#2. We have mental illness [emotional dysregulation].

[euclydya]

sorry for the aro & aplat positivity spam sudden ly I thought about my identity too hard for a second and then got really giddy and happy . it might happen again 👍

[the-letterbox-archives]

Hey lovely!!!

Wanna say I LOVE your blog and your WIPs are all phenomenal!!! You are an astonishing writer and an awesome person!!! 💚💚💚

I wanna know what you’re most excited about for shatter the shield, or anything you really, really wanna ramble about!! Give me all the juicy details cause I wanna hear it all!!!

thank you so much honey!!! <3 i love your blog and writing as well!! i'd love to answer your question as well, here's the loredump!

file (2)11-64-02317: ask response

the world

the world of shatter the shield is inspired aesthetically by the wintery north, places like norway and denmark (but not a lot of conscious cultural inspiration has come from those places). it's set in a general medieval fantasy time, possibly a bit after, but there is no set date. there's dense pine forests, snow basically all year round, lots of agriculture, too! it's a very self contained city; it doesn't need the help of surrounding areas, in fact, other cities are never mentioned within the story. it's quite a small scope of setting in that way.

there is also a manor on a hill. that manor is the centerpiece of the city. it's... imposing. it isn't a home. but it's a house, and that's enough for some people.

kåre + his family

kåre is the eldest son of the autocrat of this city. as he outlines as the narrator of the prologue, he often sees himself as 'weak,' due to his illnesses. he isn't terminal, but is physically weak enough by virtue of his poor immune system and general poor health; many people count on the speedy end of his life. he understands this, internalising the notion that he won't live long enough to overtake his mother as the leader of this city. though he'd like to be in control, and to make his world better, he is largely brushed off and ignored.

kåre also has a baby brother, the assumed successor to the dynasty. there's not much to him yet, he's only a little kid, but if kåre's emotional dysregulation due to their mother was any testament to the kind of man he'd become... well, the city might be in trouble.

their mother, malva, is the one in charge. she's not exactly a queen, or a dictator, or a matriarch, or at least she doesn't call herself by any title like that. regardless, she rules her city with an iron fist, causing much social unrest. she's well known to be cruel to her family and people and indifferent to suffering, but she is well protected. a very capable fighter (and rumoured sorceress) herself, she also has a loyal, formidable military, as well as one specific solider, incredibly capable for his age.

roshan

roshan was born to a servant within the manor, and raised as a dutiful solider and bodyguard to kåre since childhood. they formed an incredibly close bond, that which others presume is only based on roshan's unshakeable sense of duty and kåre's politeness, but we as readers, viewing the story through kåre's eyes, know the truth of their relationship. roshan does have an unshakeable sense of duty, yes, but it is one he can't divorce from his love for kåre, a love often tested when other figures, like malva or the rest of the military, come into play. he has been heavily conditioned since childhood to be not a sword, but a shield of which to protect kåre. that mentality is very hard to shake, but kåre is very helpful with that growth.

social issues

due to malva's grip on the city, there are a lot of social issues. she's not too bad in terms of physical prosperity of her city; most people can survive well, but are heavily policed in many other regards, and left alone when it comes to actual physical and social suffering. underground revolutions are common, but are not often taken to drastic action due to malva's violent and unforgiving methods of disposing of usurpers. also, usurpers are often from the poorest class within the city, and it is quite easy for the more wealthy/advantaged people to get rid of them.

magic

there isn't really magic in this world, not magic that humans can harness. it's moreso a force of nature that exists beyond the purview of humanity. urban legends tell tales of magical creatures and phenomena, and people know the stories are true, they are so far divorced from reality that it doesn't impact anybody. one thing in particular that is prevalent in the society is death. it is common belief that you must honour the dead, and if the dead are not honoured, they will return as ghosts. as such, honouring the dead is very important for everyone, regardless of wealth or status. a way malva and her people destroy any potential revolts is to kill their relatives and desecrate their bodies, making it so they have to roam the world as ghosts.

[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

What would you diagnose Subaru as ? Like disorder wise

that's a really good question which i explored in my very long DL x VNC x PH prison fanfic, blue is the new pink. i'm not saying read all of it, but if you want to see how i explored this in a modern AU, chapter 4 is the one in which he gets diagnosed with it.

whilst i'd say the main diagnosis is the same, i think the reasoning is a bit different in the canon universe. this is also a good opportunity for me to say something which i strongly disagree with in subaru and christa's wiki pages.

TL;DR - borderline personality disorder.

for anyone who doesn't know what borderline personality disorder (BPD), which can also be called emotionally-unstable personality disorder (EUPD), it's a personality disorder categorised by intense emotional instability, rapidly changing moods, impulsive and self-destructive behaviour, fear of abandonment, very low self-esteem, and chronic suicidal ideation. other symptoms can include dissociation, intense and unstable relationships, black-and-white thinking patterns ("splitting") and psychosis. there's 9 main criteria and you have to fit 5 out of 9 to get a diagnosis, as well as having certain characteristics affecting multiple areas of your life. i'm linking the NHS article about BPD here because there's a lot to this disorder.

i want to make a disclaimer here that this post does not exist for people to self-diagnose with. BPD is a complex disorder with lots of overlapping symptoms and should never be self-diagnosed for several reasons. i have been diagnosed with BPD since i was 18, i've been in therapy for it (DBT, and MBT) for 18 months now, and i've been diagnosed with bipolar type 2 disorder for a few months now. so, i know what i'm talking about.

so the first thing i want to address is the fact that on subaru's wiki in his "history" section, it says "christa became mentally ill and bipolar" and before that it says "she started to struggle in between hating and loving [karlheinz] and became mentally ill"

the term "bipolar" here is wrong. like, it's just wrong. bipolar is a mood disorder characterised by long periods of depression or mania. frankly, we don't know enough about christa to know if she had bipolar disorder or not.

there's a really common misconception among people who don't know a lot about mental health disorders than rapidly changing whether you love or hate someone is what bipolar is. and it's not. it's just not, at all. bipolar episodes are long-lasting and generally don't have rapidly changing feelings towards loved ones.

this "struggling between hating and loving" someone, which she also experiences with subaru, is something we call "splitting" - it's not a formal medical term but it's common among the BPD community. essentially it's an extreme form of black-and-white thinking where somebody is either the best person you know, or the worst person on earth and there's no in between.

during episodes of splitting, people with BPD can be really mean. like, people with BPD are NOT inherently abusive but i'll be first to step up and take accountability and say i've almost driven my close friends out of my life because of how i treated them because of this. it's similar to how christa treats subaru when she sees him as a product of karlheinz - screaming at him, telling him he's dirty, telling him to kill himself or here etc.

so, christa doesn't have bipolar. i think christa had BPD. splitting is associated with some other disorders but in general the way christa was treated by karlheinz and how she acts around cordelia (competitive, confrontational), how dysregulated her emotions are... yeah, i would say christa had BPD. there's 4 subtypes (this link has some more info about the types of BPD) and i'd put her as the petulant subtype.

christa's wiki describes her episodes as "fits and psychotic episodes" - the term "fits" isn't really an appropriate word to use here but i'd say psychotic episodes works too. psychosis is one of the 9 BPD criteria so this makes sense here.

so, subaru? well, as well as having a genetic component, BPD is almost entirely a trauma disorder. parents with untreated BPD often raise children with BPD.

with subaru's mother constantly having psychotic episodes, telling him awful things about him as a very young child, being generally neglected and having no loving parental figure who can validate his feelings, it's not really surprising that i would say subaru developed BPD himself.

i could talk a lot about the reasons subaru has BPD but if you click the links attached in this post and read the symptoms, you'll see why. the fact that subaru has no clear idea of what it's like to love somebody properly, that makes it very difficult for him to form a meaningful connection with yui. that's why we see him having crises and really struggling to understand these feelings in HDB and MB, to the point where he has rage outbursts because he has no other way of channelling those feelings. extreme anger is another common symptom in BPD.

but sometimes, he's gentle with yui! people with BPD can be really loving and loyal, and REALLY clingy.

having somebody to accept you for who you are and understand that often the unfair things said during splitting aren't actually how you fell; well that can be really important for someone with BPD. the conflict he feels in DF around his mother and struggling to accept his feelings for yui is definitely a reflection of his childhood trauma too.

so, yeah, i would diagnose subaru with BPD and that's because his mother had it too.

what does that mean for subakou? haha, well, i'd also diagnose kou with BPD. and two people with severe, untreated, undiagnosed BPD is never a good mix.

they look so innocent, but goddamn they could ruin each other's lives

[wibehavioralhealth]

Is Poor Sleep the New Normal? Part 1: A Discussion on Social Jetlag

Have you ever returned home from a trip feeling exhausted or irritable, finding it difficult to focus or find motivation? These are some common symptoms of jetlag, the body’s natural response to traveling over two or more time zones in a brief period of time. Adjusting mentally and physically to a new time zone can take days and potentially weeks, but could you imagine experiencing this adjustment more frequently, despite having no travel plans?

Unfortunately, this is a reality for many individuals who experience jetlag-like symptoms which sprout from their social demands, commonly known as social jetlag. Researchers have found that this phenomenon impacts two-thirds of individuals currently studying or working in industrialized countries (Caliandro, 2021).

What is Social Jetlag?

Social jetlag is the term used to describe inconsistent sleep patterns that result from a difference in our internal biological clock and our external social clock. Put simply, social jetlag happens when our natural instinct to rest and rejuvenate is interrupted by our social responsibilities. This experience is categorized by consistent transitions between a lack of adequate sleep followed by recovery periods of too much sleep.

Though this is a common experience in our society, the reasons which prompt it and the symptoms which result are unique to each person. For some, work responsibilities and schedules may deter good sleep, while others may find their studies or family involvements pose the largest interruption to their rest. Likewise, resulting symptoms are diverse and range from daytime fatigue and performance difficulties, to behavioral and emotional dysregulation. When left unaddressed, social jetlag can impact our larger physical and mental well-being.

Why is Sleep Important?

Jetlag, both social and travel-oriented, has many notable impacts on functioning as sleep plays a crucial role in our health. Why We Sleep details how rest affects our memory, emotion regulation, reactivity and productivity, alongside a plethora of other mental and physical health markers – concluding that “sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day,” (Walker, 2017). Even with the knowledge that sleep is inherently good for us, achieving adequate rest can feel at times unattainable and challenging.

How can Therapy Help?

Therapy is a safe space to explore and address your unique sleep experiences and struggles. Whether you experience social jetlag, or sleep disturbances as a symptom of another mental illness, a counselor can provide guidance in a variety of ways:

Identification and resolution of current barriers to good sleep

Education on sleep changes across the lifespan

Creation of sleep routine, including sleep hygiene tips

Treatment of mental health symptoms directly impacting sleep

Research shows that a significant amount of people aren’t satisfied with their current sleep patterns, but it’s important to remember that better rest is achievable with a conscious effort and knowledgeable support. Future you will not regret prioritizing rest after reaping all the wonderful benefits it has to offer. Stay tuned for part 2 of the series which includes helpful tips, considerations, and reminders for those starting their journey towards better sleep!

For additional blogs and resources, visit here.

[thescarletwitchsapprentice]

Yandere!Parent!Queen!Wanda Maximoff with an Autistic!Fem!Magic!Child (General Headcanons)

*Not my GIF, but look at this girlboss. Look at her. I want to be with her in some way, shape, or form. I also want to BE her.

Author’s Note: So someone said I should do some more Queen Wanda Maximoff. I kinda wanna be a magic princess, so why not? Am I projecting myself onto the reader? Yeah, maybe, but I know there are some OTHER autistic girls who want to be princesses with magic AND love Wanda Maximoff/want to be with her/want to be her.

