liminallywell

[liminallywell]

Reminder that schizo-spec and psychotic people who need full time care are an important part of this community. People living in psychiatric hospitals, people in prisons, people in care homes, people living with a care giver/family member, anyone who needs lifelong care is an important part of our community. Just because we can't always see them, or can't always hear their stories, doesn't mean we shouldn't stick up for them, support them, include them, and respect them.

[liminallywell]

people hate self diagnosis because it provides Mad people with autonomy.

self diagnosis goes against the idea that psychiatriac professionals have unique knowledge - knowledge only obtainable by someone who has studies for years, specifically from a removed & outside perspective to any individual's Madness: even if that student, themselves, is Mad.

self diagnosis goes against the idea that Mad people are inherently incapable of telling their own story - that any ways in which they do communicate, express themselves, etc. is tainted by their Madness and thus unreliable.

self diagnosis says "i know my own bodymind better than anyone; i live here. this is my life. i get to define my experiences." self diagnosis holds self compassion. self diagnosis holds self empowerment.

diagnosis is typically something "given to" Mad people. in psychiatry's eyes, diagnosis is something to describe us that we must have, yet can never attain for ourselves.

so even though self diagnosis takes from the boxes that psychiatry has prescribed, it is still a rebellion. it may not be The Solution to freeing Mad people from psychiatry - but it still means something. to me, at least.

[liminallywell]

i think that when people see a person with a severe mental illness being "noncompliant" (e.g., not taking meds, triggering themself, falling back on unhealthy coping mechanisms, self harm, self injurious behaviors, eloping, "refusing" to speak, what have you) they see the reason behind the behavior as being difficult on purpose and automatically jump to, well this patient obviously doesn't want to get better so i should treat them accordingly.

as someone who struggles with a severe mental illness AND is "noncompliant" i promise that is not the case. evidence?

reason i have not taken my meds/gone off them:

side effects were impeding my every day life

they weren't working and i would rather not put something in my body that doesn't help

the illness i was being treated for convinced my brain that my meds were poisonous and if i took them i would become sick or die.

demand avoidance (read: the notion that i was expected to take my meds caused so much distress in my body that i would do anything NOT to take them, so i don't

reasons i have done "difficult" behaviors

i wasn't able to communicate how i was feeling other than physically expressing it with self injury

i was being abused and the stress that the abuse caused put too much pressure on my brain to react in a "healthy" way

i could not distinguish reality from unreality and the stress that that caused put too much pressure on my brain to react in a "healthy" way

the topic of group therapy put so much stress on my brain that i could not stay in group and left

the environment of group therapy was overstimulating and that put so much stress on my brain that i left

i think the reason that medical professionals see and label these behaviors as "being difficult" or "noncompliant" is because they either fail to see or refuse to consider the environment in which these things occur.

maybe they are desensitized to the pain that we experience because they see it every day, but that does not make it less real for us.

my struggles do not exist in a vacuum. and i wish people would see that.

to my brothers, sisters, and siblings with severe mental illnesses and noncompliant behaviors. i see you . i love you. i know the distress and pain you are in. i am sorry they are not listening to you. i hope your pain eases soon.

(also note, this is my experience as someone w autism, psychosis and "dissociative and cluster b traits" [whatever the shit that means tbh]. i am also white, which means i experience less discrimination in the medical field than a person of Color. )

[liminallywell]

demanding that every single wheelchair user treat every single stroller, rolling bag, etc is also a “what if it was a mobility aid?!?!?! CHECK MATE!!!!” ensures that wheelchair users will never get priority on the bus, on the train, on elevators, or anywhere else. it guarantees wheelchair users being left behind for hours of their lives, in the cold, in the dark, in hallways and in parking garages. it gaurantees wheelchair users get drenched in the rain, get pushed out of the way, and get excluded from events and places

no your stroller for your abled child is not a fucking wheelchair. no your rolling bag is not more important than a human fucking being. wait your fucking turn and let wheelchair users board elevators and buses and public transit first you self obsessed fucking asshole

[liminallywell]

what abled ppl think is a massive problem for disabled folks: 13 year old on the internet faking something

what is actually a massive problem for disabled folks: "well you don't LOOK disabled, are you sure you're not faking? I'm not giving you accommodations until you PROVE you're not faking. Please give me, a stranger, your medical info and explain your condition to me in detail so I know you're not faking and only then will I respect or take you seriously"

