#this week i almost had a meltdown bc i felt sick and had to sleep in my bed instead of doing uni work and travel planning

[tchaikovskym]

You have to admit I'm at least a tiny bit hot for being a loser academic on the verge of losing my mind

[valentijnsstuff]

This has been such a volatile week, this is mostly for myself to recount events but holy shit

Me almost making an attempt last sunday evening and then finding out there actually IS accessible help for my suicide issues after scrambling to find any for weeks

being able to sit and eat pizza on a busy terrace with a friend on monday

starting the tuesday with the most insanely tense session with two therapists where I could barely speak but HAD to tell them that they were just not helping, hanging out at a besties house to calm down, reaching out to my ex out of desperation, going to sleep in the haunted house

waking up wednesday feeling like shit and to a check in from my dad, who doesn't know what to say to my worsening depression, feeling sick and spiraling the rest of the day from medication side effects, to the point of not being able to eat and sleep and having to call a medical professional for a panic attack

Calling the docters office thursday morning because I felt so sick I wasn't sure I could drive myself to the doctors, being completely out and in an intense panic in front of a doctor that I don't quite trust, but miraculously being able to get a prescription for sleep medication, having my mental coach look at me with a very focused concerned face for a whole hour as I try to explain how bad the situation has gotten inbetween sobbing, her being actually helpful in telling me how to carry my pain, having a long conversation with a 113 professional when I come home, crying uncontrolably in a way I thought only children could, meeting up with my ex to ask him for help, having to sit and listen to him boast how good he is doing now he is finally making his own life choices, getting told by him 'count your blessings', having to sleep over at the besties house to calm down again after dragging myself through all that, gathering enough courage to cancel a date that I clearly couldn't go on in this state

Rushing home friday to have my sister come eat brunch, calling my ex to tell him that some of the things he said didn't sit right with me, bring my sister to her therapy meeting, get called by my ex that he wants an apology for hurting him before he considers helping me, being forced to have the conversation in what ways I was actually hurt by him in the middle of a busy street, having my intake for a suicidal prevention counseling right after, having a good time chilling out with my sister and going swimming with her and her bestie, not being able to focus on the swimming because of all the anger and hurt caused by my ex's treatment flooding back, being on the phone with him for an infuriating half hour, being told 'this is the last time we're talking', I could barely start to tell him what he did to make me as broken as I am, crying in the hallway of the swimmingpool, calling my friends to tell them I made the mistake of trying to trust my ex

Being in company of a bestie on saturday all day, driving 5 cities over to keep an eye on the expo there and being exhausted the whole time, slipping away to have a scream crying session in my car because of how much hurt my inner child still feels from the shit my ex pulled on me, finally being able to aknowledge how conditional his love was, having to stop by the haunted house with my bestie on the way back bc I left a roof window open, having to manage the water damage bc of said window, eating kfc in the parking lot absolutely knackered together, panic planning how to convert my car into a mini camper bc of how anxious I felt at going back to my house alone

Being able to go on a shopping tour to big stores with another bestie today, but having a meltdown at the busy restaurant, spiraling about how I will never be able to live in my home by myself because the weird cptsd that is connected to the place, my bestie inviting me over for sleepover to calm me down and help me trough another night

As I'm writing this I'm noticing so many patterns, I constantly need to be affirmed that there will be a way out of being alone, my medication is definitely starting to work and I can finally handle more situations, but the sleeping in my own home by myself is too triggering, I would rather sleep in my car in this point than be home by myself

[troglobite]

no better time than 6 fucking am to just be hit with how utterly, crushingly lonely you are

how even friends that you love are moving on w their lives without you

you’re not a priority, and you can’t make them one bc they have other more important things

how even ppl you thought were safe to be around can say something so casually hurtful that’s not even about you but it hurts. and you don’t realize until it’s 5:30 and you’re trying to sleep. 

amazing that having met w 2 friends today and meeting w a different one in 5 hrs, i feel so utterly, pathetically alone. 

