So, I guess I should start by saying that 19 years ago, when I was 24, my boyfriend died of an overdose, and I was the one who found the body.
We were both doing a bunch of drugs, but his drug use was always more chaotic than mine. He always seemed to be trying to get totally blotto, as opposed to taking the edge off or unwinding or whatever. The overdose that killed him was his fifth (that I knew about) in the almost two years we were dating. I had a sort of repertoire of emergency medicine, except no narcan, because, at that point, they wouldn’t trust us junkies with that. You are absolutely not supposed to dump someone in a bathtub of cold water, because they might drown or go into shock, but if neither of those things happens, it also can reverse an overdose.
The month before he died, I took a little vacation from heroin, just to sort of prove I could, and to try to get my shit together a little bit (I was also getting a PhD biomedical science). And my boyfriend’s drug use really started spiraling out of control. Maybe it had been that bad before and I hadn’t noticed, but also he felt like I was abandoning him. That there was no way I would stay with him if I was sober.
I started dreaded coming home. Something bad had usually happened. There’d been a fire. His ex-girlfriend had locked herself in the bathroom, and was either passed out or just refused to talk to me. He was wired to the gills on heroin and speed and couldn’t string together a coherent sentence (the ex-girlfriend’s attempt to reverse an overdose by shooting him up with speed). And then he was dead. Which was the first time I’d seen a dead body. The woman at 911 wanted me to try CPR but he was already cold and hard and I couldn’t bring myself to put my mouth on a dead body. And the first policeman to arrive was a total asshole.
I’m pretty uncomfortable with how the word “trigger” has spread in fandom as a way of silencing and calling out other people. And I feel really presumptuous when I start using the language of PTSD, but I have actually talked to several therapists about trauma and PTSD, and while I don’t really think it’s the right diagnosis, some of the language and tools of dealing with trauma have been useful.
So, it’s helpful for me to keep in mind that I have some very specific triggers that are not really something that anyone could tag for in fanfic.
For instance, even though the actual episode of The Reichenbach falls didn’t bother me, I had to stop reading the kind of Post-Reichenbach fic that deals with John’s mental state during the two years when Sherlock is gone. Because fandom was taking the trauma seriously, and it got too close to home. And not in a cathartic, I need a good cry, sort of way.
But the actual reason I’m writing about this right now is an amazing MCU Bucky/Nat series: bomberqueen17’s Now And At the Hour of Our Death (http://archiveofourown.org/series/241264)
For whatever reason, I generally avoid het fic. Which is ironic, since I’m het-married, and have a good amount of het sex (it would be more if I weren’t always battling UTIs and yeast infections). So I can’t really explain it, except to say that het fic is never going to be my first choice. But I’ve been getting more and more interested in Bucky/Nat.
My first fandom, per se, was BBC Sherlock, but I’m pretty burned out on it. A combination of the post-S3 drama in the fandom, as well as S4 itself (I’m having problems reading Johnlock without imagining John beating and kicking Sherlock). So I migrated to MCU, or more specifically, Captain America:Civil War Stucky. I’ve been reading a lot of stories bout the Winter Soldier trying to be a person again, and always feeling like a fraud, like a fake person. And realizing that I’m a lot more interested in Bucky’s story than I am in Steve’s.
And Black Widow has a lot of the same issues. They really are mirrors for each other. Somewhere there’s a gif set of how similar their fighting styles are, which if anyone knows which one I’m talking about, please send me a link!
I’m very interested in both fucked up people and in doppelgänger dynamics, so I’m dipping my toe in to Bucky/Nat or WinterWidow or whatever. And I’m kind of shocked by how hot I’m finding the sex, at least in bomberqueen17’s hands.
The scene that got me thinking about my very specific triggers is in Full of Grace (http://archiveofourown.org/works/4583718/chapters/10440540) and is about Natasha finding Winter Soldier Bucky apparently dead on the floor of a safe house. I think I’m pretty inured to action/ comic book violence. I was much more upset by John kicking Sherlock than I have been by anything in a Marvel movie. But the scene in Full of Grace with Natasha trying to figure out how long Bucky had been dead based on his skin temperature and the pliancy of his skin just crashed down on me. I had a nightmare about my older daughter getting swept off her bike into a flooded gutter. I’m still trying to get a handle on what is a normal level of parental worry, what is post part depression (or, by this point, just regular depression and anxiety) and what is related to my boyfriend’s death 19 years ago. So things hit me weird.
But, having said all that, it was also amazing to feel so seen. It’s so difficult because someone is talking about something so secret and intimate and painful, and getting it exactly right.
So, yeah, I liked this series a lot.
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