#tw substance mention

[aspd-culture]

what is an aspd flare? found the term in a response of yours, and I've never heard the term

Similar to chronic illness flares, it is a notably significant increase in severity of ASPD symptoms that lasts some amount of time (can be very short like minutes or hours, or long periods like days or weeks), but then goes back to a lesser (but still diagnosably present) severity of symptoms.

Someone in an ASPD flare might find themselves (not an exhaustive list) unable to mask as they normally can, being extremely irritable beyond normal, having more violent urges and/or thoughts, having a harder time controlling those urges, struggling to care for themselves not for physical reasons but because they feel like doing "healthy" things is repulsing, having even less affective empathy and/or remorse than usual (for those who have some amount of it on a regular day), being unable or unwilling to use cognitive empathy, stuggling with substance use, desiring to do increasingly reckless or dangerous things, struggling with sh or sui thoughts, etc.

Plain text below the cut:

Similar to chronic illness flares, it is a notably significant increase in severity of ASPD symptoms that lasts some amount of time (can be very short like minutes or hours, or long periods like days or weeks), but then goes back to a lesser (but still diagnosably present) severity of symptoms.

Someone in an ASPD flare might find themselves (not an exhaustive list) unable to mask as they normally can, being extremely irritable beyond normal, having more violent urges and/or thoughts, having a harder time controlling those urges, struggling to care for themselves not for physical reasons but because they feel like doing "healthy" things is repulsing, having even less affective empathy and/or remorse than usual (for those who have some amount of it on a regular day), being unable or unwilling to use cognitive empathy, stuggling with substance use, desiring to do increasingly reckless or dangerous things, struggling with sh or sui thoughts, etc.

[bingbongbugtime]

what nonsense are you on

12 pounds of Crake

[mrs-kamishiro-official]

I can't even tell anyone about this they'll think I'm using illicit substances

[lazyconfessionscrazyintentions]

Look I’m all for people bettering themselves right? But when someone is abusive, narcissistic, used substances as an excuse for their abusive behaviour, any harmful behaviour etc. in a relationship or otherwise then suddenly “finds religion” after ruining someone’s life I draw a line. Sorry 🤷🏼‍♀️

Religion isn’t going to save you from the trauma you caused someone else or their hidden rage.

Should your victims “find religion” too?

Will you feel “saved” then?

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[smilingcrittersfanatic]

SLOP

^^^ made this one for international ace day!!! happy asexual !!!!!!

cw for self harm , discussion of self harm , drugs / alcohol , substance abuse and KISSING!!!!!!!!!!! under the cut !

i want them DEAD i hate THEM i HAAAAATE THEM

[pigeonwit]

Tipsy Davey is a lovely Davey, easy to blush and fluster – it doesn’t take much more than a smile to send him giggling into his glass, and it drives Jack’s own ego to dangerous heights. He could spend whole nights murmuring compliments in Davey’s ear, tracing his knuckle against Davey’s thigh, listening to him giggle against Jack’s own temple, feebly nudging him away (and letting him come right back) and mumbling "Jackie, stop…" without meaning a word of it.

And then there’s Drunk Davey, when his flush settles high on his cheeks and his bashfulness settles with it. He loses that nervousness he keeps underneath his skin that’s always pulling him back just a little, telling him not to come on too strong. He touches freely, whispers the pads of his fingertips over Jack’s wrists enough to drive him insane, sweeps over the bridge of Jack’s freckled nose and murmurs, “Glory be to God for dappled things…”. The bitter little middle-schooler that still lives in Jack’s mind has always thought that poetry was something just too dorky to be attractive, but that bitter little middle-schooler sure shuts the hell up when Davey whispers pretty things in Jack’s ear on a dark corner of the dance floor. Jack’s not complaining at all.

And then there’s Jack’s favourite – Truly Shitfaced Davey. He’s a rare gift, reserved only for New Years, birthdays and Halloween parties, if his costume is slutty enough. Jack can recount every single Truly Shitfaced Davey encounter he’s ever had, and while they’re nowhere near as suave as Drunk Davey, they are by all means his favourites.

“Face,” Davey mumbles, poking Jack’s cheek and marvelling at the squish of it. Jack has to bite his lip not to laugh.

