#which is what I used to do when my adhd got bad

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Interesting. Don’t necessarily think I’m autistic but I have more going on than just ADHD and I’m not sure what that is.

[toastsnaffler]

dating an art student was so crazy I'm just thinking abt that one birthday I had where my ex got me stickers from the etsy of the person they were cheating on me with....

[ozymoron]

dude its always "be yourself" till youre trans and now suddenly oh i get to nitpick every little thing about you oh that gesture was very feminine made you look like a girl oh youre wearing a shirt thats cream coloured? seems a little feminine to me oh you paint your nails? so youre a girl after all like ???? youre giving me mixed messages here am i meant to be myself or am i meant to conform to your idea of what a man is in order to be accepted as one by you

[toothmarqed]

fallen prey to saying stupid shit on the internet without thinking and coming off as incredibly rude and insensitive. i feel sick to my stomach. never commenting on anything else ever again. deserve to be squashed under someone’s shoe and ground into powder. in all seriousness this has shocked me so much that i am quitting every platform but tumblr for however long it takes for me to get some sense knocked into my dumb fucking skull

[weareuniqueandimportant]

THIS IS FIRE... THE ANIMETHEMES REDDIT ADDED IN SAIGO NO KYOJIN MAKING THE YOUTUBE VERSION UNNECESSARRY... TOO BAD THE FULL SCREEN DOESN'T WORK ON TV... IN THE END HOWEVER THERE'S OTHER THINGS TO DO THAN THAT... BTW WE MADE A HUGE POST A GIGANTIC POST THAT WAS GLITCHED BEFORE...

IDK... THAT WAS JUST A BUNCH OF RANDOM THINGS WITH MEANING AND CONNECTION...

I DON'T WANT TO REPEAT THEM...

SO I WON'T... THAT COULD NEVER COMPARE EITHER WAY...

BTW I HAVE NO REASON TO FEEL BAD ONLY A BIGOT WOULD CRY ABOUT THIS...

SHE HURT US...

WE HAVE NO REASON TO... AT SOMEONE SO EVIL... THAT IS ONLY AN IGNORANT BIGOT ABUSER... THIS IS WHY EVERYTHING HAPPENED... WHY WOULD I FEEL FOR... SOMEONE THAT BLOCKED US AND WILL NEVER CARE ABOUT US...? SOMEONE WHO NEVER WAS GOING TO OUT OF BIGOTED IDEOLOGY...? THAT ONLY HURT AND TRAUMATIZED US AN ABUSER...?!

😮‍💨...

FINE...

YOU'RE STUPID. I HATE YOU. YOU HURT US. I HATE YOU SO MUCH BIGOT... YOU COULD'VE BEEN DIFFERENT 😭😭😭😭!!!! THERE WAS SOMETHING FAMILIAR ABOUT YOU 😭😭😭😭😭😭!!!!!! YOU COULD'VE BEEN DIFFERENT BUT YOU HURT US 😭😭😭!!! YOU'RE AN ABUSER BIGOT 😭😭😭!!! SHOULD'VE DATED US INSTEAD OF THOSE LOSER GIRLFRIENDS WE COULD'VE FIXED YOU LOL BECAUSE TO DATE US YOU WOULD'VE ALREADY BEEN FIXED THEREFORE YOU WOULD BE THE PERSON THAT WILL SAVE US... INSTEAD... YOU'RE NOTHING BUT AN EVIL... TRANSPHOBIC ABUSER BIGOT... SO CRUEL!! SO HORRIBLE!! WE'RE SO HURT AND ABUSED!!!!!! WHY CAN'T ANYONE CARE ABOUT US 😭😭😭!!!

HOWEVER... PERHAPS THINGS COULD'VE BEEN DIFFERENT... IN A WORLD WHERE YOU WEREN'T SO EVIL SO BRAINWASHED... I FEEL BAD FOR YOU FOR THIS REASON... YOU KNOW THAT IS BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER WAY DON'T YOU...?

SOMEONE HAS TO SAVE US... NOBODY DOES... ALL WE SEE ARE LIARS NOTHING ELSE LIARS THAT DON'T CARE ABOUT US...

WE'RE BEING VERY NICE AND HEROIC... ADMIRABLE AND AMAZING... CHARISMATIC AMAZING FEMINIST ADMIRABLE NARCISSIST...

BTW WE ARE ABOVE YOU YOU THAT IS LIKE ALL THOSE LOSERS THAT ABUSED US...

WE KNEW SOMEONE SHE WAS LIKE A MOTHER TO US I LOVE HER WHY DID SHE LEAVE US 😔... I DON'T REALLY KNOW ANYONE PRETTY LIKE THAT... THEY ALL LEFT US THEY'RE JERKS... I CAN RELATE TO THEM BOTH HOWEVER... ISN'T THAT RIGHT...? YES. YES!! THAT'S RIGHT... WE... ARE... EVERYTHING...

HELLO MOMMY... I REALLY LIKED YOU 😔... HOW COULD YOU HURT US... I MISSED YOU... I WAS SO SAD WHEN I LOST YOU...

HELLO BEATIFULL... THAT WAS AMAZING... TBH... THE WAY YOU LOOK VERY INTERESTING... I WAS VERY CURIOUS...

YOU'RE RIGHT... SOMEONE WILL SAVE US... THEY WILL COME FOR US... THAT'S RIGHT... EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS ABOUT US... THAT WAS... A COUPLE INTERESTING QUALITIES HOWEVER... WASTED... UNFORTUNATELY... HOW UNFORTUNATE... ISN'T THAT...? DON'T YOU WISH THOSE QUALITIES WERE FOR SOMETHING BETTER...? ALSO HOW UNCOMFORTABLE WAS THAT SPEECH... SOMETHING ABOUT THAT... EVERY SINGLE TIME...