i feel like i’m cutting tiny portions of myself off to hand to other ppl to make friendships and keep communication open sometimes

but i just

i stayed up too late reading. i was gonna go to sleep 3 hrs ago. and instead i stayed up late reading.

and it was probably a mistake. i really enjoyed it but it just hurt. bc it was this beautiful prose abt ppl who had built lives for themselves by age 30. who had friends who could see all these pieces of them without it needing to be said. who could understand each other. who still did say things, but didn’t always need to say the small things. who felt safe in disagreements and discomfort. 

who weren’t alone. 

and i loved it and it hurt my stomach all the way down to my pelvis the way some emotions hit me. and i’m just sad. 

i don’t feel like anyone actually knows or understands me. i do my best to do that w or for others. 

and part of the problem is that i simply don’t trust anyone enough to be myself and part of that is that i’m tired of handing myself to someone only for them to go “oh. no thanks.”

i’m tired of being alone. i’m tired of being lonely. i’m tired of only mattering in pieces. i’m tired of not having energy for people, and them never having the time or energy for me. 

i’m tired of having to be someone else around/with everyone i talk to. and “everyone” sure is doing a lot of heavy lifting that isn’t accurate.

the number of ppl i talk to w any frequency right now: 7

it’s usually more like 4 or 5. i’ve had an unprecedented uptick in communication from a few people. 

the number of ppl that i feel like i can be 1000000% of myself around, whether or not it has anything to do with them: 1

and i don’t know if it’s reciprocal. 

i didn’t budget or plan for or anticipate a complete fucking meltdown at 6 am, sorry

oh i guess i could count my therapist for a whopping 8, bc i talk to her once a week. and then 2 bc the whole point is to be myself in therapy. 

my life is nothing that i wanted right now

i’m almost 30 and i barely have friends. i don’t have a life. i have no marketable skills. i’m on medicaid bc i can’t find a job, and even if i did, it would pay me nowhere near even half a livable wage. 

i’m so tired and miserable and i just can’t take any of this anymore. 

trying just HURTS because NO ONE i know is in the same situation as me. and that sounds so egotistical and pathetic. 

but i just mean

idfk what i mean

no one gets it and i guess it’s unfair and stupid to want someone to get it about everything

maybe it’s me

maybe i’m broken and fucked up

i wish i could kill my past

every day without even trying i just don’t think abt who i used to me, i’m just living in the now and recent past and thinking abt that

and i just wish past me didn’t exist and i didn’t have to carry them around w me all the fucking time

idek how to articulate what’s WRONG right now i just HURT i hurt so much i feel sick and i can’t stop crying

i guess i’ll just take an anti-anxiety thing and shove it back down to get a whopping 4 hours of sleep before i have to pretend to be fine again in front of someone i’ve “known” for 16 years who’s going out without masks, whose whole current drama and life struggle is about this woman she loves and who loves her

every time i just have to try and accept that people have been awful to be bc i’m short and fat and mexican and queer and trans and autistic

i just see other ppl who share these traits who don’t share the bullshit i went through or am going through

or who are in loving relationships

or have so many friends

or who are so successful

and i just want to die

what is WRONG with me? why is it like this for me, why am i like this?

i just want to know what’s so fucking unlovable about me bc i wasn’t 

i wasn’t always this pathetic in this way

but my stupid fucking life is just and has just not been that fucking awful

why am i so weak?

and i can’t just SAY this to people. to the people who are my friends. that i’m supposed to trust. 

you can’t just DUMP taht on someone.

which is why i just bullshit it into the void on here for ppl to choose whether they read or engage or not.

i know it’m annoying and pathetic. i put it under read mores. you know what this is, you can (and should) scroll right past without reading. i know most ppl do. and good. i’m not trying to manipulate or guilt anyone into this. 

i need to be out of my own head with this stuff like i’m explaining it to someone else bc if it’s a journal or a diary i get sick of my own bullshit too fast and i know what i’m going to say before i type it so it’s pointless

i’m just sorry

i feel like i have to justify everything

i don’t want to hurt anyone--at least not due to negligence. accident, it happens. 

