Dear Diary,

I have been lied to by my first love. That being feature films. Every show you watch there's somebody with lasting trauma they're trying to work their way through and past. Whether that's the plot, the sub-plot, or just the subtext of their character arc, part of the script will have them having some kind of enlightenment, then they do something, whether it's therapy, or revenge, or really good nookie, and at the end of the plotline they're All Better™. It gives people the impression that trauma and mental illness are like, I dunno, something that you can fix in one go and stay fixed.

Which, I have come to find out here and now, is so much bullshit. I tired therapy and shit like that back in the day, but it never worked out, and I think I know why. I never saw what I thought of as progress, so I didn't really invest in it. Which meant that I saw even less progress than I otherwise might have, which means I totally wrote it off. By the time I got shot, I'd gotten to the point where my visits to the school psychologist were just excuses to cut class on days I didn't want to be there.

But here and now.... Here and now my therapy crew, because I don't have one therapist but a whole team working to help me work through my shit, are family. Found. Adopted. Married. Family, and I've chosen to take that seriously, which means I take that therapy seriously. Which, at the end of the day, means I've made a fuckton more progress than I ever did with trained, board certified and licensed therapists back in the day.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with training or certification or licenses. They probably did their jobs way better than my makeshift crew, or at least more professionally. But I was a stubborn little shit who self-sabotaged the whole thing.

But the biggest thing I've learned is that relapses happen. Shit, it's almost like they can't not happen. The trick isn't to 'not relapse'. The trick is to take the therapy sessions and takeaways from them seriously, apply that shit to my life and thought processes, and above all recognize when I'm relapsing and do whatever I can to stop feeding into the cycle. Which occasionally bears a striking resemblance to feeding into the cycle, because intent matters.

Like, if I'm spiraling into depression, and I start chasing dopamine and endorphins to try and avoid thinking about spiraling, it's probably just gonna hit pause on the spiral. It did that shit a lot back in Camden, whether I got my dopamine from sex, video games, drugs, or endless doom scrolling. But if I realize I'm spiraling and I grab Siobhan and say 'apply dopamine to stop spiral, please', or better yet get Saffron to start singing little seven syllable doggerel while she giggles watching my eyes cross, since I'm actually facing the spiral head on it seems to have a better chance of breaking me out of it.

Doesn't hurt that Saffron can pump me full of dopamine and endorphins without actually leaving me physically tired. Also doesn't hurt that I'm now in the kind of physical shape where I can go work out and get some happy brain chemical soup that way.

Speaking of happy brain chemical soup after therapy, when I finished up my session with the 'rents, including a nice long hug and a peck on the cheek from each of them, I stepped back to the classroom just in time to catch Siobhan wrapping up.

"Tabitha? What are you doing here? I thought you weren't going to come to class while I'm teaching. Which I should be done with by next week, by the way."

I scanned the class, all of whom looked at me like some kind of freak of nature. Like, here I was cutting class, and getting away with it, and bantering with the teacher by saying, "I'm not here for class. I'm here to pick my Darling up when she's done work." I frowned just a little, "what's up with this taking four weeks, anyhow? You're teaching basic Heal Injury and Cure Disease, right? Even my dumb ass learned those pretty quick."

The response from the Cadets ranged between simmering anger and shamefaced embarrassment, but all that damped down when Siobhan said, "I believe you had some unfair advantages when it came to learning those, didn't you?"

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I realized right then that not only was she right, I'd been being exactly the kind of arrogant ass I hated other people with power for being. Which really sucked, because at that point there's only one thing to do. I bowed my head, nodded, and turned to the class. "Siobhan's right, Cadets. I apologize for implying you guys haven't been giving it your all, or have been learning slow, or anything like that. Sincerely."

You could have heard a pin drop. I realized right then that in all likelihood, nobody in the room had ever really seen someone in a position of power apologize sincerely to people they had power over. And what with my wife being the Imperator and me being the Champion and the Patron Deity, I sure as shit had. While they all just kinda looked at me with varying degrees of disbelief on their faces, Siobhan said, "we've also been going over the changes to Assess Health, and how to respond when the Assessment is suggesting a treatment which is, unfortunately, unavailable."

I froze, then slowly turned to her. "You mean you're teaching them to avoid those dumbass mistakes I kept making?"

She rolled her eyes. "Only because you didn't realize they were mistakes, Goof."

"Saffron's rubbing off on you."

She blushed, but snapped back with, "she's rubbed me a lot."

I laughed, and eventually the rest of the class joined in. "How much longer are you gonna be?"

She shrugged. "We're just about done. Everyone, please practice with your Assessing, Also, this time of year minor diseases are fairly common, but as Tabitha showed us last year, catching them as they're starting out is incredibly effective. So if someone's hoarse, or sneezing, or coughing, or otherwise seems to be ill, Assess them and, if needed, Cure them and bring them to the Infirmary."

"Don't we need Consent for an Assess?" one student asked.

Siobhan tilted her head side to side. "that's something which is being discussed at the highest levels of the Alliance government right now. On the one hand, private medical information ought stay private. On the other hand, a single Cure at the right time can save tens, hundreds, even thousands of lives."

"So what do we do?"

"My recommendation is to ask, but if the person is either unable to reply or seems so ill that it's endangering them, Assess them anyhow. It's a parallel to Inspecting someone if you can see they're actively committing a crime. If you misunderstood and they're not ill, much like if you misread the situation and no crime was in progress, you could face some consequences, but your intent matters, and I'm fairly certain those in power would agree that risking consequence to save lives is exactly what Heroes are meant to do."

That got a general round of nods, and the Cadet doing the questioning said, "thank you, Sister."

"You ready to go, Siobhan?"

She stepped over and slipped her arms around my waist. "Of course, Tabitha."

Right before I stepped us away, I turned to the dude who'd been asking the questions and said, "you know she's an Archmage, right?"

"Tabitha!"

I nuzzled her forehead. "You deserve the props, Ice Pop. All that shit the University has been working on, researching, learning, and you've put it in the hands of every Cadet and Hero in the Alliance."

She snorted. "I just did the Shaping Saffron designed."

I rolled my eyes at her. "You did the Shaping for a Global Spell. You get those Archmage props. When Saffron's got her new and improved Inspect ready, I'm gonna want to test it on you just so I can see that first line read, "Archmage Siobhan Darling."

She slipped her hand in mine and we walked over to the dinner table. "I much prefer Concubine, frankly."

"Huh. I wonder what happens if you've got more than one Title?"

At that point Saffron flopped into her seat. "That's part of the UI I'm struggling with. I don't know if it should be alphabetically, in order of importance, or some other order."

I shrugged. "Different people are gonna have different opinions on what's important, but everybody's got the same alphabet, right?"

She just looked at me. After a few seconds I turned to Siobhan and said, "I know you're the smaller breasted of the Archmagi in the room, but could you possibly suffocate me so I stop spouting stupidity?"

"Oh, sweet Hero. I would never do that." Then she leaned in and whispered in my ear. "I'd suffocate you because we both enjoy it."

Yeah, definitely got up to some multiplayer shenanigans after bath time once the kids were asleep.

Dreamt of my ladies plying my Maw with little rice paper sailboats. Size shenanigans for the win.

Today I... pretty much did fuck all. Got Marie to make me a Fae Waffle, just to avoid doing anything strenuous. Before anybody gives me any shit about it, most likely myself, I'll remind myself that I'm not being lazy. Okay, I'm not being irresponsibly lazy. I am, in fact, about to do another nine day Endurance test, so I'm resting up before then.

See? Your girl can learn.