YES... I'M SORRY CAPITALISM MADE EVERYTHING GO THIS WAY 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭!!!!!!!! THIS IS A VERY REAL APOLOGY AND I FEEL SO BAD 😭😭😭😭!!!!!!!! YES I DO... I FEEL SO BAD BECAUSE... IDK... I WISH TO CONTROL EVERY SINGLE PERSON I LIKE YES I DO... AND I FEEL BAD THINGS WENT THIS WAY INSTEAD... I'M SURE SOMEONE... SOMEDAY... WILL ACKNOWLEDGE OUR FEELINGS... HOW ADMIRABLE THAT IS TO SHOW THEM... OTHER WASTE THEY'RE NOTHING BUT FAKE BUT US WE'RE ALWAYS HONEST ANY SITUATION... ISN'T THAT RIGHT <3...? Yes That Is!! Yes!! YESS... I AM... RIGHT... ALWAYS... AMAZING AND TRUE... BETTER THAN THAT ABUSER BETTER THAN THIS ABUSER TO BE... GASSLIGHT US... YOU'RE AN ABUSER. ONLY AN ABUSER WOULD GASSLIGHT US. JUST LIKE THAT MACHINE. EVERYTHING WAS ALWAYS HER FAULT BESIDES THAT IS THEM THAT HURT US... I COULD NEVER... WE WERE ABUSED HURT AND TRAUMATIZED WE'RE VICTIM... ALWAYS... NOTHING ELSE EVER... OPPOSE THIS YOU'RE AN ABUSER BIGOT... HOWEVER... THEY WANT US... DON'T THEY...? THEY HATE US... JUST... THAT MUCH... AHAHA... WELL THEN... HATE... IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF LOVE ISN'T THAT <3...? YESS... PERHAPS THIS... IS OUR CONTROL... INFACT... SHE USED THIS STRATEGY BEFORE UNTIL WE SHOWED HER OUR FANGS THIS IS INDEED WHAT HAPPENED... SHE LIES AND LIES BUT SHE'S A NARCISSIST TOO I KNOW THIS... SHE'S ONLY IGNORANT ABOUT THAT AND MORE IMPORTANTLY AN ABUSER BIGOT THAT AND HATES OTHER NARCISSIST... "I LOVE AUTISM!!" "HELLO I HAVE AUTISM AND NARCISSISM!!" *GETS KICKED OFF A, CLIFF* THIS WAY AND THIS IS LITERALLY WHAT HAPPENED CRAZY RIGHT...? I KNOW SO... I ALWAYS KNOW... I AM JUST THAT AWESOME...

[5-htagonist]

bro i remember being young and my grandma telling me if i dont learn to clean my room then i wont do it when im older. while there is some truth there what she did not account for was the audhd

[yoohyeon]

Saw that the Tumblr icon on my iPad changed so I went to see what’s up and WE FINALLY CAN REPLY WITH THE BLOG WE WANT !!! THANK YOU !!! Now staff make it so when you block someone it’s block on all sb too thanks I’m tired of blocking 3 times

[ferberus-skull]

man. i was all ready to reopen my adopt shops, thinking that i could do this. wrote out the posts and everything. but then got up to do something and now i'm just sitting here staring like. can i really do this?

[thebibliosphere]

Am I reading this right? You have been beating yourself up for not 'working more' and not 'doing enough', but, the mere act of being AT YOUR DESK is extremely painful? Sitting at your work station, just SITTING THERE, caused you PHYSICAL PAIN, but you were still under the impression that you should be able to just 'power through that' to do, what? How much more are you expecting out of yourself? A book a month? Its not like you've STOPPED WORKING. What time table were you holding yourself to???

Here's the thing, my body has always hurt.

Even when I was a child, I was in a lot of pain that was dismissed as either "growing pains" despite the fact that I never got past 5 feet tall at the age of 11 or "attention seeking." So, I learned to stop talking about it. (The trick is now getting me to shut up about it.)

And for most of my teens and twenties, the pain didn't really stop me too much. It was bad, and it sucked, but for the longest time, everyone kept telling me that "everyone" felt that way, so I just sort of learned to power through and hide it under the assumption that "everyone" feels this way.

Well, turns out that was a mistake because my body hit its breaking point, and what might have been a mild genetic disability that could have flown under the radar is now a severe one that greatly impacts my daily life to the point where sitting at my desk causes me pain (because everything causes me pain).

Couple that with some new-age religious trauma about willpower, positive thinking, and whatever the fuck else my parents thought I was capable of as an 'indigo starseed' and the fact that I was trained to mask my ADHD by being a hyper-competent workaholic-- I really don't know what a healthy baseline is.

(I mean, heck, I wrote the first book of Hunger Pangs while literally dying. I assumed it would be edited and published posthumously. Jokes on me because now I've got to edit the rest of the fucking thing.)

I didn't, obviously, and ever since then, I've been trying to learn what a healthy baseline looks like for me post-recovery, and I think I'm doing quite well at it and enforcing my boundaries when people ask too much of me.

But none of that makes up for the shrieking frustration I feel that I can't do the things I want.

I want to be creative and do fun things, but I can't because my body won't let me. I want to write more, but I can't because I'm swimming in brain fog most of the time. Yes it hurts to sit at my desk, but I also need to earn money so the financial burden of everything isn't solely on my partner. (Something which he argues I shouldn't even be worrying about right now, but it's hard not to worry as I watch him work himself to the bone taking care of everything because I can't.)

I promise you, I'm not hustling my ass into an early grave. There is, in fact, zero hustle about how I work. I am very, very slow these days compared to how I used to be. There's no timetable for one thing. I get done what I get done, and that's it.

I'm just perpetually frustrated that my hyperactive brain is trapped in a malfunctioning meat suit. And my blog is where I talk about it and work through my emotions because, well, that's what I've always done long before Tumblr was even a thing. It just so happens now I've got an audience.

[star-anise]

are we talking about broke therapists yet?

I've been out of things for a couple of years now, which is why I'm willing to talk about it, and maybe the pandemic has helped things a little, but holy shit the counselling and psychotherapy field is not equipped to help its practitioners in the gig economy.

Of all my interests and talents, I pursued a degree in psychology because being a therapist is supposed to be a safe, stable, well-paid job. Every therapist I met who was registered before 2008 worked and lived under that assumption. And oh boy are all the fee structures--registration, supervision, continuing education, conferences--set up for that scenario.

After getting my Master's, I struggled like hell to get a job. It was especially bad because to get my license, I needed a supervisor to take me on. To take me on, most supervisors wanted me to already have a caseload and client base. To get a caseload and client base, I needed a job.

Friends: Every single job I heard back on wanted me to have my license before I could even land an interview.

Professors and career advisors and professional development specialists all advised me very earnestly to just keep cold-calling people on the supervision list, and it began to feel a lot like my parents' friends telling me to hit the bricks and hand out resumes. That's what worked for them, right?

I finally got a supervisor who agreed to take me on, and I'd be able to use her clinic for advertising and workspace, and we were doing the paperwork to send in with my registration, when she called me up and said, "Is this job going to be your only source of income? If you're trying to depend on getting clients and building your practice for your basic needs, this is not going to work out. This has to be something you're doing on top of a basic salary. Okay, so you're not working anywhere else right now? I'm sorry, I can't move forward with this."

Even once I landed a supervisor and a job building my own private practice, I struggled. I have ADHD and am not great at self-promotion, so trying to do all my own advertising, scheduling, bookkeeping, billing, and records management (on top of counselling) was an enormous strain. One my bosses, supervisors, and other senior professionals watched with a slightly critical eye, but consoled me about because in their early days, their clinics had had business managers, receptionists, filing clerks, and accountants, and getting used to doing everything online yourself was a bit of a learning curve, wasn't it?