i have so many plushies now. and my new one that i can’t let go of. it just feels so sad and pathetic. holding them all the time. 

i’m 27, almost 28, i’ve never dated, i’ve never been myself in any friendship. idk who myself is bc i’m so twisted around and busted. and i’m so afraid. constantly. and i feel. insane. with fear and with seeing so many people i cared abt just. not. care. about any of this anymore.

and there’s nothing i can do to fix it. 

i wish i had gone to sleep 3 hours ago like i had planned to. i’ve been tired this whole time. my eyes burning. 

all i know abt myself is that i can never shut up or leave well enough alone. idk what close relationships look like. idk how to be a person. i can’t do this. i can’t carry this. i’m so tired of burying how i feel and biting my tongue or choosing anger bc it hurts less and fades quicker. i’m tired of losing track of time and days. i’m tired of being a disappointment. i’m tired of being disappointed. 

i should take a fucking anti anxiety thing and go to sleep and stop. bothering everyone. i’m going to be a mess when i have to talk to my friend in a few hours on like no sleep and puffy eyes and i’m going to have to help her manage her traumas and feelings and other sundry bullshit (not derogatory) so that she stops getting herself hurt bc if i’m being given the power to help then i have to take it. if i don’t then i’m letting her get hurt. i will have done nothing. 

i’ve already spent weeks and hours and thousands of words via IG DMs. she couldn’t be there for me when i needed her. she doesn’t pay attn to where i am in my life. she’s trying to figure out who i am but doesn’t listen to me when i try to tell her. 

she acts like i’m always putting myself down.

i’m not. i don’t. i try not to.

i’m just stating facts about who i am and what my life is. 

and if that feels like i’m insulting myself then you’re just making me feel even worse bc my life is apparently so pathetic it sounds like an insult.

no, i’m not qualified for that job you sent. i’m flattered you thought of me and i appreciate it, but i’m not qualified.

no, i’m not selling myself short. i know ppl in the industry and i know it takes more than what i have. it would take years to be anywhere near capable of being ready for that position--and it’s not even in an area that i would want to pursue. 

but pushing back and pushing back against that as if i’m insulting myself

and i just keep

“by then i’ll be hotter than the cheerleaders [because i’ll be thinner]” and “you’re not fat!” and her fucking ex-girlfriend making fun of fat americans while my mom and i fed her pizza that we paid for. her paranoia about fitness and thinness and how she sucks her stomach in in all of her pictures. 

all of the ways i am made to feel shame for who i am right now. it’s alien to them, to everyone. 

i don’t have. a social life. i barely have friends. and the ones i have just. say things. 

and i feel ungrateful, or cruel, or judgmental, like i’m holding people to impossible standards that they can never meet.

and maybe i am. bc why would i ever trust anyone. 

i don’t want to deal w my stupid fucking inner child, the pathetic kid who was weak and clueless and who no one actually liked. 

i was just amusing. or they could cheat off of me. or i was convenient. 

or i did things for them, emotionally. i supported them. we had jokes and fun.

but it was never anything more--not for me. not towards me. 

i’m so good at not needing anything and no one ever seems to complain.

and then when they do and i take them up on it and try to change my behavior it just doesn’t go well.

i’m perpetually too much. 

just look at all this fucking bullshit i’ve typed out after telling myself to just take a pill and go to sleep. TWICE. 

i don’t like knowing what loneliness feels like. it’s so crushing and all-consuming. i’ve already been here before. i never wanted to be here again, but somehow worse. 

bc i’ve worked so hard. to get better. to build things up. to have a life. and i failed. just like i fail at most things.

imagine changing your expectations and goals in life so many times, continuously making them less and less ambitious, and still managing to fail and fall short. imagine. well, i’ve done it. i’ve managed it. and i hate it. 