“Yeah, babe?” He asks sweetly, because he is a wonderful boyfriend, thank you very much.

“Your face… It – you…” Davey’s face pinches as he tries to find his words underneath the drunk haze that’s blanketing his brain. He promptly gives up and groans, waving an arm dismissively as he burrows into Jack’s side. “S’good.”

Jack grins, pressing a kiss to the curls tickling his face. He gives up on trying to stifle his smile – Davey’s too drunk to care, and far too drunk to notice the way he’s staring inquisitvely at Jack’s lips the way he usually stares at a good book.

“Thanks, Davey-mine. Your face is good, too.”

Davey stares at him for a moment, mouth squared and silent for a little too long, until he makes a strangled little squeak and ducks his face into Jack’s neck.

“Shuddup!” He orders as Jack laughs, but he can’t help it. As much as he loves Davey when he’s reciting sonnets from memory, he especially loves him speechless, if only for the novelty of it.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

The idea that Bruce would actually drug Jason to "condition him" into "not being a murderer" by making him feel terror at his own heartbeat elevating is such a disgusting and absolutely abhorrent thought that I just flat out refuse to accept it as canon.

I'm not even coming at this from a Good Dad!Bruce angle. I just genuinely cannot accept the idea that Bruce would do something so fucking disgusting to any of his children. Especially to the child he is most estranged from who also btw has a traumatic history related to drug addiction and abuse that Bruce is fully aware of and has been aware of since when he first met Jason.

Bruce has never been a perfect father, and I am absolutely down for him even being a bad one. I love complicated and messy relationships in fiction and Bruce being a messy bitch is definitely up there in one of my fave chatacter portrayals of all time.

But my fucking god. Idk what they are going for with this, but I am personally hoping alongside everyone else that this is Zur and not Bruce.

Because if it is Bruce ... holy fucking shit, my guy.

DC canon is already a joke, but dude this is not my Bruce. This is a fucked up imposter wearing Bruce's skin and DC is making a parade out of dragging his corpse around like the world's sickest show pony.

[harukapologist]

Lately I was thinking about 0108 parallels since they're both so associated with water and I had a thought.

Haruka and Amane are both shown drowning in their MVs

Amane tries to swim back up; she believes she can still get what she reaches out for,

she believes she can still truly be a “good girl” despite how much it is destroying her and how terrified she is of the very people who enforce the cult ideals on her, to the point that their faces never appear in her MVs (in Magic, there weren't even any humans beside her to begin with, only the mascots and animals)

Haruka, on the other hand, just lets himself fall into the water; he does try to reach out for what he wants—his mother’s love—later on in the MV

but she promptly disappears, i.e he already knows it’s no use doing that. He’s accepted that he cannot become what is expected of him, he believes that he’s inherently at fault and has already accepted that (thus the inno verdict in T1 ignited a lot of inner conflict and self loathing, even though he tries to appear confident and happy and Okay)

[ferretwhomst]

NICE my post got two notes anyways here's my thoughts on the pines fam handling over/understimulation as a neurodivergent and mentally ill family in my own personal canon

putting this under a readmore again because uhhh as always with my headcanons there's a lot and it'll probably be annoying to scroll thru over and over

if anyone else has any thoughts about this feel free 2 add onto this post <3 <3 <3 would love to hear it!!!!! ^_^

starting off with mabel, obviously she CRAVES stimulation so so badly and is constantly looking for something new to do, to the point where her default state is Slightly Overstimulated. i figure she also struggles with emotional dysregulation (even worse because mabel is literally just a kid and isnt equipped to handle heightened emotions with grace just yet sdfjjds) and she absolutely canNOT be understimulated or else she will explode the ENTIRE state of oregon. however a couple too many unpleasant sounds or textures or tastes at once and her entire day is ruined- well, it's not really, but it sure feels like it at the time. she starts angry crying and hitting things and only really calms down when she is completely separated from whatever was upsetting her or vice versa (her threshold for the amount of overstimulation she can handle before snapping probably lowers Significantly post-weirdmageddon), having waddles with her usually cheers her up a lot quicker though<3

ford is actually similar to her in a few aspects here, he too is running as far away from understimulation as possible, always sitting in his room tinkering with some new invention or running around catching some new creature to occupy himself. (he wasn't always like this! as a kid, between him and stan he was definitely and obviously the more docile one. but as an adult he feels the need to seek stimulation moreso because he needs to distract himself from his constant stream of often unpleasant thoughts) this has the unpleasant side effect of isolating himself from the people around him, but it's not intentional, it's just that busying himself with projects and studying the supernatural is his Default Solution to having nothing to do. it's comfortable for him. he also has the Thing where if he isn't explicitly invited to join someone, he doesn't feel comfortable doing so, even if he really wants to.

