#anxiety disorder

[second-stixs]

Uh, of course I have straight As!

-Agender

-Aromantic

-Asexual

-Autistic

-Anxious

-Asthmatic

[rebeccathenaturalist]

These two images have the same energy. I will not be taking questions

[otterwithafancytophat]

i love you

[autumnbell32]

The coffee I’ve made the last few days- electing to make it hot rather than over ice- has been pulling at my guts. While reading or attending to some task, I’ll smell it and the grief makes a sucking sound. It reminds me of the coffee I’d buy from the machine in the university basement- a warm, sweet comfort while I pored over my textbooks with my highlighters. I was one of the best students, one of the most eager. I aced tests and was asked by competitive classmates with knives in their eyes, “How did you do that?”

I try to remind myself that she is still there, despite how far from academia she’s been blown. Lacking purpose, other than survival, is painful and I was just about to be able to take the training wheels off and start living again (after 15 years). I had reached that level of stability. Would I have started listening to Marina and the Diamonds or M83 again? Start my aquarium hobby back up? Ponder going back to school for another degree or my master’s? Go to some writing clubs? Bake for people again? Last week’s hypomania, subsequent depression, facing abelism at work, panic attacks in the work bathroom yesterday and resulting ocular migraine told me, “No, not yet…if ever.” I squinted while I folded clothes and helped customers- I couldn’t see anything out of my right eye except a floating, scythe-shaped anomaly, the insides of it black, white, purple, flashing. How alone I felt. And scared.

[hephaestusshield]

anxiety. anxiety feels more like a biiig heavy rock on your chest. you try to breathe, but it's quietly impossible. your only thoughts are blurred, you can't think rational, everything is your enemy. it's impossible to stand and you feel lonely, but not in the normal way. you think you are the only person who can hear you. you are screaming on the inside, and sit still on the outside. that is what anxiety feels like for me.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[irbcallmefynn]

I'm kinda curious on this so lemme do something

Please reblog this if seeing posts that say things like "You HAVE to do this" or "You are REQUIRED to do this thing" or "If you don't do this thing you are BAD" makes you upset or uncomfortable, or even if you're just tired of seeing them.

I see posts that say stuff like this a lot and it irritates me every time. It used to make me feel shitty and miserable and guilty, but I've complained about it enough to where it just makes me mad seeing it so often.

This is a site full of people with anxiety disorders. Stop saying things that will cause issues for people with anxiety disorders. For Fucks Sake.

Let this post serve as a little card for your blog to let people know you don't approve of or accept this kind of talk.

[the-maddened-hatter]

Honestly Monk was SUCH a good show for me to see as a young teen I'm ngl. Like yeah, it's not an overly accurate representation of OCD and I'm sure there's things that probably didn't age very well, but OH MY GOD can you even comprehend how amazing it was to get to see a canonically disabled, ND, and, more specifically, PROFOUNDLY ANXIOUS badass main character when you're a freshly diagnosed autistic & anxious young 12-13 year old with the only real advice from a crappy psychiatrist being to "learn to step out of your comfort zone or consider beginning prescription medications."

To get to see "do it scared" depicted in cinematic action in both heroic and relatively mundane contexts. A touch-averse, routine adhering, socially awkward, sensory issue having character as a SMART AND COURAGEOUS PROTAGONIST!

Hell, it was pretty amazing (for me at least) to see a character use those disinfectant handwipes every episode! I have severe food allergies and I have to carry a pack or canister with me for when I need to eat in town or when I've had to go into a grocery store and now that there's a pandemic and food allergies are rather more of an understood issue it's not all that weird a thing to have, but at the time it was definitely yet another step apart from peers and by god was it awesome to see a (again, smart and awesome) character use them too, even if it wasn't for quite the same reasons.

There's things that took longer to germinate too (and tbh still are).

That you don't owe people being "normal and easy". Yes, you have to be cognizant of their needs, boundaries, and how your behavior affects them, but it's still okay to need help and to do things in odd ways and have unusual needs.

