Scenes #1-2 updated to Love Spiked!
So this story, Love Spiked, is set in the Hellcat universe. It’s not particularly connected, outside of how magic works, and the way tech and magic mingle, and nothing is being hidden. It’s a beast story—you know inherited mythical beast powers, which is a throwback to a story type I used to love to write but haven’t since my fanfic days. I really liked how easy the Hellcat world was, where it was quirky because it was trying to smoosh magic in with technology, instead of keeping them separate and sane. No sanity here. The world doesn’t deserve sanity.
I’m writing this story because I’m feeling inspired to write, and let me say after 3 years of chronic fatigue, inspiration matters. I am running on fumes. I’ve finally gotten to three meals (mostly) a day since the SIBO destroyed my gut, I can sit up in a chair and type, and usually the excessive speed of my pulse isn’t so high that I can’t think. The MCAS is better as long as I’m not smelling smoke, and the dysautonomia has been absolutely crippling, and doesn’t seem to be interested in getting better no matter what I do. Rebounding has helped, actually, something about the muscle pump bettering the circulation. But my stress tolerance is quite low after so long bed bound.
I’m not taking writing requests, and I think most people understand because I haven’t been particularly shy about talking about these illnesses, just confused waiting for doctors to explain wtf is happening and it taking a long time for them to figure it out.
The real problem is, my confidence is gone. Just absolutely shook. I did everything I could to separate myself from my writing when the cognitive issues hit their worst to preserve a sense of ability, but it wasn’t enough. There is no short-cutting around the trauma of losing your functionality for, what… when was the last book, and I was super sick that last PATB book…? Shit, it was 2020.
Six years of doing everything to get back to functioning, and failing every single time. Why the fuck do I count years when this is the answer? It has changed me. Fucked me up in ways I don’t fully know because I’m only just getting better, and there is no guarantee this level of better is going to last. I slept all day today because I couldn’t stop putting the wrong words in the wrong spots when talking, and it didn’t seem like writing was a good idea. And because I was exhausted after 12 hours of sleep and needed more. Nothing is guaranteed.
I lost my confidence that no matter what, my health was going to figure itself out. That as long as I put the effort in, there was a system in place to make sure I got better. There isn’t. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the US that doesn’t understand that healthcare is a human right, or if it’s because ME/CFS is ignored as that lazy women disease. Or because I was so sick from the MCAS before then, and then the chronic fatigue, that I couldn’t advocate for my health, for doctors to give a fuck, and without that, they didn’t. For the last 3 years, I’ve been exhausted and nobody did anything about it besides me, and that’s just the reality of this illness and this system and being sick and poor in the US. Nobody cares.
I’m not a happy person anymore. I am resilient, which isn’t a choice, but that happiness was something I thought I’d have forever. I worked at it. It is work. But there was nothing left of me to give to that part of me anymore.
I worry it’ll ruin my writing. That my brain is so fucked with the cognitive fluctuations from the dysautonomia that I won’t even know how bad my writing will be—which is what happened in the past and was really distressing. My vocabulary just shrinks and I start writing things the same way cuz my brain isn’t getting enough blood and goes into a tunnel vision mode. I worry I’m going to repeat myself because I don’t remember shit anymore, including my old stories. That I have no new ideas, and that any of my ideas aren’t interesting. I also see very little value in writing, because after years of being in survival mode, wtf is the point of a story? But none of these thoughts are reasons to stop doing something I used to love, and probably still love if my emotional range ever returns. Because survival mode has turned everything dull and empty, a problem when cerebral perfusion is low as well, which mine is from the dysautonomia.
Me returning to writing doesn’t mean I’m okay. When I started writing it was because I had become disabled by the MCAS and dystonia and I was so certain I still mattered even with all that. But after 13 years of these conditions and 3 years of ME/CFS, it’s clear I do not matter, that no one is coming to cure me, and that I cannot make this condition better no matter how hard I try. And that’s a lot of shit I get to deal with—or completely ignore, as is my right.
I don’t want this mindset to fuck with my old serials waiting to be finished, which is why I’m not touching them. I can only hope I won’t be so bitter with the world that I can look at my old writing eventually. So for now, no plans. No promises. I am trying—but I was trying the last 6 years, and that didn’t fucking matter at all. Trying doesn’t change anything, but being alive means trying, so here I am, one day at a time.
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