when it goes on a mad one.

It’s all very easy on paper. I spent much of my time away forcing any harmful thoughts to the back of my mind and trying to pretend everything was fine despite not being able to look at a plate of beans on toast without wanting to cry. I knew this wasn’t helping - after all, I’d said yes to the admission because the look of fear (and sound of fear in Nick’s voice when I called him) on everyone’s face was too much to bear on that October night in A&E - but taking over the reins on an otherwise uncontrollable brain was easier said than done.

After two weeks of telling my inpatient therapist ‘I’m fine, it's all a big misunderstanding!’, I broke down.

All was not fine and there was no misunderstanding. I was simply unwell and trying to be unwell on my own without being a burden on anyone else, something I learnt in group work was more damaging to me and the people around me.

From then on, I tried to engage myself. I had to get better so I could go to school and watch films with Tao and listen to music with Elle. I had to get better for my mum and dad, for Tori and Oliver. God, most importantly of all, I had to get better for Nick and me.

Nick visited a few times a week alongside my mum, dad, Tori, and Oliver, always holding Olly’s hand as they walked into the common area. I fell more in love with him each time he came, to be honest. Each time our eyes met across the room, there was a reassurance that warmed me deep to my bones, knowing that this boy (who somehow loved me too) was prepared to stick this out alongside me.

Every week Nick brought a gift - the first one was from my friends and included movies and photos and everything that reminded me of home.

The gifts then turned more personal and more us, like a little jar of pebbles from our beach, pictures of Nellie wearing a pair of my socks, and CDs of playlists he had curated because I couldn't use my phone.

Nick also made sure he left me with a fresh (well, not fresh, it was always always worn) jumper of his, his smell weaved into in the fabric, and took an old one away to wash and re-wear, ready for the cycle to begin again.

The first time he had left a hoodie with me, the residency coordinator, who had such a kind and apologetic face, had taken the string from the hood. That was the part that smelt the most like Nick, where his notes of soap, cologne, and the faint smell of his sweat hid. I suppose it was a harsh reminder of where I was. I cried for hours after he left until my face was puffy and sore. Full-body sobs racked through me. Catharsis. He rang, like he always did, once they were home and I used my entire phone allowance just listening to him breathe at the other end, a soft reassurance that life went on. He is just so good at that.

It was a balmy day towards the end of May, the first time I ever cut myself. I had stayed at school for an hour after the final bell to make sure the coast was clear, hiding out in the art room, opening and closing my lunchbox but never quite willing myself to take a bite of my sandwich. I dumped the contents of the box in a bin on the way home though I’m not sure Mum would ever have noticed. Some Year 10s were loitering around after their rugby practice and left just as I did typically.

They never hurt me enough to leave bruises. It started with spiteful words about how I’d probably eye them up during training and that I should be banned from the changing rooms. They punctuated each point with a swift dig to the ribs or a rag of my hair. “Why are you even here?” they would ask and although I’m sure they meant here at school at this time I began to ask myself the same question in a much broader sense. Bloody hell, that sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?

I got home from school and my ears rang with their words. Looking back, they were pathetic and weightless jibes that Oliver could have come up with but at that point in time, it felt like their words wriggled under my skin. It’s like I could see them darting around just below surface level. I sat in our bathroom for ages with my back against the bath and knees brought up to my chest. Dad kept spare blades for his razor in the cupboard and I’d only try it once, just to see if there was any release of pressure or to see whether those words, spat at me so fucking horribly, would just leave. I used my thighs - easier to hide - and that was that.

Geoff tells me that self-harm is a control thing too, just another facet of the OCD. I could control when it happened, on what day and with what instrument, where on my body, and exactly how deep I could go. It was my little secret and even when thin angry wounds moulded into flat red scars it still felt like a release. In that moment where blood followed blade, I was the one who could control what pain I felt.

I hated it. I still do hate it. My body is littered with hundreds of little scars now & Nick tells me they’re beautiful. It’s hard to believe him sometimes but becomes easier when he presses his kisses against them. There is a small one on my forearm, milky white now and slightly raised compared to the rest of the skin there, and Nick especially takes care of that one. It’s like our touch base - he presses his nose there as if to say “alright?” and I nod yes or curl my fingers around his to say no. Our own language that I wish we didn’t have. God, I don’t half love him.

Group sessions at the hospital often dealt with things like self-harm and I was asked to share my story with everyone else in my group. I’d told them there wasn’t much to say as if I was a fraud to even be sharing anything considering what some of the other residents had been through, but the lovely staff member there gently ushered me along. It was reaffirming to hear that I wasn’t on my own, I suppose. I had felt so on my own before going there.

I also had one on one sessions with the eating disorder team whilst I was there and I think I will be forever grateful I was given that chance. They were patient when I wept at the sight of a jacket potato at lunchtime and consoled me when I couldn’t finish my bowl of cereal at breakfast. They told me that, although my brain might think it, the world would not end if I ate. It would take some time to reprogram how my brain works, they said, but eventually, they thought I was capable of overcoming that panic that turned my mouth to cotton wool.

It took a few weeks but I was eventually able to sit at the communal dinner table with everyone else and slowly but surely finish two slices of pizza. I was so proud of myself that I promptly burst into tears, and the other residents all congratulated me with pats on the back and high fives. I’ll never forget that pizza (Emma, the super sweet residency coordinator, later told me they were from the pizza counter at ASDA and I made it my mission after discharge to get my hands on more).

On the day I was discharged from the hospital after a long seven weeks away from home, Nick was waiting on my front doorstep with Tori and Oliver. It was just like coming home when I saw his big hand clasping Olly’s tiny one.

He picked me up and swung me around like we were in one of Tao’s old black and white movies, and my body ached with how much I loved him. This boy, only months after going through his own little crisis, was so willing to stand alongside me, always holding tightly onto my hand. How lucky I was. We unpacked my bags together and I told him about the ASDA pizzas which he obviously brought to the front door the next day, the romantic fool. Was that romantic? I think so.

Being back home for Christmas was very good and very hard in equal measure. My mum and I argued, can’t remember what it was about (though I suspect it had something to do with not eating the sprouts she’d put on my plate and I had screamed at her that even without an eating disorder I wouldn’t bloody eat them) but it was bad.

I’ve tried explaining to my mum and dad that being out of hospital doesn’t automatically mean I’m cured. In fact, as Geoff says, this is only the beginning. I go to bed each night not knowing how tomorrow will be and whether I’ll smile all day or whether a bowl of Cornflakes will knock me off-kilter. I’ve learnt that mental illness is unpredictable and therefore I’m unpredictable. I don’t think my mum can get her head around that.

I’d been back home for a few weeks before I relapsed. All the residents told me it was inevitable, that everyone slipped up at some point when they were discharged, and when I brought that up to Geoff he didn’t know how to react. I took that to mean that my friends in the hospital were telling the truth and I waited for it. I did all of my exercises (writing in my journal, grounding techniques, cooking from my meal plans) but still knew it could (would) happen at any point.

I didn’t expect it would be after an argument with Nick.

Tuesday nights were ‘date’ nights for Nick and I. We’d go to each other’s house, we’d watch movies or watch trash reality TV programmes Netflix had dreamed up and we’d cook. The nutritionists at the hospital were a dream and sent me home with a binder full of meal plans and recipes we’d discussed in a session that I’d be comfortable eating. So Nick and I would walk to Tesco after school every Tuesday, buy our ingredients and cook. It was a precious routine for me and I was so grateful Nick took the time to make sure I was comfortable, but then again I always knew he would. He’s so good like that.

We had made something simple, a spaghetti bolognese with garlic bread on the side. Nick had learned somewhere that nutmeg added ‘dimension to the dish’ (his words, not mine) and it smelt delicious so maybe he was right after all. Nothing felt right though. My t-shirt felt strange against my skin, the noise of my fork on the plate went through me, it was too warm in the kitchen. I’d felt particularly shit all day - it was taking me a while to adjust back to sleeping in my own bedroom with my own stuff around me rather than the rooms with no curtain rails and soft-close doors in the name of safety.

Geoff had said that lack of sleep could likely lead to spiralling and I’d nodded, biting my lip and keeping it to myself that I was struggling. I was tired and on edge and the thought of eating weighed heavily on my mind. I would do it because I knew that was what I needed to do, but I didn’t want to and I told Nick that.

He had bitten his lip and creased his eyebrow in worry. I hated being the cause of that look on his face. “Alright,” he murmured with a stroke of my cheek in that tone of voice that gave me goosebumps. “We’ll just do what we can manage then.”

He always said ‘we’ when he met ‘you’. It made my heart hurt.

We started to eat, in silence bar the radio in the background, and even that kept fading in and out of service. It was fuzzy and loud and it felt like too much. I chewed because I had to and swallowed because I needed to and that was it. I broke the silence and asked Nick how his day had been as we’d barely seen each other at school.

He had smiled, a genuinely lovely smile that I could never tire of, and told me about a girl in Year 12 who kept asking him out. “I’ve told her loads of times I’m taken but she keeps asking, I wonder why she’s not taking the hint!” he had laughed but I couldn’t laugh.

There was a pause, too long to be comfortable.

“Maybe you should just go out with her then,” I said coldly, not recognising my own voice, and stabbing at my garlic bread left on my plate. “Might be easier for you, rather than this,” and I gestured between us, at our plates, at the folder on the table full of techniques to get me to eat.

Nick’s face fell and he seemed to be frozen in place. “Don’t talk stupid, Charlie. I’ve just said I’ve told her loads of times I’m taken,” he said calmly.

I scoffed. I didn’t mean to, it was just an impulse reaction to a totally bizarre situation that I’d managed to fabricate.