“everyone’s afraid of rejection, but you just have to push through”

i’ve known almost nothing except rejection for all of my 27, almost 28, years of living. i’m tired. i had gotten over it, i thought i was stronger and could move on bc it wasn’t always rejections. 

then grad school happened and the pandemic happened and it just became rejections all over again, implicit and explicit. 

when will anyone else take responsibility for everything so it’s not my fucking job to have to deal w everything myself, entirely alone?

and all of this bullshit. isn’t. enough. i cannot. go to other people w this. why would i? why sympathy would they have for any of this? pathetic. weak. i’m so tired.

[robinrunsfiction]

The Lonely Road

Pairing: Gerard Way x Female Reader

Rating: Teen (for online harassment)

Requested By: None

Word Count: 2,400

Author’s Note: Inspired by the song Outnumbered by Dermot Kennedy, so feel free to give it a listen as you read. Originally this was gonna be a Valentine’s story, but now Valentine’s is over, and so I just took out the brief mentions of it. Also it’s a Gerard story so of course it’s longer than intended so taking parts out probably is for the better 😅 Shout out to my number one @mariawritesfanfic for helping me wrap this story up

You scrolled through your twitter feed, as hours on the tour bus left you with few other options to pass the time. Your new album had just come out and you wanted to see how people were reacting to it. 

OMG @(YFN)(YLN)’s album is awesome! Everyone check it out now!

The only reason she’s famous is bc of @gerardway

The album is ok if you consider she fucked her way into stardom

I stg if mcr ever breaks up it’s gonna be (YN)'s fault

(YN) should just break up with gee so he can be with frank liek everyone knows he wants to be

You felt sick to your stomach as you read through the messages. Sure there were tweets from fans saying how much they enjoyed the album, and they love Gerard and you together, but those weren’t the ones that stuck out in your mind. It was the negative messages that caught your attention and soured your mood.

As if he was reading your thoughts, a text from Gerard appeared on your screen. “Hey sugar, congrats on the album. It’s amazing and so are you xoxo love you”

You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes at the love and kindness of his message. “Thanks love," you replied before tossing your phone aside. You pulled shut the curtain on your bunk and let the tears fall silently. 

~

You had met Gerard at an award show. You had always been a fan of his and My Chem, but you were beyond nervous to say anything to him when you saw him across the room. When he approached you and said he actually had been listening to your music and was a fan, you thought you might transcend onto another plane of existence right then and there. You found him to be surprisingly easy to talk to and exchanged phone numbers so you could hang out sometime.

Hanging out sometime turned into hanging out often. Then one night under the stars in his backyard, your casual hanging out turned into sharing your thoughts, hopes, and fears you'd never voiced to anyone. The next day you were worried you'd never see or hear from him again, having revealed too much of your emotional baggage too soon, but that afternoon he called and asked you out on a real date. The date was perfect for two people like you and Gerard, complete with a tender, careful kiss that took your breath away. In an instant, you were falling hard.

After that it really became you and Gerard. When all of your friends found out, they were so happy for both of you, as they could see how happy you made each other. Then one day the rest of the world figured it out as well. Gerard had come to one of your recording sessions and had snapped a picture of you laughing in the recording booth and posted it online with the caption "the most beautiful person making the most beautiful sounds ❤" The fans put it together and a barrage of messages flooded your social media feed. Some people thought it was cute, many were awful, but you let it all roll off your back as you were too in love to care what anyone thought.

Months passed, and now that album was out. You had hoped Gerard would be able to join you on the road, but My Chem was in the studio themselves so he wasn't able to be there. You understood, but being away from him for the first time, while dealing with the stress of releasing an album, your first tour, and his angry fans, it was almost getting to be too much.

You had finally fallen asleep only to be awakened what felt like moments later by your manager Christine's voice.

"Rise and shine rock star, time to charm the lovely people of," she paused and you could hear her flipping through papers, "Fort Wayne, Indiana."

You sighed. You had wanted this for so long, it had been your dream for years. But now you were questioning everything.