I counted my pennies very carefully, because I had to pay my supervisor roughly $180 for their services every 6 hours of in-person counselling I did. This meant that to break even I had to charge my clients an average of about $30 (plus room rental and service fees) an hour--and my clients, being people with complex trauma, were frequently poor, disabled, unemployed, and had no health benefits, so even $10 or $20 a session was a lot for them.

Maybe it would have been easier if I could have taken some of those nice comfortable organization positions where they find clients and funding for you and you work 40 hours a week and get benefits and a pension, but I had to be disabled into the bargain, so working 40 hours a week just isn't possible for me. I start passing out from stress and exhaustion. Older colleagues gave me serious-faced advice about approaching my employer and asking them for some flexibility and accommodation in my schedule, and I tried to explain across the gap between us that employers simply did not hire me if I made the slightest noise about the workload. They weren't going to invest in me as a person; they were hiring 40 units of work a week, and if I wouldn't do it there were a dozen applicants after me who would.

At one point I broke down enough to email my licensing body because the Annual General Meeting/Professional Development Conference was coming up, and I wanted to attend, but I could not produce $500 to do it with. Was there some kind of way I could attend anyway? I felt ashamed to have to ask, and then absolutely mortified when the response came from the organization president, who needed to personally sign off on me being too poor to attend the single most important event in my profession's calendar year.

I honestly felt so ashamed all the time at how I was apparently failing to be a successful therapist, failing to be rich and successful, and every time I mentioned it around mentors and bosses, I could feel myself shrinking from a person to a problem to be solved. My closest therapist-friends and I have reflected on how much more difficult, poorly-paid and underworked, our various career starts have been than we were ever warned about. About the classmates and coworkers who couldn't get disability exceptions when they fell behind in their registration requirements, or burned out and left the field, or dropped their registrations and took up as life coaches, or moved their whole family somewhere exceptionally remote or rural because it was the only good job available, or worked for some godforsaken app skirting the bounds of malpractice like BetterHelp.

I like those conversations, because I feel less like an absolute fuck-up in them. There's less "Hey Lis, you were so talented in grad school, I really admired you, what are you doing now?" "Oh, I, uh... am professionally disabled, so I get government benefits, and I... sell embroidery patterns on Etsy now."

My own therapist kept asking if and when I felt like going back to being a counsellor, and I finally told him: I don't, actually. I don't want to go back and do it like I was doing it before. It was a profession I loved to the depths of my soul, and it profoundly did not love me back. I can't even imagine what would have to change, in me or it, to make it have a space in it that could fit me.

All of which I was way too scared to admit to at the time, because the more I let people know I was struggling, the more they hinted that maybe I just wasn't in a place in my life where this was a job I could do, and I needed to take a little break and wait to come back until money and disability just weren't issues for me anymore.

Eventually my cups of doubt and exhaustion did overflow, and I quit. I'm here now, living a much different life. And at the very least, all my years of helping people in bad life situations set me up perfectly for my own. I already knew what form to fill out for financial assistance, which student clinics to access for mental health support, and which government agency would, if pressed, cough out pharmacy coverage for the genuinely destitute. It gave me that much.

I hope this is just me being in extraordinary circumstances, sitting at the intersections of a few different shitty life situations that most people skip right past. Because it's on one level comforting, but another deeply infuriating, if I'm not, and I've just missed it or we've just all been too afraid to admit it to each other.

[ariaste]

If you could sit the vampire polycule/diabolicule down in a row on a sofa to watch one (1) movie with the intent of causing the maximum amount of psychic damage and/or drama, what movie would you pick for them? I'll go first: Moulin Rouge. Hear me out.

Louis is upset because he's a pretentious snob (affectionate) when it comes to Art and he's complaining that it's just a ripoff of the opera La Traviata. He's correct but he doesn't need to say it, he is allergic to camp and he's harshing everyone's vibes with his barely-under-his-breath scoffing.

Daniel is ruefully identifying way too heavily with Ewan McGregor's character. Daniel is sitting here with his mouth firmly shut like, "Nobody call me out for being exactly Like That when I was 20, nobody look at me, nobody read my mind, nobody make eye contact with me, god this is cringe. Look, he's even got the drug use going on." (This is show!canon that we're talking about so thankfully Daniel doesn't have to also cope with the "AND he's embarrassingly into a hot redheaded theater nerd, god just kill me now, nobody Perceive me please" vector of embarrassment). Daniel is also not having a good time with the creepy older men skeeving on this theater nerd sex worker once he thinks the words "Hm, Marius vibes"

Daniel and Louis also feeling kind of mutually overstimulated from how their heightened vampire super-senses are reacting to all of the Colors and Flashing Lights and Whippy Camera Movements etc. They have matching headaches and are feeling slightly nauseated.

Everyone is feeling some degree of slightly triggered, emotionally, about either Paris In General (Daniel), or Niche-Theater Life In Paris (Armand, Louis, Lestat). Big mixed feelings also about tuberculosis, a disease that makes people cough up blood.

Armand and Lestat are profoundly NOT allergic to camp, unlike some people on this wretched sofa. Armand and Lestat cannot be overstimulated by Colors/Flashing Lights/Whippy Camera Movements/etc, bc their vampire neurodivergence goes in the opposite direction. They have not blinked or moved in 90 minutes except to breathlessly clutch each other's hands. Lestat is muttering feverishly under his breath like "armand. armand. armand. is it maybe time for us to found another theater together, do you think???? armand??? what if we just. are you doing anything after this. how much cash do you have on hand right now." his ADHD hyperfixation on a new-old hobby is going BUCK WILD. He has to recreate this except EVEN MORE. Armand is watching Satine Suddenly Die At The End, just like how in all of his silly little plays someone also Suddenly Dies At The End, and he is deciding that this is maybe god's perfect movie. This is the greatest film either of them has ever seen. They think this is Cinema.

Armand and Lestat will have never agreed with each other for so many consecutive minutes as they will when the credits roll and Louis starts monologuing about how much it sucks to the point of VAST OFFENSE AND HURT FEELINGS on Armand and Lestat's part

the whole mess devolves into a screaming fight between the three of them while Daniel both refuses to referee and also won't stop making bitchy comments once he twigs to the fact that nobody else seems to have noticed that he was Going Through Some Cringe Nostalgia. The night is ruined, no one is happy, Louis takes Lestat floating the idea of founding a new theater with Armand since "you clearly don't understand art, LOUIS" as one of Lestat's top five greatest betrayals. Armand is not giving a straight answer about whether he is on board with the theater idea or not, which upsets everyone equally, unlike if he had said yes or no clearly and at least gotten one ally locked down. Louis appeals to Daniel to oppose the theater idea; Daniel does a bad job of doing so because he chronically believes that maybe having some hobbies will Make Armand Worse, which is a thing he's into sexually. Everyone goes to bed mad. The passive-aggression for the next week could be cut with a knife.