“What is that meant to mean, Charlie?” Nick leaned forward and asked, a little more forceful this time. The crease was back in his brow. I hated that.

Nothing. It’s not meant to mean anything, but I’m tired and stressed and I feel like my brain is going haywire. “I don’t know, Nick. You can admit your life would be easier with someone else.”

Nick pushed himself away from the table and threw his napkin on the plate. “No, Charlie. You don’t get to do this because you’ve had a bad day.” He got down on his knees next to me, his face so beautiful and sad and I couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Maybe you should go, Nick,” I said and the words felt sticky and poisonous in my mouth. They burnt my tongue as I said them. I’d never said anything like that to him. I always wanted him around, no matter what, and the thought of him leaving even at that moment made me nauseous.

I couldn’t even look at him. I stared at my plate and tried to count the number of spaghetti strands I had left, giving up when they became entangled together, cold and rubbery and unappetising. I felt him get up from his knees and the space next to me was so cold and empty. Well done Charlie, I thought. Fucking well done.

Nick did leave. He left, his brow furrowed, and no kiss on my cheek.

He had never left me before.

I sat at the table, frozen in one spot until Tori found me with my knife and fork still in my hands. He had never left me before and it was my fault for telling him to go.

The night was a blur of stainless steel and spilt blood from then on. I locked myself in my room, sitting with my back against the door for extra security, watching the blood on my thighs collect and turn maroon as it dried. I hated it. Hated that I still had an urge to do it, to make sure I remained in control of whatever pain blossomed in my chest. I hated it.

Tori knocked on my door over and over, a consistent rat-a-tat that felt like it was against my skull. She knew exactly what was going on and before I even had time to get up from the floor, she had called Nick back ‘round. I could hear his voice under my door, so quiet yet so frantic talking to Tori, and I felt sick again. I got up from my knees, slowly as not to disturb any scabbing wounds, and unlocked the door. I wasn’t sure what I would face on the other side. Would this finally be the tipping point for Nick? I really fucking hoped not.

There he was, looking just as gorgeous as he ever did. He looked at me with a blistering intensity and I felt myself blush under his stare.

When he finally spoke, it was calm and soft and it sounded like he might cry. “Let’s get you to the bathroom, Char.” He took me by the hand and sat me on the side of the bath, my joggers pulled around my knees, and for once I couldn’t feel self-conscious despite the fact I was sitting in my boxers in front of Nick. Wonderful, sweet Nick.

Nick seemed to know what to do and I hated thinking about how he knew. Knowing Nick, he had researched how to support someone through a relapse and kept the information locked away in his head desperately hoping he’d never have to use it. He filled the sink with warm water and sank to his knees in front of me, gently swiping a soaked flannel over the cuts. I winced slightly - you never get used to that sting - and he withdrew his hand, his face so soft. It wasn’t pity on his features and I was glad of that.

I had been crying without realising it. I think he had been too, judging by the red rims of his eyes. Nick reached forward and used his thumb to wipe my tears away, cupping his hand around my face. I nuzzled his palm and my eyes fluttered shut. How exhausting. Nick continued to work one-handed to clean my thighs, the other hand still clutching my face so tenderly. So tender and mine.

“Put some pressure on this one please, babe. I don’t want to hurt you,” Nick said in a quiet voice as he wrung out the flannel in the sink and pressed it against the worst of the damage. He lay a hand flat against my other thigh and stroked the downy hairs there with his thumb, a moment of intimacy in what must have been a nightmare for him.

When he led me back to my bedroom, legs clean of crimson and bandaged, we fell into another silence but it felt entirely different from the one at dinner. It was comfortable, there was no tension. It felt like us. We sat next to each other on the edge of my bed, close together like we always should be, and I had a million words on the tip of my tongue for him. I leaned against him, grateful for the warmth his bare arms radiated against my own.

“Nick-“ I started with a raspy voice that betrayed me.

He shushed me gently and traced his finger along the ski slope of my nose, the rim of my jaw, the folds of my eyes. It was like he was trying to memorise every inch of my face as if I would disappear if I wasn’t embedded in his brain. Maybe he thought one day I would disappear.

There were a few seconds where it felt like we had stopped breathing, looking at each other so intimately and closely that it felt like there was no one else in the world. Just us, Nick and Charlie, starting their night again. Nick moved suddenly and I was being held tightly, so tightly against his chest that I couldn’t breathe. He repeatedly told me how much he loved me, over and over again like a mantra against my scalp, and I knew he did. I only had to see the way he looked at me. I stole glances of his brown eyes softening at the sight of me sometimes and wondered how I managed to bag the softest rugby lad alive.

I tried to speak again. “I’m sorry,” I cried, a sob bubbling in my throat. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, it’s okay, I’m so sorry about earlier.”

“No, I’m sorry…”

“No, Char, I’m sorr-“

You can imagine how long this went on. Nick was so gentle with me and the poisonous little voice in my brain told me I didn’t deserve it though I knew I did. Emma, the residency coordinator, had told me I deserve anything that made me happy and Nick, tall floppy-haired gentle Nick, made me happy.

Nick fervently whispered his apologies for what felt like hours, little promises against my hairline to protect me and wrap me in cotton wool. My head swam with the heaviness of the evening and I suddenly felt exhausted, Nick’s heartbeat under my ear counting me into sleep like a metronome.

“You’d better go,” I whispered with heavy eyes and I hated saying it again. This time was different. “Your mum will be worried sick and my mum still thinks sleepovers are illegal.”

Nick snorted softly through his nose and squeezed his grip around me. “Your mum and dad said I could stay tonight, my mum already knows. She sends you her love. There’s not a chance I’m leaving you on your own, Char.” His lashes clung together, dark and wet with tears. My sweet Nick, crying tears for me.

He said that my mum wanted him to sleep on the floor but I couldn’t bear the space between us. So, instead, Nick slept underneath me in my tiny bed and the pulse in his neck steadily dragged me to sleep, all warmth and light.

Some of the books I was told to read in therapy tell me that I’ll never be Charlie pre-breakdown and I think that’s probably true. In our weekly sessions, Geoff makes sure to reiterate that I’ve suffered trauma and pain and that my illness is a response to that. I couldn’t bear to agree with him at first as if nodding along would make me another victim, but the more I hear it, the more sense it makes. Being forced out of the closet, being bullied, having Ben Hope push against me after I’d said no - they were all valid reasons for my brain to respond as it has, and it’s taken me some time to believe that.

I tell Nick this, that I might never be ‘old Charlie’ again. He smiles, the kind of smile I dream about when I think of him, and his eyes crinkle. I run my fingers over those wrinkles and tell him how gorgeous he is to me. “You’re New Charlie. You’re my Charlie,” he says finally and my breath gets stuck in my throat when he rubs his thumb across the healing cut on my thigh. “As long as you’re happy and at peace, I don’t care what version of Charlie you are.”

I love Nick so much. We know it’s probably weird considering how young we are, but I just…love him and I’m so comfortable with that.

Every relationship in my life feels stronger since coming home. I love Nick and he loves me, but I also love my brother and sister, my mum and dad, and my friends who have all been there to pick up the pieces of my tattered brain. I’m so lucky to be so loved.

I’m lying on the couch with Nick, my head in his lap and his fingers dragging over my scalp. I’m wearing one of his jumpers and it has the string still in the hood, and I bring the string to my nose and take a big deep sniff. Smells exactly like him.

He turns my head and holds my face, a little smile on his lips, and asks if everything is alright seeing as I’m sniffing hoodie strings. I laugh and it bubbles in my chest. Feels odd, like my body isn’t used to it anymore.

“Yes,” I reply. “They’re just the parts that smell most like you.”

Maybe the books are right and I won’t be the same again. Maybe Geoff is right and relapse is inevitable. Nick shifts underneath me and threads his fingers through my hair once more as he takes a drink from his mug of tea (his cup says C for Charlie). We’re the image of domesticity, all soft fabric, and tongues that taste of sugar and milk, arguing about what episode of Real Housewives we’re up to. I turn my head to kiss his bare thigh, the skin so perfectly freckled. I count the freckles sometimes to ground myself and the number is never the same. A new one must appear every day.

I think I can do this with him by my side.

I love Nick so much and he loves me too. Everything else feels like it will slot into place now that I know that.

I think I’m going to be just fine.

[creaturebehavior]

ugh i’ve reached that point in the night where staying awake is now draining me and it’s time to sleep but i for some reason don’t want to lay down and sleep

i guess i should pick a comforting show and turn my lights off and try to relax

i feel like super lonely this evening. all night i’ve been trying to shake it. and i just can’t find a way to meet this need. and it’s becoming more apparent every day that i should not be so isolated but im terrified of talking to people. even when leo calls half the time it’s like i can’t even get any words out because i’m so afraid to speak

when i’m not doing well, i have an even harder time with my filter, and it’s really humiliating and it makes other people uncomfortable, and so i am afraid to say anything now.

last year i was basically begging my school to let me take a leave of absence as i was in mania and psychosis and dissociating all the time and they wouldn’t allow it and i continued going to school when honestly i needed to be at home or at an inpatient, like i was so incredibly unstable and every day i would contemplate checking myself into a behavioral health center because i was so incredibly suicidal but i just kept on going to school and trying to graduate. and i am honestly kind of traumatized from that experience. and i feel so ashamed for how i behaved in front of people during that time that now i am afraid to act at all, i am afraid to speak at all. i no longer speak to the friends i made at school because i still feel too unwell to have a healthy and not toxic and unhinged conversation with them, plus also i have done so much reflection on the kind of people they were and how i felt i had to mask heavily and join in on talking shit about every single person that wasn’t me, jill or taylor. it made me even sicker. my defenses were up and i picked two people to latch onto and mirror in order to try to survive through school. and at the end of it i hated myself so much, i felt like oozing toxic tar and i couldn’t believe all i had done and said, all out of fear.

