Felipe De Matteo

January 21, 2020 11:07 PM

The word. by Felipe De Matteo

CW - Coping poorly with mental health issues.
OOC - This post immediately follows the Intermediate Herbology lesson.

IC -

Today was a really bad day. Felipe had almost just hoped it was just food poisoning. Maybe it was the open can of pineapple that he'd left on his bedside table for a few days before finishing. Maybe it was the stale chips he'd found in the bottom of his trunk. Maybe it was some combination of something. He knew today was a bad day because he had almost hoped it was just food poisoning.

The bright side was that the healer was sure his vomiting was not anything induced by his neanderthal of a roommate. The down side was that it was everything else. It was going days without eating just because he forgot and then filling up on stale snacks and old fruit when he finally got too hungry. It was a stomach full of knots and nerves and stomach acid with nothing to digest. Also it was food poisoning.

Anxiety.

The healer had used the word that was just supposed to be what you felt before a test, or before you had to figure out whether you even wanted to go to the Ball let alone ask anyone to it, or before you had to go into class and see the same people everyday even when it hurt to see them. Apparently, it could also be the cause of changes in appetite, changes in habits, sleeping disruptions, outbursts of anger, and the involuntary expulsion of whatever little food was consumed. Particularly if that food was also contaminated.

Laying on one of the beds in the Hospital Wing, staring up at the ceiling, Felipe couldn't help but admit that he felt better. The healer wanted to keep him to see whether he had gotten all the contaminated food up, but she had also administered a calming draught. Really, he felt much better. The healer had gotten him a toothbrush too, which helped a lot.

Anxiety was such a dirty word. Anxiety. Leaders weren't supposed to feel anxious. But perhaps thirteen-year-olds weren't supposed to feel like they had to be leaders. Zara had said as much. It had been easy to agree with her then, even if only in his head, but it was harder in the day-to-day.

A lot of things made sense, but also nothing made sense. He wasn't supposed to be anxious. That wasn't a thing he was allowed to be. What would Leonor think? Surely it was just another brick in the tower of reasons she was better suited to lead than he was. What would their parents think? Did they have to find out? Why had it all gotten to this point? Felipe felt bad for causing problems, particularly for the people who had had to clean up after him, quite literally in this case. But also for Professor Skies who picked up the pieces of his outbursts, Zara who glued them all back together, and Jessica who saw him come the most unstuck.

Anxiety. It was such a dirty word.
22 Felipe De Matteo The word. 1434 1 5