That sometimes you're going to fail, do things badly, not be able to be as reasonable as you logically know you should. That logic can't always beat fear even when it should, and that it doesn't make YOU a failure, it means you have to try again another time or try differently.

And that sometimes people aren't as good for you as they seem, no matter how much history you have, and it hurts, it truly does, but sometimes it leads you to connect, by pure chance, with a compassionate stranger, and time will make the disparities between them clearer to the point that when you look back you don't know how you ever thought they were your ally just because they put up with your problems

[cheatsykoopa98]

I love how you draw Pomni with a fang

Love that happy fangy lil lady :D

I think the worst part of having an anxiety disorder is that even when you're "fine" you're not "fine" fine

a lot of times I'm cuddling with my gf, not really doing anything stressful and still I get stomach cramps from anxiety

at least with pomni I can use that to make her cuter :)

HELP ME BUY MY MEDS WITH COMMISSIONS OR DONATIONS

[fairiencarnate]

Living with avoidant behaviours means that for you to see me and be able to judge me, good or bad, inherently it means I am trying. Maybe not by yours, but by my standards I am succeeding too.

I don't think people understand how earth shatteringly terrifying it is to look for new jobs or meet new people with a panic disorder or social phobia. It puts me in a mindset where I have to actively remind myself that ending my life to escape the perceived danger is counterproductive, I am that out of my mind with panic. I know it doesn't make sense but knowing that doesn't stop the visceral fear from being so real. I wish people knew I don't want to be this way and I am actively fighting against it at all times even when it looks to others like I'm hiding away. The fact that I am still here, the fact that I answer messages sometimes and visit my family, the fact that I apply for jobs and leave the house to run errands at all is testament to how hard I'm trying.

If I stopped trying and gave in to my default state I would be shrivelled and pasty, dehydrated and sick from being too numb to feed myself, curled half-conscious and unshowered in grimy bed sheets, covered in nervous-picking sores, popping pills or drinking myself into slumber. I would not speak to a soul, not even immediate family. I wouldn't post at all. You would not know I exist.

For you to see me and be able to judge me, inherently means I am trying. Because I'm here and I'm not just awake. I'm the scariest thing I can be - perceivable.

[beautifuldarkmind]

I just feel like stuck. Every day is the same and I'm just existing not living.

[thediamondarcher]

neurotypicals: "i'm so OCD, i like to have everything clean and organized" "my mood changes so quickly, I'm so bipolar" "I can't concentrate, i have ADHD for sure" "yeah I'm very anxious too, i hate waiting" "I have a favorite person too, i have bpd for sure" "everyone is a little autistic"

SHUT UUUUUUUP.

[desultory-suggestions]

You’re not in trouble. I know you may feel very deeply that you must be, that you have committed a secret wrong you need to fix. It’s very hard to deal with these feelings in our body, but you’re not in trouble. Take a moment to breathe and remind yourself that you are safe. Look at those around you and remember they are not secretly upset with you. It will all be okay.

[ametistapp]

Neurodivergence creatures

Recently I've been finding more of the neurodivergence creatures and their names (though some aren't well known, I think).

So far, I've gathered:

• Autism — tbh

• ADHD — btw

• Anxiety — idk

• Depression — wtf

• Dissociative Disorder — brb

• OCD — idc [<- doesn't feel accurate. We have the alternative "jic" ("just in case")]

• Dyscalculia — nvm

I'm wondering if anyone knows of any others or has any idea of which abbreviations we could associate with other conditions.

[lousydrawingsforgoodpeople]

[magiccath]

Turtles All The Way Down

The Doctor x anxious!reader

Summary: In which the Doctor calms your anxiety (as best as he can)

A/N: yeah it’s a John Green reference what did you expect

Some days were worse than others. Sometimes it felt like the universe was crashing around you, making it impossible for you to feel anything but anxiety. On other days you hung at a stable baseline, the anxiety managable if not absent. Today wasn’t one of those days. 