~

"We're joined in studio by (YFN) (YLN), her new album just came out last week and we are loving it here on 106.7 FM," the overly cheerful radio host announced. “You have a lot of fans here in Madison!”

"Thank you," you replied with a tired smile. You hoped your lack of energy wasn't evident by your voice.

"Tell us, how much of an influence was your boyfriend? And for anyone who hasn't heard, (YN) is dating that oh so sexy MCR frontman, Gerard Way."

You had gotten this question at almost every interview, as if you were incapable of creating your own music. "He was there for some of the recording sessions, but a lot of the album was written before we met, so not a huge influence musically."

"What's it like to date someone so famous?"

"I mean, it's not like a topic of conversation for us," you replied sharply. You glanced up and saw the look Christine was giving you. "I mean, we talk about music and our projects and give each other feedback, but that's pretty much it. We're pretty normal weirdos."

After the interview was over and you played a few songs live, and then reboarded the bus.

"What the fuck was that?" Christine asked as the bus rolled down the road.

"What the fuck is with these interviews? It's never about me and my music. It's about Gee or the people on the internet and all the bullshit! That's not why I'm out here! I want to talk about my songs!"

Christine nodded. "Ok, I'm sorry girl. You're right. I'll make sure the next one we keep it focused on the music. We can't have you blowing up on another host."

"I didn't blow up! I snapped at worst," you retorted, rolling your eyes.

"Either way, we're on our way to Iowa now."

"Can't wait," you muttered and crawled into your bunk.

~

The dark cloud that had settled over you was not going away or getting better. While Christine was doing a better job of reminding the interviewers beforehand to lay off the relationship questions, they still came up, sometimes after the actual interview was over, sometimes they just disregarded your wishes all together to get juicy gossip. You did your best not to appear annoyed, but the longer you were away from Gerard, the harder it got.

She's an ugly, untalented leech! She doesn't love gee or else she would have put a song about him on the album!

He doesnt seem happy like he used to before her

The album jsut sucks. I mean i didnt listen to it, i just assume it does

She should just die

You couldn't take it any longer. The constant, incessant stream of hate coming at you was too much. You dialed Gerard and went into the back of the bus, shutting the door behind you.

"Hey (YN), how is everything goin?"

"I can't do it anymore Gee," you said, trying to keep your voice steady 

"Do what?" He asked, immediately concerned.

"Tour, be a musician, be someone in the public eye, I can't take it!" You sobbed, unable to control your emotions any longer. "I feel like I have no privacy anymore! Everything I do is wrong, everything I don't do is wrong! I just wanna give up! I don't wanna do this anymore!"

"Hey, hey, sugar, it's ok. Did someone say something to you today?"

"It's been every fucking day," you cried. "I wanna come home, I don't wanna do this anymore. I don't want anyone to know who I am anymore."

"Take a deep breath," Gerard said, trying to keep you calm. "Where are you?"

"On the bus."

"Where are you going, or where were you?"

"I don't even know anymore. All I see is fucking corn everywhere."

"Ok, umm, where is Christine?"

"In her bunk," you sniffled.

"Can I talk to her?"

You got up and made your way to the bunks and knocked on the frame surrounding Christine's.

"Yea?" She asked, opening the curtain. "Woah, girl, what's wrong?"

"Gee wants to talk to you," you said holding out your phone.

"Hello? What's going on?" Christine asked Gerard. She listened and nodded and mm hmm'ed along. "She seemed stressed, but not that bad," she said as she watched you sink wearily to the floor, pulling your knees to your chest. "No, I hadn’t heard that… Yea, we're setting out from Omaha now, on our way to Denver," she paused. "Ok... Yea... Sounds good. Yea, we'll get our girl through this."

You looked up at her from your spot on the floor and she smiled down sympathetically and handed the phone back to you.

"Gee?" You said softly, the anger and fear and frustration having quieted.

"Hey sugar, we've got a plan for you, you're gonna be ok. But where are you hearing from the people that are criticizing you?"

