221bluescarf

[221bluescarf]

[221bluescarf]

from me to you ! ♡

[221bluescarf]

damn they weren’t lying that mental health medication CAN make the heat even more unbearable

[221bluescarf]

jackalope requested by Rozalyn on my patreon

[Drawing of a green jackalope with brown antlers saying “It’s okay if the years people told you would be the best of your life turned out not to be. There will be better years.” in a pink speech bubble against a green background.]

[221bluescarf]

over the weekend I walked out of the house doing not so good and my mom told my grandpa and he went driving around looking for me

I came home later everything turned out fine, but now it's all have you been taking your meds? do you need them changed again?

once again my mom told me "I was afraid you'd do something crazy"

I'm so sick of having to deal with this. I'm the one who has to live in my head and still have to feel bad about it and feel like a problem and a burden and have people treat me like I'm crazy. They want to help I know. They love me I know. I can't expect too much of them they're only human living in a world where stigma is so strong.

[221bluescarf]

[221bluescarf]

I'm trapped in my mess let me out :/

[221bluescarf]

alternating between good days and bad days to good days and bad weeks like what the heck when I'm trying to put together a life here

[221bluescarf]

how do you do, fellow Creatives™

[221bluescarf]

My 🧠 is so broken why is it 💔

[221bluescarf]

i think unfortunately deep down part of me is still the little girl who wouldn't stop to tie her shoes because the people she was walking with wouldn't bother to wait for her

[221bluescarf]

2015? that wasnt even that long ago. it was only... [doing the math] ohhh. ohhh..... oh dear...

[221bluescarf]

guys. i really like you. it's nice to be on this dashboard together

[221bluescarf]

Oh yeah, I know them, we grew up together on tumblr.com

[221bluescarf]

[221bluescarf]

thank you for your reply! hope you’re feeling a little better now, I went back to bed and just woke up again ahaha

one thing I did want to say is while I get it and I’ve said so I’ve actually made a lot of progress when it comes to accommodating myself and what used to be almost daily occurrences are more like isolated events every week or so (like when my train connection is cancelled and misses my bus the other day). I’ve definitely got a lot of other things that I do struggle with in terms of mood and anxiety and maladaptive habits but these days when I think about that—I don’t really see it controlling my life. just a thing that happens from time to time when I get too overwhelmed, so idk, in some ways feels wrong to say I’m struggling with it, when for sure I do sometimes but for the most part it’s manageable and problem solving my life to make that more and more the case is really hard and requires a lot of creativity and making use of everything I can get that even slightly helps but it’s not impossible. which isn’t something I can speak for your situation but I did mention it because please don’t feel hopeless for me if you get what I mean? I feel like I’m wording this badly but I guess for me, sometimes both of these things can be true like I have these thoughts I relate to a lot and get frustrated and break things and hurt myself and then I get up and take the next step to getting my needs met and creating a life where my brain has enough rest and enough creative, active etc outlets that I’m able to process and acknowledge what I’m feeling in the moment a little more, where I can sit with the grief when it strips me of energy and acknowledge and make use of the creativity and ideas and passion of the manic phases without feeding the sleep deprivation, where I can remind myself the erratic days don’t last forever and find resolution for the things I want to fix that I can’t control, being aware of whether what I’m doing is working or making it worse a bit more. where I have friends who can witness these things and not judge. really sorry for the long rant—I hope you get these things too and can work towards it at least, whatever version sounds like it’d make things a bit easier for you.

anyway something I was reminded of I wanted to ask you if you knew about was the concept of a ‘threshold of tolerance’ and nervous system activation? I know these are often used in conversations around autism and ptsd (and especially the pda profile of autism which is closely linked with c-ptsd). I really don’t wanna make assumptions since you know your brain better than I do—but when there’s one thing that’s just too much for me on top of everything else, the phone call you mentioned reminded me of that. I’m a PDAer so it’s that extra demand on top of all those other things that activate my nervous system (demands and loss of autonomy and lack of novelty, connection and societal balance, but also concerns about the world I turn into demands since I like to try to fix everything, and my own racing thoughts and ideas can fall into this, as can frustrations and just the feeling that I’m not useful where I am) that activates my nervous system past that threshold of tolerance that’ll lead to a meltdown. over time I’ve learned to slow it down and identify everything I feel in the midst of it and knowing I’ve got to build myself a life with less demands, more novelty and more connection on top of managing other mental health things I experience and their impact on relationships isn’t easy but I wouldn’t ever trade knowing I need to do that even if I never fully get there and even if every strategy I’ve seen to do so is for children who have parents who are able to support them—and I’m an adult who doesn’t have any of that support system and I’ve had to grieve that my parents, as much I love them and we have a good relationship now I’ve let go of that expectation, will never be able to be that for me. It takes creativity for sure.

the last thing I want to do is armchair diagnose you with pda autism but I did want to invite you, if you’d like, to brainstorm what a low demand life or one that prioritises novelty and connection especially with the intersection of bipolar looks like. One of my favourite educators around this takes a really scientific approach of ‘try it and collect the evidence of whether it’s helping’ in terms of the accommodations that are typically associated with the PDA profile. and I’m not saying this might help you, I have no idea, but I guess I want to reach out in connection saying ‘I relate a lot to the story you’re telling because of this aspect of my brain do you want to hear more about it’ (and if you’d like, your parents too if you at any point did want to float any ideas with them, again your call and I’m not sure what exactly your relationship is like in terms of this especially right now!) but one thing that’s given me a lot of optimism is hearing stories of kids who are a lot like me and the way that they can while still struggling and often needing a lot of support their whole lives, are still able to thrive due to that understanding. I hope I can be that for you even just a little bit, and I hope you get to rest and relax your nervous system even just a little coming down from it.

also, I’ve said a lot and if any of it is presuming anything or feels invalidating, I’m really sorry and let me know what! otherwise more than happy for you to post this publicly so we both have access to it if you’d like, your call!

Thanks for taking the time to type all of that out. I hope it was ok that I answered your first ask privately, I'll post this one publicly. I tried my best to process what you said and I definitely relate to the idea of having a threshold or tolerance. I've described it as my nervous system being on fire when I feel overloaded like that, so it makes sense.

Building a life with less demands is something I'm working on. I have a tendency to dismiss the load on me (or that I put on myself) but not working and not to moving out are big ways my load is minimized. There's probably a balance between too many demands and a completely empty/avoidant life that I'm trying to figure out. I need to learn what my threshold is but more importantly I need to learn how to recognize when I've hit my limit and what to do *before* things get out of control. I can see it happening but like a speeding train I just can't slow down fast enough.

Thanks again for taking the time to talk