What's Wrong With You?
The sound of chewing, scraping and gnawing filled Fluttershy's Kitchen. The pegasus set a small bowl of greens down in front of Angel Bunny. The bunny leaned over the bowl, his little pink nose inspecting the meal for approval.
He kicked the bowl over and turned, folding his arms.
Fluttershy sighed and closed her eyes for a moment.
"Angel, can you pretty please just eat this? It's been a very hard day. After re-homing that family of angry wasps, helping the beavers with their broken dam, and finding all of the scared baby bunnies, I haven't had a moment to even sit down or eat something."
Angel thumped his foot repeatedly. He refused to budge even an inch as the yellow pegasus sat down for a moment. She took a deep breath, trying to breathe life into a fading fire inside her. She felt cold. She felt unclean. But most of all, she felt tired. The reality of the situation was that she wasn't giving herself credit. As usual. It wasn't just a hard day, it was a hard week. But of course, she couldn't show that to any of her animal friends. They needed her.
Repetition made tasks easier and simpler to perform, but it doesn't take any less energy.
She knelt down to the bowl and put all of the greens back together.
"Okay, Angel. I'm sorry," she mumbled.
A nagging thought entered her mind of this being what happens when she tries to cut corners, but she pushed it away for a moment. She grabbed a carrot, hoof-tore it into little chunks and scattered it into her pet's meal. Then took a cherry from her fruit bin and placed it neatly on top.
"Here you go, Angel," she said, turning back to the picky bunny and setting it back on the ground.
Angel nodded vigorously then dug eagerly into his meal.
Fluttershy should have smiled, but she felt too drained. There simply wasn't enough gas in the tank. That mixture of adrenaline and endorphins that came from a job well done wasn't hitting like the sweet hit usually did. Instead she felt empty. Dry and wrung. Her wings sagged. Her ears hung low and her posture wasn't as perky as it normally was.
She wasn't sad. Just exhausted.
She looked up to the clock. To her surprise, it was seven in the evening already. Spring tends to have that effect on the daytime. The sun was still out and there was still more day to be had.
But not for Fluttershy.
She exited the kitchen, her stomach reaching a level of hunger that she didn't want to eat anymore and laid out on her couch. She looked up at the ceiling, basking in the relative quiet of the world around her.
Now she could rest. No more work today. Tonight could be a night of mental health care. A nice relaxing jigsaw puzzle, a bottle of sweet white wine. And a nice, hot bubble bath with candles. She even had an 'anti-anxiety' bar of soap that her mother gifted her several months ago. She was just too stressed to use it. Maybe tonight would be the night to use it.
Things were finally calming down. Everything came together, and while it was a hard week. Things would be better now.
Three loud knocks made Fluttershy jump out of her own fur.
Oh no. Ponies.
"Hey Fluttershy! Can I come in?" echoed the loud and familiar voice of Rainbow Dash.
"Uhm. Just a second. Let me-"
But it was too late, Rainbow had already let herself in, Pinkie Pie and Twilight following in behind her.
"Ready for Girls' Night?-- Woah!" she exclaimed stopping short of seeing Fluttershy. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing really," Fluttershy half-lied. It was nothing that Rainbow would probably be concerned with or wouldn't just make her friends fuss over her, so why bring it up? "It's just been a long day."
'Also, how many times have I told you not to just walk into my house?' She said loudly in her mind.
"Well it's GIRLS' NIGHT!" Pinkie exclaimed, hopping in delight. "AJ and Rarity went ahead. So let's gogogo!"
Fluttershy winced as if she were sliced with a small knife. Girls' Night. She had completely forgotten.
The delightful warm feelings of soapy water and scented candles drifted away in a snap. Her body felt heavier.
"Um, Girls. I don't know how to say this, but. I think I really need to sit this one out, if that's okay with you."
"What?!" Rainbow and Pinkie said in unison. Twilight nodded and smiled.
"Totally understandable," Twilight said. "Everypony has bad days. If you need to stay home, then-"
"WHAT!" Rainbow cut her off. "Twilight. How can you say that? It just turned to spring. We just spent the whole winter without Fluttershy because of her Seasonal Depression. And now it's sunny and great out! No more excuses, Fluttershy."
Fluttershy leaned back, feeling the bottom of her gut drop out. Was this really happening?