I’m kinda basing a bit of this off of my own experiences as an autistic girl, save for the relationship with Wanda because I don’t have the greatest relationship with my real mom. 

I’ve been wondering if I have mommy issues.....

Anyway, lemme know if you want a part 2 or if you want a specific set of headcanons.

We all know that Wanda is very sweet and affectionate with those she holds dear. Not a surprise, considering how much she’s lost.

So when you’re born, she can’t stop holding you and crying tears of joy. 

You’re her precious baby angel. And she’ll be damned if she lets you get hurt.

Immediately after she gives birth, she orders the servants to make her castle especially safe for you.

Wanda treasures you more than anything. Everyday she tells you how much she loves you.

Overtime, she does notice that you behave a bit differently. 

You’re sensitive to bright lights and loud sounds, you walk on your toes sometimes, eye contact makes you stressed, just to name a few.

You soon develop sleep issues and digestive problems. You wake up at night crying. Wanda’s always there to calm you down. 

Soon she has some worries; could this be some sort of illness? Symptoms of a plague? Would she lose you so young?!

And so she has you tested; the result is autism spectrum disorder. 

And it’s a relief to her, she practically cries out of relief; you’re not dying, you just think differently and have some extra challenges.

But she’s also extra worried about how the world outside will treat you; she wants you to be free to be yourself AND be accepted and loved by people. 

She’s seen how a handful of her subjects treat those who are different and she’ll be damned if you turn out to be in their shoes.

Wanda stays close by you, trying to figure out how she can best help you.

She orders the servants to build her little princess a sensory room for when things get too overwhelming.

You turn out to be a rather physically-affectionate child with those you’re close to, meaning that cuddles and hugs from your mother are a must for you.

Of course Wanda doesn’t mind. She loves cuddling you because she knows you’re safe in her arms.

As you grow older, you become more curious. Wanda wants to feed into this curiosity of yours, but also doesn’t want you to get hurt.

This especially becomes a predicament when your magic starts to show itself. 

You have the same magic as your mother. This is gonna get interesting.

And she knows it’s gonna be more difficult for you to control because you have *Spongebob rainbow hands with sparkles* emotional dysregulation.

She has to plan how to balance out keeping your security with feeding your curiosity.

Which is not the easiest thing to do, considering just how curious you actually are. 

The answer is very.

She has her servants search every part of the universe for the best tutors, but decides to rely on some of her old friends.

She resurrects her husband, King Vision, modifying him just a tad to make him as protective. 

She resurrects her brother, Prince Pietro, also making him just as protective.

Let’s just say it’s a lot of resurrecting and a lot of making them protective.

But they still know that she is the one mainly protecting you.

She assures that all of the servants are educated on you and your autism.

If any servant makes even the slightest remark about you having a “tantrum” because something’s too loud, either their tongue will be gone or they will be gone, mentally at least. 

As you grow older, it’s apparent that Wanda doesn’t trust anyone to court you, let alone marry you. What if they hurt her baby princess? She’s not going to let that happen.

You don’t entirely mind, at least not right away. You’re very close with her.

But she knows that when you grow older, there’s a chance you might seek someone to marry.

She’ll have to deal with that eventually, but right now, all is well.

Because everyone’s too afraid of the consequences to hurt the queen’s little angel.

[hatercube]

sunnflower hot take >:)

okay, okay so. i know that sunnflower is a rly popular OMORI pairing, and don't get me wrong, i like it, too,,,, HOWEVER. here is a post-good ending headcanon that will smash all of ur sunnflower dreams into a million bits and pieces <3

[edit: just want to let anyone else who sees this post that it is 10000% okay to ship sunflower, and this whole post is purely a headcanon that’s been stewing in my brain since last month, and it is only my interpretation and my opinion !]

TW // suicide, anxiety, mental institutions, childhood trauma

Sunny and Basil *cannot* see each other

i have been up for 24 hours and don't know if anything i'm about to say will make sense, so bear with me. it's not uncommon for people who shared trauma to have intense reactions that manifest in their relationships with each other. some people become hyper-attached to each other after the traumatic event, while some people are the exact opposite, and if these people come into contact with each other, it can be extremely detrimental to their mental healths. the latter is how i see basil and sunny (especially basil).

throughout the game, a lot of their interactions come off as stiff and awkward not only because they haven't spoken in years, but also because basil is too emotionally dysregulated to keep up a conversation. he's stuttering, he's sweating--WE ALL SAW HIM. he is an anxious. wreck, and this anxiety directly stems from mari's death and sunny's presence. especially after kel breaks the news that sunny's moving away, we can see that any major changes sunny makes are going to heavily affect basil on a psychological level. this isn't just a problem with basil clinging to the last bit of familiarity in his life, but it would also affect sunny's personal growth if these patterns were to be perpetuated in any future relationship between the two, platonic or romantic. imagine trying to move on from the most traumatic experience of your life, and an old friend you haven't talked to in years, begs you to stay. it isn't healthy for either of them.

FURTHERMORE, in regards to the secret true ending with the special SunnFlower cutscene, i think that it's okay to say that these two are beginning the healing process and are working towards finding peace in their lives separately. this ending doesn't imply really anything other than a mutual understanding that everything they'd been holding onto for years had finally been released, and that they were now beginning their journey of recovery.

i don't think they talk for a long time after the good ending--i don't think they really want to. for sunny, basil is a painful reminder of not only the death of his sister, but also the incident that landed him in the hospital. you don't just automatically make amends with the person that gouged your eye out during a psychotic episode. i think that sunny understands and forgives, but i do not think he feels safe.

for basil, on the other hand, sunny is a reminder of the terrible thing he did to mari's body and also his abandonment issues he got from his absent parents. in my opinion, being the person who strung up your best friend's dead sister into a tree to make it look like a su*cide is worse than being the one who pushed her down the stairs. you can push someone on accident, but you definitely can't hang someone on accident. i imagine there's a lot of guilt in there mixed with a whole lot of other childhood trauma from his neglectful parents that is a cocktail for mental instability. (also would like to point out that basil having the idea to hang her up in the first place is an early sign of extreme mental illness,, that isn't normal and also hints at some kind of emotional codependency or unhealthy attachment he has to sunny.) the fact that basil was pushed so far that he had a psychotic episode which resulting in him stabbing his friend--which by the way was triggered by sunny's mere presence, not an immediate physical threat of any kind--is so telling of his mental state, and i honestly believe that best thing for him would be hospitalization. for a while. if he cannot be safe to himself and others, then he needs to begin his recovery in a rehabilitation center, and who knows when it would be safe for him to be discharged.

to put that last bit in perspective, i've been hospitalized before due to a pretty half ass attempt that i didn't follow through with because i was drunk out of my mind and that landed me five days. five days, and i didn't even do anything, like no physical harm came to me. also, during my time there, i was really adamant about how i was feeling better and said i had reduced SI which is also how i got out of there in that small amount of time. i have no idea how much time someone like basil would have to spend in an institution, but it would probably be more than a few weeks.

if seeing sunny was the final trigger that led up to basil's psychotic episode, then it is completely possible that seeing sunny would only bring up similar dysregulation problems in the future, even after he's well on his way to full recovery.

SO TL;DR

1. basil stakes his emotions too heavily on sunny,

2. for sunny, basil reminds him of his sister's death and incident that brought him to the hospital, leading him to feel unsafe around basil,

3. for basil, sunny reminds him of the guilt in shame of what he did to mari's body (which i think we can all universally agree is much worse than accidentally pushing her down the stairs),

4. sunny's presence pushed basil to a point where he was not safe to himself or others in an extreme manner that borders homicidal,

5. BASICALLY WHAT IM SAYING IS THAT THEY TRIGGER EACH OTHER AND WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO HANDLE HANGING OUT FOR EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME BC OF THE PTSD AND POSSIBLE PSYCHOSIS

so yeah. there it is. if you made it this far, im so sorry.

[myfandomrambles]

Morgana Pendragon Character Analysis (pt1)

Introduction:

Morgana Pendragon is one of the most key characters in Merlin. Her role is integral to the character arc of all of the other leads. Her story is about how someone can let their pain consume them whole. As an abuse victim and a member of a marginalised community, she is set up for being isolated and fearful. This alienation is turned both inward and outward making her deeply dangerous to herself and others. She takes this alienation to push almost everyone out of her life and force others to suffer the same way she did. Her righteous anger at her treatment by her father and society goes to waste when none is put to constructive ends. 

She allows emptiness, fear and anger to consume her. She replaced her core beliefs with those of “others are out to hurt me” and “the only way to live is through the acquisition of power”. Her ability for both affective and cognitive empathy becomes suppressed as any joy she can drive comes from exerting control over others. She is compelled into implementing her obsessions around revenge and survival. Depression, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, fear and anger fill all corners of her mind leaving her without access to flexible thought and internal peace. 

Analysis:

At the start, she is living as a member of court and Uther’s ward. She continually butts heads with Uther. This is due to her being headstrong and fearless. This bravery and stubborn disposition causes more rifts as she is seen to be hysterical and as an object, leaving her subject to gaslighting and other forms of abuse. However, this rarely stops her from being involved when important. Morgana often works with Arthur and Merlin early on. The most key of these events being when they save Mordred. (1x08)

However, her stubbornness isn’t all-consuming, while resisting being forced to do things she dislikes she is smart enough to know when to lie and when to bend the knee. Partly because as a child and young-adult she holds a mix of respect, love and fear towards Uther. She shows skills in court life, this is deeply important to understand as it becomes a useful skill when she works against the kingdom. But in the beginning, it shows someone who lives in the duality of wanting to assert herself and someone who absorbed the social rules she was raised with. 

Morgana shows great care for those around her wanting them to be safe and happy. Often stepping up to speak on behalf of them, and generally treating even Gwen and Merlin, people considered her inferiors socially, with respect. Standing up for Gwen's dad, helping protect Elador, helping feed peasants and trying to protect Gwen when they are attacked shows her kindness and loyalty. (1x03, 1x08, 1x10-12)

She doesn’t have a consuming desire for power, no particular plan to marry into or otherwise acquire power. Her later turn to power is reactive and less of an innate drive. It also a drive to be the one who determines her future. 

When Morgana's powers start to grow we see the first shift in her character. The development of anxiety and depression colour the way she acts. It adds layers to her abuse and trauma. A great deal of gaslighting is used to convince her she is mistaken and to prevent the acknowledgement of her magic. Which we know Gaius has been hiding since she was a child visa via her prophetic nightmares. 

This alienation is from the entire culture she grew up in. When she visits the druids in The Nightmare Begins (2x03) Morgana feels free and desires to stay, she just wants to be herself. 

This is similar to the experience marginalised people experience in real life. She knows that if discovered her magic father figure/father would likely kill her. Morgana also believes her other loved ones would at the least disown her. 

In reality, there is some nuance. Merlin acts as both an agent of the system while originally trying to help her and Gaius and Gwen would not wish harm on her. But Morgana is understandably afraid and full of anxiety to reach out for help. This anxiety, confusion, fear and alienation become the way she perceives the world. Life is Morgana, then everyone else. This pain drives a wedge between her and everyone she used to care for.

Outside of the gaslighting and threat of violence, she experiences from those close to her during The Witchfinder (2x07) we see her deal with mental assault from an outside force with no support from her family as they don’t understand. This makes her dysregulation, anxiety, depression and isolation worsen. 

The next two key events in her first character transformation can be seen at the end of season two. First, Morgana meets Morgause (2x08) and automatically feels a connection to her. Second, Morgana is pushed to verbally disown Uther due to his treatment of Avalar and by extension the rest of the Druids and others born with magic. This is the final relational rupture between them:

Morgana: They are rising up against you! From this day forward, I do not know you. From this day forward, I disown you

King Uther: You will go to your chambers!