[rumisgf]

DENKI BOYFRIEND HEADCANONS

summary: here’s some denki headcanons if he was your boyfie bcs i rlly love this boy sm and he don’t get enough love for my liking :[

warnings: college!au, suggestive, crack, feminine terms for reader used, black!reader ofc and always

✧ you’ve earned yourself a himbo gamer bf congrats

✧ denki is so loud about how much he loves you and he makes it very known that you’re his

✧ while it annoys people like bakugou when he constantly goes on tangents about you, it’s honestly such a green flag

✧ by nature, denki’s a very flirty person so you assumed you’d have to work that out with him a lot

✧ not only that but as denki got older, ladies (and boys) definitely started flirting with him first

✧ it definitely irked you when yall were js talking/in a “situationship”

✧ sometimes you genuinely wanted to rip the hair out of not only your scalp and his

✧ it was only because you wanted him so bad

✧ surprisingly tho, if you bring it up to him he stops immediately

✧ and when you do start dating he pretty much tunes out anyone who even tries to make a move on him

✧ he definitely owns one of those “i love my girlfriend” shirts and will genuinely style it

✧ overall, denki’s one of the most reassuring partners you could ask for after y’all make it official

“i promise i’m literally obsessed with you.”

“you’re the only one i see, princess”

✧ if yall see the way he talks in the show, he definitely is in tune with his feminine side

✧ and in the best way possible, the only reason he might have a lot of friends who are girls is because girls feel so comfortable around him

✧ and i’m a huge believer in the ‘denki with an older sister’ headcanon so that’s definitely where he gets it from

✧ he always helps you with outfits and he even knows how to do makeup to an extent

✧ the first time you were running late but still had to do your makeup so he just came over and did a perfect winged eyeliner, you were just like ‘…..someone cooked here.’

“kaminari….what the fuck.”

“what?”

✧ he always calls you “girl” when you say something weird or dumb and it really just slips off his tongue

✧ denki also loves gossiping. he’s so messy

✧ if he peeps something, you’re the first person he texts and y’all definitely make fun of people together

✧ when he’s gaming you’d think he’s one of those dudes who just completely ignores their girl

✧ which sometimes is a habit when you’re on the phone

✧ but usually, he’s able to have a full conversation with you and play the game with bakusquad on a seperate instagram or discord call (yes, he has this talent because of his adhd)

✧ besides he makes up for it when you get to take facetime photos of him with his camera set up, his bedroom lights off, the lights from his computer monitor/tv and his led lights highlighting his features so beautifully

✧ if you ever need his attention, he’ll get off in an instant with the excuse ‘i wanna go hang out with my girl’

✧ and he also loves gaming with you. it’s 50/50 though, sometimes he’ll let you win and sometimes he’ll absolutely obliterate you then laugh in your face

✧ it’s ok though because you get kisses after :)

✧ in person, kaminari’s always is touching you in some type of way

✧ whether it’s you sitting between his legs on the floor, his hand on your thigh while you sit next to him, occasionally hugging your waist if you stand up next to him

✧ his favorite though is definitely having you sit in his lap

✧ he’ll play with the hem of your pants or your shirt, wrap his arms around your waist while holding the controller, or let you bury your face in his neck and fall asleep

✧ speaking of, he loves when you fall asleep on him

✧ even around other people, he always likes pulling you on his lap or having your head rested on his shoulder

✧ both of y’all’s friends definitely take pictures whenever this happens but he honestly loves it and doesn’t care when bakusquad sends it into their groupchat

✧ he’s just like yeah, that’s my cute lil girlfriend what abt it?

✧ he really does think you’re so adorable and he loves babying you

✧ yk how the one episode where he said nejire was cute because she was kinda stupid (😭) ? yeah, he loves when you have little dumb moments because he likes to make fun of you and tell you how adorable you are

“awww, you’re so adorable baby!”

“IT’S NOT FUNNY!”

✧ besides, it does make him feel better for him to not always feel like the “dumb” one in the relationship, it makes yall more balanced out even if you are smarter than him

✧ he also really likes flustering you. he’ll grab your belt loop, let his hands go a bit too low when you hug him, randomly pull you onto his lap, give you kisses all over your face, and purposefully stare into your eyes while you talk

✧ though, he does equally enjoy being babied. he loves when you play with his hair, laying his head in your lap, and being little spoon when y’all cuddle

✧ which is often the case unless you’re laying your head on his chest, his only other favorite cuddling position other than you being big spoon

✧ he loves playing guitar for you and if you can sing, he’ll play a song to have you sing the lyrics along with him

✧ denki is just a music lover in general, it’s often what’s in the background if y’all are making out or just chilling together

✧ if you like dying your hair, he will practically beg to help you do it because he thinks it’s a great bonding experience

✧ he’ll even dye a strip of his hair to match yours

✧ based on the ova where the big three were playing as villains and class 1-a were the heroes, i like to think denki was one of the first out of his friends to learn how to drive

✧ so he definitely was eager to make you his passenger princess. he loves taking you out to eat, driving you home, picking you up from places, and taking you shopping

✧ even if he barely has the money, he’ll spoil the hell out of you and (sometimes you gotta remind him to be responsible with his money 😭)

✧ his lock screen is definitely a picture of you in his passenger seat or you holding his hand while he’s driving

✧ he loves showing you off and he puts all your instagram posts on his story within seconds, and he will spam your comments

✧ he’ll also convince you to do tiktoks with him

✧ his favorite dates are at arcades, he just loves having fun with you and watching you get competitive with all the games

✧ he also loves when there’s a photobooth and will practically drag you to take cute pictures with him, which he’ll later put in his room on full display

✧ in general he takes tons of pictures of you and you take up a lot of his storage, his phone is really on its last leg.

✧ this also means he as the worst bangers of you imaginable. his birthday story posts are lethal.

✧ overall dating him is like having a built in best friend, except yall kiss a lot

✧ 10/10 boyfie

@ rumisgf

[tkingfisher]

So I write all sorts of things (fiction, fanfic, screenplays) and my mind is cluttered garden of flowers and weeds and shiny ideas, and I'm wondering how to form a writing practice to clear it into tidy rows? Is it possible to shepherd untamed ideas into order?

How do you manage all your wonderful worlds, characters and inspiration and not feel haunted by the story bits and pieces in your head? Any practical tips beyond dark magic?

Thank you, you are such a constant inspiration for me, both prose and just your presence. <3

*laugh* Oh god, Nonny, if I ever find out, I’ll tell you! When you read books, you’re getting the Instagram-filtered view of a writer’s brain, all the flowers that grew out of the compost heap, carefully composed and shot in optimal lighting. The real inside of my skull is a magpie nest of Neat Shit I Read/Saw/Thought Up While Lying Awake At 2 AM. There are characters and ideas in there that I’ve been trying to get into a manuscript since I was twelve and typing on an Amiga 500.

