I know it's been awhile. It might be awhile longer yet, too. At this point, I can't promise how reliable my updates will or won't be. I'm going to be straight up honest here, I've got a lot going on. My wife is dying from Stage IV breast cancer. She's stable at the moment, has been for going on a year at the time of this writing, but we don't know how long that'll last, or how many treatment options we have that will actually show good results when the current one stops working, and it will be a when, not an if. It gives me ups and downs to deal with, and right now is a down.
In addition to that, I've been helping her with advocacy in the Stage IV community to get their voices heard, since they get a measly 2% of all research funding into research for their cure, and since they're the stage that kills, that's not okay. So there's been a lot of push lately to get things changed. If you're interested in finding out more about that, you can look up the hashtags #BCKills #MetsMonday #dontignorestageiv over on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram. No, I'm not trying to advocate at you, I'm just saying that this is the shit I'm working on right now, and that's where you can find if you get curious.
On top of that, I've been given ownership of a support group for caretakers of loved ones with Stage IV BC like myself. So I'm supporting my wife, our friends and family, and now several other caregivers who are looking to me to keep our group safe for just us so they're free to pour out their hearts without worry that their ill loved ones will find out and feel guilty.
Add on that I have a rare mental illness that makes it difficult a lot of the time for me to take care of myself, much less over a dozen people at any given time, and it's just a lot on my plate.
I wrote this fic almost exclusively because I needed the outlet because of all that going on. It's another flashback fic, set very early on, specifically so I could explore how severe Bucky's anxiety could get that early on. I am not and did not try to put my own anxiety into him- I have written him having anxiety attacks differently from how I have mine in the past. I just wanted to suffer with him. Sometimes doing that with characters in fics is better than Ativan and therapy combined.
I'm not throwing a pity party or asking for your sympathy, just saying that this is the state of affairs that will affect how often and what I write and post. I know some of you are regular readers, and your feedback has helped carry me through some hard downs this last year. I would feel awful if I just up and disappeared on you, or if I started posting things that feel out of step with what I usually write, without so much as a word as to why. So to all of you wonderful readers, if you haven't given up on me at this point and clicked back, thank you.