dipper and stan are completely different from mabel and ford in that they just. nobody ever told them that understimulation is not the default state of existing for everyone else??? so they just??? Put up with it regularly???? dipper stims frequently without realizing to combat this- clicking/chewing on pens over and over and pacing his room for example, but more often than not it isn't Quite Enough and he doesn't know Why. this is also why dipper's anxiety is So bad- sitting around without making an effort to distract himself from his many thoughts will often get him catastrophizing within minutes (him and ford probably bond over having Too Much Thought Head Full). in fact, if he didn't have mabel around to remind him to have fun and use his time wisely instead of getting stuck inside his own head for hours on end he would probably be a very different and much less emotionally stable person than he is in the show jsdjfjsda

stan doesn't stim very much except when he's genuinely scared or upset, in which case he is cracking his knuckles, gripping onto the closest fabric so hard it almost tears, pulling off his cuticles, picking at scabs etc etc (you can imagine how much he fucked up his skin in the days following both instances of him losing ford). he probably had very different habits when he was a kid though- because come on. stan was totally the poster child for audhd, constantly running around and being loud to satisfy his lil brain. however within a few years certain nd behaviors stop being "cute" to others and instead start attracting a shit ton of ridicule so now his only stims are ones which are inconspicuous and could be passed off as stress habits instead of being a clear sign of neurodivergence- plus he probably ended up developing shittier coping mechanisms while running around for 10 years after getting kicked out. but it's not like he can smoke or drink all the time with the kids (wendy and soos included) around though so his options are kinda limited

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

The way substance abuse has been handled on the show thus far genuinely upsets me and reeks of writers who either 1.) don't understand the subject matter they're presenting and haven't done even the bare minimum to research it or, worse, 2.) simply don't care.

Apologies for the slight rant incoming, your comment about how it has been mostly "handled" off-screen got me going because that's 100% true and in that truth is such a missed opportunity for the show. The way it has been handled winds up feeling incredibly shallow and juvenile at the end of the day, especially for a piece of media that is attempting to present itself as "adult" and navigate multiple incredibly sensitive topics. I'll try not to get into my own personal experiences and will speak broadly, but the show uses substance abuse more as a cheap character flaw to poke fun at or something to magically handwave away when it is inconvenient, rather than the life-altering, debilitating illness that it is.

Nothing about Angel's use is ever meaningfully explored. It's so (apparently) unimportant to his arc and development that one rude comment from Husk (a character who ALSO has a problem with gambling and alcohol that is never addressed) is all it takes for him to suddenly "resist temptation" and be shown as "recovered" (unless I'm misremembering). Or was he suddenly going to counseling off-screen too and its just another thing that will be told to us rather than shown? And how does Charlie even handle that at the Hotel (I'd be really interested in this as a moment for her character to have to grow/change too)? Does she even understand substance abuse and the many unaddressed systemic factors that can influence it? Or is the entire recovery process just shame based (because that works so well /s) combined with some more corny trust exercises? Why is this incredibly serious topic relegated to the background as if it's unimportant?

Recovery is hard. It is emotional and exhausting. Withdrawal (depending on what you're coming off of) can sometimes mean excruciating, unimaginable pain and in some cases people literally die. It is not a funny "ha-ha I take drugs because I'm chaotic and wild" quirk to be adored or glorified and it definitely should not be presented as something that can be wrapped up in a month or two off-screen without any development whatsoever. That's just insulting.

When you approach a topic like substance abuse and recovery, I personally feel you need to take in all sides of it. All the missteps that come with it (two steps forward one step back - mistakes are expected and okay), the self-loathing, the guilt and shame, the joy, the sense of freedom, the loss, and the best part of all: the incredibly difficult but liberating journey that is rebuilding your life and learning to love yourself and your body again, once you've chosen to be free and to live life.