and i’m having to confront several of my patterns. it’s so fucking insane, i dropped out of school when i was 16 and didn’t return to a school until i was 26. and i fell right back into behaving how i behaved when i was younger in order to survive public school. i got defensive and mean. and i have to come to terms with this side of myself and figure out what to do about it. because i do not want to be on the defensive anymore. i don’t want to be on the offensive anymore. i want to be myself and not freak out and get all weird every time i’m in a situation where i have to be around other people like that

my seroquel has kicked in so i’m losing my train of thought but did i mention i don’t think taylor or jill are my true friends?

you know who i do still trust though? Selena. she will be the first person i reach out to next time i am feeling stable enough to socialize. She has psychosis too, and i felt safe around her. She understands and i think she’d still love me if i took my mask all the way off. I guess i just don’t know how to feel ready to engage in a friendship with someone. i’m experiencing really low empathy through this breakdown and it makes it incredibly difficult to care about anyone except myself or my favorite person. i am resisting the urge to judge myself over that. god, i literally have bpd. jfc.

when i was younger i used to care so much about all my friends. and now i literally am so burnt out, i’ve given so much of a shit about so many people for my entire life and i finally just hit a wall like it’s so difficult sometimes for me to care about other people and like care about what they’re saying to me and like care about their lives and like be interested enough and have energy to listen to them but i just don’t.

i tire my own self out sometimes because i’ll like, say all this shit to leo sometimes for example and i don’t even care what i’m saying but i keep saying stuff and i’m like god SHUT up ema i don’t care!

so like. it’s hard for me to like. care about something a friend tells me. like mostly everything feels so unimportant

[cbunny9]

Tuesday, 12.12.23

(Day 10/Monday Reflection)

Yesterday felt really difficult.

I guess some good context to have for yesterday and today is the fact that, when I had my intake assessment, they initially recommended that I go inpatient. My insurance only covers inpatient at 60% once I meet my deductible of $4k. (That would have looked like paying them upwards of $1k for four days, and then paying a little over $500 a day for the length of my stay.)

However, partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient are both covered by my insurance at 100%. (I’m still sort of waiting for someone to tell me about a surprise payment of some kind lol.) I think legally they can’t really let me choose what I want when they’ve made a clinical recommendation for a higher level of care, so I’ve been on a “10 day trial” to see if this middle ground level of care will be helpful or hurtful to me.

No pressure though lol.

It made it difficult last week to be present, as well as compassionate with myself any time I wasn’t able to entirely complete a meal in program. All I kept thinking was, “I’m going to get kicked out, they’re going to kick me out,” which today I can logically understand would not actually be the case.

My brain was really foggy and filled with garbage yesterday. A lot of negative self-talk, as well as finding myself projecting those thoughts onto everyone in groups by assuming they would be having the same negative thoughts about me if I shared or opened up in any way. It resulted in me being pretty shut down most of the day. I did manage 100% meal completion yesterday though. Maybe because I was just totally dissociated. I’m really not sure. I didn’t even really like the lunch they gave us, but I ate it all anyway. Win?

I had an appointment with my outpatient therapist after program yesterday and as soon as I was in her office I just started sobbing. She and I have been working together for maybe almost 5 years, so obviously she knows me super well and understands me. I was just relieved to see her and be in a room I know is entirely safe for me to let my guard down. I’ve only been in treatment for just under two weeks, so of course my team doesn’t know me really at all yet. But I’m finding it hard not to keep at least one wall up, even if it’s a thin one.

In a lot of ways I feel more free to be transparent when I’m in program, but in a lot of other ways I feel very isolated and misheard. I’m not sure what’s worse; being misheard or not being heard at all.

My outpatient therapist encouraged me to talk about all these feelings during groups in program. I’m afraid of how the things I say might land with other people in the group.

I’m learning that I literally have a codependent relationship with the entire world.

No pressure though.

[truckfreaks]

I wish i didnt answer the fucking phone. And I feel so fucking irredeemably guilty for saying that, but it's true

Sitting in the backyard and trying to identify the grapevine I just found. I get a call from my aunt. Usually it's because my nephew, who she takes to school in the morning, asks to say good morning to me. So I don't think anything of it.

She tells me, "listen, I'm really sorry to do this but I'm not calling with good news. Your mother called me several times last night and she definitely relapsed, she was screaming on the phone for hours. She wasn't making any sense, but she kept asking what she can do to make things right between you and her. She wants to ask you but she's afraid. I think shes suicidal again."

I didn't really know what to say besides the truth. She (my mother) already knows the answer. I've told her countless times. She needs to go inpatient - not some cushy detox for a week or two. She needs actual fucking inpatient psych and substance use treatment. I work with people just like her every single day. I deal with it constantly. I know it's possible. But it takes work and commitment and you need to have no outside distractions. She can't just try to do this and simultaneously hold a job and try to act like everything is fine. She needs to go away somewhere and get well and find help and connect with people who understand the hurt and ache that we unfortunately are genetically fucking cursed with in this family.

But my aunt goes on. She tells me about all the things my mother was saying: how next year she'll have been in Florida for a decade, but she's no happier or more stable than she was when she first went. She can't hold a job. She has no friends, no support system (because my grandparents refuse to even call to check on her when she relapses, thanks to AL Anon bullshit).

She tells me that she kept saying she refuses to go to jail. She says she came to Florida to "protect" my grandparents and pretty soon she "won't be able to" anymore. She says some odd variation on the usual: "does [nephew] even understand the concept of love? Does he feel supported? Does he know that he does not have to end up like this?" Usually those words were reserved for my cousin, but now that there is a new baby in the mix, I guess she's projecting it onto him.

She says she will "do anything" to understand how to connect with me, but she doesn't think it's possible, and she doesn't think I would care if she died. She says she wishes grandma and grandpa were dead so that she didn't have to "protect" them anymore. She says neither of them even know where they are (not true. My grandparents are entirely self sufficient and no mental deficit or dementia at all). Nobody (my aunt and my cousin, listening in) understood what she was talking about.

Then, like usual, after calling my aunt several times over the course of five or six hours, she just. stopped. Me and my aunt talked about it a good deal this morning, but ultimately decided a wellness check was probably a terrible idea, since, yknow. Cops kill people when they do wellness checks on the mentally ill.

I know she is probably triggered because of uncle frankie's birthday/death. I get it. I really do. Having to deal with your dead siblings birthday and murder happening within less than a week of one another is terrible. But it isn't an excuse. He wouldn't want it to be an excuse either. And, he is gone. She's still here.

Its kind of wild, actually. We talked to her on Sunday, after we got back from the cemetery. I got on the call because I know half the reason why she is like this is because of the grief she deals with regarding Uncle Frankie. She was... jarringly normal. Even my aunt agreed - it was the first time in a long time we had talked to her and she didn't seem just positively manic.

I look at her and I see parts of myself I hate so, so, so much. It breaks my heart. Because I know how badly it hurts, this rot that just lives inside you and grows and grows. Its awful. My mother is so smart, so ridiculously talented, so compassionate. She feels very, very much. I know she feels like nobody understands her. I know she feels alone. And I know what that feels like, and I know how badly it hurts. But the difference is I know that there's something wrong with me and I take steps to address it. I'm in therapy two to three times a week. I take a cocktail of meds every day. I find things to love about life that aren't hinging on someone else loving me or respecting me, or being successful, or reaping some reward.

Because, like. When you are like this, you have to. Otherwise life is... literally without point. You have to make your own meaning. Nobody can give it to you. But she wants someone to give it to her. She wants me to call her and treat her like a mother and give her purpose - Yes, Christine, Now you are a mother. Except what she doesn't get is, she's always been a mother. She didn't know what to do with it. That's... not my fault. I can't fix her. Nobody can. She needs to fix herself. I derive NO joy from knowing there is nothing I can do to help my mother. This isn't some kind of point of pride, or "self care" to cut toxic people out of your life, or something like that. I just. Can't. I am just as helpless as everyone else. She has the power but she thinks she doesn't. And if she doesn't go inpatient and figure it out, it is going to eat her alive and it is going to kill her.

I didn't even tell my aunt about what happened at the doctor yesterday. I don't have it in me. I can't put more on them. She told me she'll check in again on mom. Then she had to go. She said she would keep me updated.

She says she's afraid mom killed herself last night after she stopped calling. I don't know what to do with that.

editing to say someone finally got in contact but frankly I have no idea what's going on. and i think i don't even have the capacity to try ro tackle this today.

[weabooweedwitch]

Sigh. Um. Just kind of going to cry a little bit for the thing with my trip because that big whole "imma pay all expenses to rush this guaranteed" thing fell through completely

So the service i was looking at was rushmypassport which goes through FedEx and all that, seems very legit, has a lot of reviews so on so forth. Anyways. They offer a service for getting your passport in one week and its $799 not including shipping charges not including passport costs and I was going to shell it out, this was so important for me, I was going to shell out over 1 grand combined for the passport and this expedition sevice ON TOP OF what I've already paid for travel and hotel costs. I was going to pay big money to make this trip stick because I NEED IT

A rushmypassport online chat rep told me I would need to call and make an appointment for them to go do on my behalf. A FedEx employee in person told me the exact same thing. I call the official national passport agency to make the appointment i was just told to make and what does the rep say? Uh no they do not let third party services do these kinds of expedited appointments, it has to be me, only me. So what's the fucking deal here? What am I misunderstanding? Is this false advertising or am I just absolutely fucking stupid or something?