Morgana: And you, Uther, you will go to hell.

 (2x11)

We then see her move into helping Morgause try and destroy Camelot. At this point, it is driven by the anger she has for Uther and his treatment of others. It has yet to have the drive of becoming queen. Her connection to Morgause also plays a large role as she finally has a person to be close to without the artifice of court life over it. Morgause gives her a choice and with that an illusion of power. At this point, there is a more powerful member of their team. Morgana ends this attempt at Camelot almost being murdered by someone she considered a friend. (2x12)

We then have an interesting moment in her character arch in her year away from Camelot. This time away changes her from someone who while willing to hurt Uther didn’t seem driven for the destruction of Camelot, to one who will hurt everyone. There is also a reprieve from the fear-driven to more controlled anger by the assistance of Morgause. 

We are never told what happened in the year. All we know is he stayed with her sister and likely had her hatred of Uther entrenched even further. Her worst tendencies towards vengeance over justice and ego over compassion are reinforced. This shifts her schema farther into negative ones and worsens her ability to think in shades of grey.

When she does return her previous ability to play the game of court life is stronger and utilised to great effect convincing everyone for a while that she is essentially the same person, except for Merlin and by extension Gaius. Gwen is the next to figure it out due to Morgana’s affect control dropping and her real emotion bleeding through over time. (3x08)

As she returns to Camelot she quickly moves to attempt another attack. This attempt is stopped again by Merlin, but in this attempt, we see new cruelty in her willingness to torture Uther and that her magic has grown. This is also the last time I believe her alienation and marginalization is her driving force. After this, I think she fully turns her internalized fear of her magic onto everyone else. Her exchange with Merlin during the battle feels genuine and not at all like manipulation or even just a justification as it becomes later, but a real motivation. She has not yet grown to shut off her empathy for everyone, only Uther and Arthur. (3x1-2)

Soon after her second attempt on the castle, we see another large shift in motivations. She almost dies and is severely injured which puts her in a vulnerable place and during this same time she learns she is Uther’s daughter in blood as well as circumstance. She learns that he never was willing to claim her or even tell her. This pushes her to act rashly, almost committing patricide. (3x05)

Her ability to be cruel in her aims continues to grow, to hurt Arthur she puts Gwen through terrible pain as well as Elyan. (3x07) We see her magic grow, her emotions grow but her ability to hide her intentions failing, at least around Gwen. Her attempts at her family's lives also continue to be cruel as she tries to kill Arthur and Uther in slow and painful ways. (3x08, 3x11)

When Morgana isn’t trying to kill the people she used to love she is trying to mess with their lives in more petty ways. This includes exposing the love Arthur and Gwen have for each other, putting their relationship in jeopardy and Gwen’s over well being. This is over her fear of Gwen being Queen when Arthur would become Queen, something that Morgana gains obsessive thoughts over throughout the rest of the story. (3x10)

Morgana is willing to kill a large number of the people at this point not only those she has a personal issue with. Though she does offer safety to Gwen thought it’s contingent on her considering Morgana to be the rightful queen. She is willing to rule by fear and threat, not understanding how to win over the people. (3x12-13). This attempt fails and Morgana loses her sister and the allies her sister made.

After being defeated and having to flee the castle with her dying sister she spends a year moving around with her ill sister while also gaining more strength and becoming a fully-fledged High Priestess of the Old Religion. 

In an attempt to take the castle again she has to kill her sister. Something that caused her great distress as Morgana believed Morgause was the only person who understood and loved her. This event causes great suffering to all, it’s also when Morgana adds her obsession with Emrys along with her obsessive thoughts over Gwen and Uther. 

During this first period of exile, she recruits Agravaine to be her spy and aid within the court. They seem to be united by a common cause but Morgana doesn’t treat him as equal, adopting the belief she hated so much from Uther, treating others as tools. 

She also accepted a standard of living that is much below that of the ward of the king. Her way of dress and acting also shifts, she’s still cunning and driven but while now being the master of herself she is more erratic and seems to feel just as out of control and obsessed as she was when living a lie. Her affect control, impulse control, regulation and social regulation deteriorated. Fear also returns to being a driving force. (4x01-2)

Morgana succeeds in killing Uther in The Wicked Day (4x03) by cursing a necklace and Agravaine puts it on Uther so that when Arthur uses magic to try and bring back his father from a fatal injury he dies faster. Planning to finally kill her father she also wishes guilt and pain on her brother.

We then see Morgana use both strength and her ability to manipulate to work Queen Annis to try and kill Arthur. Morgana is not against using her history to use another person. However, Annis sees through her when Arthur shows honour and points out that Morgana is much more like Uther than she realises, and in saying this it also refutes the point Morgana tried to make early in the episode that Gorlois was who was her true father. This is true in both the biological sense but also through the fact that Uther spent more time acting as her father and had generally known her own life. This statement also acts as a trigger causing her to show extreme emotions. (4x05)

One of the key lines of dialogue we have to see where Morgana’s mindset is at during this period is 

Morgana: Don’t think I don’t understand loyalty because I’ve got no one left to be loyal to

This is important because it shows that the isolation that started by The Nightmare Begins has enveloped her. Now she is no longer even fighting with or for anyone she has devoted herself to revenge and survival.

We also see the fear that drives Morgana as at the site of Emrys her first reaction is flight. During their battle, we see that they are almost evenly matched in magical power, though Morgana only really gets through due to Merlin not being willing to act decisively still. (4x06)

Morgana's obsession with Emrys becomes almost all-consuming. Morgana gives away the most emotionally significant thing left of her sister to obtain information on Emrys. She tries desperately to find the information torturing a man who spent her childhood helping to take care of her. But a layer of contradictions exists as he also tried to make her doubt her reality and is helping the person destined to prevent her ascension to queen and to kill her. This complex relationship is important here for the emotional repercussions of what seems like a straightforward attempt to extract information. (4x07)

Morgana shows no regard for even the laws of life and death gain in her quest in Lancelot Du Lac (4x09) bringing Lancelot back to life. Morgana does not even to directly finish her quest to take the throne but to ruin her once friend, and closest confidant's chance at happiness. This is driven by an obsession with her past nightmare about Gwen becoming Queen. Though of course, it has the added benefit of breaking her brother's heart. The only show of emotional connection we see in her is the fear underlying her actions and her musings on the emptiness the shade Lancelot has. 

During The Sword and The Stone (4x12-13), we see Morgana take over the castle by using Agravaine for treason. Morgana is not only ruthless in what would be considered warfare but takes initiative to be cruel to the peasants willing to let them starve to gain control. She then tortures Gawain, Elyan and Gaius not only for information but just because she gains pleasure from it. The ability to empathise with those she deemed her enemies is no longer existent, even those who have not directly harmed her. Her depressive states and emotional nubbing is only broken when she can exert control over other people. She is choosing to hurt others for her pleasure. 

This is their first battle when both Morgana and Arthur understand who the other is. Morgana calls him as her “dear brother” as a taunt. We then have this exchange:

King Arthur: What happened to you, Morgana?

King Arthur: I thought we were friends

Morgana: As did I. But alas, we were both wrong.

King Arthur: You can't blame me for my father's sins.

Morgana: It's a little late for that. You’ve made it perfectly clear how you feel about me and my kind. You're not as different from Uther as you'd like to think.

King Arthur: Nor are you.

Morgana: I’m going to enjoy killing you, Arthur Pendragon. Not even Emrys can save you now.

We see Arthur is hurt by what happened and truly did love Morgana and doesn’t like having to fight her like this. And Morgana is consumed by the pain of the past to the inability to care for the present. Arthur, however, is not giving her the power of acknowledging her as his sister. He still says “my father”. He compares her to their father and triggers her anger. We see them attempt to fight, Morgana is unable to use her magic due to Merlin and panics. 

She gathers herself, able to make her escape even coming close to killing Gwen. She then almost dies only being revived by Aithusa, who becomes her closest friend from this point on. (4x13)

We then have another time skip of over two years. Two of those years Morgana was being tortured in the pit by The Sarum. This has the effect of taking an already traumatised individual and layering two years of severe chronic trauma on top of it. She has less control of herself as a result of this and loses the little bit of impulse control she had. 

We first see Morgana after this when she is searching for the Diamair to try and learn how to beat Arthur. Morgana can capture and lure Arthur to her by kidnapping his men and using spies. She almost finds what she seeks but the creature itself has no wish to be used by her making her search futile. We also see her not even consider a father being willing to do something dangerous to save his daughter, her own acquired lack of compassion colouring her judgement. 

This is also the re-introduction of Mordred, a character that acts as the turning point in the rest of the narrative. Seeing Mordred shows some of the only real joy we see from Morgana since her sister died years back. She, however, pushes him away due to her display of rage and dysregulation. Mordred stabs her literally in the back. (5x01-2)

One of Morgana's most cruel attacks is used to try and turn Gwen into a weapon by torturing her for days, breaking down her psychological defences leaving her open to manipulation. This leaves her under control of Morgana thinking that Morgana cares for her. While this is mainly a spell able to be broken there is a part that relies on Gwen's psychology of being compassionate so she will be sympathetic to Morgana’s story and trauma. With the long psychological attacks and this play on Gwen's compassion, we see Morana essentially form a trauma bond. She manipulates Gwen’s perceptions and emotions in a way that is very similar to emotional abusers. 

 This act also kills Elyan in Morgana's attempt to harm Arthur (5x06) During this control we see how strongly Morgana used it to make Gwen not only a weapon but also they feel like they are friends again, being lonely might have been part of why he chose this method and less of a direct method like she did with Merlin. (5x07-8) 

Once Arthur is aware of her curse on Gwen he sets out to break the magic but is almost thwarted by the Dochraid who tells Morgana of his plans to save Gwen. This is interesting as the Dochraid is one of the few magic beings who truly side with Morgana betting on her strength of will over Merlin’s. Morgana is then forced to face off against the one thing other than her dragon, Mordred. Mordred puts up a good fight even saving Merlin’s secret. She felt conflicted in harming him and ends up losing to his surprise attack. (5x09)

After her plan with Gwen fails he returns to her full-tilt hunt for Emrys. She hunts the Catha for information causing terror across multiple kingdoms, then excruciatingly tortures him to try and find out. Hunting anyone down who might know these plans however fail because Alator and Finna believed in something larger and were willing to suffer and die. Morgana no longer understands the bigger picture her idea of a world free for magic isn't her leading drive anymore. After this incident, Morgana is seen to have declared all-out war with Camelot. (5x10)

Mordred acts as the last domino to fall into place before the final battle between Morgana and Arthur Pendragon. When Kara is killed and Merlin and Arthur were the drivers behind her execution, Mordred becomes angry enough at the system of Camelot to move to side with someone he saw as dangerous and broken. He gives Morgana the information she needs on Emrys. (5x11)

With Mordred by her side, Morgana makes her final move, forging a sword just to kill Arthur and finalizing the amassment of an army. She clears the way by removing Emrys from the situation, giving her and Mordred a clean shot at Arthur and the army of Camelot. However, she underestimates Merlin and we see her lose much of her Army and Mordred. This causes Morgana despair as she has to bury the last person she loved. One of the few things that could even start to pierce her depression is ripped away. 

This loss isn’t enough to stop the endless patterns of a compulsive need to take out revenge on Arthur. 

The final moments of her life she taunts her brother in his death claiming a victory. It’s however short-lived as Merlin kills her with a dragon fire-forged blade right after she claims her immortality. Her pain consumed her, and as the death of her father there is no triumph in hurting her brother as all it does is open her up for her death. (5x12-13)

[bpdanakins]

Anakin Skywalker + Borderline Personality Disorder

Hello there!