Mad props to anyone who has ever battled this disease. You are strong, you are worth it and you are valued. Lol I am so sorry for going off here but I so appreciate you calling out the lack of exploration on this topic in the show. I guess I didn't even realize how annoyed and upset it was making me feel (praying this is coherent...).

This was absolutely coherent don’t worry!! Im really glad to see other people talking about this. I myself have not struggled with drug addiction but I have struggled with other kinds and as someone that studies a bunch of medical junk, I’d say I’m decently knowledgeable.

I’m mainly going to focus on Angel for this since he’s the main character I write for, but I assure you other characters addictions are also handled in my rewrite.

During the actual canon show, we don’t see Angel actually abusing substances that often; there’s a few times, most notably in episode 4, but from the rest of the show onward we hardly see anything. Yes in episode 6 they mentioned relapsing, which, mind you, was done horribly, but I digress. They touch on relapsing; Angel relapses, and then… what..??? What happened from that? I don’t feel upset or second hand guilt of any kind from this scene because we haven’t seen Angel’s attempts to stay sobre and off drugs.

His name is fucking Angel Dust. You don’t, I dunno, think that’d entail a higher dependency on drugs? Why do you think he named himself that?

About his name before anything else, the show has so much potential later on to talk about Angel picking out his drag name and why he chose that specifically. So much potential to explore how he views drugs and himself. He sees them as an escape and something “fun” to take his mind off of his actual life. When you die in a fucking coma and wake up in hell as a spider you’re going to want an escape. You will want to ignore reality. I am fully convinced Angel picked his name once he started performing because thats what he needed at the time. He needs to be like that to survive in hell. Angel is an incredibly mentally ill, troubled, traumatised, and unstable person, and being surrounded by so much intense negative influence only amplifies his current problems. I don’t mean to drag Vox in here but in my last redesign post I mentioned how very mildly bad people can become even worse people in hell because of the environment and this is no different for Angel. He’s been surrounded by crime and drugs his entire life and unable to live comfortably because of his sexuality. He has very likely been struggling with substances since he was a teen. Possibly even younger. He is not going to suddenly get over his addiction because of something like this. It could pave the way to him looking into dealing with it, but things like this can take years. I don’t remember when my addiction started; I’ve been clean for 2 1/2 years now I think, but the amount of relapsing and anguish I experienced while working towards that isn’t something that can be done in a few days or months. I still struggle with feeling like I deserve to say I’m recovering.

I’m hoping they tactfully handle this as they should, but my hopes are low. It’s okay to show a character relapsing. It’s okay to show a character feeling guilty. What matters is that the struggle is there to signify they’re trying. For a character with a song called “Addict” you really don’t see much of it. Drug and alcohol addiction is not a silly thing to just twiddle your fingers with and be like “well I guess thats over!” It’s incredibly insensitive to do so.

Whenever I write about Angel’s struggles with addictions, I focus on how small they can feel until you realise what’s actually happening. Just me talking about my rewrite again, but to get my ideas out here: Angel smokes often. He smokes at the studio when he’s stressed, he smokes at the hotel when he’s stressed, he smokes at in alleyways when he’s bored, there’s almost no location he won’t, but sometimes he tries to smoke less. His lungs aren’t the same as humans and technically he has 2 pairs of lungs, but smoking causes him to cough. This is painful in general and especially painful for Angel since he has barbs going down the back of his throat. Imagine choking on sandpaper, kind of like that. It’s painful, he doesn’t like the sound, Fat Nuggets REALLY doesn’t like the sound, and it’s an overall inconvenience, so he tries to stop smoking as much. Periods like this usually go fine for him until the stress returns or he starts to feel the withdrawal. Withdrawal from any sort of addiction is terrible, and in Angel’s case, just from not smoking it worsens his mental state further. He becomes irritable and stressed and that stress leads to wanting to smoke again to calm down. He may resist a few times and those times should be praised, but he gives in eventually. One cigarette to calm down becomes two, then three, and before he can process himself getting carried away, the entire pack is gone. It’s things like this that make addiction horrible. It’s something that deeply scared me when I was struggling. When I was struggling I was still in the mindset of “I can stop when I want to” and then being so suddenly hit in the face with the realisation that I’m not longer in control of this is terrifying. I could not stop when I wanted to. There were even points where I didn’t want to stop. Even just getting the smallest glimpse of this in an incredibly serious manner with Angel Dust would surprise me. To think the bar is this low on a show that seemingly prides itself on tackling such sensitive topics like you said is appalling. Your show shouldn’t have to be told how to write itself.