You had felt your anxiety building all week, an eruption boiling deep in your chest. In an effort to keep it at bay, you hid away. Normally, you told the Doctor when you were feeling like this. He was good at distracting you from your anxieties, usually he just took you to the prettiest planet he could think of. But this time, you didn’t even tell the Doctor, though you knew you should have. Instead, you spent the whole day in your room, buried under the covers in a futile attempt to keep the rest of the world out. Admittedly, you knew that ignoring your problems wasn’t the solution, but it was a band-aid fix. You supposed it was better than nothing.

The Doctor noticed - it was rare that he didn’t notice when something was different. He loved you, of course, he noticed when you were in pain. It hurt him that you hurt. Even more, it hurt him that he didn’t know how to help you. If he could, he would take every single anxious thought from your head and shove them into his instead. 

When you didn’t come out of your room all day he knew something was seriously wrong. With a frustrated groan, he set down the alien technology he had been fiddling with, the strange metal landing on the console with a quiet thunk. Exasperated, he tugged his glasses off of his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It was hard to focus on anything else when he didn’t know what was going on with you. He knew that he wasn’t going to get anything productive done without knowing if you were ok. Silently, he sulked his way out of the control room and down the hall to your room. 

His feet took him to your room, the path well engrained in the back of his brain, he didn’t even have to think about it. The familiar wood of your door was closed and his chest tightened at the familiarity of the object. He never realized how often he saw it or how many times he had walked this same path to just see you. 

There was a small sign taped to the door, your name scrawled across it in your handwriting. A few stickers littered the surface next to it, his eyes darting between cartoonish fruits, a flamingo, and crude imitations of the planets in your Milky Way. He stared at the closed door for a second longer before finally knocking on it gently so as not to startle you. He waited for a full minute, but no response came from inside. 

“Love, I’m gonna come in,” he called out, giving you ample warning before opening the door. He felt guilting coming in without invitation, even though you had told him multiple times that you didn’t mind as long as he announced his entrance. 

His eyes darted around the room, looking for you in the familiar space. It took him a second to realize that the pile of blankets on the bed was you. His hearts melted when he saw you hiding, the only sign that you were there at all was the hardly discernible rise and fall of your breath under the blankets. He sat down next to you, gently rubbing his hand over your shoulder through the covers. 

“You doing ok?” he asked, even though he knew the answer. If you were ok, you wouldn’t have spent all day in bed like this. Part of him hoped it was a cold. He knew that humans were prone to silly viruses like that. A cold he knew how to fix, he could get rid of it in a day. 

“I’ve been better,” you admitted, your voice muffled from under the covers. The Doctor frowned to himself. He knew that your anxiety could get bad, but he’d never seen it like this. He felt helpless not knowing how to fix it. He could fix a cold, he could even fix the flu! But he couldn’t fix this, and that killed him. 

“Scale of 1 to 10,” he urged, rubbing your shoulder through the pile of blankets you were currently under. 

“9.6,” you murmured. The Doctor’s frown deepened. He was used to 4s and 5s - the lower levels that could be fixed with a hug and some sort of distracting adventure. This was a whole other thing and he wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. 

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked, still rubbing your shoulder, this thumb tracing circles. When you didn’t say anything he sighed, tugging at the blankets that covered you. “Will you please come out?” 

Reluctantly, you wiggled your face out from under your cocoon, looking up at him with tired eyes. 

“There we go,” he smiled lovingly down at you, brushing your hair away from your face, his fingers ghosting over your cheek.

“Now, will you tell me what’s wrong?” he murmured, resting his hand on the side of your face. He looked down at you with nothing but love, the sight melting your heart.

“There’s this story where a famous scientist is giving a lecture on astronomy to a large audience, and he’s describing how the Earth orbits the sun and the sun orbits the galaxy and so on and so forth.” The Doctor stays silent, letting you tell your story. 