My name’s Elizabeth, and I really love Anakin Skywalker. I also really love the headcanon of him having Borderline Personality Disorder, so today I’m going to explore that headcanon. I’ll be explaining both the illness and its symptoms in detail, so you don’t need prior knowledge of BPD to read.

Like all mental illnesses, BPD can be expressed in many different ways. I’ll do my best to explore the ways Anakin shows signs and symptoms of it, and I’ll use a bit of both my own experience and experiences others have shared. You may agree or disagree, it’s all good. This is just something for fun, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

To start, I should explain what Borderline Personality Disorder is first. In the words of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Borderline Personality Disorder is defined as:

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a condition characterized by difficulties regulating emotion. This means that people who experience BPD feel emotions intensely and for extended periods of time, and it is harder for them to return to a stable baseline after an emotionally triggering event.

This difficulty can lead to impulsivity, poor self-image, stormy relationships and intense emotional responses to stressors.

The symptoms of BPD as listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) reads as following:

** A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g. spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating.)

Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-harming behaviour.

Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).

Chronic feelings of emptiness.

Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurring physical fights).

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

Alright, now that we have a basic understanding of the illness, I’ll move on to breaking down these symptoms and how they relate or show in Anakin with examples. I’ll be categorizing them as done in this article for ease of reading: Affective symptoms (covering criterion 6, 7 and 8), Impulsive symptoms (criterion 4 and 5), Interpersonal symptoms (criterion 1, 2, and 3) and Cognitive symptoms (criterion 9).

Affective Symptoms Affective symptoms is the category which covers the emotional dysregulation shown in BPD (intense moods, depression, anger and chronic feelings of emptiness). Those with BPD have difficulty controlling the range and intensity of their emotional responses; their emotions are incredibly unstable, changing moods often - sometimes within minutes.

In my experience, having BPD is like having a constant storm going on in your head, drowning out so many different things while highlighting all the wrong ones. Emotions can slam into you, so suddenly without warning or reason, so overwhelming that you can’t even think. That emotion is all there is. And then, just as suddenly, it recedes, leaving you feeling empty, or is replaced by another.

There are many, many examples of moments where Anakin’s emotions seem to change within moments. It is most prevalent with anger, especially since he has used it since a child as a way to cope with fear or other distressing situations and emotions.

Anakin was on top of him so fast the bigger being barely had time to put up his arms in defense before he was on the ground. Anakin was hitting him as hard and fast as he could, not thinking about anything but how angry he was, not even aware that the source of his anger had nothing to do with his victim and everything to do with losing Padmé. -- The Phantom Menace novelization

It is worth to note, too, that often the expressions of anger noticed in Borderlines stems from fear, panic, hopelessness, and desperation.

Borderlines are extremely sensitive to outside stimuli, meaning that a lot of the mood changes are in response to external events; particularly perceived rejection, failure or abandonment, although not always.

We know, as many characters have pointed out, Anakin focuses on the negative. Borderlines tend to be hypersensitive to the emotions of others, but often we’re more likely to notice negative emotions, rather than positive ones. This often results in us being more vulnerable in the face of criticism, and what would cause slight embarrassment for another may cause deep humiliation for us.

After this iconic first attempt at flirting, and Padmé’s subsequent teasing remark [“You’ll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine.”], Anakin’s reaction is explained thus in the novel: “And if she had taken his lightsaber from his belt and sliced his legs out from under him, she would not have shortened Anakin Skywalker more.”

(Another note on his attention to negativity is that he missed her widened smile, or the clear implications of it, too caught up in the idealized experience of being in her presence.)

However, while it is more common for a Borderline to swing toward the negative, this is not always the case! We feel all emotions to a higher degree, and this includes happiness, excitement, and other positive emotions. Anakin shows this too, mostly in response to things like approval, or love:

“Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s voice had gone soft, and his hand was warm on Anakin’s arm. “There is no other Jedi I would rather have at my side right now. No other man.” Anakin turned, and found within Obi-Wan’s eyes a depth of feeling he had only rarely glimpsed in all their years together; and the pure uncomplicated love that rose up within him then felt like a promise from the Force itself.

This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, for now: The Supreme Chancellor returns your look with a hint of smile and a sliver of an approving nod, and for you, this tiny, trivial, comradely victory sparks a warmth and ease that relaxes the dragon-grip of dread on your heart. -- Revenge of the Sith novelization

(Also look at this face he makes when Obi-Wan says he’s proud of him help me it’s so cute.)

We have an example of all three (anger to perceived criticism and disapproval, heightened emotions to approval, jealousy and playfulness all fluctuating quickly):

Padmé moved back to arm’s length and managed a smile as she looked over to Anakin. “Then my Jedi protector will have to prove how good he is.” Dormé gave a nervous chuckle and wiped a tear from her eye as she smiled and nodded. Off to the side, Anakin held his smile within, deciding consciously to wear a posture that exuded confidence and control. But inside he was thrilled to hear Padmé’s compliments coming his way. Obi-Wan shattered that warmth, pulling the young Padawan off to the side. “You stay on Naboo,” Obi-Wan said. “Don’t attract attention. Do absolutely nothing without checking in with me or the Council.” “Yes, Master,” Anakin answered obediently, but inside, he was churning, wanting to lash out at Obi-Wan. Do nothing, absolutely nothing, without checking in, without asking for permission? Hadn’t he earned a bit more respect than that? Hadn’t he proven a bit more resourceful, a Padawan to be trusted? “I will get to the bottom of this plot quickly, M’Lady,” he heard Obi-Wan say to Padmé. Anakin seethed inwardly. Hadn’t that been exactly the course he had suggested to his Master when they had first been assigned to watch over the Senator? “You’ll be back here in no time,” Obi-Wan assured her. “I will be most grateful for your speed, Master Jedi.” Anakin didn’t appreciate hearing Padmé speak of any gratitude at all toward Obi-Wan. At least, he didn’t want Padmé to elevate Obi-Wan’s importance in all this above his own. “Time to go,” he said, striding forward. [...] “Suddenly I’m afraid,” Padmé said to him as they walked away, heading toward the giant star freighter that would take them to Naboo. Behind the pair, R2-D2 rolled along, tootling cheerily. “This is my first assignment on my own. I am, too.” Anakin turned about, taking Padmé’s gaze with his own, and grinned widely. “But don’t worry. We’ve got Artoo with us!” Again, the levity was much needed. -- Attack of the Clones novelization

Most of the events that take place on Grievous’ ship in Revenge of the Sith, both the movie and the novelization, are a great example of Anakin’s inability for emotional modulation (i.e. the ability to control the intensity of emotions) and his emotional dysregulation. He experiences joy when joking with Obi-Wan, later fear which he turns to fury during his fight with Dooku, dissociates (as I will show below) when he executes him, and then happiness when teasing Obi-Wan and having approval from Palpatine.

Impulsive Symptoms There are many times in media and society that being impulsive is seen as a good thing. Spontaneity is a thrilling and exciting trait, and someone who has it is framed as a fun person to be around.

However, in mental illness, impulses are often uncontrollable and detrimental to the health and safety of the self or of others. In BPD, it is described as reckless and self-damaging.

Many in the fandom see Anakin as a reckless and impulsive person. It’s framed in a good light; it means he thinks “outside the box”, is unconventional but gets things done and saves the day anyways. And it is true, he is those things and he often does so to help others. Plus, we have to take into consideration that the Force plays a role too. What is considered almost automatically harmful recklessness to us may not be for someone with the Force.

The line that must be drawn, then, is all about intent and motive. Is he doing this because he wants to hurt himself, or because he does not care if it harms him as a result? Without knowing his internal thoughts on the matter, or without being shown the actions as carelessness combined with negative emotions, it can be pretty tough to nail down.

So, we can perhaps infer if something Anakin does might follow in the lines of suicidal/self-injurous behaviour, but given the nature of what the shows/movies/books are (aka, not meant to be THAT dark, despite, you know, burning people and dead children, I guess), we don’t really have much to go on.

One easy example, however, is shown through the lens of parasuicide.

PARASUICIDE   Parasuicide is a term for behaviour that includes both actual suicide attempts and self-injuries with little or no intent to cause death. Take, for example, an individual engaging in reckless driving: they could be doing it for the rush, in hopes it drowns out their overwhelming negative emotions, and while their intent at the time is not on crashing and dying, they might not care if it happens.

Cannonfire blazed past him, impacting on the support struts ahead. Too late to change his mind now: he was committed. He would bring his ship through, or he would die. Right now, strangely, he didn’t actually care which. -- Revenge of the Sith novelization

Interpersonal Symptoms One of the most commonly recognized symptoms of BPD are those that affect our interpersonal relationships. The fear of abandonment, the black-and-white thinking, the lack of a true identity: these are symptoms you are most likely to hear discussed first when looking into BPD or talking to someone about it.

These three criteria are all very intertwined, and they often feed or lean into each other. But most importantly, these are the symptoms that tend to come with a lot of terminology used specifically in Borderline circles.

SPLITTING    What is splitting? Splitting is the term we use for the moments we switch from idealization to devaluation, or vice versa. Borderlines tend to think in black and white with no shades of gray; either people are all good, or all bad. When we “split”, it is a change in that opinion or worldview from one to the other.

In other words, one could say...

Splitting can be caused by all sorts of things, such as someone not living up to the ideal or triggering the fear of abandonment.

Splitting is often associated with opinions of others, but Borderlines can split on their views of themselves, objects, things, beliefs or even organizations (like, say, the Jedi Order).

Anakin’s splitting is often shown in his relationship with Obi-Wan. He sees him as a great hero, the greatest Jedi ever - as wise as Master Yoda and as powerful as Master Windu. (There’s also this.) He can wax poetic about how Obi-Wan is his best friend, a great mentor, that Anakin loves him...

Yet, even in the same conversation, or even within only days, he talks about Obi-Wan being jealous, overly critical, holding him back, saying it’s his fault that Anakin’s struggling. He can be joking with him in an elevator one moment, to seething the next when Obi-Wan expresses disapproval or disappointment. (Essentially AotC Anakin is splitting on Obi-Wan the whole time.)

Anakin can go on about how he loves Obi-Wan, that he wouldn’t have it any other way than to be fighting at his side, and then easily switch to saying that he cannot be trusted, to saying I hate you. And when he says and thinks these things, he means them. Why is it that Anakin can seemingly forget the soft, genuine moments he’s had with Obi-Wan within hours, to the point his entire view on who Obi-Wan is can change?

RELATIONSHIP OBJECT PERMANENCE    Object permanence is a skill we all learn when we are mere infants. To put it simply, it is the realization that just because we cannot see or sense something anymore, does not mean it no longer exists. It’s why babies cry when someone leaves the room; they do not realize that things can exist even when not right in front of them.

In turn, relationship object permanence is the knowledge that a relationship, and all the good feelings that come with it, exists even when that relationship is not being constantly affirmed. (i.e. If you do not tell me you care for me, how can I know?) This skill is one Borderlines tend to lack, which is why we have such fears of abandonment, even when it’s irrational.

A simple example of this in Anakin is that he shares that Soft moment with Obi-Wan mentioned above - the one about the pure, uncomplicated love - only to later that night tell Padmé:

“Maybe he does [love me]. But I don’t think he trusts me.” His eyes went as bleak as the empty night. “And I’m not sure we can trust him.”

In the moment, Anakin does not doubt Obi-Wan’s feelings. Later, when he is full of fear, when he is so focused on Padmé and their child, he doubts Obi-Wan’s loyalties, let alone how much he cares.