[liminallywell]

if you see someone saying like “wheelchair users are human beings with feelings” and your immediate first gut reaction is to yell at them about how much they must hate invisibly disabled people, I think that screams volumes about the kind of person you are. I don’t need to respond to you. you’ve proven you’re insufferably self righteous and don’t care about other disabled people beyond using them to bounce your shitty hot takes off of

[liminallywell]

growing up autistic / growing up gaslit

I.

this is the first lesson you learn: you are always wrong.

there is no electric hum buzzing through the air. there is no stinging bite to the sweetness of the mango. there is no bitter metallic tang to the water.

there is no cruelty in their laughter, no ambiguity in the instructions, no reason to be upset. there is no bitter aftertaste to your sweet tea, nothing scratchy about your blanket.

the lamps glow steadily. they do not falter.

II.

this is the second lesson you learn: you are never right.

you are childish, gullible, overly prone to tears. you are pedantic, combative, deliberately obtuse. you are lazy, unreliable, never on time.

you’re always making up excuses, rudely interrupting, stepping on people’s shoes. you’re always trying to get attention, never thinking about anyone else, selfish through and through.

it’s you that’s the problem. the lamps are fine.

III.

this is the third lesson you learn: you must always give in.

mother knows best. father knows best. doctor knows best. teacher knows best. this is the proper path. do not go astray.

listen to your elders, respect your betters, accept what’s given to you as your due. bow to the wisdom of experience, the education of the professional, the clarity of an external point of view.

what do you know about lamps, anyway?

[liminallywell]

the thing is. knowing someone experiences hallucinations or trouble reading facial expressions or communication difficulties or any other symptom CAN help you to understand their behaviour and respond to it appropriately. but knowing someones diagnosis is never as helpful as it is to listen to them when they talk about how they can best be accommodated. and if “can you please speak slower” (for example) sounds like a ridiculous request from someone without a diagnosis and a reasonable one from someone with a diagnosis. well you’re the dick in that situation

[liminallywell]

I wish that more people knew that the psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, disorganized behavior, paranoia) altogether only covers about one third of the many symptoms commonly associated with schizophrenia. So many people just think of schizophrenia as "psychosis" and the vast majority of "schizophrenia representation" is just of a psychotic person who's otherwise fully abled when actually the other symptoms of schizophrenia (known as cognitive and negative symptoms) are also a defining part of the illness and can be just as serious and disabling, if not more

[liminallywell]

some advice: if the next step seems too big, it's not the next step

[liminallywell]

many autistic people need people use simpler words when talking to them

many autistic people need tasks broken into tiny steps to understand how do something

many autistic people need positive feedback in way that other think condescending

many autistic people childish and have childish interests

many autistic people have to always be supervised never alone because of risk of hurt self or get in dangerous situations

many autistic people have violent messy big meltdown, even in public

many autistic people struggle with speech always will maybe rest of life (non verbal, semi verbal, demi verbal etc.)

AND most of these autistic people higher support needs + level 2 & 3 autism, don’t forget or ignore us. can’t say “that not true just stereotypes” when it just symptom and sign of higher support needs higher level autism.

you want to raise awareness for lower support needs level 1 autism and yes good ok!!!! but not this way where throw HrSN level 2+3 autistic under bus.

- winnie

[liminallywell]

Gosh I hate grind culture. My little sister just started medical school and all of her orientation leaders are like “you absolutely cannot have a life WHATsoever you WILL have to give up EVERYTHING besides this program say GOODBYE to your hobbies and relationships” and now she’s calling me feeling guilty for running and going to the grocery store and that’s just WRONG! And that is exactly what I was told starting law school as well, and rejecting that mentality was the best thing I ever did but it was so hard not to buy into. Anyway if any of you are in an intense academic program PLEASE take time to sleep and eat and exercise and maintain your relationships and keep up your hobbies! you are not a robot who exists solely to study and I promise that living a life and staying physically and mentally healthy is not going to make you fail

[liminallywell]

I'm sick and tired of "schizophrenia representation" that's just otherwise fully abled psychotic characters. Like schizophrenia is actually a complex illness with 3 major groups of symptoms with only one relating to psychosis and it will usually affect your life in many disabling ways beyond the psychotic symptoms

[liminallywell]

Are we really doing the bus arguments again? The vast majority of people who give wheelchair users grief over use of the wheelchair space are not doing so because they have a disability buggy. They’re doing it because they don’t think wheelchair users should have access to public transport if it means they have to spend a moment moving their child’s pram. Believe me, we can tell the difference.