Their chat lines closed before I could call and I hate myself like I, I thought I would be ok, I didn't know the rushmypassport lines closed early amd I thought I just needed to call the agency, otherwise I would have called their helpline with questions as soon as I heard from the passport rep. I sent an email begging for clarification, telling them exactly what happened, asking if I did something wrong and if so what do I need to do, how do they get me my passport,, and all that I won't hear back on until the morning and I already just. I'm so sad.

But

Like

As salt in my festering traumatizing wounds

My fucking mother of course in her excellence parentage looks at me sobbing on the couch and decides this is an appropriate time for her to chime in with all sorts of "this is why I told you to do XYZ but you didn't listen" kind of statements over and over and I say, ok you're right whatever can you please stop trying to make me feel bad and just see if you can help me now? But she brings up agsin, "I was trying to help you and you didn't listen" and I say "you're doing it again can you stop can you just try and help?"

And she does it again? She says it again? Am I having a stroke?

Im sobbing and I say "you're doing it again, why"

And she

Does

It

Again

And I'm sobbing "why won't you stop"

And

Again

And im sitting there looking at my work box cutter sitting there on the couch and im thinking of cutting my throat as im sitting there literally hysterically crying begging her to stop making pointless "I told you so statements" that make me feel bad, im clearly communicating this, and she just replies over and over like some kind of narcissistic heartless parrot? And then she just HUFFS AND GETS ANGRY. AT ME. AND JUST "whatever you're on your own why did I even try to help you when you act like this"

Is this gaslighting??? My entire fucking life has been like this. I never trust my own opinion anymore. I feel bad for asking for anything or wanting anything or liking anything or trusting anyone or getting gifts and. Im breaking down.

I was sitting there sobbing as she's digging into me and you know what I remembered? That's exactly what she did when we were homeless several years ago and we were out in the tent and I became so suicidal I had to go to the hospital, anyone remember? That was the last time I had to be inpatient. I was sitting there, tired, homeless, sitting with our 4 cats and a dog in a tent that was LEAKING WATER WHEN IT RAINED, WE WERE COLD AND WET AND HAD NO MONEY, and I was sitting there at rhe campsite as she complained and threw her own little pity party over and over until I was about to reach for the neighboring camper's steak knife sitting out on the camp table and start stabbing myself in the thigh

Its just. I. I guess some things never really change. I wish my heart hurting would change. I dunno. I'm gonna keep calling the passport line because I'm still holding on to the hope that rhe severe bomb cyclone and winter storms will cause canceled flights and I can somehow still make it, but, we will see. Its probably ober. There is still February. I dont knownwhy this matters so much to me. I really shouldn't say it butbberore this friend kind of pulled me out of an emotional dark hole I was. Kind of. Planning to be gone by now. And I just wanted to see him to thank him for that

I just. Need to tell myself if I have to wait until February that thats fine. But what if the wait for the passport even overlaps with the February week he has off since a passport can even take 5-6 weeks? What about these services offering expeditions? I'm so confused. I feel sick. I just need some sleep. I have work in an hour though. I dont know what to do. I'm hopeless.

Even if I figure something out with this visit, it won't change the problems at home...

[livingdmd]

Realization

(Content Warning: Potentially Triggering Discussion of Personal Mental Health Struggles)

In high school, my life began to diverge from my peer’s. This was when I really came face to face with the fact that I was not “normal”. As a way of coping with the declines in my physical ability, I began to look for ways to feel more “normal”. I began to develop a checklist of achievements I had to complete, and a set of rules I had to follow to become the “ideal man I was supposed to be”. I felt I had to excel in academics to make up for my physical shortcomings. I thought that if I met other’s expectations of me, I could appear normal to them, and then could start to see myself that way too. This eventually morphed into an unhealthy ideal of “professionalism” and perfectionism. I felt like I had to essentially put on an act of professionalism, and that this is how it is when you “become an adult”. I would often deny myself things that I wanted simply because, in my mind, they weren’t something that professionals were allowed to have or do. I thought I had to keep to this ideal to eventually get a salaried job that could cover my medical costs on top of the costs of living independently. This wasn’t the only area where I felt like I had to put on an act. I felt that when I was talking to anyone I had to act in a way consistent with their expectations of a “man with DMD”.

Throughout the time I was in school up until I started a graduate program in social work in late 2019, I never gave myself the chance to explore my gender identity and sexuality. I was preoccupied with managing my diagnosis, depression, academics, and other pursuits. I kept myself busy because it allowed me to distract myself from all of the things I didn’t want to think about. I greatly enjoyed my first two semesters in the program, and found that being in academia stimulated my mind in a variety of ways. However, midway into my second semester, Covid-19 came along and began to change everything. My classes shifted online, and I got less in-person interaction with my peers. In the end of my second semester, I began an emotionally taxing internship that I was not ready for. In the field of social work, you will often encounter people who are struggling with a number of different things. This was no different in my internship where I began to do case management with people that had exhausted most of their options for help and were either suffering from homelessness or close to losing their homes. I saw people struggling with some of the hardest situations I had ever heard of, and this rapidly depleted my emotional reserves. In combination with the pressures I had placed upon myself for years, I began to have panic attacks. I developed insomnia, and was unable to sleep for over 30 days. My mental health rapidly deteriorated and I lost a tremendous amount of physical function because I was so exhausted. For several months after my internship ended, I was in and out of the hospital and, at one point, I was so tired and in so much physical pain that I attempted to end my own life. I had realized that social work was not a good fit for me. However, I had already placed my entire identity in becoming a professional and had also concluded that social work was the only path to achieve that goal. Losing this, I felt like I had lost everything. I had completely lost my identity.

After several months, I eventually ended up in an inpatient psychiatric center. I was at my lowest point, and, believing I was going to die, I began to lament denying myself so many things to become what others expected of me. I thought that I would never experience being in a relationship, or being able to express myself in a way consistent with my identity. As I came out of the inpatient center and began recovering while on a new regimen of medication, I started to really consider what I wanted out of life. Around the same time I was struggling with all of this, a friend of mine came out as transgender. I began to wonder what exactly that meant, and in looking up information about this, found that I related to much of it. For many years, I had felt that I would love to wake up in a different body. I thought this was pretty normal, given that many people with a diagnosis of DMD would feel the same. However, as I began to think more about this, I realized that, even if I would still have DMD, I wished that I could wake up in a body that more closely aligned with how I felt about my own gender identity. After looking back over my life, I began to realize a number of things that I had simply written off as being due to DMD, were much more complex than that. I had previously come to the conclusion that, having DMD, I was stuck with a body that would never feel right and that was the entire reason I always felt uncomfortable in my own body. That there would always be a disconnect, because, as I lost function, my body would continue to operate in a way that was inconsistent with how I felt it should. I think this pattern of thought was partly a method of coping with my own sense of dysphoria. By mentally assigning it to be a natural result of DMD (something I thought I know a lot about) I could rationalize my feelings as “normal”. Setting this aside, and giving myself a chance to explore my own gender identity, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to transition and that this would make me happier as a person. I was right.

[katexrenee]

I’ve seen a lot of criticism over ACOSF since it was published — unsurprising because people were complaining well before it was out. I’ll be the first to admit that it was not the book I hoped for. The plot was weak and the character development was lacking, and I’ve learned to accept it.

One criticism I cannot get on board with is the complaints that the IC handles Nesta’s substance abuse. Specifically, these criticisms read as entirely opinion based; it’s painfully clear that the “critics” have little to no experience or knowledge on substance abuse. I have a professional understanding of substance abuse and how it relates to mental health, but I’m going to speak from personal experience here because it’s far more relevant.

SO. Let’s get to it then. People want to shit on the IC for how they reacted to Nesta’s drinking. So, so many complaints. Rhys is mean. Feyre is abusing her sister. They “gentrified” her apartment. They made her go to the house of wind. Cassian had no idea how to handle Nesta. Amren was vicious and lashed out. How dare they cut Nesta off like that. The list goes on and on.

Everyone is so caught up on complaining about how SJM dropped the ball with the character dynamics that they’ve missed the key point:

This is what substance abuse looks like. Their reactions, feelings and behaviors are incredibly realistic.

I prefer to keep my personal experiences to myself, but I’ll share a bit. I grew up with a parental figure who was an alcoholic (and recreational drug user). I watched one of my best friends turn into a drug addict as teen/young adult — there was a time where I saw her and didn’t even recognize her because of how sickly she looked. I slowly lost touch with other friends as they took a nose dive into addiction. My other friend’s (now ex) husband was also addicted to drugs. I also have friends who struggle with mental health issues and self-medicate with drugs/alcohol because they just can’t cope.

I’ve literally seen it all. Done the “interventions”. Sat through family weekend at rehab. Been stolen from. Found someone unconscious in their car (they survived). Found one of their toddlers wandering down the street unattended while my friends husband was high (DISCLOSURE: the little one was safe and the parent now cannot have visits unless they are supervised). I’ve enabled some of them financially and emotionally. I came to terms with the deaths via overdose years after I lost touch with friends. This is just the mild stuff, I won’t even touch on some of the behaviors that ensued from months/years of drugs and alcohol.

Why am I saying this, and how does it relate to ACOSF?

The emotional toll substance abuse takes on individuals and their loved ones is unbelievable. There is heartbreak, fighting, enabling, co-dependence, financial burdens, and emotionally charged interactions like you wouldn’t believe. What SJM portrayed with the IC and Nesta was mild to moderate dysfunction. It was not abuse.

Fighting over how to handle a loved one who abused alcohol and has risky behaviors as a result?? - this is a normal reaction to stress. This is not an example of controlling behavior.

Refusing to continue making rent payments? This is an excellent example of what it looks like to stop enabling someone. It was not an example of abuse.

Relocating someone who is actively using and lives in their own filth? This is a way of promoting safety and reducing the chance of future relapses. This is not an example of controlling behavior and it is not abusive.