[yikesharringrove]

He doesn’t know why, but he’s laying down.

It’s the first thing he realizes. A stupid thing to notice, but just one minute ago, he was standing behind the counter at Family Video, and now he’s laying down.

His eyes are heavy, and it feels like it takes a huge amount of effort just to open them.

He’s in a fucking hospital.

He knows from the stupid white color of the stupid drop ceiling tiles. From the stupid annoying beeping of the stupid heart monitor. From the stupid scratchy gown he’s wearing instead of his sweater.

He heard a muttered curse next to him, and slowly lolled his head over to look.

Hopper was sitting next to his bed, his hat balanced on his knee, looking grumpily at the crossword printed on the back of The Hawkins Post. Steve wanted to laugh at the image, the chief of police swearing as he scribbled out something.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know that? Nobody knows what the fuck that is.”

“Blame Nancy,” Steve croaked. His head throbbed and he closed his eyes again. “She convinced them to add that. Said sales would go up.”

There was a rustling of paper.

“Smart girl,” Hopper said. He paused for a moment, and Steve felt like he needed someone to come and crowbar his eyes open or they would stay closed forever.

“You collapsed. Scared the shit out of your girlfriend, and everyone else at the video store.”

“Not my girlfriend,” Steve mumbled.

So that makes sense, why he was at work one second, and in a lousy bed at Hawkins General the next.

“You didn’t hit your head. Hargrove caught you before you went all the way down.”

Jesus, Billy’s reflexes really are something else. Steve’s gonna need to thank him for that. The last fucking thing he needs is another concussion. Maybe, to show his gratitude, he’ll suck Billy’s-

“I’m here because we need to talk about what the doctors found in your system.”

Steve’s mind went blank, and his eyes flew open.

Hopper was looking at him, his face an unfamiliar mix of sad, and angry, and fucking, disappointed.

Steve felt like he could vomit.

“They ran your blood. Routine E.R. shit, I’m told. But they found some, some substances that shouldn’t be there.”

Steve swallowed down the lump in his throat.

He knew the guilt was written all over his face.

“How long?”

“Since the summer.” He couldn’t look at Hop in the face. Not while he admitted this shit.

He was fucking stupid to think he wouldn’t be caught.

It’s a miracle Robin hasn’t walked in on him doing bumps in the bathroom at work, or Billy hasn’t found his stash tucked between the mattress and the box spring.

Hopper sighed.

“I know we all went through a lot last summer. With your friend getting trapped in the Upside Down, and you getting captured-”

“Tortured. I got tortured.”

Hopper sighed again.

“Getting coked up isn’t going to help anything.”

“What is this? Fucking Family Ties?”

He felt Hopper’s glare more than he actually saw it.

“It’s stupid-”

“You just don’t get it! Okay?” He really didn’t mean to yell, his head just fucking hurts and he’s so fucking stupid.

“Oh yeah,” Hopper snarked. “I fucking forgot. You’re the only person in the goddamn world that’s ever dealt with fucking drug addiction. So sorry.”

“I’m not addicted!” Lie.

“I don’t fucking believe you.”

Steve glared at Hopper.

“So, what? You’re here to arrest me?”

“No. I’m here to talk some fucking sense into you.” He shifted in his chair, the newspaper slid off his lap and fell on the floor. “You’re around those kids all the time. You fucking drive them around. You have been endangering their lives for months. And why? Because you can’t handle the trauma? We all have trauma. You think your friend Hargrove is totally fine after being stuck in that place? After realizing some fucked up doppelgänger was killing people? You think your girlfriend is totally fine after being tortured by the Russians too?”

“I don’t do it when I have to drive the kids, Hop I swear.” That, was the truth. “Okay, the other stuff, I get your point, but I need you to know, I wouldn’t hurt the kids like that, I-” the heart monitor was speeding up, getting louder in Steve’s panic. “You have to believe me, I’ve never driven them high.”

