thedreadpirateholmes

[thedreadpirateholmes]

i love my therapist but i hate being in therapy. 10 minutes before my appointment, i'm in a meeting with my boss - we discuss my artistic choices; my boss recommends i artistically choose less. 10 minutes after therapy, i wash my hair and think about everything that was said, and then i have to switch it off, like a lamp, and go back to work again.

i was on a walk the other day and someone had the perfect combination of his cologne and whatever-else. it was almost exactly his scent. i fucking hate that. after all these years, i remember that? i tell my therapist - i feel like a fucking wolf. try telling a middle-aged blonde lady. oh i scented him on the air. i'm 30, and i'm having a panic attack over something that would be a plotline in the omegaverse.

what they don't tell you about mental illness is that if you are lucky enough to survive it into adulthood; it becomes a weird slice of your life. because you do, eventually, have to build a life. i realized in a panic somewhere around 22 - oh. i don't know what i'm fucking doing, because i always assumed i'd just go ahead and die. i didn't die, and i'm grateful for that, and i'm very happy about that choice. but it does mean that i am an adult in an apartment, living with my conditions side-by-side like. oh, that's my roommate, adhd. ignore the glass, bytheway, that's ocd.

so you pick your stupid life up by the scruff of the neck and you're, like glad for it (so much laughter and light and friends you would have never thought possible, when you were in the worst of it). but it feels so strange to be dancing around these odd little microcosms, these patchwork moments of your symptoms. if you have a panic attack at night, you still need to wake up and walk the dog in the morning. if your depression is making everything boring, well, you don't have any sick days left, and a job's not really supposed to be that exciting anyway. your ocd tears out each individual leg hair, and then, an hour later, you sigh, patch up the bloody bits, and go get dinner with friends. and the life is kitten-quiet, mewling and pathetic, but it's also like - it's yours, so you're fond of it.

and it's like - you're real. so you still enjoy pushing the shopping cart really fast and then riding on the back of it down an empty aisle. and you're not, like, so sick anymore that when you accidentally drop a mug you burst into tears (except for the days you do that. which are bad). and no, you're not allowed around certain items anymore. oops! but you've learned to be good about brushing your teeth most days of the week. and you sometimes in the middle of the day you have a little freak-out about how fucking unfair it all is, how fucking hard, how other people can just do this without having to fucking hurt the whole time. and then you sigh and force yourself to sit down and fucking journal about it so you can tell the nice middle-aged blonde woman yeah i had a hard day but i practiced grounding. you still sometimes want to burst out of your own skin, but you force yourself to eat kind-of healthy and to take your vitamins. you let yourself chop off all your hair in the sink in a dramatic poetry of control and relief - and you also have developed good hobbies that help you move your body more frequently. you feel helplessly behind, lost in the shuffle - but you also practice gratitude, taking stock of what you have garnered. because you're trying. even if you're never gonna be normal, you have something... close enough.

and the little kitten of your life, this mangy, starlit tigercub, this thing you expected to rot so young: in your arms, it turns itself over, belly-up. exposing this new soft part, all the organs and guts. like it's saying i trust you now. you won't give me up.

[thedreadpirateholmes]

people think writers make good English teachers but the opposite is true. sixth grader asks why she can’t start a sentence with “and” and im like idk girlie grammar is a construct and language is a fluid gelatinous animal. people used to write “thou” and they were being totally unironic about it. start your sentences with an exclamation point for all i care. a+

[thedreadpirateholmes]

I want to talk about writing

And by talk I mean converse about a specific project

And by converse I mean I want to infodump but also I should be locked in my room and refused to be allowed to infodump because if I do then I am not writing but also I want someone to know what I’m writing but not be allowed to read anything I’ve written until I’ve finished writing because the anxiety of whether or not they’ll like what I write next is killer to my motivation but if it’s already written it’s out of my control I can’t go back and not write it, so anyway I’m attempting a novelization of the movie I’ve watched literally two thousand times in a row (the 873 times that Disney+ shows is NOT accurate because at some point I got tired of the ads and switched to the dvd), the cinematic cult classic that had no rights being animated as well as it was for a direct-to-VHS feature of the late 90’s and please tell me someone else out there is as obsessed with this movie as I am I can’t be that bizarre of an anomaly please

[thedreadpirateholmes]

Random person on the internet: your hyperfixation is Lion King 2? *eyebrow waggle*

Me: yes, the way they represent generational trauma and how cycles of abuse are both perpetuated and fought against are actually really- (three hours later) -and that’s why Rafiki and Mufasa started a shipping war

Random person: aol dial-up noises

[thedreadpirateholmes]

Do not write fanfiction. One second you're normal and the next you're downloading a calendar from 2004 and tearing your hair out over what specific date every event in your fic happens

[thedreadpirateholmes]

You are never too old to accidentally glue both index fingers and a thumb to a tiny bottle of superglue

[thedreadpirateholmes]

Your periodic reminder that in people who have been subject to threats and punishment for having emotional responses or ‘inappropriate’ facial expressions, panic attacks look different.

They may look like the person has become calmer and less involved, dismissive, even. Some people become intensely subservient and silent. Some become catatonic.

Panic doesn’t always involve screaming, crying, and obvious signs of distress. It involves an extreme form of the person’s fear response – which can be altered by circumstance, ability, and what they’ve learnt to fear.

Which is to say, it’s not your place to decide someone isn’t having a panic attack, when they’ve told you that’s what’s happening.

[thedreadpirateholmes]

[thedreadpirateholmes]

Quitting your job should not feel 10 times more relieving than getting out of debt, and yet

Here we are

[thedreadpirateholmes]

How is it only Tuesday

[thedreadpirateholmes]

💕 Don't be afraid of putting your 'self' into your writing.

💕 Don't be afraid of writing what you want.

💕 Guessing at what other people are looking for in a story is always a worse path than writing what you know you want in one.

[thedreadpirateholmes]

[thedreadpirateholmes]

When your panic attack actually does something helpful and drives your migraine away

[thedreadpirateholmes]

I should pre-face this with the fact that I still look very small and feminine at first glance, and I am currently at work where most people don’t know me too well

Me: getting over stimulated in a busy breakroom

The guy next to me at the sink watching me struggle to get through a packing label with a dull knife so I can open a frickin’ box: 👀

Me, finally getting fed up with the knife: rips the whole top of the box off in one go with my bare hands

Sink guy: 😱

[thedreadpirateholmes]

Recently experienced a blackout and having to replace the battery in my car. This Monday morning went a little something like this

The stove: 10:37PM

The microwave: 00:01

The car: 2:53AM

My phone: 7:35(snooze)7:45(snooze)7:50(snooze)

Me: …what the hell time is it-

[thedreadpirateholmes]

Scream. Just a little.

Let the void partake a feast.

You know, as a treat.

[thedreadpirateholmes]

A somewhat typical Gil conversation, brought about by our recent severe weather-

Me: I don’t like going to the bathroom during storms because one of my irrational fears is dying on the toilet

Other person: What

Me: You know, dying with your undies around your ankles

O: Like Elvis?

M: No, not like that, it’s specifically just during stormy weather

O: So like the jock guy in Big Fish

M: Was that during a storm?

O: Maybe?

M: Eh, still no. More like that guy in the outhouse from Jurassic Park

O: …you’re afraid of being eaten by a dinosaur?

M: …no…. More like, having a tree fall onto the bathroom while I’m using it

O: How is that like Jurassic Park?!

M: It was storming!

O: …

M: I would actually probably enjoy being eaten by a dinosaur, so long as I wasn’t chomped on while taking a dump

O: *unintelligible sounds of consternation*