Ganging up on someone and “forcing” them to temporarily relocate to a secure living environment? This is also known as an intervention. There is no equivalent to rehab/inpatient psych in ACOTAR, so sending Nesta to the house and having her work with the priestesses is an acceptable alternative (it’s fantasy after all).

Making Nesta choose between Illyria or living at the house to train/work? This sounds a lot like the typical deal of “You’re drug use is out of control and *insert unsafe or illegal behaviors* cannot be ignored. If you agree to seek treatment, you will not be involuntarily committed/incarcerated”. It’s a depressing reality.

Telling a loved one to shape up or that they will be forced to leave (aka go to the mortal realm)? Hitting rock bottom is heartbreaking for everyone. It’s hard to stop enabling and to stop being enabled. Loved ones can’t force you to change, and you can’t force them to watch you destroy yourself. This is setting boundaries and it is not abusive.

You’ve been sober for months now but everyone still treats you like you’re a train wreck? It probably took a long time for loved ones to lose trust, and it takes a long time to earn it back. It’s sad and frustrating to everyone involved; developing trust and redefining boundaries is hard. This is not an example of being cruel and uncaring.

Substance abuse is scary, and it takes an incredible toll on everyone involved. Consider this: you’re driving to a loved one’s home because you’re scared that you haven’t heard from them. It’s terrifying to wonder if this will finally be the day you find them dead in their living room. I truly believe the majority of the IC acted with good intentions, and I think ALL of their interactions and behaviors were accurate depictions.

I hope this was enlightening and helpful to anyone in the fandom who do not have experience with substance abuse. Please recognize that it is a blessing if you could not relate to or understand portion of acofs.

[specialagentsergio]

all we can do is keep breathing || chapter one

summary: He’s out of prison now, but your boyfriend is very much not okay. When he isn’t reinstated, he spirals down quickly, and you don’t know how to help him out of it. (or, spencer relapses post-prison and goes to rehab)

pairing: spencer reid x gn!reader

category: angst (eventual happy ending)

content warnings: swearing, drug abuse & addiction, an overdose, substance use disorder, ptsd, mentions of suicide, mentions of/implied sex, references to sexual assault, description of a panic attack/ptsd episode. please read with caution; this content can be triggering.

a/n: honestly, i just wrote this for myself. but it was partially inspired by @zhuzhubii ‘s brilliant and heart wrenching fic i know what’s best for me (but i want you instead). mine takes a different turn, but theirs is amazing as well.  

a/n 2: disclaimer that while i have both been a patient at a residential treatment center and currently work at one, i don’t have substance use disorder and we don’t treat it specifically at my current workplace. my experience is also all in adolescent centers rather than adult ones, so this won’t be entirely accurate.

word count: 8k

song: paralyzed by nf

fic masterlist || masterlist

Nothing’s been the same since Mexico.

You weren’t naïve. You hadn’t been expecting things to go right back to normal when he got home from prison. You were prepared for Spencer to struggle. And you were ready to do whatever it took to help him recover from this trauma.

But you had never expected that that dedication would lead you to here—sitting on the couch at 11 o’clock at night, tired but wide awake, waiting for him to return from god knows where. A few cardboard boxes filed with the last of his things are stacked neatly beside you.

Spencer’s six-year sobriety coin sits in your hand. You’d found it in the trash a few days after he got home. You had tried to talk him into keeping it—"you were drugged; it’s not your fault”—but he had refused, leading you to believe there was something he wasn’t telling you. But you hadn’t pushed him on it, as that would just be a surefire way to make him double down on keeping it to himself.

He didn’t want the coin, but you kept it, hidden from his sight, hoping he’d want it back someday.

Now, three months later, you weren’t sure that day was going to come.

He had managed to get by for six weeks. He’d been plagued by nightmares and suffered multiple panic attacks, but he’d pushed through the cravings, gone to all his mandated therapy appointments, and attended refresher courses on procedures and firearms. He did everything the bureau required to consider reinstating him.

The day of the meeting, Spencer had seemed a little nervous, but stable. He’d gotten a good night’s sleep, free of bad dreams, and he had given you a kiss goodbye that felt just like the ones he’d always given you before. Then he walked out the door, and you didn’t hear from him for the rest of the day.

You got the news from Emily. The bureau had decided not to reinstate him “at this time”. They recommended that he reapply in six months, but for now, he wouldn’t be getting his badge and gun back.

Your initial reaction had been relief. Although you had shown Spencer nothing but encouragement, you weren’t sure he would ever be ready to go back, let alone so soon. You didn’t even know why he was reapplying. He’d worked for them for over a decade and become a well-respected agent, but when he needed help, the bureau had abandoned him and refused to help him prove his innocence. You had been so furious you could barely speak when JJ told you their decision.

Spencer didn’t share your sentiment—or if he did, he didn’t want to face it. On some level, you understood. The BAU was his home before you were, and you could imagine that after the chaos of the last three months, he desperately wanted his life to just go back to normal. So even though you weren’t sure that this was the best decision for him to make—especially since he seemed to have barely thought about it at all—you’d supported him. Whatever he needed, right?

You tried calling him after talking to Emily, but he didn’t answer. It didn’t worry you too much at first—Spencer often needed space to process things on his own before talking about it. You wouldn’t be able to have a proper conversation until you were off work anyways.

It was around six when the anxiety kicked in. You’d tried calling him a few more times throughout the day to no avail. You hadn’t even gotten a text back. Then you started getting messages from his team, asking how he was doing and if he was okay. They hadn’t heard from him either.

When you’d gotten home, you had immediately looked to the chair Spencer always left his bag on. It was empty. You’d looked through all the rooms anyways, trying to ignore what your gut was telling you he was off doing.

It was a few more hours before he stumbled through the front door, his eyes glassy and footing unstable. You stood in front of him, putting your hands on his upper arms to keep him steady. When he had caught your eyes, he had started to cry.

He’d been more or less inconsolable for the rest of the night, blubbering out apologies as you guided him through the motions of getting into bed. He’d clung to you and you’d murmured reassurances against his skin and into his hair that you still loved him, that you didn’t think any less of him, that he would be okay. You had truly thought he would be at the time.

But he wasn’t okay, not at all. He quickly became stuck in a cycle of using, promising it was the last time, staying clean for a little while, then relapsing. You had pleaded with him to get help, but he’d become... aggressive when you suggested inpatient treatment.

“Don’t ever say that,” he’d snarled. “I’m not my mother.”

Then later that same night, he had crawled into bed next to you at 2 AM, curled up against your side, and begged in a trembling voice, “please don’t send me away.”

You haven’t had the courage to bring it up again until now.

Four days ago, you hit your breaking point. You’d come home from work and found him limp on the couch, barely breathing, a syringe and little glass vial next to him. You’d dialed 911 as you ran into the bedroom, yanked open your bedside table, and pulled out the auto injectable dose of Narcan you’d acquired a few weeks ago just in case. Thanks to that, Spencer was conscious again by the time the EMTs arrived. He resisted being taken to the ER, alternating between scowling at them and looking at you with pleading eyes.

But you didn’t give in. When he had checked himself out of the hospital an hour later (you had refused to do it for him), you had driven him home, but the entire time you were formulating a plan. You’d realized that you were padding his rock bottom, and you couldn’t do it anymore.

So now here you are, waiting on the couch. You hope it will work this time. About a month ago you had tried staging an intervention with his team, but as soon as he saw them, he’d walked right back out of the room and you hadn’t seen him again for nearly two days.  

It’s another hour before he arrives home, and it takes his drug-fogged mind a full minute to process what he’s seeing. His voice is hoarse when he asks, “You’re leaving?”

“No,” you reply. “You are.”

Spencer sways slightly on his feet as he thinks. “You’re kicking me out,” he realizes.

You try to ignore the prick of tears in your eyes and focus on keeping your voice steady. “Yes. I am.”

His bottom lip starts to tremble. “You... you can’t do this,” he whispers.

“No, I can,” you say. You take a deep breath before you continue. “But more than that, I have to.”

For the first time in months, Spencer doesn’t try and hide his tears from you. He cries openly. His back hits the wall and he slides down it, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. It’s unbelievably hard to watch.

You stand and approach him cautiously, almost as if he’s an animal that you don’t want to spook, reaching into your back pocket and holding out a keycard. “I booked you a room for the night at that motel a few streets over, so you can... sleep it off. But after that, you’re on your own.”

He looks up at you with those big brown eyes that you love so much, but they don’t look like they used to. Now they’re bloodshot and his pupils are pinpricks. “(Y/N), please, please don’t do this,” he whimpers. “Please, this is the last time. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

You just shake your head. His words are nothing new. “Your car is already in the parking lot there with the rest of your things.”

It’s like a switch flips, his broken expression contorting into a glare. “Fine,” he practically growls. He pushes your hand away and staggers to his feet. “I don’t want that shitty motel room. I’ll just go stay with JJ. She actually cares about me.”

You expected him to lash out like this, but the words still sting. “You really think JJ’s going to let you be around her boys like this?” you ask quietly.

The anger on his face is offset some by the tears and snot still running down it.. And you know he knows that you’re right. “So this is it, huh?” he says coldly, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “Six years together, all we’ve been through. It’s just over now.”

You retreat back to the couch, placing the keycard on top of the boxes. “That’s actually up to you.”

His laugh is derisive. “You could have fooled me!”

You swallow around the lump in your throat. “I don’t want this to be permanent. You can stay now, or come back, on one condition.”

Spencer folds his arms over his chest defensively. “Which is?”

“You have to agree to check into a treatment center.”

The look of betrayal on his face breaks your heart. Tears spill out of your eyes before you can stop them; you swipe them away and take a deep breath to try and hold the rest of them off.