"We're going to get you out of the house whether you like it or not, it's unhealthy staying inside for so long. If I didn't know better, you don't actually want to spend time with us."
Fluttershy's mouth opened slightly, but she wasn't really sure what to say. It felt as if a part of her essence was fading out of the side of her body.
This is proof you're a terrible friend.
"Well, I suppose I could join for dinner, or something. I honestly forgot about Girls' Night. I'm sorry."
"You Forgot?!" Rainbow exclaimed.
"Dashie," I think you're overreacting, Pinkie said stepping forward.
"Pinkie, we've missed Girls' Night for the last two months, and we used to have it every week I've been looking forward to this so much, so I'm sorry but I think I deserve to be a little hurt."
Rainbow looked to Fluttershy and shook her head.
"Whatever. Come or don't come. Do whatever you want."
Rainbow trotted out of Fluttershy's cottage and left the three mares silent and in shock. Fluttershy hung her head down low and looked to the floor.
Well, isn't it obvious what you need to do?
Twilight and Pinkie whispered to each other for a moment. The two stopped, looked each other in the eye and nodded. Pinkie galloped out of Fluttershy's cottage.
See, this is why nopony wants to spend time with you when you ask for help. This is why ponies change the subject when you start talking about things you're passionate about. You constantly let them down because you don't do enough for them.
"If you let me wash my mane, Twilight, I'll be ready to go," Fluttershy mumbled, rising to her hooves.
"Is that what you want to do, Fluttershy?" Twilight asked, stepping forward to her friend.
Fluttershy looked up to her alicorn friend with moist eyes and took a deep breath.
Look how emotional you are. My God. How pathetic.
"I don't know?" she answered in the most possible way.
"Come here, sit down," Twilight said, gently coaxing Fluttershy with a wing back to her couch. "Do you wanna talk?"
The feelings locked themselves firmly in Fluttershy's throat. She tried to swallow, but it felt like she couldn't function. Like she had forgotten how to exist properly.
She shook her head.
"Well, how about I tell you something, before we make any decisions. Okay?"
Fluttershy looked up to her friend curiously, doing her best to put on a stable expression.
"I was reading this article about how ponies with illnesses try to live their daily lives. It talked about how it felt like there were only so many spoons in a day, and since everything they did cost spoons to do-"
Fluttershy tilted her head, not knowing where Twilight was going with this.
"I'm doing a bad job explaining it," Twilight said, chuckling. "Let me try to put it this way. Does it feel like if you did anything else today, that you'd be pushing yourself beyond your limit?"
Fluttershy nodded.
"And if you pushed yourself beyond that limit, you wouldn't be doing it for yourself, but for somepony else?"
Fluttershy looked to the ground. She closed her eyes and nodded.
"I know that it's difficult to have to say no to somepony. Trust me, I know. But if you don't take care of yourself, Fluttershy, we certainly can't. Heck, we can barely take care of ourselves sometimes."
"You too?" Fluttershy asked innocently.
"Yeah, us too. Everypony has rough times here or there. And it just gets harder and harder when you're under a lot of pressure or are struggling with an illness. Medical or Physical. I know Rainbow was really looking forward to tonight, but I think she let her excitement get the better of her. I'm sure she will apologize eventually."
"You think so?" Fluttershy asked.
Yeah, because she's forced to.
"Of course she will. She'll realize what she did, feel bad and want to make amends. That's what friends do."
"I suppose you're right," Fluttershy said with a sigh.
"If you need time to yourself tonight, then it certainly wont be the last time we all get to spend together."
Fluttershy smiled faintly.
"Do you think we can all hang out next week?"
"I'm sure we can make it work," Twilight said. "And I'm sure Rainbow will like it too."
"Thank you, Twilight," Fluttershy said, breathing easier. It felt like the life was slowly re-entering her body with each breath. A tear ran down her cheek and she smiled.
"Of course, Fluttershy," Twilight calmly reassured, wrapping Fluttershy in her wings for a big hug. "That's what friends were for."
After her embrace, Twilight got up from the couch and stretched her hooves.
"Are you going to be alright?"
Well isn't that a loaded question?
"Probably," Fluttershy said. "It still stings right now, but I'll be okay eventually."
"Alright. Would you mind if I check in on you later?"
Look, they're scared you'll attempt again.
"Sure, if you want. I wouldn't worry too much."
"Alright, Fluttershy. Just be sure to take care of you. I'll see you later."