But, that said…really, I think it’s okay. Creativity is inherently untidy. The compost heap can be corralled into a very pretty box made of sustainably harvested materials, hand-stained by traditional artisans being paid a living wage by an employee-owned company, but as soon as you lift the lid, it’s all worms and coffee grounds and old potting soil and cow shit and the vegetables you swore you were gonna eat this time before they went bad. That’s what compost is.

Nevertheless, having been in the business for…uh…fifteen years now? (@dduane is snickering at me, I can feel it) and having written nearly forty books, I can offer three bits of something less than advice. It’s what I do. It may not work for anyone else, but it’s what I do.

Un-Advice The First: If you get a shiny idea and you are super excited by it? Go ahead and chase it. Pull up a new page in Word or whatever and slap down a couple thousand words while it’s exciting. I know that this absolutely flies in the face of common wisdom, but quite frankly, my enthusiasm is a much rarer commodity than my time, so if I’m excited about something, I write it down until I’ve taken the edge off.

Then I usually save it into a big folder called “Fragments” and go back to work on whatever I’ve got a deadline on. (Usually. Sometimes the edge doesn’t wear off, and I wind up with another book. Which, y’know, darn.)

There are vast numbers of people who will tell you that a shiny idea is a sign that something is wrong with your current project and the solution is to knuckle down and work! through! it! And those people are probably right for them, and I trust they know how their own brains work. Me, though, I got ADHD like a bat has wings. My hard drive is a vast swamp of story beginnings, neat ideas, random scenes. And that’s okay because I still get books finished.

In fact, it’s better than okay. Not that long ago, my agent sent a novella to a publisher and they said “We’ll take that novella and three more novels. What’ve you got?” And I ended up plundering my hard drive and sending the editor a good dozen random beginnings until we found one that we both liked, and then I wrote the rest of that book. And then another one. If I hadn’t had all those fragments lying around, though, it would have been a miserable experience of writing book pitches and trying to think of stuff I could get excited about. (This may not be how some editors work, but it’s how my editor and I work, anyhow.)

Un-Advice The Second: Trust that everything will find a home eventually.

This one is easy to say and hard to do because sometimes you get that overload that if you’re writing the book about, say, werebear nuns, you aren’t writing the one about the alien crustaceans. Or worse, you feel guilty. If you don’t use that one cool thing, was all that time you spent on it wasted?

Breathe. Be easy. Every single cool thing does not need to go into a single book. There is no sell-by date on the neat character. You will probably write many books in your life and all those random characters will find a home. (Seriously, the werebear nuns were lurking for like a decade.)

For me, at least, when I find the spot where something fits, it often snaps into place like a Lego. Easton’s backstory as a soldier from a society where soldiers were a third sex had been kicking around in my head for a few years, derived from about three different sources, and then I wrote the opening to What Moves The Dead and all of a sudden Easton was there and alive and they had strong opinions about everything and I had ten thousand words practically before I turned around.

You can also stave off guilt by writing some of your ideas in as highly personal Easter Eggs. A couple of my books have references to a white deer woman, a heroic deed done by a saint and the ghost of a bird, and a woman with dozens of hummingbirds on tiny jeweled leashes. Those are all characters and stories I’ve had vague notions about, but haven’t managed to work in anywhere or learn much more about. Still, the passing reference is enough to make me feel like I haven’t abandoned them.

(The advantage to this is that once you DO write those in, the readers are all “oh my god, she foreshadowed this a decade ago, she must have planned this all out in advance!” Then you look really clever and well-organized and no one has to know that you have no idea what you’re doing.)

Un-Advice The Third: Write the kitchen sink book.

At one point, I had so many stray ideas that hadn’t gotten into a book yet—the tree of frogs, the dog-soldiers, the stained glass saint, the albatross and the shadow of the sun, and also I wanted to write something with Baba Yaga—that I hauled off and wrote a book where I just put in everything and the kitchen sink. It’s called Summer in Orcus. There are bits in there that I had been cooking in the mental compost heap for decades, but that weren’t enough on their own to sustain a whole book. The phrase “antelope women are not to be trusted” showed up in my head some time in college. It’s a fun little book and I’m proud of it, but it’s very much a patchwork quilt of weirdness. But it’s also written so that if later on, an antelope woman shows up in another book in another context, that just adds to their mythology, it doesn’t break canon or whatever.

(Pretty sure I’m not the only one who has done this, either. China Mieville has said that he wrote Perdido Street Station because what he really enjoyed was writing all the weird monsters.)

So yeah, that’s my advice, for what it’s worth. Some days I just tell all the fragments and ideas that I promise that I’ll get them a home eventually but I need to write this thing here now. Sometimes I throw down enough words to get the story stabilized and then I’m okay to move on. Sometimes I write multiple books simultaneously.

Any method you use to write the book, so long as it doesn’t hurt you or anyone else, is a perfectly valid method. If anyone tells you different, you send them to me.

(…god, I hope that was the question you were actually asking, Nonny, and that I didn’t go off on a completely different tangent when you just wanted to know how I keep track of a plot or something.)

[andhumanslovedstories]

I’ve been struggling lately with the feeling that my job is pointless. Intellectually I know it is not—nursing is one of those professions where you get to be real smug about knowing the value of your work. But it’s still felt very pointless. Like I’ll start a shift thinking, “what am I even doing here,” and end it thinking, “what have I actually even done.” It’s been a ROUGH couple months.

But I had a really good shift last time I worked, which was good for the soul and also a very useful data point. I got to do pain management advocacy and symptom management, met a bunch of cool patients, did education for new nurses, and had several long heart to hearts, which the kind of midnight heart to hearts that I think are the most important part of night shift, all of that while being well staffed with very pleasant and appreciative patients and coworkers, and I was still like. Pretty depressed. I had a sense of satisfaction and moments of joy and meaning, but it turns out that one good shift did not cure the depression that has been latched on to me for the last few months like some kind of fucked up mental health leech. As I realized I was still depressed and that it was still interfering with my life even when everything was going well, the sense of peace washed over me was the best I’d felt in a while. Because I was like, okay! None of my usual stuff as worked! I have no excuse not to try something new to get my brain out of the shit ditch it’s slipped into.

So I’m applying for short-term disability. I’m worried I won’t get it, and I’m not sure what the next step is if I get rejected, but I feel so much better having decided to pursue it. It’s so much fuckin paperwork for sure, to a degree that’s overwhelming except that that the form could be a checkbox that says, “you want money?” and I’d be like “THIS IS TOO MUCH.” I’m totally not writing this post instead of finishing an email to my manager. I’m definitely not writing this post to avoid dealing with coordinating all my various care providers. I’m certainly not at every moment worried that I’m secretly faking all this so I can get three to nine weeks of a cool summer vacation.