It’s a while before he speaks again, and his voice is quiet when he does. “How can you say that.” It’s not a question.

“It’s what you need, Spencer,” you answer. “You’re not coping with what happened to you. Not just prison, everything that’s happening to your mom, too—”

“Don’t talk about my mother!”

You flinch. He’s never raised his voice at you before. It’s the drugs, you try to remind yourself. It’s just the drugs, he doesn’t really mean it.

He storms forward and you scurry out of the way on instinct. He scoffs. “What, you think I’m going to hurt you?”

“You’re scaring me right now,” you admit quietly.

Spencer tries to cover up the hurt with a scowl, but you can still see it in his eyes. “You really think that little of me?”

You open your mouth to speak, then close it again. You don’t know what to say. Spencer would never hurt you, you know that without a doubt. But the Spencer you know, the man you fell in love with... he’s not the same person when he’s using. And with how high and emotional he is right now, you don’t know what to expect. “I... I don’t know anymore, Spencer,” you answer honestly.

He shrugs. “Maybe you’re right to think that. I did some awful things in there, you know.” He says it matter-of-factly, but you recognize it as a glimpse of one of the things he’s using the drugs to escape from, one of the things he won’t talk about.

He gathers up the boxes in his arms; you pretend not to notice him pocketing the keycard. You’re worried about him carrying them safely in his current state and almost reach out to steady him before recognizing from the tension in his shoulders that touching him right now will only make things worse.

He stops at the door and you hurry to open it for him. “I really believed you loved me, you know,” he whispers, the anger falling off of his face.

The words are like a blow to the stomach; it knocks the breath out of your lungs. “I do,” you choke out. “I do love you.”

Spencer doesn’t answer. He just shakes his head and walks out the door.

He doesn’t look back.

---

It’s been the longest two weeks of your life.

You haven’t heard from Spencer since the night he left. You weren’t expecting him to come around to the idea of rehab quickly, but you thought he might try and call you within a few days and try to talk his way out of the hole he’d found himself in.

He didn’t.

All you could do was wait, and hope that that night wasn’t going to end up being the last time you saw him alive. In a way, it was worse than it had been when he was in prison, because this time, you were the reason he was gone.

His team has mixed feelings on what you’ve done.

JJ is mad. She asks, “how could you?”, and, “you really think this will work?” You try to be patient with her—you know she’s so upset because she loves him. She already lost her older sister and now she’s scared of losing the man who’s practically her brother. But when she (perhaps unintentionally) insinuates that you did this because you’d just had enough of him, you snap, telling her she has no right to say that when you know she wouldn’t let him stay at her house while he’s using. She keeps her thoughts to herself after that.

Emily is sympathetic. She was there the first time he started using and had subsequently gotten her head bitten off when she tried to reach out and help him. “I know how hard it is to get through to him when he’s... like this. You just let me know if I can help at all.”

Luke is much the same. He’s had his own struggles with PTSD and understands the toll it takes on everyone, not just the one with it. He’s always happy to offer you some time with Roxy, because he’s right—things really do feel better when you’re petting her.

Rossi isn’t... indifferent, exactly. He just doesn’t seem to have much of an opinion one way or the other. You think it’s because he doesn’t know what an alternative would be. For all his experience in psychology, he’s unsure of how to help Spencer.

You don’t know Matt very well yet, but he’s kind to you, even going so far as to bring you a dish of his wife’s lasagna.

Penelope is an absolute angel with her warm hugs and baked goods. She keeps an eye on Spencer’s cell phone location for you, in the event that he ends up at a police precinct or hospital.

Out of everyone, you like talking to Tara the most. She’s so supportive and understanding. You feel like she’s the only one who truly knows what the past few months have been like for you. She just gets it, having lived with a partner with substance use disorder before. “You’re doing the best you can and that’s all that matters,” she tells you. She even goes to a Narcotics Anonymous family meeting with you.

It’s day fourteen without Spencer, and it doesn’t feel much different. It feels bleak. You go to work and run errands, but you only manage it because it’s habit.

You’re rinsing off your plate from dinner when there’s a knock on the door. Your heart leaps into your throat. You aren’t expecting anyone. You try—in vain—not to hope too hard as you go to answer it. It could just be someone dropping by on a whim, or, god forbid, a police officer with bad news.

Please, Spencer. Please let it be you.

When you look through the peephole, you’re unable to hold back a sob of relief. His eyes are fixed on the doormat so you can’t quite see his face, but you’d recognize that head of hair anywhere, even in its current unwashed and disheveled state. You take a few deep breaths before opening the door, for his sake. You crying all over him is likely the last thing he wants or needs.

He doesn’t look up when you open the door, and you realize he’s waiting for you to make the first move.

“Spencer,” you say softly.

It’s a few more moments before he responds. “I’ll do it,” he finally mutters; you can just barely hear him.

Your breath catches in your chest. “You’ll do what?” you ask.

He glances up then, a look of annoyance flashing across his face.

“I’m not trying to be difficult,” you say, voice shaky from the effort of holding back tears. “I just... I need to hear you say it.”

He sighs and looks back down, tugging on the ends of his sleeves. “I’ll... I’ll go to... to re—rehab.”

Tension you didn’t even know you were holding in your body melts away. You step to the side. “Come in,” you whisper.

He shuffles inside. When you turn back from closing the door, he’s just standing still in the middle of the room. You get a better look at him now. His clothes are rumpled and his hair is an absolute mess, tangled and dirty. It doesn’t look like he’s had a shower or shave for at least a week—you figure he’s probably been sleeping in his car. His face is pale and his hands are trembling; as you move closer, you can see a light sheen of sweat on his face, leading you to believe that he’s currently sober and starting to experience withdrawal symptoms.

You touch his arm gently and he makes a distressed whining sound. You guide him to sit on the couch. When you sit next to him, he looks at you with teary eyes. You open your arms in an invitation and he collapses into you, bursting into tears. “’m sorry,” he stutters out between sobs. “I—I didn’ mean it. I... ‘m so s—sorry, (Y/N).”

You cry too, holding him tight against you. “I know, baby,” you whisper, voice breaking. “I know.”

---

Spencer’s mostly nonverbal for his intake process. Whether it’s by choice or not is something you’re unsure of. In a private room a few hallways away from the main ward, you’re introduced to the admissions supervisor, Susan, whose voice you recognize from the phone calls you’d made to get him into one of the beds here. You also meet Spencer’s new therapist, Lara. She has a kind face and seems to have a good sense of humor. You just hope Spencer will like her.

You’re both given paperwork to read through and sign, as he’s on your health insurance now. Naturally, he’s done with them before you’ve finished the first page. Susan is taken aback. “Oh. Um, sir, we do need you to actually read this paperwork,” she says.

Spencer folds his arms and stares down at the carpet. “I did.”

“He, uh, he can speed read,” you explain. She still looks skeptical, so you add, “I’m serious. He reread War and Peace on the drive here.”

He doesn’t talk again until everything’s in order and you’re given five minutes alone to say goodbye. “I don’t want to do this,” he whispers.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” you ask. When he nods, you pull at his arms gently until they relax and fall open, then take one of his hands and squeeze it. “I don’t want to, either. I’m so tired of being away from you. But...” You take a deep breath. “But I also don’t want to bury you. You know this is what you need, right?”

He shrugs, refusing to meet your eyes. You can’t quite tell what that means—whether he agrees but wishes that wasn’t the case, or if he’s only doing this to appease you. You hope it’s the former. While it’s a possibility that this might not work either way, you feel like that’s more likely to happen if he isn’t doing this for himself as well, if he doesn’t want to get better.

But it’s out of your hands now. All you can do is trust in the people here to take care of him and that they want what’s best for him.

You put your hand on his cheek and turn his head towards you, trying to get him to look at you. His words from that night run through your head—I really believed you loved me. When he glances up, you seize the moment.

“I love you, Spencer. So much. If there’s just one thing you can trust in right now, please let it be that,” you plead.

He sniffles and you think you see a nod from him, but you can’t be sure. And it hurts a bit—you’re not used to him not saying “I love you” back. You can’t dwell on that now, though. You’ve only got a few minutes left before you have to leave him.

You stand, pulling him up with you. “Can I hu—” you start, but you’re cut off by him lunging forward and clinging to you. You comfort him as best as you can, running one hand up and down his back and using the other to cradle the back of his head as he cries into your neck, muttering incomprehensible words against your skin.

When the door opens, his entire body tenses against you. “Spencer,” you say gently, trying to stop your voice from wavering too much. “You have to let go now.”

He doesn’t budge. If anything, he holds onto you tighter. “Baby—“ you start.

“No,” he says suddenly, his voice louder than you’ve heard it in days. “No, I can’t—I won’t—”

Before you know it, he’s twisted around to stand behind you. You open and close your mouth a few times, startled and unsure what to say. “Spencer, what—what’s wrong?”

“No,” he repeats, shaking his head. “I can’t do it again. I—I won’t.” Then he starts to rub at one of his eyes in the way you’ve seen so many times since he came home from prison and it hits you—he feels like he’s getting locked up again.

A glance at the door shows expressions of sympathy on Susan and Lara’s faces. What with the “war on drugs” sending addicts to prison, this probably isn’t the first time they’ve seen a reaction like this.

You doubt any of their previous patients were framed for murder and had their mother kidnapped by a vengeful psychopath, though.

Spencer’s entire body is trembling when you look back at him, and it’s not from the lingering withdrawal symptoms. It’s heartbreaking, but it only affirms your belief that he needs to be here. It’s clear that he can’t tolerate what he feels and what he knows without turning to self-destructive coping mechanisms.

“Take me home,” he whimpers. “Take me home, please. I want to go home.”