On the flipside, Anakin idealizes Padmé. A lot. To the point he has, in a way, built part of his identity around her. Borderlines tend to lack a solid sense of self, and sometimes an expression of this identity disturbance revolves around defining oneself by their relationships; losing these, in turn, results in a sense that everything is meaningless and empty.

Since he was a child, Anakin saw Padmé in a grand light: she was an angel, beautiful and perfect, and he just knew he was gonna marry her. Since that moment, he has not ever dismantled or even noticed that pedestal he has placed her upon.

For years, he clung to the idea that he would be her husband, and this turned into, in his mind, a simple fact of his life. A piece of him that he could be sure about. He knows he is not what a Jedi should be; he is called the Hero With No Fear, which he knows is so inaccurate; they’re losing the war... but he has Padmé, and he cannot lose her.

“The Hero With No Fear. What a joke... Padmé, I can’t lose you. I can’t. You’re all I live for.”

“I couldn’t wait, Padmé. I had to see you.” He took her in his arms. “Tonight is forever from now - how am I supposed to live that long without you?” -- Revenge of the Sith novelization

Another of the hallmark symptoms of BPD is the frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, whether real or imagined. Borderlines often find it extremely hard to let go of relationships, and will do much in an effort to keep others from leaving.

Losing people he loves is the source of Anakin’s greatest fears.

But Anakin’s fear is another kind of dragon. A cold kind. A dead kind. [...] The dragon reminds him, every night, that someday he will lose Obi-Wan. He will lose Padmé. Or they will lose him. All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even the stars burn out... He can barely even think about it. -- Revenge of the Sith novelization

Now, I have it on good authority that most Borderlines don’t end up going Dark Side and committing massacres to avoid someone they love leaving them, but Anakin likes to stand out.

Cognitive Symptoms These are the symptoms that relate to dissociation, paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, and other troubling but non-psychotic symptoms.

DISSOCIATION    Dissociation is a psychological experience in which people feel disconnected from their sensory experience, sense of self, or personal history. It is usually experienced as a feeling of intense alienation or unreality, in which the person suddenly loses their sense of where they are, who they are, of what they are doing. (x) For Borderlines, the most common forms of dissociation experienced are derealization and depersonalization.

DEPERSONALIZATION is defined as a detachment within the self, regarding one’s mind or body, or being a detached observer of oneself. Symptoms include: feeling that you’re an outside observer of your thoughts, feelings, or your body; emotional or physical numbness of your senses or responses to the world around you; a sense that your memories lack emotion, and that they may not be your own memories, and more.

DEREALIZATION is defined as an alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal. Symptoms include: feelings of being alienated from or unfamiliar with your surroundings - as if you’re living in a movie or dream; feeling emotionally disconnected from people you care about; distortions in perception of time, such as recent events feeling like distant past, and more.

For some, dissociation can often be the mind’s way of trying to protect itself from traumatic events or actions; sometimes even in response to extreme emotions. An easy example to observe is after Shmi’s death in Attack of the Clones - Hayden’s reaction can very easily be read as someone who is immediately trying to disconnect (emotionally, mentally) to this sudden trauma.

It’s expounded upon in its novelization as well:

The minutes slipped past and Anakin just sat there, immobilized by his confusion, by a budding rage and the most profound sense of emptiness he had ever known. Only when the pale light began to grow around him, making the low-burning candles seem even thinner, did he even remember where he was. He looked about, wondering how he might get his mother’s body out of there. [...] He could hardly move, though. There seemed a profound pointlessness to it all, a series of motions without meaning.

We also often have Anakin describing moments as if they were ‘a dream’, as if these things weren’t a part of him, but here are two good examples from the RotS novel:

The murderer blinked again. Who am I? Was he the slave boy on a desert planet, valued for his astonishing gift with machines? Was he the legendary Podracer, the only human to survive that deadly sport? Was he the unruly, high-spirited, trouble-prone student of a great Jedi Master? The star pilot? The hero? The lover? The Jedi? [...] The deck bucked as the cruiser absorbed a new barrage of torpedoes and turbolaser fire. Dooku’s severed head bounced along the deck and rolled away, and Anakin woke up.

In the Tusken camp he had lost his mind. [...] The Tuskens has been killed, slaughtered, massacred - but that has been beyond his control, and now it seemed to him as if it had been done by someone else: like a story he heard that had little to do with him at all.

PARANOID THOUGHTS   Paranoia involves intense anxious or fearful feelings and thoughts often related to persecution, threat, or conspiracy. Paranoia can become delusions, when irrational thoughts and beliefs become so fixed that nothing (including contrary evidence) can convince a person that what they think or feel is not true. (x)

Signs of paranoia include intense, irrational mistrust or suspicion, which can bring on a sense of fear, anger and betrayal. Some symptoms include mistrust, hypervigilance, difficulty with forgiveness, a defensive attitude in response to imagined criticism, preoccupation with hidden motives, fear of being deceived or taken advantage of, inability to relax or being argumentative.

Within Borderlines, this ideation is described as transient and stress-related, meaning it often only lasts a short time and is brought on by a high level of stress.

Anakin experiences many bouts of paranoia over his life, often manifesting in his (sort of) delusion that Padmé is in grave danger, that he must do anything to protect her from it; in the thoughts that the Jedi mistrust him, are out to get him because of jealousy or other reasons; that even Obi-Wan cannot be trusted; and even, at times, that Padmé will stop loving him and leave him.

He knew, deep in his guts, that something had happened to her. An accident, or she was sick, or she’d been caught in one of the vast number of buildings hit by debris from the battle today... She might be trapped somewhere right now, might be wounded, might be smothering, calling out his name, might be feeling the approach of flames- [...] He could barely breathe. He couldn’t make himself even think it. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking it. Had something changed? For her? In how she felt?

“Is Master Windu turning everyone against me? [...] It has to do with them all being against me. They always have been - most of them didn’t even want me to be a Jedi.” -- Revenge of the Sith novelization

His biggest triggers for these episodes are often related to his prophetic nightmares, but also in any reminder or flashback of his trauma and fear of losing the people he loves.

---

Conclusion Anakin Skywalker is a fascinating and complex character for so many reasons, and many people are intrigued by his story because of it. Many of those are people who also have neurodivergencies or other disabilities, and that’s why - even if these headcanons are simply that, and probably won’t ever be verified - sharing with each other the ways we see ourselves in characters is both important, but also fun.

Whether you can see this headcanon for Anakin, have one for a similar/co-morbid disorder (such as mood disorders, PTSD, ADHD, etc), or none of the above, I hope you at least enjoyed the read. It was certainly pretty text heavy, so I thank you for getting this far.

If you enjoyed this and have your own thoughts, feel free to share! I’d love to chat if you have any questions, want to make fun of this Literal Human Disaster(tm), or if you have your own headcanons you want to talk about.

I certainly have many more thoughts on this - how it could relate to his decisions/actions, more examples (especially since I only used the bare minimum), more BPD behaviours, even theories about how maybe the Force could have played into it, etc. Hopefully I’ll get better at writing these out if I ever get around to sharing them.

Ultimately though, at the end of the day, we all just want to have fun, and bond over stories that mean a lot to us one way or another. Thank you again for your time; it means a lot.

---

SOURCES:

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace   dir. George Lucas. Lucasfilm Ltd, 1999   novelization by Terry Brooks

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones   dir. George Lucas. Lucasfilm Ltd, 2002   novelization by R.A. Salvatore

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith   dir. George Lucas. Lucasfilm Ltd, 2005   novelization by Matthew Stover

Borderline Personality Disorder   National Alliance on Mental Illness

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, 2013   American Psychiatric Association

Diagnosing Borderline Personality Disorder   by Robert S. Biskin, MD & Joel Paris, MD   National Center for Biotechnology Information

Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders   Mental Health America

Paranoia and Delusional Disorders   Mental Health America

Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder   by Marsha M. Linehan

My own personal experiences

FURTHER READING:

shitborderlinesdo on tumblr has an extensive FAQ (p1, p2) which you may find useful, although most of the posts are from about four years ago

anything by Marsha M. Linehan is useful, especially her book listed above (download)

the NCBI site has a lot of good articles with even better citations, and the citations can be read through sci-hub.

[csa-survivor-confessions]

(?) i keep self triggering nonstop i cant help it. i purposely search for nasty things related to my trauma just so i can feel bad. how do i stop it i cant stop i hate it

We have some information you might find helpful, because my friend you can stop harming yourself, you can heal. You are a person worthy of health and healing. 

Triggering oneself is a form of self-harm it can help to look at it that way when breaking down what you are trying to get out of it on the level of dysregulation and seeking to deal with it on a somatic level as well as bringing judgment from the situation. 

Coping Skills: Combating Self-Harm Urges

Self-harm urges can be so strong and are very hard to deal with, but we can work against them to better-coping skills.

Self-harm, self-mutilation or self-injury comes in multiple forms not just cutting that is normally discussed. Examples include compulsive masturbation, burning, hitting yourself against things, excessive scratching to the point of drawing blood, punching self or objects, infecting oneself, inserting objects into body openings, drinking something harmful and breaking bones purposefully.

These skills also work for self-triggering behaviours doing actions that cause yourself severe emotional distress like flashbacks or panic attacks.

Here is some advice to start finding safer coping skills:

The first step is to look at what is pushing you to self-harm.

Look at:

What things tend to happen before you do the behaviour? Are their common external triggers?

what emotional state are you in before you trigger yourself? For example are you angry, empty, keyed up, anxious? Do you feel like you need a realise? Are you experiencing intrusive thoughts?

What physical sensation are you experiencing beforehand? Are you holding tension anywhere particular? Are you in physical pain? Are you already experiencing body memories?

What emotions are you feeling afterwards? Do you feel less empty? After the panic subsides are you actually calmer?

What physical sensation do you have afterwards?

Okay, now you can look for replacement actions that can handle the feelings without triggering yourself.

knowing outside triggers can help you avoid them if possible, and prepare for them ahead of time if that’s not possible.

If you recognize the emotional state the persists the actions you can try and work on bringing yourself down from this state first. Learn about coping skills to handle this feeling. (Coping skill suggestions: Anger, anxiety/stress 1 and 2, intrusive thoughts)

If you are feeling specific body sensations beforehand look at ways to help that. For muscle stress this might help, heating pads or light stretching might help. If you have a headache ice pack might help. If you are already having body memories this or this might help.

Now sometimes the emotion you are getting after the triggering is just as important as the emotion that was before. Now here you can look for a replacement action that brings you a similar emotional feeling that isn’t as harmful. This post gives some examples of replacement skills for self-harm. If something you find is you are looking to break an emotional blank, or you feel more “real” afterwards I could suggest finding emotional things (music, movies, books) that can still bring strong emotions.

If you have physical sensations you are seeking again it is good to find a replacement action. Sensory aids might help info about that here.

Three important things to consider for long-term recovery

Deeper things are always at play. Underlying mental health conditions (Like BPD, PTSD or Depression) and trauma. Working through these problems, often a professional can be helpful reaching out to them is important.

Reaching out to friends and family can be really helpful in keeping yourself safe. Which is of the utmost importance.

If you find yourself harming yourself greatly please look at our crisis resources.

[WordPress Link]

Intrusive thoughts are often present here and dealing with them can combat the urges you have to self-harm as it can help mitigate the severity of the urges and thought spirals involved. 

Coping Skills: Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts

Intrusive thoughts are unwanted thoughts that intrude into the thoughts process of those who deal with them. They are commonly associated with OCD, PTSD, eating disorders, addiction and self-harm.

Intrusive thoughts are not just thoughts that seem random or unskilled (that called thinking), and they aren’t always accompanied by the urge do something (compulsions). They can extremely distressing thoughts, violent, sexual or panic-inducing ideas and images are really common manifestations.