“When he’s done a lady raises her hand and says ‘Professor, with all due respect what you’ve just told us is wrong. The truth is, the Earth rests on the back of a giant turtle.’ So the scientist asks her, ‘So, what is the turtle resting on.’ The woman replies, ‘It’s resting on the shell of another giant turtle, of course.’ And the scientist says, ‘And that turtle?’ And the woman exclaims ‘Don't you understand? It’s turtles all the way down.’ It’s infinite, it’s turtles all the way down,” you explain. 

“Well, the Earth isn’t resting on anything,” the Doctor corrects, clearly taking the story seriously. “There isn’t any gravity for it to rest on. There is no down or up. Plus, I'm not sure that turtles could survive in space.” 

“That’s not the point, Doctor.” 

“What is the point?” He asks, swiping his thumb back and forth across your cheek. “Turtles aren’t going to help me make you feel better.” 

“My thoughts are like that, no beginning, no end, no rationale. Just, turtles all the way down,” you sigh. It was incredibly easy to get stuck in your head, to fall down the endless stack of thoughts until you forgot where you started, or if you even started it in the first place. It was terrifying and debilitating. 

“I think your mind is beautiful,” the Doctor whispered, still gazing into your eyes with unbridled love. “You view the world in such an incredible way, it fascinates me. The way that you can draw lines between two seemingly unrelated things is brilliant. You, my love, are brilliant.” 

You shake your head slightly, “I don’t think so. I think I have an endless pile of very ugly turtles.” 

The Doctor chuckled; not at you, but at your words. He liked the way that you were referring to your anxious thoughts as turtles, the mere image brought a smile to his face. It was the same kind of strange creativity that made him love your mind in the first place. Only you would come up with something as silly as turtles to explain your feelings to him. 

“I like your turtles. I like all of them, even the ones you don’t,” he reassured with a soft smile, his thumb now brushing against your jawline. “I don’t like when they bring you pain, though.” 

“I don’t either.” 

A frustrated sigh escaped the Doctor’s lips, his hearts aching for you. Not knowing what else to do, he leaned his forehead against yours. You also let out a quiet sigh at the contact, your eyes fluttering shut as you basked in the affection behind his simple gesture. 

“There’s always another turtle for me to try and understand, another turtle for me to love. You think that your turtles make you less, but they make you more,” he whispered, his warm breath fanning across your face as he spoke. “You are infinite,” he smiled brightly, pulling back so he could look at you. “And I love you for it,” he whispered, his slender fingers brushing the curve of your cheekbones. 

“I don’t like when I get stuck like this,” your voice cracked and you hated the sound of it. You hated that you felt this way - trapped and hopeless. 

“I don’t either, love,” the Doctor reassured, still stroking your cheeks with the pad of this thumb. “Room for an old Time Lord under there?” he said, inclining his head towards your blanket fort. 

You nodded gently, lifting one side of your blanket pile up to grant him access. He quickly wiggled his way under with you, positioning the blankets so they were firmly over both of you. 

“Much better,” he murmured, pulling you fully into his embrace. His arms encircled their way around your waist, guiding your head to rest against his chest. The familiar sound of his twin heartbeats flooded your senses, the sound steady and calming. 

“We’ll just sit here until the turtles decide to sod off,” he whispered, resting his chin on the top of your head. His thumb continued to brush back and forth, this time on the small of your back. 

You figured he’d grow restless after a few hours. It wasn’t like the Doctor to sit and do anything for long, he didn’t have the kind of attention span for that. Admittedly, the Doctor did grow a bit restless. He knew you needed him though, and that was more than enough to keep him rooted. To fend off the restlessness he occupied his brain by coming up with lists; all of the planets he hadn’t taken you to yet, every species of dog in English alphabetical order, each bone in the pterodactyl skeletal system, and many more. 

But, he stayed true to his promise and held you closely until your mind calmed down, the gentle love of his embrace and the thudding of his hearts doing wonders for your anxious mind.