You swallow hard. “I can’t.”

“But they’re gonna hurt me,” he cries. “They’re gonna hurt me because I hurt them; don’t you care if I get hurt?”

You think you know what he’s talking about. You don’t know the details—Spencer wouldn’t let Emily or JJ tell you—but you do know he was hurt in prison by the other inmates. You had seen the bruises yourself. And then you’d heard that some of the inmates were poisoned. He’s a graduate chemist—you’d put it together. You don’t know why he did it, but you assume that he hadn’t had much of a choice.  

“They’re not here, Spencer.” You try to stop him from scratching so hard at his eyes, but he flinches at your touch. “They’re not here; they can’t hurt you anymore,” you repeat instead.

Lara comes up to your side. “Let us take care of him, okay?”

Oh, but you don’t want to. Spencer’s so upset and you can’t bear the thought of leaving him like this, not when all you want to do is hold him and never let go. It’s what you’ve wanted since the moment he stepped out of Millburn. But isn’t this the whole point of bringing him here? You can’t help him on your own. You have to let him go.

When Lara coaxes you to take a step back, Spencer makes the most awful, wounded noise. “Don’t leave me, please,” he begs. “Don’t leave me again.”

You press the back of your hand to your mouth to hold back a sob. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” you manage to say. “And I’ll visit you as soon as I can.”

“No, it’s not o—okay,” he protests, his voice breaking. “It’s not—I—” He presses his hands into his eyes and backs up until he’s in the corner. He drops to the floor and curls up, hugging his knees to his chest and burying his face in them.

Susan is able to get you to take a few more steps back; Lara takes a step forward, in Spencer’s direction.

“Um, don’t—don’t touch him,” you stutter out, desperate to help somehow. “It’ll—it’ll just make it worse.”

“I won’t,” she assures you. And she doesn’t—instead she sits on the floor several feet away from him; not close enough to be threatening but not far enough that he’d be completely unaware of her presence. It makes you feel a little better, because that’s what you do for him at home.

You let Susan guide you out of the room and to the entrance. “He’ll be okay,” she tells you as you walk. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and Lara’s fantastic. It’s actually a good opportunity to start building therapeutic rapport.”

You just nod as she talks, not quite listening to what she’s saying. You just keep thinking of his face when you took a step away from him, and how small his voice sounded. It’s a storm of emotions inside of you, but among them is... relief. You don’t have to worry about keeping him safe anymore.

Leaving him in that room, terrified, surrounded by people he doesn’t know, is one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. You just hope it will be worth it.

---

It’s Spencer’s thirty-sixth birthday. You have the day off, but the alarm still sounds early in the morning. You rub your eyes and stretch, trying to shake off the sleepiness. You were up late last night, looking through the entire apartment just one more time for anything you could have missed.

It’s something you’ve done half a dozen times since he was admitted. You haven’t found any needles or Dilaudid since the first time, but you keep doing it anyways. For some reason, when you were feeling anxious about... well, everything, it would calm you down.

You can’t stop yourself from checking once more before you leave to pick him up—though not as thoroughly since you don’t have the time. You just check his hiding places—the desk drawer with the false bottom, the pair of socks he hates that stay in the back of his sock drawer, the gun safe (he’d told you the code years ago just in case and hasn’t changed it since, more worried about you being in danger and needing it than you finding things he doesn’t want you to), and the two hollowed out books at the back of two different bookshelves.

You want to believe that even if there were anything there, he wouldn’t go looking for it anymore, but you aren’t there yet. He’s been in treatment just shy of six weeks, and it’s been up and down. Two steps forward has always seemed to be accompanied by one step back.

While he usually thrived on routine, the enforced structure of the treatment facility would remind him of Millburn multiple times a day. It took the better part of two weeks for him to adjust to it. The first time you visited him, he had curled up in your arms and cried about it, saying that he was barely sleeping because he didn’t feel safe and that he just wanted to go home.

It didn’t help that he didn’t get along with his roommate. Spencer found him to be too loud, complaining to you multiple times that he always wanted to talk during quiet time. Apparently he was also working on his GED, and would constantly ask him for answers to his homework. “I wouldn’t mind helping him, but he just wants me to give him the answers instead,” he’d told you. So Spencer had just tried to ignore him.

But his patience had finally snapped a few weeks ago when his roommate drank both his own and Spencer’s shampoo in a suicide attempt, because he’d “read somewhere that shampoo was toxic.” Spencer had yelled at him, calling him a “fucking idiot”, among other things (they were promptly separated). His roommate was fine in the end—he just threw up a lot. But he was permanently moved to a different room, to both you and Spencer’s relief.

Spencer had a meltdown the next night, though, when it was time to shower. He had been given replacement shampoo from the treatment center’s supplies, but he didn’t like the smell and couldn’t stand the texture, so he’d refused to take a shower. That then resulted in him losing points for not following the structure. (Points were given for good behavior and meeting goals, and were mainly how privileges were earned.)

Naturally, Spencer had protested that this wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t have shampoo that he could use. He’d been told that these were the rules, and he wouldn’t be given an exception. In response, Spencer had thrown the shampoo across the room, thrown himself onto his bed, buried his head under his pillow, and refused to talk to anyone.

But that night ended up marking a turn for the better in his treatment. He hadn’t responded when shift change happened and one of the night staff, Matt, checked in on him—in fact, he hadn’t moved at all. When he’d said, “tell me if there’s anything I can do to help you feel better”, Spencer had had no intention of taking him up on it.

A couple of hours later, though, when everything was quiet and he couldn’t sleep because he felt sticky and dirty from not showering, he wandered out into the commons area, holding his favorite blanket from home around himself. When asked what he needed, he’d shrugged, because he didn’t know what he needed, besides his old shampoo, and there wasn’t much to be done about that at midnight.

“I heard you had a rough time this evening,” Matt had said.

Spencer nodded absently, looking at everything but the two of them sitting on the couches.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

“Okay,” Matt had replied. “Well, you can sit out here with us for a little while if you want. How’s ten minutes sound?”

Spencer had shrugged again, but sat down on the corner of the couch, pulling his legs up against his chest. He pressed his nose into the fabric of the blanket and breathed in deeply. He’d held off on washing it since got here because it smelled like you. It was comforting, and he felt himself relax some. Then, without thinking about it consciously, he opened his mouth... and talked.

He started with the shampoo incident. His voice had raised an octave and hot tears stung his eyes as he talked about how much he hated the replacement shampoo and how he felt that he was being treated unfairly by people who didn’t understand why it bothered him so much. And then he had just... kept going. He didn’t talk about specifics—he said he was framed and wrongly incarcerated, then went straight to everything that had happened since he got home. He talked about losing his job and his first relapse because of that. He talked about how he couldn’t seem to stop going back. He talked about your ultimatum and his two weeks living out of his car.

When he finally stopped, he was breathing heavily and exhausted, but he felt... lighter. It was like the dam burst. The next morning, he started talking, really talking, to his therapist. When you came by that evening to bring him new shampoo, he’d told you all about what had happened, sparing no detail. To say it shocked you was an understatement—he hadn’t been so open with you since Mexico.

The two weeks since had gone well. There were a few bumps, but otherwise he was improving, and he’d been able to earn a day visit for his birthday.

Spencer looks... good when you see him. He’s fully dressed, wearing the cardigan he knows you like the best, and it no longer looks baggy on him. He’d come back from prison a little underweight, and it had only gotten worse since. But he’s been steadily gaining it back here thanks to sobriety and regular meals. He’s got his satchel across his shoulder but he isn’t clinging to it protectively and the way he rocks up on the balls of his feet appears to be excited rather than nervous. It looks like he may have even run a brush through his hair for once.

Then he sees you, and the smile that spreads across his face... he looks like himself again. Your smile back is so big that it probably looks goofy, but you don’t care.

He hugs you as soon as you’re close enough. It’s tight, but he’s not clinging to you like you’ve grown accustomed to over the past six weeks, which you think can only be a good thing—he’s not feeling insecure or unsafe anymore.

“Happy birthday,” you say. “You look really nice.”

“Really?” he asks. “Because I got up a little early to get ready, but I didn’t shave since I’d have to check out my razor and that’s a hassle, and if you don’t like it, that’s fine. I’m not really sure myself—”

“Spencer, I don’t mind the facial hair at all,” you interrupt. “You look great. I mean it.”

He glances away shyly, his cheeks turning a little pink. “Thanks,” he murmurs.

You both sign the checkout paperwork and head out. Spencer insists on holding your hand the entire time. When you get to the car and start to let go, he tightens his grip instead and pulls you closer to him. “(Y/N).”

“Yes?”

He hesitates just slightly before placing his other hand on your cheek. “Can I kiss you?” he asks softly.

You blink, realizing that it’s been a long while since you’ve kissed. And just like that, you’re aching for his lips on yours. “Please do.”

Spencer lets your hand go then. Cradling your head in both of his hands now, he leans in and kisses you so gently. You soak it in, feeling warm inside as something you didn’t realize you were missing returns to you. When he pulls back, he looks more at peace than you’ve seen him in months.

You just look at each other for a bit. Eventually, you place a kiss on his cheek and say, “We should go before we get in trouble for loitering.”

He wants to hold your hand whenever he can on the drive home, and you let him. He tells you how his week has been going—someone in his group therapy is graduating the program in a few days, and they’ve started a new project in art therapy. You knew about the art project already, since he’d spent half of his phone time on Monday telling you how much he didn’t want to make a pottery project because he can’t stand how the clay feels on his hands when it dries. But you’ve always loved to listen to him talk, so you don’t remind him of this.