We dealing with intrusive thoughts an important first step is to understand while these thoughts are in your brain they don’t represent desires for the thoughts to happen or that it’s your real secret morality. It’s a function of what you are struggling with (mental illness, trauma and stress) not you being a bad person. Reminding yourself of that combats shame and paralyzation of feeling helpless to act.

next is letting them be. Intrusive thoughts happen, rumination, berating yourself for having them, or aggressively trying to push them away are all not helpful. Learning to just let them come into your brain and leave without a huge shift in behaviour and mood is important. Doing this robs them of their emotional power and lessens the pain. It’s okay to have them, It’s okay that they hurt you, letting these thoughts go is fine and healthy.

You don’t owe it all of your energy to trying to work them out,  make thoughts stop happening, or repressing the emotions till it hurts more.

This just takes practice when experiencing them letting yourself know its just a thought, not real or something you must act on. When you feel the emotions and stress from the thought take a deep calm breath. Do your best to steady your emotional/physical response. When you can’t distract or not panic that’s fine, don’t get angry just try again next time.

Another important thing to remember is to not modify your whole life around intrusive thoughts. Avoidance is, of course, something people with PTSD and anxiety suffer with in general, but it’s key to start working your life around what you want and not avoiding intrusive thoughts. Starting with small things that might be ignored because of the thoughts not linked to large trauma, This is an important step to remove the power of the thoughts.

If your thoughts are often based on catastrophizing logic talk might actually help. Intrusive thoughts about say natural disasters thinking about how unlikely something is to happen so not number one priority might help, remind your self “it is valid to worry but maybe not so much right this second.”

Distraction isn’t always bad, many intrusive thoughts can be let go but patterns sometimes do need to be addressed. If you have trauma-based intrusive thoughts healing from trauma is often key to making them better.

Be Blessed all

~Admin 2

[WordPress link]

So if it’s online porn you could turn of safe-search and block the sites. This can combat the easy patterns we get stuck into. It can have a withdrawal effect and don’t hate yourself for slipping up. When you feel the need try and chose another act. Distracting yourself with things that require a lot of brain space is often a good step.

If you need some kind of stimulation you could try using written erotica that doesn’t have the same possible damage on the people involved in the production. Because of the biological aspects of addiction sometimes if you cut “cold turkey” as it were can push to worse behaviour. 

Another tool for compulsive actions is to put it off, don’t judge yourself to just stop any and all behaviour but extend the time as long as you can combine with replacement behaviours. 

Due to the nature of sexual trauma, it can be really useful to breakdown the relationship to sex and how that is affecting you. Doing so can help work through triggers. Coping Skills: Healing A Relationship With Sex After Sexual Abuse

Our Coping Skills Masterpost might be useful in finding ways that help you deal with your trauma symptoms over time and reduce the regulation you automatically fall into. 

It’s important to disconnect from behaviours that harm you, and depending on what you are engaging with harm others. Participating in these don’t make you inherently a bad person, it just means you are in a place of struggle and need to work towards healing. 

Be Blessed,

-Admin 2

[arcane-sync]

Sander Sides and Dissociative Identity Disorder

This is a topic that wanders in and out of the sphere of focus amongst the Thomas Sanders and Sanders Sides fandoms (the Fanders). I feel inclined to give our input as well as a thorough explanation, because I’m long winded like that.

For the purposes of credibility and clarity, we are officially and unofficially diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (which used to be called multiple personality disorder). By this, I mean more than one therapist and a psychiatric nurse have told us it’s highly likely we have this disorder. However, our various institutions of mental treatment do not provide the primary diagnostic tools used to diagnose DID. We are having a hard time finding someone who can administer either the Structured Clinical Interview for Dissociative Disorders (the SCID-D) for either the DSM IV or the DSM V, or the Multidimensional Inventory for Dissociation (the MID) who also accepts our insurance. So according to medical professionals, we’re diagnosed. However, there are people in the community who will say you can’t be diagnosed without one of those two tools. My sibling is also diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Since I plan on tagging multiple tags outside of the Fanders, I will very briefly summarize Sanders Sides. This is a youtube series starring a singlet by the name of Thomas (Thomas Sanders being the owner of the channel and actor, but he has made it clear that the Thomas in the series is a character and not himself). In it, he talks to different “sides” of his personality, exploring all sorts of issues while doing so. These sides are logic, creativity and morality with a fourth side of anxiety being added later (for those in the fandom, I know I’m leaving information out. Shhhhh. I am specifically doing so in case anyone outside the Fanders decides to go watch it). Later on, these four sides reveal their names of Logan, Roman, Patton and Virgil respectively. For those amongst multiplicity cultures, you should already be able to see why this might cause controversy.

Dissociative Identity Disorder is an extreme on a spectrum of multiplicity. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s give a quick run down of the typical names and types of multiplicity across this spectrum. (Using gender neutral pronouns because I cannot be bothered to type himself/herself/themself repeatedly)

1. Singleton

This is the average individual you will run into. This type of person is whole in and of themselves. They might have different ways of behaving with friends versus family versus work versus alone, but that is typically accepted behavior for a singleton.

2. Median System

This is someone who’s behavior implies more than one person. They may or may not consciously recognize this vague division with themselves, or they might have consciously or unconsciously created more extreme modalities of behaving for the purposes of getting things done. They are neither singlet nor multiple.

3. Tulpamancy

Originally a monk practice, this is when someone consciously personifies different aspects themselves. This can be either to sharpen skills or to learn about themself. An example would be someone who pushes their sadness into a box and talks to it in an attempt to understand their sadness. Eventually, this box is supposed to evolve into an independent being inside their head. Once fully developed, they are officially called a Tulpa, thus tulpamancy being the practice of creating them. They may or may not have a name or gender. They are neither singlet nor multiple.

4. Borderline Personality Disorder

I hesitantly place this on this list, but I feel it’s worth discussing for the purposes of this discussion. On the spectrum, BPD could arguably be placed anywhere on the spectrum below OSDD. There are 9 symptoms to diagnose this illness, and there are entire books written on it. I am not going to dig into that here, but suffice it to say that BPD could be argued to be on this spectrum. This is someone who is characterized by a distinct instability of self. They may or may not go by multiple names, but what defines them as a person swings wildly around. They feel or act unstable. They might change behavior, clothing style, or friend groups rapidly. This is a MENTAL ILLNESS and not something to be pursued. If you think you might have BPD, please seek professional help. They are typically considered an extremely unstable singlet or perhaps median at most. However, it is not uncommon for someone with BPD to pursue tulpamancy to help understand themselves or become an endogenic system to help define their unstable state of being. (However, if this person developed BPD as a result of trauma, they could arguably be placed within the traumagenic area of this spectrum)

5. Endogenic System

This is a broad term. Technically speaking, an endogenic system is strictly a system that came to exist naturally (essentially, trauma did not cause their identity split). As a result, this could include Median, Tulpamancy, BPD splitting their different ways of behaving to understand themself, or anything and everything in between. Some claim they just grew up this way. Due to the broad nature of the definition of endogenic, there is a lot of controversy surrounding it. I’ll touch a bit on that controversy later. Within endogenic culture, they are considered multiple.

6. Quiogenic System

This is a system who has no idea why they’re multiple. They don’t know if they’re traumagenic or endogenic, if its caused by childhood trauma, if they grew up this way, if they accidentally created their multiplicity, or any combination of the above. They might be singleton, they might be endogenic, or they might be traumagenic (Worth noting is a lot of traumagenic systems are amnesiac of their trauma. Something could have traumatically happened, but they have no recollection of what happened. Some are even amnesiac of their own amnesia. Meaning, they don’t know what memories they don’t know, and/or they don’t even realize they’re missing significant portions of their life where trauma occurred. This naturally causes a lot of concern and confusion). If you don’t know why you’re multiple, you deserve professional psychiatric help if it is something you struggle with.

7. Imitative Dissociative Identity Disorder

This is where we lean into the multiplicity debate heavily. Imitative DID is not an officially DSM recognized illness (DSM stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and is the accepted standard for diagnosing mental illnesses). However, it is gaining recognition within professional psychiatric fields and multiple articles have been written on it. This is someone who either deliberately or unconsciously created their multiplicity. Believers in Imitative DID would argue everything discussed thus far would be Imitative. You can easily see how this causes strife, as this essentially states anyone who isn’t traumagenic is making up their multiplicity for whatever reason. Since multiplicity is so closely tied to how someone understands themself or themselves, this is like a slap to the face. It is not uncommon for traumagenic systems to call anyone else fake and incapable of understanding true multiplicity. Which traumagenic multiplicity comes with a LOT of problems that makes life terribly difficult or hellish. They get angry because they feel like endogenic systems are encroaching on their clinical terminology and stealing/redefining it. This in turn is considered to be devaluing their mental illness and struggles, ruining the official credibility of a set of illnesses that is already extremely stigmatized culturally and professionally. They also feel like endogenics are stealing/overwhelming/corrupting their admittedly few areas of clinical support. Knowing all this, it should be pretty obvious why there’s so much controversy here and why it can get so vicious.

8. Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

This is not yet a DSM recognized mental illness. This is a form of PTSD created for the purposes of better encompassing chronic abuse symptoms such as childhood abuse. However, this could also include trauma caused later in life such as war. There are other examples, but these are the most common cases. In that case, C-PTSD would be diagnosed instead of PTSD if it presents with what appears to be multiplicity, such as severe emotional dysregulation (inability to control emotions) and emotional black outs. This person can present with one or two other supposedly different identities. The difference in personality is usually very obvious, and the individual does not typically remember what happened in this alternate state. It is unclear if they are truly multiple or not, although most will argue not. If you think you have PTSD or C-PTSD, you deserve help and should seek it out as best you can.

9. Traumagenic System

These are systems that are created due to trauma. Clinically speaking, the large majority of professionals state this can only be caused by chronic childhood physical, sexual or emotional abuse. PTSD is almost always diagnosed comorbidly (comorbid illnesses simply meaning illnesses that are frequently diagnosed together on the same person). All traumagenic symptoms are defined by two or more distinct personalities/personality states/alternate personalities/or simply put: alters. These alters can be completely different ages, genders, or even ethnicities. Alter don’t even have to be human, presenting as animals, fairies or even rocks. This becomes terribly difficult to live with when say… a 5 year old, a wolf, or a rock alter ends up taking control (the clinical term being “fronting”) around family, friends, or even at work. Functioning independently can easily become impossible, although plenty of people manage it with treatment. If you think you might have DID or OSDD, you deserve professional help and should seek it out as best you can.

9a. Other Specified Dissociative Disorder

There are several different types of OSDD, but for the purposes of multiplicity only type 1 applies. Subtype 1a includes alters without clear boundaries between each personality. Subtype 1b is essentially DID without “lost time” (time during which the body was doing something but one or more alters do not remember what).

- I will add the caveat that OSDD 2 might apply depending on your POV. This is someone who has become convinced they are multiple via severe coercion/abuse.

9b. Dissociative Identity Disorder

This is a single body with two or more alters. In some cases, none of the alters will remember what anyone else has done. They might only be able to communicate via leaving each other letters. Other times, some alters might share memories and others might not. In order for DID to be diagnosed, there has to be lost time somewhere between the alters (as in, alter 1 might remember what alter 2 did but alter 3 might not). Whether or not this lost time has to be something that occurs in recent times or only something that occurred in childhood is a decision left to individual professionals.

Now back to Sander Sides. Knowing all of the information above, it should become obvious why there might be controversy surrounding the Sanders Sides. If you watch the series, it quickly becomes obvious that Thomas is a tulpamancer. Outside of the show, people have argued that Thomas Sanders himself might be median. Thomas Sanders himself has strictly denied any similarities between Sander Sides and Dissociative Identity Disorder.

