dying to keep writing

I would talk about actual plot things but idk what y’all wanna see me talk about here. I’m WICKED NPC-coded. Send me asks about shit you wanna know.

✮ "I keep almost telling you. Every single day."

✮ "I watch you laugh with other people and wonder if you'd laugh like that with me."

✮ "I wrote you a hundred messages I never sent."

✮ I memorized the way you say my name without meaning to."

✮ "I keep finding excuses to be in the same room as you."

✮ "I don't know how to be near you and pretend I feel nothing."

✮ "You touched my hand for two seconds and I thought about it for two weeks."

✮ "I keep practicing what I'd say to you. It never sounds right."

✮ "I saw something today and my first thought was you. It's always you."

✮ "I'm terrified you'll never know and equally terrified that you will."

✮ "Every time you leave I count down until I see you again."

✮ "I think I've been in love with you for so long I forgot what before felt like."

✮ "You smiled at me today and I completely lost my train of thought."

✮ "I just want one moment where I don't have to pretend I don't care about you."

✧ Relapse doesn't mean failure. Recovery isn't linear. Your character can be doing great and then have a bad day/week/month. It's part of the process, not the end of it.

✧ Cravings don't just disappear. Years into recovery and something can still trigger that want. It gets easier but it doesn't fully go away for everyone.

✧ The substance isn't the whole problem. Your character's probably self-medicating something, trauma, mental illness, unbearable circumstances. Taking away the substance doesn't fix what's underneath.

✧ Withdrawal is hell. Not just "feeling bad", it's physical torture. Shaking, sweating, nausea, pain, sometimes actual danger depending on the substance. Your character isn't just sad, they're ILL.

✧ Sobriety is boring at first. All your coping mechanisms, social circles, and ways to have fun involved the substance. Now what? Your character has to rebuild everything.

✧ People treat you differently. Some are supportive. Some are judgmental. Some ask invasive questions. Some don't trust you anymore. The stigma is real and it sucks.

✧ Triggers are everywhere. Certain places, people, smells, times of day, emotions. Your character's constantly navigating a minefield of things that make them want to use.

✧ You lost time. Months or years where you weren't really present. Relationships damaged. Opportunities missed. There's grief for the person you could have been.

✧ Recovery is active work. Meetings, therapy, building new habits, sitting with uncomfortable feelings. It's not passive. Your character's putting in effort every single day.

the first type seem unbreakable because of the sheer amount of shit they withstand without flinching. they stand tall, still smiling, shrugging off every setback in a way their peers can’t help but admire. they’re the last person anyone expects to fold, and it will take a storm of epic proportions to break them, but once they hit that point, there’s no going back. they snap, and that vulnerable emotional core now lays exposed to the elements, stripped of the thick armor that previously protected it