I got on a bus once and asked a couple to please move their buggy to the other side of the bus so I could use the wheelchair space (the only space a wheelchair user can travel in, and with a huge yellow sticker explaining that it’s legally reserved for wheelchair users and anyone else will be asked to move is a wheelchair user needs the space).

I wasn’t even asking them to get off the bus, just to move their child a few feet to the space on the other side of the bus, that was also closer to where they were sitting. Somehow they felt that was unreasonable and yelled at me that I shouldn’t have boarded the bus, and couldn’t I see the space was taken, was I stupid blah blah blah

After that didn’t make me go away, they then tried to pretend like it was never actually their child and said I’d have to ask the “real parents” because they wouldn’t move a baby that “wasn’t theirs”.

Unsurprisingly no one else claims the child (who is very obviously travelling with the yelling couple), so the bus driver has to get involved and say he can’t move the bus with a wheelchair not in the wheelchair space and that if there’s an unaccompanied toddler on the bus then that’s a very serious situation. After the weirdest five minutes ever the couple eventually realise the bus driver is being very serious and no one is moving until this is sorted. So they have to admit that actually it was their child all along and move them to the other side of the bus which takes all of five seconds.

They would literally rather temporarily disown their own child than take five seconds to allow a wheelchair user access to the same public transport they take for granted.

Compare that to another time I got on the bus, went to ask the person in the wheelchair space to move their buggy only to see that the buggy is adapted to carry an oxygen tank (and probably other stuff) and has one of those “my child is disabled, please treat this buggy as a wheelchair” tag on it. I let the parent/ carer know that I didn’t realise it was a disability buggy and hope she has a good day before asking the driver to let me off because there’s already a wheelchair user on board and it’s first come first serve.

Just, please don’t use hypothetical disabled people to invalidate and talk over real disabled people talking about the real issues we face.

[liminallywell]

A lot of people don't understand that likeability is a massive decider in how we acsess the world, and how that disproportionately affects survivors of childhood abuse.

If we're likeable we get perks. We might get upgraded on our flight. We could get a little freebie here and there. Humans are social creatures. People like us, and in turn want to do nice things in hopes we will like them back. That's super cool. Win for humanity. Nice people deserve nice things. Everyone deserves a free latte or a slightly nicer hotel room as a treat.

But we don't just deal with this kind of social exchange for flights and lattes. Buying a car is a social interaction. Job interviews are social interactions. Doctors appointments are social interactions. Stop and searches or traffic stops are social interactions. If you're likeable, you will probably get a car for a fair price or a job you're qualified for. You will find it easier to get your doctor to listen to you or you might be able to charm your way out of a ticket. If you're not likeable, those things become harder for you.

So.. what? Karma. Good vibes. What goes around comes around. Be nice to people and they'll be nice to you, duh.

But likeability has very little to do with being nice. For most people, being likeable isn't in their control. If you're ugly or fat, if you're not white, if you're lower class, if you're disabled or neurodivergent, suddenly whether you're liked or not has very little to do with how you treat other people, it's about how they perceive you. It's painful when you just want people to like you, it's dangerous when you need them to.

This is why abusers attack their victims likeability.

Gaslighting. Smear campaigning. Public shaming. Isolating the victim till all their friends and family wonder why she suddenly thinks she's too good for them. It all puts a victim in a place where they fear they won't be believed not because they're not credible, but because they're no longer likeable. They're both social currencies, but when you need help and support, likeability always spends better.

Remember Depp v Heard? What was all that revenge porn and outright lying all about? It was about making Amber Heard; the young and beautiful, self educated multilingual, long time human rights champion and loving mother, unlikeable. It was all utter bullshit, but it worked. People were making memes out of her rape testimony. They swarmed her with hate outside the courthouse. They followed her home and posted feces through her letter box. His attorney joked publicly about all the ways she intentionally triggered Amber's PTSD moments before she was to face the world in the most public domestic abuse trial in history, and the public laughed with her. Depp, with the help of his high profile colleagues and incredibly expensive spin doc- I mean lawyers, made Amber unlikeable, and when people decided she was unlikeable they decided she must also be uncredible.

