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littleoc
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Thank you. It still hurts that that tragedy happened at all. And that everyone was talking about it in several different political ways. Still are, actually.
Service dog has always been overly empathetic and very social. I rarely causes me problems, so I let her do what she wants half the time -- I know it would be confusing for the "average" service dog (no dog is "average" though) but she does a great job.
The "shooter" entered the building, not acting quite right and clearly feeling really purposeful. I had my cart and was pulling books for patrons in other states. N (Service doggo) didn't really alert me to him, exactly. She tells me if I know someone or if I don't (which helps me a lot, though she can't tell me how or why I know them), which she did mention that this guy had been in the library before but hadn't approached before. She got between us and looked the guy directly in the eyes (considered distracted behavior of a service dog, usually? from my understanding, generally) but I trust the shit out of her so instead of pulling the leash I looked over and saw this huge guy coming up to us, talking to himself. He reached down to pet N and all of instinct I said without noticing his hands or belt or anything, "Please don't pet the service dog while she's working," and he didn't even hear me. But N stepped forward and accepted pets, and was licking his hand like crazy as if to say "you're dissociated af right now, just thinking we should go outside together and chill," and then he told her how dogs are so great and always go to heaven and then he left the building. Which was great, because apparently N had recognized him because he had been circling the entire week planning his shooting. N saved a lot of people, including that guy's future. Because he turned out to have been having an episode, obviously (because most people don't do stuff like that). It was kind of alarming but I was mostly just impressed with Ms. doggo. :D It's not the first time she's done something like that. She prevented a guy's suicide once too. Also once accidentally helped cops locate a drunk guy who was hiding who had just assaulted someone at a party after a disagreement of some kind -- just because she was pretty sure a drunk guy shouldn't be hiding in the bushes.
My University has a lot of folklore and legends in it (the place DID used to be a city for just angels before humans moved in, so of course it's got some special attributes because it's not like the angels left. They still protect anyone who lives here for a semester or more.) Legend has it that every dog on campus is a reincarnated bishop (it's a church that owns the entire University -- and no, they don't care that I'm not Christian, or that my friend is Muslim. The first gay preacher in history was taught his theology here, they're very chill for the most part, minus some "blips") and that everyone has an Angel watching them here, as long as they don't step on the University seal before they graduate. So, lots of people have said that my doggo could be that one bishop who was killed by his preacher for allowing black people into the University to become preachers (long story), but a lot of people have also said that she's a University Angel, because she knows so much and is loved so much.
This dog is better than any human ever, in my opinion. She's smart but loyal too. She's my favorite and I've been wanting to talk about her more in this diary, so thanks for the opportunity! :D :P
You're slightly off, but only in small ways that I sort of have been avoiding talking about due to a huge amount of shame. Also because I'm still really confused about it. I have no idea how to categorize it. He's not like having a part. I am Fungus, just like I'm a little kid and a teenager deep down, but I'm Fungus, but he's not me and I'm not him?
In chats with Brandi he became way more dominant. To the point that my behavior would change when we (B and I) were talking. It's giving me a headache trying to figure this out, actually. I definitely have an identity problem.
I was also L, a basically human man with two sons and a daughter, who had a sexually abusive mother back in 1100AD so I mean, none of this makes any f*cking sense to be honest. Brandi preferred me to be male. She preferred me to be a straight male with a slightly hidden gay side. And to be vulnerable men who were a little afraid of women. And that just sounds way out of control when saying it this bluntly, and I have no idea how it got this out of control. Really couldn't make a timeline for you.
It was to the point that she viewed Fungus as male, and because he was often male-looking when hanging out with a certain species (they have a different social structure, lots of males that were, in some cultures in that species only, viewed as not equal; he was basically trying to look as nonthreatening as possible to them so he could make a lot of friends), he just went with it. But his "gender" was actually a mating type, so... yeah, this is kind of insane. I'm sorry.
What I'm trying to say is that Brandi was talking to Fungus on that day that they died, so I didn't really let it process. I processed things as Fungus did, and Brandi was upset about the shooting too (though none of her friends died) and viewed it as an attack to her lifestyle specifically, so Fungus comforted her. Because death is difficult to understand, but Fungus gets it. He literally needs death to survive, unless he wants to chow down slowly on some rock and hibernate a little. Plus, he collects loved ones so he was mainly upset that these people's futures, and all their potential to become more and to grow as individuals, had been taken for what was mostly no reason. He complained a little to Brandi about the violence of apes starting about 5.5 million years ago, but not in a demeaning way, but I didn't process the death of people I knew until later.