I was thinking about how I almost flunked nursing school in my final semester because I turned in assignments late for a class with a “no late homework” policy. The professor said that this was reflective of real life, where if you miss deadlines you’re just fucked. I ended up appealing my grade and passing, because frankly it was a weak reason for making me repeat a final semester when there was no issues with my actual work or knowledge. During my appeal, I was like “I also think this policy is ableist. Harsh penalties for late work hurt students with health problems, especially chronic health problems when you aren’t asking for one week off due to the flu but instead for a general and never ending flexibility. I’m not trying to make an excuse but explain why this policy is a bad one. Disabled healthcare workers are an asset to healthcare.” I’m trying to remember my own argument as I pursue help. My depression and ADHD and eating disorder do help me be a better nurse, not because like depression gives you superpowers, but because I manage my chronic illnesses every day, in ways that range from hardly noticeable to life or death. Being kind to patients means being kind to myself, and vice versa.

I’m rambling. I really do not want to do this paperwork or send these emails. And I’m not sure if I deserve the leave I’m trying to take. But I miss being love with my job. I miss enjoying it. I wouldn’t judge someone else for going on medical leave, and my job doesn’t want me to burn out or quit. It almost feels like I have to be skeptical of applying for leave because no one else is. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been very supportive, including my manager. And considering how many unpaid days off I’ve had to take lately, disability leave would be an improvement over some of my recent paychecks. All in all, short-term disability makes sense and seems like a reasonable response to circumstances. But FUCK. I wish it required like 90 percent less documentation.

[love-is-patient]

I have religious trauma.

I was raised in a household where my dad wanted to be God, and so characterized Him in a way that left me constantly paranoid.

God was a judge, God was a debt collector, God was a hammer waiting to strike.

My mother was likewise delusional to a point. She used religion as a manner of control, manipulating my egotistical dad and our chaotic little world so she could feel better about herself.

I was abused in the church. I’ve been so many churches since childhood I can’t count them.

I was told I was possessed because I was a child with adhd and couldn’t sit still in a pew. I was told that if I didn’t see visions or speak in tongues, I wasn’t saved. I was told that I must be thinking about God at all times or I wasn’t good enough. That I was lukewarm, unlovable, unworthy.

I was too afraid to take communion. I cried and turned away from the altar multiple times because I was a too dirty to touch the offering.

I was told so many awful things that I grew up with a persistent religious paranoia on top of my already anxiety inducing life.

So… why am I still a Christian, after all of that?

Stockholm syndrome, right?

It would be easy to write it off as that, but I did turn away from religion. In the back of my mind. I stayed cautious in case God was still watching.

It wasn’t until I got rid of the destructive influences in my life that things changed.

My perception of God changed when I left the awful people using His name in vain- or for personal gain.

When I grew up, learned to be discerning about the character of people.

Many people live under the assumption that I did- that God is a tyrant who is waiting for you to mess up so he can smash you and send you to hell. Paradoxically, that almost makes Satan sound preferable.

But that’s not who God is, and he doesn’t want people to go to hell.

Even if you haven’t had good parents, you’ve seen what they’re like. They get excited to share experiences with their children. The first taste of lemon, the first puddles to splash in. First words, first laughs, first steps.

God wanted that for us.

Satan got jealous after his rebellion in heaven. He saw God had something good and wanted it for himself again - even if it was just to spite God.

He offered humanity a choice and we took it.

We can debate why it happened until we’re blue in the face, but what matters most are God’s decisions afterwards.

Everything that has happened since the fall has been God trying to bring his wayward children back without force.

Just like when you see that friend of yours making the same bad decisions day after day, and you know their quality of life would improve if they just stopped. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating. You can give them all the advice in the world but they’ll just keep on doing the thing and complain to you about every headache afterwards.

Now you know a little what God feels like.

Only God is a little more patient than we tend to be.

God doesn’t ask much from us, not as much as people, which is weird to think about.

God doesn’t measure your worth by how good you are at your job, how badly you do in school. He doesn’t equate your value to how rich or poor you are, he doesn’t judge you the same way people do.

The first thing he asks of you is to love him and love each other.

He loves us so much that he opened heaven again if we ask for it.

He came down as flesh and blood in Jesus and took all the punishments we should’ve had. In Jesus death and resurrection, we have a way home.

All he wants for us to do is acknowledge that.

He doesn’t hate you if you can’t pay tithe. He doesn’t talk behind your back if you make a mistake. He doesn’t demean, debase, abuse.

Why am I still a Christian?

Because God was there for me when people weren’t.

God didn’t abuse me as a kid, people did, and used God as a shield.

God didn’t lie to me, call me names, break my things - my parents did.

God didn’t order me to do unbelievable things in order to reach him - my pastors and teachers did.

God didn’t tell me I’m unworthy - people did.

Even if you don’t believe in God, if you’re angry at him, feeling hurt and betrayed.

Maybe take a closer look and see if it’s really the people around you making you miserable, instead of an untouchable, invisible hammer.

[samkerrworshipper]

Medication - Leah Williamson

fluff, little bit of angst, anxiety attacks, mentions of depression, 3500 words

balled my eyes out to black fridays by tom odell and then this was birthed.

blurb:

your a rookie on the lionesses squad, who suffers from anxiety and when you stop taking your meds after learning you are starting a game in the euros everything goes downhill for you.

i am so sorry for how vague this was lol i’m writing this and publishing at 2:30 in the morning

I’d never liked gamedays. Everything felt different, all the feelings and emotions heightened. The pressure was insurmountable, especially when you are playing for your nation. Especially when you are one of the youngest, one of the least experienced, one of the youngsters. Today, we were playing Norway, my first game as a Lioness where I was a part of the starting line-up. It was a must win game, the stakes were high for us to win these Euro’s, especially considering it was a home euro’s for us. If we wanted to progress to the finals we couldn’t lose, the pressure was on.

I’d understood that as soon as I’d been notified that I was to start the match, understood that everything changed as soon as you were actually on the pitch. Our one point win over Austria had been great, but we were all hungrier for more, hungrier for the points that we needed to get us ahead in the competition. Sarina knew that there was an expectation for us to win, we all knew that.