"Twitter," you mumbled and you heard Christine mutter "I knew it."

"Delete it, you don't need that in your life. You're too talented and beautiful and wonderful to let anyone make you feel anything less," he said gently. "I love you, (YN) ."

"Love you too," you replied, a smile finally cracking through.

"Get some rest, we'll talk soon."

~

You had immediately crawled into your bunk and fallen into a deep sleep. The weight of your thoughts no longer weighing you down now that you had shared them with Gerard. When you finally woke up, you were rolling into Denver. You made your way to the front of the bus to find Christine on her phone.

"What's on the schedule today?" You yawned.

"Nothing."

"What?"

"You need a day off. We've been pushing you way too hard, and I just wish I would have realized it sooner. So we moved your interview to tomorrow afternoon and we're staying here overnight."

"Really?" You asked, stunned.

"Yep, we're going to the hotel right now."

It was incredibly refreshing to be in a hotel with a real bed and shower, and everyone was actually thankful for your meltdown that got them this break. 

You took an extra long, hot shower to allow your muscles to relax, and then crawled into bed to call Gerard and give him an update. As his phone rang you heard a knock on your door. Keeping your ear to your phone in case he picked up you answered the door. 

"Gerard!" You squealed as you launched yourself at him and he wrapped you in his arms.

"I missed you so much (YN)," he murmured against your neck. "I couldn't stand to hear the pain in your voice and not be there to make it better.”

"But you hate flying! And your studio time!" You exclaimed as you pulled him into your room and he dropped his bag on the floor.

“We were spinning our wheels and needed a break from recording,” he smiled reassuringly before he leaned in and kissed you with all the longing that had built up over the weeks apart. You ran your hands through his black hair and felt the tears slip down your cheeks. “And I’d fly to the moon if it meant I could spend a minute with you. I just wish I could have been here for you from the beginning, I wish I realized that you were struggling.”

“I didn’t want you to worry about me. I thought I could handle it, but everything kept chipping away at me until I broke down completely.”

“I wanna worry about you, (YN). You’re my girl and I love you, and I wanna be there for you no matter what,” he said softly, wiping away the tears on your cheeks.

“Thank you,” you replied. “It’s just hard when it’s coming at you from every direction.”

“I know,” he said, pulling you back to him in a tight hug. “But for today it’s just you and me. No one else matters.”

You smiled up at him before pulling him into another sweet kiss.

~

The next morning you woke up with Gerard’s arms wrapped around you, holding you close. It almost felt too good to be true. As he slowly started to wake up, he gave you his lopsided smile and you couldn’t help but grin in return.

“I needed this so much,” you said as you buried your face against his neck.

“I did too,” he said squeezing you tight, his voice still raspy with sleep.

“Thank you for being here. I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” he said leaning down to give you a quick kiss. “Wait, I didn’t give you your presents yet.”

“What presents?” You asked sitting up, as he reached over the side of the bed to grab his bag. "I don’t have anything for you!"

"It's nothing, just a couple things I made for you," he said pulling out a large flat envelope and handing it to you.

You carefully pulled out the drawing that was inside. "Oh it's beautiful!”

"It's us the night we watched the stars and talked for hours. That was the night I realized I was falling in love with you. I was so scared you wouldn't even like me like that," he laughed softly.

"It's perfect," you replied. "What's this? ‘Gee+(YN)=gross, a big sappy love mix’" you laughed at scribbled handwriting on the cover of the cd case. Around the words was a big heart and lots of little hearts.

"It’s a mix of songs that remind me of you, and me and you, but Frank decorated the cover. He doesn't really think we're gross, he's just-"

"Frank," you laugh.

"Exactly," Gerard replied. "I was just hoping this would help you get through the last days of your tour."

"It will," you smiled and threw your arms around him. “I think just having you here for a day was enough to get me through. And I know now that I shouldn’t just bottle up what I’m feeling.”