"See you, Twilight."
And with that, Twilight stepped out the door and closed it behind her, the sky outside began to change to a gentle golden hue as the sun moved lower across the horizon, and a few of her animals casually strolled outside of her kitchen, their expressions content and happy.
Fluttershy stood up, a burning ache radiating from the bottom of her hooves, and climbed the stairs to her bathroom. She closed the door behind her and locked it, keeping her away from the stresses and darkness on the other side. Fluttershy took a deep breath.
What are the girls saying about you, right now, I wonder...
She moved to the mirror and looked at her own expression. Blank, exhausted. Pained. She opened the mirror to reveal the medicine cabinet on the other side. She took out her daily prescription and took it as intended. It wasn't much or very strong, but it helped. As she put the bottle back inside she noticed the marble green bar of soap with a red tied bow on it. She pulled it from the shelf and looked at it intently.
'Designed to make you forget the outside world just for a little while.' Her eyes glazed over the rest of the words. Their poetic tone felt hollow and empty. Like a clever advertisement. It smelled of cucumbers and lime. The plastic crinkled at a uncomfortable loud sound. The small tag on the side said "Hang in there, Honey. Love, Mom."
Is this how low you've fallen?
"There might be another day that I really need it," she mumbled to herself. She squeezed it in her hooves and put it back on the shelf.
And so Fluttershy moved to the tub and turned the water to hot. Her mind began to race with all of the things she needed to do tomorrow, and one more thing just got added to the list. Make things better with Rainbow.
Things will be better, eventually. Objectively, things weren't even bad right now. Just difficult. She just had to believe things would get better. She had to.
Things would. They had to. They just did.
I bet they will.
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Oh no
Great, really liked it!
...A little, to be honest.
Here's an analogy:
Do you know that one song called "Wonderwall" ("Today is gonna be the day...")? The first time you hear it, it's a freaking masterpiece.
And of course, there will be those people who will gladly listen to the song over and over and never get tired of it (like me
). But to others, it starts to lose its luster after a few more listenings.
And then a bajillion people do vastly inferior takes on the song and by the end of the day you're just so freaking sick of it.
Am I making sense, or...?
Congratulations Rainbow! you just won gold, silver and bronze in the A*****e Olympics
9640971
Makes total sense. I know people have done this way better than I have. Hell. I've done it way better than I have. But I suppose it is what it is.
9640980
There are definitely depression stories that work really well, and I do think your story fits into that category.
But at the same time, there are a lot of stories that seem to think all they need to do to be good is end with <Character Name Here> killing themselves.
Eventually, I'd gotten so much of the latter that my opinion of the subgenre as a whole got tarnished. I can appreciate that this story appears to have a lot of honest effort put into it... but I can't bring myself to appreciate that effort.
9640988
As someone who actually survived suicide, I think the worst thing that someone can do for a genre of "suicide/mental health" stories as far as prevention goes, is show the suicide. It's a pretty critical flaw in the subgenre as far as actually making progress in this part of the world.
Source: https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/emotional-health/what-tv-gets-wrong-about-mental-illness
The last thing you want to do is actually validate the action. I won't claim I fully 100% agree with the article but that said, I find that by showing folks that they aren't alone. that people think the way that the characters in my stories do, they feel less alone and have the strength to go on. The whole goal for me is to make people feel less alone, not to say depression is bad. Depression is livable. And it never should be apparent that it can't be.
I'm also not saying that stories shouldn't have suicide portrayed in them or included. I just think it has the potential to make some vulnerable people think that it's more okay to do it. I've written suicide in stories. So it's not like i'm a saint over here.
Your opinion is very valid and I want to make sure you feel heard, my friend :)
Hello depression my old friend.
The spoons is a good analogy. I’m enough of a nerd that my analogy is the Mega Man weapons bars. You only have so much “energy” to accomplish things in a given day. If you overexert yourself, you’ll find yourself without the “energy” to do anything at all. Hell, some days instead of waking up with a full energy bar, you’re at 30% and you’re like “wtf?” Oh, and saying “wtf” costs you energy.
good job, dude. good story.
I feel so called out by this story.
And no, I don't think they're getting old. I feel like they're getting old when they're written badly, don't adhere to how illness (even the same one) impacts a character differently because everyone is different and only ever lead to the exact same endings. There's also bits of Shy's internal dialogue that don't quite feel like hers.