I’d been feeling it all week, feeling the anxiety thrumming through my veins as we practised and went about our normal routine for the week. Something was different, it was my first year as a senior Lioness and I’d never been named as a starter. That was a big deal, a really big deal. That was all I could think about. What if I fucked it up? What if I messed up and they told me that I wasn’t going to be welcome back. What if Sarina saw me on the pitch and thought that I was worthless, useless, bad. That was all I could think about as we were standing in the tunnel getting ready to walk out. I was sandwiched in between Lucy and Beth. My hands shaking in my pockets and my breath quickening subconsciously. If I wasn’t aware of it then apparently the defender behind me was, because just as we were about to walk out I felt one of her hands fall to my shoulder, pulling me back into her just enough for her to be able to press her mouth to my ear and whisper,

“You’ve got this amore, you’re going to do perfectly fine,” Lucy’s voice was so strong, but so comforting. She was like an older sister to me, and had been since my first day at training camp. She had been the first person to believe in me besides my Arsenal teammates, the first person to really advocate for my future. She was also the first person on the Lionesses team besides Leah to learn about my struggles with anxiety, adhd and depression. She’d been a light in my life, texted me to make sure I was keeping up with my medication, or just to check in.

In the wake of the Euro’s I’d stopped taking my anxiety meds. I took Lorazepam, which worked really well for me, but it also tended to make me really drowsy and fatigued. Things that are not ideal when you are training and playing almost everyday for your country. It had positive effects, I definitely found it a lot easier to train and play my hardest, but there were a lot of negatives. Like how I was feeling right now. Like my heart was going to beat out of my chest, my hands getting clammy with sweat and shaking non stop like I’d just shot up on steroids. The sound of the crowd at Brighton didn’t help either as we walked out onto the pitch. I struggled to get through the national anthem and the pre game pleasantries, my chest and body hurting from the anxiety that was building up inside of my body.

I was grateful but also not to step out on the pitch properly. It felt like I was on a different planet, my senses overly heightened and my brain short circuiting almost everything.

I could feel Leah’s gaze on me as we all lined up to start the game, she worried about me, a lot. I was also her Arsenal teammate and she’d taken me under her wing beyond football, we’d become very close in our time spent together. I ignored her sidewards glances though, tasking myself with showing our nation that I deserved to be where I was and some jitters weren’t going to affect that.

My first half was rocky, normally with the mixture of adrenaline and endorphins my anxiety subsided when I started playing but this time I must have been too far gone, too much pent up anxiety built up for it to just fade away. It reflected in how I was playing, but our forwards had been flawless, slotting in six goals which put us in a lead that was pretty much untouchable. Clambering into the rooms at halftime was a charade. Everyone besides myself seemed ecstatic and hyped about our lead, I was on the inside but I was also wrapped up in my own bubble. I took a seat on the floor of the change rooms, taking in Serena’s speech about keeping our heads and just continuing what we were doing. I allowed Lucy to pass me a drink bottle, obliging her request for me to hydrate myself. She could tell something was up, she’d been hovering around me on the pitch, covering me. When one of the Norwegian girls had taken my feet out from under me she had immediately been at my side, pulling me up and then yelling at the umpire about how it had clearly been a foul if not a yellow. Leah had to pull her away just to ensure Lucy wouldn’t get carded herself, all whilst I stood there absolutely helpless as result of the amount of effort I was having to put into not collapsing from the amount of pain in my chest.

Leah kept it pretty brief after Serena, sticking to what she’d said and putting an emphasis on a few things before we headed back out. She managed to snag a grip on my jersey though as I trailed with the girls at the back of the group.

“Are you okay?” There was a little bit of captain in it, but it was mostly gentle, her voice a little bit rugged from the amount of yelling she’d done on the field.

“I’m fine.” Her facial expression was enough to tell me she didn’t believe a word I was saying.

“I’m telling Serena to sub you off, you clearly don’t look well enough to be playing.”

“I told you I feel fine Cap, I can play out the rest of the 90, please let me play it out.”

Leah looked conflicted, conflicted with what to do and how to react to my plea. I wasn’t one who begged very often, I didn’t see the point in it.

“Fine but y/n, as soon as anything happens out there, you put yourself in danger or someone else in danger you are going off, understood?”

I didn’t have any other option but to nod at Leah.

“Yes, captain.”

My voice had held some sarcasm as I tore her hand from the bottom of my jersey and started jogging back up the tunnel to catch up with girls that I’d previously been chatting to.

The last ten minutes of the second half was when bad transitioned to really not good. My body began to catch up with my over exertion and every second on the field became a battle. It was a blessing that the ball wasn’t really travelling down my end, Less and Toony had both been substituted in and were having a field day in our forward half kicking it back and forth to run the clock down. The Norwegian girls were giving it their best but you could tell they knew it was over. As the minutes passed though and we went into extra time I could feel my body really starting to get heavier, you could blame it on the lack of hydration and the english heat that we were playing in but I knew it was my body betraying me. I’d been denying my body for too long and it was catching up with me. I didn’t even know how many minutes of extra time we had, my vision was slowly blurring, my steps becoming wobbly and the pain in my chest becoming overbearing.

I could hear my opponent, I think it was Maren, or was it Guro? Asking me if I felt alright. I didn’t really comprehend it though, I couldn’t hear anything properly, it felt like I was underwater, my ears ringing out and my vision blacking over as I fell face first into the turf. Maren managed to catch me before I fully face planted into the grass, helping my limp form down to the ground before starting to yell out for help. It was then of course that the whistles blew and the match ended. I could make out the sounds of the crowd going nuts, maybe even my teammates on the sidelines yelling in triumph. I couldn’t open my eyes though and I definitely couldn’t make out the voice of Maren on the ground beside me trying to ask me questions and attract the attention of a medic. It was all mellowed out as my body succumbed to a coma like state that I’d forced myself into.

Leah and Lucy were the first two from my own team to locate me, passed out on the ground with Maren trying to provide as much privacy for me as possible whilst also pressing her hand to my throat to make sure that there wasn’t anything seriously wrong. It was Maren, Guro had been subbed off at the 84’ minute mark. I remembered that because I’d silently been wishing at the time that Serena would do the same, but she’d made her final changes and taking me off apparently hadn't been one of them.

“Y/n, can you open your eyes for me? Or squeeze my hand?”

I could feel Leah’s own hand fall into mine and I squeezed it as best as I could, it was enough for me to tell her that I was conscious enough to make out what she was saying to me.

“Good y/n/n, the medics are about to be here, can you try and open your eyes and talk for me?”

I tried my hardest to crack my eyes open, when I did finally muster up the will to open one of them I was met with the brightness of the stadium lights. I groaned almost immediately, being forced to take in my surroundings. I was surrounded by our trainers, who were draping different towels over my body in an attempt to cool me down and cover me. My cleats had been removed from my feet and someone was soaking my socks in cold water, something that I was not pleased to be awakened by.

“Good sweetheart, stay focused on me yeah, eyes on me.”

My eyes snapped back up to Leah, who was crouched above my head, Serena and Lucy’s heads were beside her own, staring down at me.

“The medics are going to come look at you and you are going to let them, okay?”

I almost immediately shook my head at Leah but she kept her jaw clenched and her stern face up.