Gerard nodded. “We’re a team, you and me. Let me help you when you’re down and keep you safe from all the bastards and shit talkers.”

“Sounds like a plan,” you smiled as you leaned in and kissed him. “But only if you promise to let me help you do the same.”

“I promise.”

[thenightisland]

you know the drill:

this is becoming like its own series but idk how else to explain this awful year i don’t even feeling like properly linking so here’s just the URLs of the other ones in the series: 1. http://thenightisland.tumblr.com/post/161087786689/explanationsupdates-under-the-cutmore-i 2. http://thenightisland.tumblr.com/post/161920216354/additional-updatesexplanations-under-the-cut 3. http://thenightisland.tumblr.com/post/163767959805/updates-under-the-cutmore-post-one-post-two-on 4. http://thenightisland.tumblr.com/post/164398486219/on-the-fourth-edition-of-what-the-fuck-is

one of the assessors got jumped a while back. she was just walking past a pt in the main assessment dept and he jumped up, punched her in the back of the head, took her to the ground and beat the fuck out of her. she was out for weeks and weeks and had broken facial bones. i can’t believe she didn’t quit.

our nurse executive quit though. not like, went prn or gave two weeks notice, like just straight up was like I’M DONE and walked out which honestly is the closest i’ve ever come to respecting him.

while having more psychologically unstable pts isn’t new, having more medically unstable pts has been a problem lately. like our crash cart is not like a medical hospital’s crash cart it’s like. an ambu bag some iv supplies and a stethoscope no lifesaving medications. when a pt has a medical issue we send them out to a medical hospital because obv we don’t have the resources to treat complex medical issues where we work. which didn’t used to be an issue because you’d used to see maybe two medical codes a year on my unit. we’ve had /ten/ since my last update post /just on my shift/. two of which weren’t even “pt is going downhill fast” codes they were “pt has no heartbeat and isn’t breathing” like we had to fucking bring two people back from the goddamn dead /within ten minutes of each other/. we’re all like we’re psych nurses man if we wanted to do this shit we’d work er. [and the er we’re required to send these pts to is awful like they sent us back a guy who had almost died twice in three days who had an /untreated brain tumor/ bc obv he’s totally fine]. or we’ve been doing mash unit style medicine like the suicidal kid with partial thickness burns all over his chest and neck that literally no one was doing anything about. we were debriding burns with a mixture of different PO IM and SQ drugs to achieve the same effect as IV morphine because debriding is extremely painful but not doing it will just make things worse and no one else seemed to care so we just fucking did it. like we’ve done so much medical nursing lately. like the one with the uncontrolled severe seizures that led to the medical hospital labeling her first break schizophrenia despite no family history of mental illness but /five different medical issues that all cause psychosis/. or the one they let on the unit despite being on the do not readmit who has untreated hiv that he actively tries to give to other people and /active tuberculosis/. or the one with the aneurysm. or the one with severe CHF. and on and on and on. and remember: we’re not the most medically unstable unit in the hospital because we have a 40 bed /geriatric psych unit/ so you can imagine the kind of pts /they’re/ getting. on the plus side, all of our ten odd codes lived.

my personal life is still a goddamn mess, of course, but that’s a given. don’t even know where to begin with all that. and i can’t talk about a lot of it which makes it that much more fun.

i had an entire crisis about the odyssey [which tbh is still kind of going on even after /weeks/] because i’m getting so cagey in memphis because i fucking hate this town. and i just got back from new orleans which is the closest thing i have to an ithaca at the moment and it killed me to come back to this fucking city.

i’m also really paranoid right now because after i come back from vacations, something terrible always happens and i’m not exaggerating it’s like clockwork to the point that the bad things have all happened between friday and sunday after i’ve returned from my vacation, each time, without fail. well that would be this weekend so i am just waiting to see what great horrors await me this goddamn time. [last time, it was the whole coworker killed in vehicular homicide thing]. but i guess paranoia isn’t the right word. you’re only paranoid if you’re wrong, and my life has already set the precedent. so i guess anxious is the better word.