As you’re getting off the freeway fifteen minutes later, you tap the back of his hand twice to signal that you have something to say. He pauses in his infodump about the history of pottery so you can speak. “I’ve got a few presents for you at home, but I was thinking we could go to the bookstore and you can pick out some more things?”

He makes a happy humming noise. “That sounds great! There’s something I want to read up on.”

He veers off to the nonfiction section when you enter his favorite bookstore; you idly browse your favorite section as you wait. When he returns to your side, he’s holding a stack of five books, all on the same subject.

“Horses,” you say.

He nods enthusiastically, his hair bouncing. “I’m starting an equine therapy program next week.”

“Oh, that’s cool. I hope it goes well.” You don’t know much about horse therapy—seems like that’s going to be what you read about on your phone in bed tonight while you wait for sleep to come.

Spencer’s quiet on the car ride home, content to flip through his new books. He doesn’t notice when you park the car; you have to touch his arm to get his attention.

“What?” he asks without taking his eyes off of the full color spread of a mustang in his lap.

“We’re home,” you point out. With how many times he’s told you he wants to go home in the past weeks, you expect him to be excited, but he’s not. He tenses when he looks up and sees the building in front of you. “What’s wrong, Spencer?”

“Um...” He fiddles with the book’s dust jacket. “There’s... there’s not a surprise party waiting for me inside, is there?”

“Oh. No, there’s not. Just a few balloons and little banner. You, uh...” you wince a little as something occurs to you. “You weren’t wanting one, were you?”

“Absolutely not,” he immediately replies.

You chuckle a little at his certainty. “Well, good. Because I had a hell of a time convincing Penelope not to throw you a birthday party, and I don’t know if she’d ever forgive me if it turned out I was wrong and you did, in fact, want a party.”

That gets a small laugh out of him; your heart leaps at the sound. It’s been far too long since you’ve heard that.

He seems a little apprehensive as you unlock the front door, and when he walks in, he stays standing on the living room rug for a while, his eyes traveling from one side of the room to another, looking over everything. “It looks the same,” he says eventually.

“Were you expecting it not to be?” you ask.

“I don’t know,” he answers, running his fingers across one of the seams of his satchel. “It’s not that I thought you would change anything, it’s more like... I feel so much different than I did the last time I was here that it’s kind of strange to see that everything’s just like I remember it.”

You’re reminded of the last time he was standing still in the living room like this, stick-thin, dirty, and trembling from withdrawals. “Different in a good way, I hope,” you say, nervously fussing with the pile of presents on the coffee table.

He gives you a small smile. “Yes, in a good way,” he affirms softly. He notices the presents and scrunches his eyebrows. “I thought you said you only had a few presents here.”

“Most of these are from the team,” you explain. “Emily brought them by last night. They had to fly out this morning, but she wanted you to have them on your birthday.”

“Oh.” He raises his hand and it looks like he might rub at his eye but he presses his knuckles to his mouth instead. You can’t really tell what’s going on in his mind. You figure his feelings towards his team are complicated. On the one hand, they got him out of the prison, and he’s known some of them for over a decade. On the other, he wasn’t allowed to rejoin the BAU and the whole experience had made him feel humiliated. You think he wants to see them, but he also doesn’t; he’s stuck in the middle and can’t decide.

Either way, it doesn’t matter today. It’s his birthday and you want him to have a good one, so you redirect his attention. You sit on the couch and pat the spot next to you. “Will you show me your new books?”

The corners of his mouth turn up and he pads across the floor towards you. “Yeah. So, here’s what I’ve learned so far....”

The day continues in much the same fashion—quiet and laidback as you simply enjoy each other’s company. Once he shows you all of the books, you move on to the TV, catching up on the episodes of Doctor Who you’ve both missed (you didn’t want to watch it without him). You order his favorite takeout for dinner, after which you bring out his dessert—half a dozen chocolate frosting and sprinkles donuts arranged in a circle around two candles displaying 36.

“You know, it’s not really sanitary to blow all over food before sharing it,” he says.

You roll your eyes fondly. “We go over this every year. We kiss; I’m not worried about your mouth germs.”

“But it’s not just my “mouth germs”,” he corrects, making air quotes with his fingers. “It involves the entire respiratory track, so—”

“Spencer, as always, it’s a risk I’m willing to take,” you interrupt. You’ve heard this explanation before. “Now make a wish.”

He takes a moment to ponder it, then blows the candles out. You put the plate down and hand him a napkin. “We’re not going to be able to eat all of these before I have to go back,” he says, but the way he bites eagerly into the first one nearly makes you question that.

He gets through two; you only eat one, mostly full from dinner. He wants to go lay down on the bed after, “so we have more room to cuddle”. And cuddle he does, pressing as much of his body to yours as he can. One of your hands settles in his hair automatically. “Did you have a good day?” you ask, running your fingers through it.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Obviously this situation is not ideal,” you start carefully. “But I’m just so happy that you’re still... well, around for your birthday.”

Spencer turns his head into the fabric of your shirt and breathes in deeply. “Me, too,” he says quietly on the exhale.

You lay together in silence for a while, and you savor the feeling of having him in bed next to you again. Sleeping alone wasn’t anything new in your relationship, as his job took him around the country. You’d gotten used to it for the most part, but every night he wasn’t with you because he was in prison was just plain awful. After, you had him back for six weeks, then it became sporadic again as he started using. It’s been so much easier to sleep since he went into treatment, but you still miss sharing the bed with him terribly.

You look at your phone briefly to check the time. “We’ve got about three hours until we have to start heading back. I’m happy to stay like this, but we still have time to do something else if you want to.”

All he says verbally is, “okay”, but the way he squirms against you tells you that he does have something on his mind.

“Just let me know if you do,” you say gently; you don’t want him to feel pressured into speaking. Plus you’re content to lay here playing with his hair and listening to his breathing.

“Well, there is something,” he admits after a few minutes.

He doesn’t continue, so you say, “Okay. What is it?”

He sighs and sits up. “It’s... it’s nothing bad, or—or even that big of a deal, really. At least, it shouldn’t be.”

You push yourself up into a sitting position next to him. “Well, why don’t you tell me so I can help?” you ask. “I can tell that it’s bothering you.”

“That’s exactly the point. It shouldn’t be bothering me,” Spencer complains. “Because I really want to do it. It’s just...”

You put your hand on his back and run it up and down to try and comfort him. You don’t say anything; you just give him time to get the words out.

He takes a deep breath. “I want to have sex,” he says. “I really do, I’m just... not entirely sure I’m... ready yet.”  

“Oh.”

It’s not where you expected the conversation to go, because it’s something that hasn’t really been in your life at all since Mexico. He’d... taken care of you a few times during those first six weeks, but hadn’t let you return the favor. Each time he had scurried off to the bathroom and run a cold shower before you could even touch the waistband of his pants. Then on the night he came back to you, you had been helping him undress since his hands were trembling so much. When you unbuttoned his pants, he had breathed in sharply and frantically pushed your hands away.

Clearly something had happened to him, but he’d never even alluded to anything of the sort. And that was okay—you didn’t need to know. You just wished you knew how to help.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s stupid,” he says, running his hands down his face.

“Oh, baby, no,” you soothe. “It’s not stupid at all.”

He just shakes his head. “You deserve more than this.”

“I don’t know about that. But,” you continue, pushing his hair back so you can see his face better, “I do know what I want, and what I want is you.”

Spencer chews on his bottom lip, doubt clouding his eyes. “Look at me,” you implore. He meets your gaze hesitantly and you take his face in your hands.

“I love you, Spencer Reid. And nothing is going to change that.”

His eyes grow wet. He sniffles once, then lunges forward, capturing your lips with his own. You kiss him back just as passionately, holding onto him as tight as he is to you. It may have been a long time since you kissed at all until this morning, but it’s been even longer since he’s kissed you like this.

“Love you, too, (Y/N),” he mumbles against your lips when he pulls back to take a breath.

You press your forehead to his with a happy sigh. But he’s only content to stay like that for a few moments. He bumps your nose with his and tugs slightly on your shirt, requesting permission to kiss you again. You’d love to do that, and you’d love to do more than that, too, but you don’t want him to rush into something he’s not truly ready for.

“You know what we could do?” you ask, running your hand through the curls on the back of his neck.

Spencer’s eyes keep flicking between yours and your lips. “What?”

“A good old-fashioned high school make out,” you say, smiling at him softly. “And I’ll keep my hands above your waist.”

When he visibly relaxes, you know it’s the right decision. “I’d like that,” he says quietly. “I mean, I never kissed anyone when I was in high school, but I get the idea.”

The shy look he gives you before climbing onto your lap reminds you so much of how he was when you first started dating. He’s still there, your Spencer, the Spencer you fell in love with. You never truly thought he was gone, but there were plenty of moments of doubt, moments when you wondered if he’d ever be able to pull himself out of the wreckage, out of the grip of trauma. As much as you wanted to, you couldn’t do it for him.

As it turns out, he could. He can.

It’s far from over. He still has a long way to go. You both do. But for the first time since the day he came home from prison, a return to normal seems possible.

It won’t be the same as it was before. He’s always going to be a little different. But... that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.

He kisses you, and it feels like it used to, full of respect, adoration, trust, and love. It feels like Spencer.

Despite everything, it’s still him.

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

tell me what you thought here!

if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. this was very much a personal work but i decided to share it anyways because why the hell not, i'm proud of it. the next chapter will explore horse therapy, a treatment i did and loved, among other things.

i'd like to encourage you please seek this kind of help if you think need it. i see how it changes lives every day at work and it changed my own as well. there's no shame in getting the treatment you need, whatever that may be. recovery is worth it.

if you’re interested in learning more about trauma and the treatment of it, i cannot recommend the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., enough. it was my favorite book i read last year and i referred back to it several times while writing this.