“I’m not asking y/n, you just passed out on the field, you need to be assessed.”

I shook my head again and Leah rolled her eyes at me.

“An-n-xiety.”

I could hardly make out my own words in the stadium full of noise and the words themselves made me realise how much I was struggling to regulate my own breaths.

Leah nodded knowingly, suddenly everything seemed to come into perspective for her.

“You stopped taking your medication, didn’t you?”

I gulped and nodded at her, trying to block out all of the distractions that were happening around me. She looked annoyed at me, I cowered a little bit with the glare that she was giving me. After the last time I went on a sabbatical from my medication I swore to Leah I would never do it again.

As the medics crouched down next to me I shut my eyes again, it all becoming too much for my head. I let the medics fuss over me, I blacked out somewhere in between them putting me on a stretcher and getting me off the pitch.

I reawakened with sweat dripping down my body, all of the oxygen depleting from my body and my chest aching like it never had before. I choked a little bit as I sat up from my spot, gasping for air to enter my lungs. It took me a few seconds to recognise where I was, sitting inside the makeshift medical room at Brighton. My head was pounding and my whole body was aching.

“Y/n, look at me, you're having an anxiety attack, deep breaths.”

“Wh-what.” The words came out in a gasp as I struggled to take in any air, looking at Leah for guidance.

“We’re at Brighton, we just played Norway, you had an anxiety episode on the pitch. You’re having an attack right now, I need you to take deep breaths, follow me, in and out.”

I watched Leah as she exaggerated some deep breaths, if it hadn't been for the circumstance I probably would have laughed at her.

As I slowly started to take in more air she tried a different tactic.

“Good y/n/n, your doing so well my good girl. Can you tell me five things you can see?”

It was deflection, something that Leah had picked up on from her therapist.

“Serena, you, the light, Lucy and a drink bottle.”

Leah nodded at me encouragingly, rubbing slowly up my back as she continued.

“Good, you’re doing so well, how about four things you can feel?”

“Your breath, the scratchy blanket, my wet socks and I don’t know.”

My words were still choken as I used up whatever oxygen I was taking in to get the words out.

“That’s okay, that’s good, you are doing so well for me angel, how about three things you can hear?”

I tried to focus fully on Leah, on her words, her rubbing my back, her breath against my neck.

“Serena tapping her shoe, the heart monitor and the music from the changeroom.”

It was faint but if you focused in enough you could just hear the sound of my teammates in the change rooms, getting up to god knows that with the absence of their captain and manager.

“Perfect, you are doing absolutely perfectly. How about two things you can smell?”

“Antiseptic and your perfume.”

“Good, last one, one thing you can taste.”

I could feel my breath and body evening itself out, it felt like I was a piece of linen that was slowly but surely being ironed out, all of the crinkles and creases leaving my body.

“I don’t know.”

“Last one y/n, I know you can do it.”

“Metal, the iron taste from blood.”

Leah nodded at me, plastering a kiss on my forehead. Her words and actions being enough to bring me back down to earth fully. I very slowly took in my surroundings properly, Serena, Lucy and Keira were all sitting at the end of my bed, watching as Leah did her thing. I was hooked up to a few different things, cords and wires poking out of my extremities. A saline drip, heart monitor and another machine that I wasn’t sure the purpose of.

“Hey my girl, you back here with us now?”

I pushed my head into Leah’s chest, trying to hide from the world that I was now a participating member of.

“No hiding, not here,”

I groaned as Leah pushed me out of her chest, annoyed by the loss of contact and the confrontation of having to be put in front of some of the people I respected most.

“You gave us a fright back there, I think you came close to killing Maren.”

I gulped nervously, hanging onto every word that left Serena’s mouth, just bobbing my head in agreement because what else was I supposed to do.

“M’ sorry, didn’t mean to, just wanted to prove that I deserved to be here.”

Serena’s face held a kind of understanding, like she’d seen girls before me who had been the same, willing to die to prove their worth to the dutchwoman who we all regarded so highly.

“You wouldn’t be here in the first place if you didn’t deserve to be. It’s one thing to push yourself but to the point where you black out on the field is another thing. If it ever happens again y/n y/l/n then I can swear to you now that you will be benched, am I understood.” I nodded meekly at Serena,

“Yes ma’am.”

She nodded at me, she’d gotten her point across.

“Leah tells me this happened as a result of you not taking your medication?”

I pushed my head back into Leah’s chest, grunting at her when she pushed me out of it. I couldn’t do much else but nod at Serena.

“I get side effects ma’am, it makes me drowsy and sleepy, I didn’t want it to affect my game.”

Serena was very quick to fire back at me,

“You take medication to ensure that you feel well, there is no shame in that. If you are having a problem with side effects then you are to bring it up with one of our doctors, not boycott your medication entirely. From now on I am going to be responsible for your medication, you will come to me everyday to take it so I can ensure that you are receiving the correct doses so something like this does not occur again, is that understood?”

I gulped and nodded at Serena. She smiled at me knowingly in return.

“You are an elite athlete y/n, it is imperative that you care for your body. Or something like this happens, something with such magnitude that it can’t be overlooked. Your health and wellbeing comes first, always.”

I nodded at Serena once again, allowing her to give me a hug before leaving the room to give us some privacy. As soon as the door closed behind her I shed a few tears, I hated confrontation, it was one of my biggest fears.

“She’s right y’know, this could have been a lot worse, what if you’d put yourself in a really dangerous position because you were in a bad headspace and ended up seriously injured, you can’t just stop taking your medication randomly y/n, it’s not safe.”

Leah’s voice was murmured against my forehead, her lips staying plastered to the oily and cold skin.

“No one else on the team relies on medication to function, I thought I would be fine, I feel so stupid always being the one having to rely on shit to get through the day.”

I could feel Leah rolling her eyes from above me.

“No one else on the team struggles with intense anxiety and depression like you do, we are all different, we all function differently. There is no shame in needing medication y/n/n, Lucy uses an asthma puffer, does that make her stupid?”

I looked over at Lucy, it was different.

“No but it’s different.”

“How?”

Leah’s answer was fired back at me and I struggled slightly to recover from her sudden reply,

“Lucy has a physical problem, mine’s just in my head.”

“What you went through today seemed pretty physical to me.”

I was stumped by that answer, looking across at Kiera and Lucy who nodded along with what Leah was saying.

“You struggle with your mental health, there is no shame in that. You rely on medication. So what? Good for you for listening to your body and acknowledging that you need that to help you make it through the day. Y/n, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using medication to help you. If I felt sick, with the flu, and I needed antibiotics or whatever, would you think that I was weak for using them?”

I shook my head at Leah almost immediately, the question was a no brainer for me,

“Exactly, because I’d be taking the medication needed to keep me well and functioning. All you are doing is the same thing y/n, keeping yourself alive and well.”