the anxiety is increased given that my mother has been out of work all week because they’ve had trouble regulating her blood sugar and so she’s been really sick and even said so herself she’ll probably end up in the er over the weekend because she doesn’t think she can make it till her next doc appt because she’s miserable, and she’s already been in the er once when this weird shit started happening a month or so ago so the Vacation Curse has me even more concerned than usual, which is saying something. 

there’s a new psych doc working now and everyone is really unsettled by him and we’re pretty sure he’s a genuine psychopath like completely without exaggeration and he’s already done a lot of really creepy things to/with staff members and one nurse said in passing “i’ve known a lot of doctors like him he’ll end up fucking a pt at some point” which we initially left to hyperbole but he’s been doing shit like transporting female pts to other units without the staff’s consent in his own car which is like all kinds of not allowed, and the way he talks to some of the staff is just downright rapey honestly. and so we had a rough case this summer who, through the combined efforts of my squad, we got her from a diagnosis of intellectual disability with schizophrenia, nonverbal, self harming all the time, history of physical and sexual abuse, constantly in restraints and on a 1:1 obs level to a new diagnosis of autism spec with ptsd because her “hallucinations” were /flashbacks/ and she ended up very social and verbose and like fucking read william blake for fun and had a great sense of humor and was off all special observations and had a transfer to another facility pending so she could get more 1:1 long term therapy, and the creepy doctor was covering her case while her actual doc was out of town and he rode all the way to the other hospital with her which is another thing you do not do, and we found out from a coworker that she is now a /2:1/ [two staff members within arm’s reach 24/7], self harming again, in full shutdown/meltdown mode, and nonverbal. and it was such a rapid deterioration that all of us lost sleep over the possibility that this creepy doctor might have done something because even after she was at the other hospital and therefore no longer our pt, /he kept going to see her/. which fucked us up a lot because we were the ones who worked so hard for so long with her. like even the thought of it.

recently had 25th birthday so naturally had a crisis about that because i’d always said my goal was to be out of memphis by 25 and yet here we are. 

another of our fave pts, esp one of /my/ fave pts, died out of literally nowhere. the day before my birthday. so that was great.

also felt really surreal to see the news about the convictions in the holly bobo case, which i found out about when one of my coworkers was reading the news on his phone during a lull one night i forgot that to him and everyone else it’s a national news story [hell it even has its own wikpedia page] but to me it’s just /holly/ because she was /in the class above me in our nursing program/. my first semester in college i remember seeing her face on missing posters on every building on campus. so it was really a weird moment of dissociation for me. glad the motherfucker was found guilty on all charges, obv. 

the tech of mine who got his skull slammed into the floor, the one who’s been out with what can only be called severe psychological trauma, is supposed to be coming back the third week in october. which i just. i mean i’m glad because he’s one of our best guys, but i’m also like /why the fuck would he come back/ because he could be a fucking english professor again. motherfucker spent part of his youth growing up in italy and montreal, lived on the west coast for years, /was/ a college professor, did time as a script doctor in LA, and was a fucking thriller novelist who just gone girled himself for whatever reason and ended up working with us. there’s literally a reddit thread asking if anyone knows what happened to him and i want to be like don’t worry it’s fine he works with me. but so we’re like why would you come back to this place after what happened to you when you have so many other options available to you????? what are you running from that makes you so desperate to keep centering your life around a locked acute psych ward???? why did you gone girl yourself to begin with??? like he was screwed up enough there for a while that he wasn’t even answering his calls or texts and our boss had to send the police to do welfare checks on him because he lives alone so it’s like man why not go back to the life you had before and /get away from all of this/ it’s not like my situation where i’d rather be living a different life but have never done so, he already has the foundation because he’s already lived a different life he has an in that i don’t have and i can’t for the life of me figure out why he thinks working as an acute pysch tech is the better option. 

but i mean. we /do/ call our unit the hotel california for a reason.