For the same reason I also had a very delayed reaction to Trump becoming president, because Brandi was so upset that she reached out to Fungus at 10pm to 4am to get some comfort. But the exam for the next day was cancelled, because all the Mexican students were too heartbroken to attend and the university wanted to offer them support instead of making them take tests. I was there to support them, so that's kind of when it hit me.
This all sounds completely insane and I'm so sorry about that, I just feel like maybe saying it will make things make more sense? It's not quite protection. He just is, and I'm hoping that writing him as a character will make it stop. I think I said this in my diary before you were on this site (although I did start this diary very late compared to when I made my first post on this site), but I'm guessing I personified my empathy somehow. It doesn't quite feel like protection because he doesn't view it the way that I do? And so I still have to look at it with my human eyes (I do have those, they're great (I'm being funny)) and figure out what I see.
I don't go around as Fungus anymore really but occasionally it's a problem. I haven't quite identified when, but I can tell you that I'm biologically female, like the colors blue and yellow, and have synethesia and facial blindness. But I also view my sercive dog as being part of my body on accident sometimes, so I think my brain gets really confused really fast. My watch is part of me too, but it also doesn't have a mind of its own. :D
Thank you and thank you
I'm glad you survived!
Thank you :)
I really put off going to a hospital after that event for years, until I realized that if I didn't I was going to die or hurt my dog. I kept dissociating and trying to kill myself during, and then suddenly coming to with service dog preventing me. I'd call the cops apparently and they'd send someone to come sit and talk with me, because somehow I guess they knew I needed time and wouldn't do it? I swear the people involved weren't being irresponsible. I was very against getting help. When I got back to University they literally required me to me to get a therapist (which is how I ended up with the worst therapist I'd ever had personally, but she didn't traumatize me so that's wonderful). Checked up on me regularly which was nice. Tiny campus.
But when I finally did get into a hospital, I was pretty dissociated and at some point walked into the isolation room they had and gave myself a massive concussion. It was after they tried an antidepressant on me so that's probably related. But I wasn't afraid of the nurses for some reason. I appreciated them and they let me hang out with them and they brought me extra stuff. I sort of wonder if I was trying to survive by getting them to like me, because I've done that. I did that with my father, and it worked. I was a psycho's favorite child and that really bothers me now days, because he'd pit me against his least favorite child, and I stay up at night crying about it years later because the guilt is intense.
I guess it's sort of the other way around though -- my dad tricked me, it wasn't that I was manipulating him into making me his favorite. I sort of grew up thinking my little bro was his favorite, but that was completely the opposite, so I might be a little confused.
But anyway, I appreciate that. Lots of psychologists told me that I'm empathetic because it was my survival skill, so really it was just another manipulation tactic I had. I really believed that. I really like it every time you say that you think I came out of it a good person because I wanted to be, not because I had to be. If that makes sense. :)
Thank you :) :) :)
That's true. They treated me like a criminal for being a teenager.
A couple of the kids were technically criminals but they were also kids. Teenagers are kids. You should not beat up a kid for trying to relieve his stress with caffeine. And then say he won't remember it because he's mentally retarded. Being mentally retarded doesn't mean you don't have memory and the nurses should have known that.
The nurses were really secretive and weird all the time. They'd give us really strange privileges and then say how we should thank them for not being so strict, unlike in other hospitals (they kept using Vanderbilt as an example until I told them that the boundaries at Vanderbilt were much safer -- that a lot of kids don't have meaningful boundaries and need them and that's why they should be upheld in a hospital), but then warn us who to act differently around (usually the doctors or the head person who was making rounds "making sure rules were being followed by teenagers"), and the nurses would warn us that we'd get them in trouble if we were seen partaking in those privileges.
Like, one of those privileges was that we didn't have to sit with our feet on the floor. But if doctors came around or nurses from other floors, we better not be f*cking caught sitting otherwise. They also suddenly gave us permission to be touched and hugged and to say our last names, which was terrifying to me. I kept getting surprise hugs from the person who was drawing pictures of her killing the other patients all the time. And the nurses would just let her even though it was terrifying me. And they would let kids pull my shirt so I'd fall down in the hallway. They'd get mad at me for trying to get them in trouble if I got injured. They stopped letting me out of my room or outside.
But when another nurse happened to walk in and see one teenager give a kiss on the cheek to another teenager, which was being allowed, suddenly we were all in so much trouble that we had to sit in the "lobby" with nothing to do, not being allowed to talk, so we could just think about how bad we were. When a nurse came in and started accusing us of everything wrong we all did, as teenagers, I got mad and told her she was wrong. I don't really regret it.
For me, one trauma kind of just led into, or allowed for, another. It's frustrating because I really just wanted someone to care the entire time. Brandi cared. Until she didn't. The last message of hers, she says that she had stopped caring a long time ago because it was always something with me. I stopped being entertaining. My traumas were entertainment.