For story critique: I think the choice of Rainbow was wrong for the friend who didn't understand. She's known Fluttershy since they were young, and even when she is brash, something as big as chronic illness and suicide attempts in the past aren't really something that she'd likely to brush off, especially with her obvious soft spot for Fluttershy. I get her initial disappointment, but as the story goes on, it makes much less sense for her to keep reacting the way she does. Discord would probably be a better example of someone who wouldn't grasp mental health, depression, and this kind of situation well. While Dash is one to disregard something more like symptoms (getting fed up with Flutters being shy, reluctant, sometimes being insensitive) Discord doesn't get a lot of behaviors across pretty much everypony, and I think he'd have a hard time understanding what Fluttershy is going through because a) she doesn't look sick and b) even if he understood some of it, he'd probably only get it from the perspective of an ex-manipulator who doesn't want to manipulate his friend, but can't think of anything more than to try and 'snap' Fluttershy happy.
(Also, there's a warning tag for this kind of content?)
9641282
I dunno have you seen The Mlp Movie...making careless and thoughtless actions seems to becoming a norm for her. It's hurtful to think that she'd do that...but not out of the question.
9641296
I think it's out of the question in this specific situation, especially when the illness in question is chronic. She's not completely careless and reckless, and Fluttershy is one of her more well-established soft spots, who at times Dash is willing to do a lot for. Dash also has very extreme reactions to loss, like when Tank was going to go through hibernation. Something related to a time when one of her friends nearly took their own life really comes across as the kind of situation where she would sober up a bit and be more serious.
9641302
She's proven to apathetic to the concerns of her friends before, during both the wedding invasion by the changelings and during the Storm Kings invasion, in fact more often that not it seems like she only cares about others feelings when it suits her.
9641377
She's also willing to go out of her way to speak to her in episodes like "Hurricane Fluttershy" and put up with characters like Zephyr Breeze, so she's not entirely like that. As a lifelong friend of Fluttershy's having her neglect something like this in the story just doesn't feel very fitting.
If these stories do it a little different from the last, then no, I don't think it is old.
Yeah kind of. I was honestly expecting there to be a ton of empty virtue-signalling "Are you okay author? Don't do it!" comments because that seems to be the reaction to any story involving depression. The fact that there wasn't suggests to me that the genre is pretty saturated and the readers feel like they've "done their part to make a difference/save a life" already.
9640997
Well glad you're alive and doing better! Hopefully, you don't want to try suicide again.
9642564
I mean, the story isn't about suicide, so I don't see why there would be.
9642770
Because any time it gets mentioned with a character that is depressed, people like to "read between the lines" and 'discover' that it's really a hidden desperate plea for help by the author, and not just a story.
9642810
That's exceedingly frustrating. But I suppose it's the truth. I'm just trying to make people feel a little less alone in how they feel.
9642814
Hey, there was nothing wrong with the story itself it's just the meta about it really.
Good stuff
We all hav those days where life just refuses to pull it's punches and to each of us it's something different work all day and no warm food on the table. Hours of yard work and no lukewarm water to soothe your aching burning skin yeah I get it it sucks but what can you do
As someone who lives everyday with depression and the struggles that come with it, I have to say this is spot on. It's actually thanks in part to Fluttershy, who struck me as the character most likely to have depression among the Mane Six, that I was able to last long enough to get medicated at one of the lowest points in my life.
This story hit home. It cut deep. Especially with the intrusive thoughts. I loved every word. Bravo!
9678724
You're missing the point
This resonated with me, too.
"girls" is plural, the apostrophe should be AFTER the S
This is in MANY places
Should be capitalized. This is ALSO in several places
10174178
I fixed the "girls' night" apostrophe problem.
Are you saying I should also capitalize it?
10198922
According to Wikipedia, specific dates are capitalized. So Girls' Night Out should be capitalized the same as Easter, or Christmas.
So are event titles if used as a proper name
So, you would say "we're having a girls' night out."
BUT, this specific girls' night WOULD be capitalized
"You ready for Our Girls' Night Out?"
English grammar rules suck
10198996
Ah!!! Then I'll fix it. Thank you. I'm always receptive to the comments. Sorry it took so long
10200212
No problem, I completely understand not letting some random stranger tell you how to punctuate your story & should have explained in the first place