“Okay, okay. I believe you.” Hopper sighed again. “Just, why?”

Steve gulped.

“The Russians, they drugged us. They said it would make us tell them the truth. And I don’t know what it was, but fuck. It felt good. I couldn’t feel the pain, and I wasn’t scared, and I just. I didn’t know how to stop being scared.”

It was embarrassing.

Admitting that he’s been scared shitless ever since that first demogorgon dropped through the Byers’ ceiling.

Admitting he’s been doing lines of coke to keep himself from spiraling into inconsolable panic.

“I did some at a party, and it was the closest I felt to that feeling.”

Not technically true. He and Billy did some together last August, and it was like the fearlessness washed over Steve in warm waves.

But he can’t throw Billy under the bus like that.

And if Billy ever found out, that one night of drug experimentation between lovers turned into a full-on addiction, he’d never forgive himself.

There was a pause.

“Have you been snorting or shooting?”

“Snorting.”

“Okay,” Hopper stood up, stretching his arms above his head and placing his hat back on. “I’m going to tell your friends what’s going on. Not the kids, just Hargrove and Buckley. Joyce, too. Then, when you get out of here, you and I are going to clean out any stashes you’ve got. And we’re all going to be watching you like a fucking hawk.”

“Wait,” Steve croaked, his heart rate jumping up again, the beeping speeding up. “Don’t tell Billy.” Hopper shot Steve a look that said really? “Let me tell him. He needs to hear it from me.”

Hopper paused, on hand on the doorknob.

“Did he get you hooked? Is he on it too?”

“No! Nothing like that. Please? He’ll be upset unless I tell him.”

Hopper gave him a look that was a little too searching to be comfortable.

“Okay. Okay, kid. I’ll send him in. But he’ll know what’s going on one way or another. Don’t make me tell him that you’ve lied. Don’t think he’d appreciate it.”

He left the room without another word, leaving Steve to stew in his shame.

He’s such an idiot.

Why did he ever think he could get away with this and not one person would notice?

Even if they didn’t know he was regularly doing cocaine, Billy and Robin already knew something was up. They kept asking him if he was okay, coming over for impromptu sleepover parties. It was nice, he loves them both, but it was only a matter of time before the penny dropped.

It’s just embarrassing. That a routine blood test exposed the amount of uppers in his system. Exposed how little he’s dealing.

He rolled over, waiting for Billy to come into the room and blame himself for Steve’s stupidity. He didn’t want that.

Billy didn’t have a drug problem. He thought it’d be fun for them to get a little high and do stuff together. And it was! It was so fun, and they’d talked about doing it again.

Steve can kiss that idea goodbye.

He wouldn’t be surprised if Billy started following him into the bathroom to make sure he wasn’t doing anything he shouldn’t be.

It’s sweet, that his boyfriend cares so much about him that he would, hypothetically at least, do that.

But Billy’s got enough on his plate, and if Steve knows anything about him, it’s that he blames himself for shit just as much as Steve does.

He focused on the steady beeping of the heart monitor. Still elevated, his nerves for the coming conversation getting the best of him.

His head was pounding in a way that said it was time for his next fix.

He squeezed his eyes closed, willing away the need thrumming under his skin.

“So, you finally gonna tell me why you’ve been actin’ all squirrelly lately?”

[gwendaria]

me after hitting my pen 3 times in the car and walking into the gas station for a monster energy to take my lexapro with:

[disassociation-culture-is]

Dissociation culture is feeling like youre really drunk or high even though you haven't done any substances recently

[dave-hates-your-abuser]

no one understands substance abuse at all

if you take my drinks/drugs and don’t change anything else, i won’t get better, i’ll find something else to get high off of or finally fucking kill myself

the drugs are not the problem, they’re the only solution i can get my hands on

[para-normalcanine]

hey daily reminder that being pro-bodily autonomy means people can do whatever they want with their bodies - including harmful things such as substance abuse and self harm. Forced recovery goes against advocating for bodily autonomy. Would I prefer people recover and not hurt themselves? Yes. Can I make them? No. Is it my place *to* make them? Hell no.