This obviously puts Sander Sides dead center of the Imitative DID debate (endogenic versus traumagenic). Aside from that, there is the fact that tumblr in general has a gatekeeping culture inside it especially concerning any and all mental illnesses.

As for our personal opinion?

By all means, promote Sander Sides. We don’t even care if you present or consider Sander Sides to be representative of multiplicity, although I would generally discourage saying it is DID specifically, only similar in some ways. In the face of movies like Split and Sybil, multiplicity and DID especially needs better cultural representation. The fact that DID only ever makes the news when a criminal has revealed themselves (Like Billy Milligan, Billy Joe Harris, and Dwayne Wilson) makes this representation particularly important. As someone with DID, I would die for more media presenting DID as something other than dangerous. In fact, someone with DID or OSDD is far more likely to be victims than to create victims.

-On a side note: If you’re curious about multiplicity and how this may or may not apply to singletons in general, I highly recommend reading The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout. The DSM V is also a great resource for obvious reasons. For DID specifically, I recommend did-research.org . If more resources are desired, I can add them. I’d also encourage someone to reblog this with resources for these various mental illnesses, but I’m a bit too spent to attach that right now after typing all this.

Aside from all the debates, Sander Sides has helped multiple people come to accept their DID or OSDD. For some, it’s brought awareness to those mental illnesses. I know for multiple people with DID or OSDD, Sander Sides has been a huge relief. Finally, we get to see something that shows debates similar to the arguments that happen in our heads every single day. It’s a breath of fresh air.

Is Sander Sides DID? No.

Do I promote it anyway? Yes.

Do I think comparing it can do more good than harm? Yes.

Do I think it’s possible for it to cause harm? Certainly, but there is far more good that can come out of it. It’s worth the risk.

Editing real quick to say that I'm more than willing to answer any questions, related or no. Comment, reblog, Ask, PM or whatever else you can think of.

(tagging @aromantic-asshole cause he asked)

(Also tagging a few big name Fander blogs, because we would really like this to make the rounds)

@tinysidestrashcaptain @treblesanders @randomslasher @sanders-sides-thuri @princelogical @milomeepit @theonlyjelly-iwillput-inmybelly @2queer2deer @ironwoman359 I know for a fact I’m forgetting people, I’m so sorry. I also don’t personally know over half of you and if this is unwanted, I apologize for that too. This just means a great deal to us, and we finally worked up the courage to say something. Also screw it, let’s tag @thatsthat24 and @thejoanglebook

[heavyweightheart]

i just finished season 3 of crazy ex-girlfriend and the show is far from perfect but it sure went from awkward and not very compelling in season 1 to bold and totally unique by season 3. entertainment doesn’t do mental illness well at all so my standards are pretty low (could i qualify this positive review any more??) but it’s meaningful to have a protagonist who’s struggled w serious symptoms/behaviors her whole life and finally gets diagnosed with bpd, but remains sympathetic, smart, and multi dimensional. and mental illnesses are nebulous things so there are aspects of her struggles that most of us, across diagnoses, can relate to. it helps lift some shame to see those harmful behaviors and dysregulated emotional experiences on screen, and she doesn’t get exonerated but we still care deeply about her. the show doesn’t really romanticize or stigmatize.

there’s not much critical perspective on mental illness or the borderline dx in the show, so this isn’t a great achievement on that front. but it’s - dare i say - representation? in a way we haven’t seen before

also the frank jokes and entire musical montages on genitals, body functions, rationalizations & self-delusions, and just real life stuff (for a certain demographic) got so good in seasons 2 & 3, like they really hit their stride. and it’s genuinely funny -- the way to my heart.

i could write a whole other post on eating, exercise, and body image in CEG but in general they do well with those, and the two female leads are not-skinny women who eat freely. so there’s a lot that’s good and i’m really hoping for a season 4 

[adderallmaster]

Anxiety Is in Your Body

Why you might want to stop talking about your anxiety and try this instead: taking  Valium 10 mg for anxiety or for sleep is something most people in the United States do on a daily.

Let’s back up 50,000 years or so. Imagine you’re a Neanderthal taking a leisurely stroll through the fields. Suddenly, in the nearby bushes, you hear a tiger. In a nanosecond, your entire body starts reacting. Your pulse quickens, your breathing gets shallow, your eyes dilate, your body starts producing adrenaline.

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Everything happening in your body is good; you’re prepared to survive this tiger encounter. There’s just one small problem. It wasn’t a tiger. It was a tiny prehistoric weasel. Now your body is primed for fight-or-flight, your heart is racing, you’re totally jacked up on adrenaline… but there is no danger.

This is your body on anxiety. Replace the (nonexistent) tiger in the bushes with social media, traffic, politics, Covid-19, money, childcare, climate change, work stress, family drama, and you can quickly see why anxiety is the most common mental illness in America, affecting nearly 20% of the population. Modern-day humans are basically a bunch of freaked-out Neanderthals in fight-or-flight mode 24/7.

“Anxiety is an impulse in our body that says, ‘I’m not safe right now,’” says Elizabeth Stanley, PhD, the author of Widen The Window: Training Your Body and Brain to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma. “It’s automatic, really fast and unconscious.”

Your survival brain vs. your thinking brain

In her work, Stanley makes the distinction between the thinking brain, our neocortex, responsible for decision-making, reasoning, ethics, conscious memory, learning, and the survival brain — the limbic system, brain stem, and cerebellum — which handles our basic survival, emotions, implicit memory, and stress arousal.

One of the survival brain’s most important functions, according to Stanley, is neuroception, an unconscious process of rapidly scanning the internal and external environment for safety and danger. When danger is spotted, your survival brain sends an instantaneous stress arousal message to your body by turning on the sympathetic nervous system, resulting in the release of specific hormones that lead to certain physical sensations related to our heart, breathing, and digestion. “Whatever’s happening in the survival brain has these tremendous ripple effects through our body,” Stanley says.

As Stephen Porges, PhD, a psychologist and the creator of the Polyvagal Theory, explains in an interview with PsychAlive, “These responses are not voluntary. Our nervous system is picking up information in the environment, not on a cognitive level, but on a neurobiological level.”

Importantly, when we’re caught in a defensive response, the thinking brain is the last to be aware that something is wrong.“The thinking brain isn’t what decides whether we’re stressed, whether we’re feeling threatened or challenged, whether we’re going to turn stress on, whether we’re going to turn emotions on,” Stanley says. “Stress arousal and emotions belong to the survival brain.”

So if you want to track your anxiety, your body, not your thoughts, will be your most accurate map.

The talk therapy trap

Unlike our prehistoric ancestors (who might have dealt with anxiety by running, panting, or shaking like a dog and letting the cortisol work through their system, according to Stanley), modern anxiety sufferers turn to their trustworthy friend, their thinking brain. “Most people identify anxiety by their thoughts because most people identify with their thinking brain,” she explains.

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The problem is that when it comes to regulating our nervous system after a stress response (read: anxiety), our thinking brain is the absolute worst tool for the job. That’s because, according to Porges, even after becoming aware of the physical response, we often don’t know what has triggered that response. For Stanley, a veteran who was diagnosed with PTSD, this realization was a huge turning point. “Recovery from stress and anxiety is a survival brain job.”

We are a cerebral culture, which makes us very equipped to deal with problems that require reason and logic — think moral dilemmas — and less equipped to deal with problems where cognitive reasoning can just make them worse. Having a “fight or flight” response to running late to brunch may seem like an overreaction, but sitting in traffic, you are physiologically experiencing it all the same. We use our thinking brain to try and decide if the issue is “worth” being anxious about, and then we try to force our nervous system to comply. “Our consciousness gets disconnected from our body in those moments,” says Stanley. Your thinking brain decides that you have nothing to feel anxious about, so you spend your days walking around telling yourself that everything is fine while still feeling the physical symptoms of anxiety throughout your body. Even worse, your thinking brain may start to criticize and shame you for still being anxious even after it’s told you that everything is fine.

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If you, like me, have spent a few decades (and the equivalent of a house down payment) in talk therapy analyzing all the reasons you’re anxious, this is probably a hard pill to swallow. Not only did all that talking not do much to alleviate anxiety, but it could also even have made it more acute. “Our survival brain wants to keep us safe, but when we disregard our body and its signals because we’re so caught up in our thinking brain’s stories and thoughts, the survival brain actually perceives that as even more threatening,” says Stanley. “Like a toddler, it’s going to tantrum louder until its message gets through. And that’s why it becomes such a vicious cycle.”

Take, for example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, one of the most common forms of talk therapy. According to the Mayo Clinic, “CBT helps you become aware of inaccurate or negative thinking so you can view challenging situations more clearly and respond to them in a more effective way.” Sounds great, right? While this kind of analysis could be profoundly helpful when dealing with family issues or working out an ethical question, when it comes to anxiety, which doesn’t take place in your thinking brain, it places the focus on the thought (“I thought there was a tiger!”) and not the physical response which preceded, and even caused, the thought (“my heart is racing and I’m full of adrenaline and I need tools to calm down”).

“We don’t necessarily want to be aware of and feel the discomfort in our bodies because anxiety in our bodies is uncomfortable. Instead, we want to try and fixate it and give it this external object,” explains Stanley. But if the external object didn’t cause the anxiety, then fixing it won’t alleviate the anxious feeling.

A bottom-up solution for anxiety

While talk therapy and medication are still the mainstream solutions offered for chronic anxiety, other modalities exist that offer a body-first approach. And while these modalities are still considered “alternative,” an increased interest in “brain science” and neurobiology along with continued research on mindfulness and mind-body connections are shifting our psychological understanding from focusing only on the mind to seeing the brain and body as a cohesive unit.

Part of the challenge, according to Pat Ogden, PhD, the creator of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, is that you need to close the loop that was started when your body first went into a stress response. Ogden uses the example of a client who is Black and frequently stopped by the police without cause. When this happened, the man understandably felt himself getting angry and his body tightening up: a “fight” response. As part of their work together, Ogden helped him identify and act out the physical de-escalation his body needed in order to return to a regulated state, in this case getting to strike out and defend himself within the safety of a therapy session. “We want to complete that impulse in mindfulness so that his brain is integrated and it’s not held in his body anymore,” says Ogden.

Ogden points out that part of the limitation of talk therapy is that anxiety is often related to a dysregulated response connected to an implicit memory, which then gets incorrectly pinned on a current experience or thought. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the current content,” says Ogden.

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Stanley, who offers a mind fitness training course to help people build resilience, focuses on mindfulness techniques. And while at this point it’s a cliché to tell anybody with anxiety to take 10 deep breaths, her course has helped thousands of people, including active-duty military. “The military is very experienced in stressful situations, and they’ve trained themselves to turn on the survival brain but don’t always know how to turn it off,” says Stanley. Studies funded by the Department of Defense showed that Stanley’s method significantly helped improve cognitive performance during stress, lower perceived stress levels, increase regulation, and foster a faster return to baseline after stress arousal.

When your body is having a stress response, the first thing is to become aware of objects that help the survival brain feel safe, like what you can see and hear. “One of the best ways to help the survival brain feel grounded is to bring attention to where our body is in contact with our environment,” Stanley says. She suggests focusing on the contact between your feet with the floor, or your body in your chair. As soon as the survival brain perceives groundedness and safety, it automatically starts the recovery process.

Obviously, when you’re caught in a moment of severe anxiety, trying to breathe deeply or be mindful can feel almost impossible. In those situations, what you need is to get the adrenaline and cortisol out of your system. Stanley suggests jumping rope or running up and down stairs. After 10 minutes, try a mindfulness exercise again.