Abusive parents also have the power to make their victims unlikeable. They do this by consistently traumatising them into socially disparaged behaviour, while projecting to the world a picture of the perfect family dealing with a "problem child".

We have a picture in our heads of battered children as withdrawn, quiet little angels, sadly suffering in silence just waiting for someone to notice the pain in their eyes and save them. In real life, this is rarely the case. Most children who have experienced early life abuse are reactive and disruptive. They are defensive and quick to anger. They are loud or sarcastic and they don't respect authority. In short, they are mirrors of the environment that they deal with at home. Due to this, behavioural interventions outside of the home does very little to help, the root of the issue isn't being fixed. So they get reputations as difficult little shits.

These kids go out and interact with the world like the hurt and traumatised people that they are, and the people that are supposed to be their safety net by reporting any suspicions of abuse to CPS, simply don't. Why? Because we find the child less likable than their parents. So when the child says "help me, my home life is horrible", we compare our impression of them to our impression of their parents, and usually without even realising why, we don't take them seriously.

Paris Hilton is an adult survivor of childhood abuse and torture at the troubled teen wilderness programme. Now an adult she uses her platform to speak up, but on that platform she's also told some harrowing stories of how her reputation as a vapid, self serving mean girl/wild child once kept her silent. She wouldn't be believed and her pain would only be mocked or shamed if she spoke out sooner. It's only after years of rebuilding that reputation into one that better reflects who she is as an adult, people are ready to believe her now. Why? Because she wasn't likable then, but she is now.

The thing is, most of us don't grow up into beautiful, wealthy superstars who age like fine wine and are universally loved by every sane person on the planet. Some of us are traumatised as children, who grow into traumatised teens who grow into traumatised adults. Being a traumatised adult is better than being a traumatised teen in a lot of ways. Having the power to simply not speak to the people who abused us for all our formative years is a big one. Not needing the signature of those abusers to acsess things like shelter, sustenance, support and medical care is another. It's not all bad being an adult survivor. It's not easy either though.

Like, I'm only half joking when I say having a stable family you can rely on into your adulthood is a privilege. Most of us don't have that because the smear campaigns didn't just Thanos snap out of existence the moment we turned 18. Out extended families often still see us as the bratty, entitled, violent little shits our abusive parents have been telling them we are since we were walking. On top of that all those authority issues and behavioural issues and PTSD symptoms we had as kids are still there, because nobody believed us when we asked for help so we just never got it.

It has nothing to do with who we are as people, but we just give off "bad vibes." It makes us susceptible to revictimisation and it means when people see the resting bitch face or the anxious fidgeting or the deadpan tone of speaking, their natural human judgement meter decides they don't like us. So we don't get upgraded on the plane and we don't get free lattes and yeah we pay more for things like cars and services because the natural drive people have to give each other favors doesn't really work for us. So some of us don't get perks but that's okay, they're perks because not everyone gets them. It's not a big deal.

Accessing the world shouldn't be a perk of being untraumatised. But when we lose out on job opportunities because our interviewer finds a non traumatised person more likeable than us, it feels like it is. When we don't have a saftey net of familial support so it takes us longer to recover when we're down on our luck or just down in the dumps, it feels like it is. And when we are less likely to be believed when we are reporting either current or historic abuse, it feels like it is. And when we struggle to acsess medical care because our doctors associate typical behaviour of traumatised people with attention or drug seeking, it feels like it is.

[liminallywell]

"we need family abolition bc the majority of kids are abused by their family members" sorry to be a downer but that is not an issue stemming from the family model, kids are just most vulnerable to abuse from the people who have the easiest access to them and a basis of trust already established. Just look at churches, scouts, orphanages, and boarding schools. it's not a uniquely familial issue. Like, at all.

And there's unfortunately no anarchist social system that you can design to be 100% abuse proof guaranteed, it comes with the human condition of being vulnerable which is the foundation of all close social bonds.

[liminallywell]