Is there any role for talk therapy, or trying to think logically about your anxiety? Absolutely. But only once your body is regulated, Stanley says: “After we have helped our survival brain feel safe and stable, then we can work on our thoughts. Otherwise, our cognitive response continues to be biased by our stress and emotions.”

[mywildloves]

Ever since I had Jackson and was diagnosed with post-partum depression, my work had started to suffer. I was unmedicated at the time, had no therapist, I hadnt gone to the hospital yet and my bosses were unhappy with me.

Then I got hooked up with a perinatal therapist and psychiatrist who prescribed me the meds. At first they worked, then increasing made me more emotional, so we decreased, yadda yadda.

Then I was hospitalized for about a week. They let me out thinking I needed treatment for my anxiety (I ended up there because of a severe anxiety attack). They were worried about my heart and they wanted to medicate me asap. Once Inwas released, I was given an FMLA and was allowed to take a day if I felt too dysregulated to come to work. My bosses didnt like the unpredictability of that. They said it was disruptive to the operation of the lab.

Then I was hositalized again around Memorial Day weekend, for about 5 or 6 days. Thats when I was diagnosed as Borderline and fast tracked into Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and I had an FMLA that gave me even more time that I was allowed to take off.

My bosses thought this was all disruptive to the lab, and any little mistake I made was sent to HR and I was written up for “performance related” issues. Any mistake, even forgetting yo reply to an email, and it was reported to HR.

And this time, I left the lab early last Wednesday because I had therapy and my FMLA gives me that time, specifically, on Mondays and Wednesdays to allow for travel time. I take 2 buses from the Bronx to Queens, then the fam picks me up, we have to drop them off, and then I drive to therapy.

Well, my coworker usually locks the door on those days, but she was on vacation. And it just slipped my mind. It was like muscle memory. I just got my stuff amd left like usual. So, I got written up for forgetting to lock the door. And that was my final warning.

So, now Im home. Im smoking a LOT of pot, Jareds on his way here, my sister in law is minding the children, and the union is going to try to change the language of my termination to make it seem more like a lay off so I can get unemployment while I look for a new job.

I wss fired because of my mental illness and the disruption to the lab when trying to make myself better. And the best part of that, is that without the insurance I had, I cant go to therapy anymore and thanks to Trump, Ill be walking into a new job with many pre-existing conditions that wont be covered by any insurance I might get.

I cant even sue them because all of my write ups were performance related. I cant prove it was because of my mental illness.

I hate everything right now.

[monicamichellefairytales]

Visit Wellacopia to find your ideal practitioner for you chronic illnessVisit BethOHara.com to check our her services and more information___________Dr. Beth O'Hara's questions·      What is/was your profession?Functional Naturopath – incorporating genetic analysis, naturopathy, and emotional wellness. I am also a Functional Genomics Analyst. Created Mast Cell 360, a Functional Naturopathy practice for people struggling with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and related disorders.·      What is your illness(es)?Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and Histamine Intolerance, Chronic Fatigue, Hypermobility disorder, Mold Illness, Fibromyalgia, Oxalate Issues·      Where do you work/what’s your business?I own and run Mast Cell 360, a Functional Naturopathy practice I created to provide personalized, holistic healing plans for each person based on genetic analysis, symptom and health history analysis, lab interpretation, and emotional wellness support.·      What types of patients/conditions do you work with?I like to use the word client instead of patient to emphasize that I work in collaboration with my clients instead of a more hierarchical doctor/patient relationship.Most healthcare protocols work well for 80% of people with xyz symptoms, but there are always 20% who fall through the cracks. This is my area - the 20% of people with chronic illness for whom standard protocols aren’t working for. I work with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, hypermobility issues, autism spectrum disorders, chemical sensitivity and mold illness. These are all related to my primary specialties – Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and Histamine Intolerance._______________________1.    What makes your approach to care unique?Mast Cell 360 is a place to be fully seen and heard, emotionally supported, and with cutting edge health care practices and techniques to allow people to heal. The Mast Cell 360 process incorporates all facets of healings – biochemical, environmental, emotional, and mental.My background is very integrative. I was a Yoga Therapist for many years, studying physiology and the connections between the mind and body. I taught meditation. I studied a personal development and emotional growth system called the Enneagram in depth and taught it internationally. I have Bachelor’s in Physiological Psychology and Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy, and I have a strong background in genetic analysis and biochemistry, which is where I look for why people fall through the cracks with standard protocols. I’m always wondering - What genetic variants are impacting health for this person? Are there any suboptimal nutrient levels? What biochemical pathways are blocked? What are the missing puzzle pieces? Is there a big stress component or a previous trauma factor?From there, I also wonder about each person – how did this person’s life shape their health? Were there early events that affected the immune system? Are there stressful current events affecting this person’s health? And how is chronic illness affecting this person’s emotional state and social life? How do all these pieces weave together?For me, we can’t isolate physiological/biochemical health from emotional and mental states. They are interwoven. This is what the 360 in Mast Cell 360 means to me – seeing the whole person and working with the person as a whole.2.    How did your illness shape your career?I was determined at 6 years old I was going to go the medical school, and I worked really hard for it. I really wanted to be a neurologist or neurosurgeon. I would stay in anatomy labs during lunch to keep dissecting, and all I wanted for my 16th birthday was Gray’s Anatomy. I was on the pre-med track in college, and I got a full scholarship to medical school. I was taking a full class load, doing independent study research, working 3 jobs to pay bills, and I drank too much to cope with stress. One day my health just gave out. I was so exhausted, I couldn’t go. I’d had fatigue issues most of my life and other issues I now can recognize as immune dysregulation, but I could always push through. But this time I couldn’t push through any more. I was completely flattened with exhaustion and nearly paralyzed with biochemical anxiety. I had to turn down the scholarship, which was devastating for me. I had no idea what else to do with my life. I thought I was born to be a physician, and it was all stripped away.I still had faith at that point that Western Medicine had all the answers, and I started going from doctor to doctor. I had very well-meaning practitioners offer meds that made me way worse. And I had practitioners who told me I was crazy and making up my symptoms. I think because I was so sick, but that my labs were normal, they just didn’t know what to do with me. Then I tri... by Monica Michelle

[newstfionline]

What does holding on to grudges really get us?

By Tim Herrera, NY Times, May 19, 2019

One of my favorite party games is to ask a group of people this simple question: What is your oldest or most cherished grudge?

Without fail, every person unloads with shockingly specific, intimate detail about their grudge. Career slights (intentional or not), offhand-yet-cutting remarks, bitter friendship dissolutions; nothing is too small or petty when it comes to grudges.

One of my favorite answers I’ve gotten to this question came from a friend whose grudge stretched back to second grade. A classmate—he still remembered her full name and could describe her in detail—was unkind about a new pair of Coke-bottle glasses he had started wearing. Her insult wasn’t particularly vicious, but he’d been quietly seething ever since. Childhood!

The HBO show “Big Little Lies” perhaps put it best, when Reese Witherspoon’s character, Madeline Mackenzie, matter-of-factly noted: “I love my grudges. I tend to them like little pets.”

But what does holding onto grudges really get us, aside from amusing anecdotes at parties (and pitch-perfect quips delivered by Ms. Witherspoon)? And what could we gain from giving them up?

I posed this question on Twitter last week, asking if people had ever given up on a grudge and, if so, how that made them feel. The responses were delightfully all over the place.

“Yeah pretty much most of them since entering my 30s,” one respondent said. “It feels cleansing to free up the brain space.”

“Literally not once,” another said.

“I felt neutral!!” one more wrote. “Like I just couldn’t be bothered anymore but also I didn’t feel relieved or anything. Just indifferent.”

The replies kept coming in: “Great. Really free.” “Only after getting my revenge.” “It was, of course, a relief, but also a kind of let down. It’s exciting and fulfilling to hold a grudge.” “Forgiveness is the most rewarding lesson you never stop learning from.” “Bored.” “Liberated. Most of the time if they’ve got my hatred they kind of own me.” A few people replied simply: “No.” (As for me, I gave all of my grudges back to the universe last year, and it felt amazing.)

But my favorite response was the most introspective one I got: “I felt very, very mature. I admitted that my feelings were valid for my situation at the time, but allowed myself to reshape my thinking/attitude based on my personal growth experiences since then. Physically, I felt lighter, but that sounds cliché haha.”

Yes, it does sound cliché, but it’s also a feeling that is backed by the science and research of forgiveness. Really.

A 2006 study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology as part of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, suggested that “skills-based forgiveness training may prove effective in reducing anger as a coping style, reducing perceived stress and physical health symptoms, and thereby may help reduce” the stress we put on our immune and cardiovascular systems. Further, a study published this year found that carrying anger into old age is associated with higher levels of inflammation and chronic illness. Another study from this year found that anger reduces our ability to see things from other people’s perspective.

“Holding onto a grudge really is an ineffective strategy for dealing with a life situation that you haven’t been able to master. That’s the reality of it,” said Dr. Frederic Luskin, founder of the Stanford Forgiveness Project.

“Whenever you can’t grieve and assimilate what has happened, you hold it in a certain way,” he said. “If it’s bitterness, you hold it with anger. If it’s hopeless, you hold it with despair. But both of those are psycho-physiological responses to an inability to cope, and they both do mental and physical damage.”

He went on: “The hopelessness shuts down and dampens immune response, leads to some aspects of depression. Anger can have immune implications, it dysregulates the nervous system, it certainly is the most harmful emotion for the cardiovascular system. But you have this top point where something happened that I can’t really deal with, and often we do deal with it somehow, but unskillfully.”

A poor attempt to deal, Dr. Luskin said, “mirrors the fight-or-flight mechanism built in for how to cope with stress.”

At the same time, he said, the converse is true: Full forgiveness can more or less reverse these negative repercussions of holding onto anger and grudges.

O.K., so getting over grudges is good. But how do we do it?

In broad strokes, full forgiveness has four actions, according to Dr. Luskin. But before that, we need to recognize three things: 1. Forgiveness is for you, not the offender. 2. It’s best to do it now. 3. It’s about freeing yourself—forgiving someone doesn’t mean you have to like what they did or become their friend.

From there, the first tactic is to calm yourself down in the moment. This can mean just taking a deep breath to collect yourself or going on a jog, but the idea is you want to slow down and collect yourself to create a little distance between what happened and how you’re going to react to it. “You have to counter-condition the stress response when it happens,” Dr. Luskin said.

Next, shift how you think and talk about the source of your grudge. “Change your story from that of a victim to a more heroic story,” Dr. Luskin said.

The final two pieces go hand-in-hand. Pay attention to the good things in your life “so you have an easy way to balance the harm,” Dr. Luskin said, then remind yourself of one simple truth: Life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to. Combining those two ideas can “shift the ground, and it lowers very dramatically” your general level of stress.

Perhaps most crucially, Dr. Luskin stressed, forgiveness is a learnable skill. It just takes a little practice.

“That’s such an important thing. You’re not stuck in your life,” he said. “What a wonderful thing to know that there are simple strategies, trainings, technologies that can teach people to do something about what’s been burdening them forever.”

[ellymackay]

5 Things To Know About Sleep And Inflammation

The post 5 Things To Know About Sleep And Inflammation was originally seen on The Elly Mackay Blog

If you pay attention to health issues, you probably hear a lot about inflammation. Chronic inflammation has gotten a lot of attention in recent years as a major contributor to illness and disease.

But how much do you know about the relationship between inflammation and sleep? That relationship brings together two complex and fundamental of the body’s systems—the immune system and our need for sleep. Keeping inflammation in check has big ramifications for our health. Sleeping well may be one way we can guard against the unhealthful inflammation that’s associated with chronic diseases from cancer and heart disease to autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and others.

What is inflammation?

In talking with my patients, I realize that while most of them understand that excessive inflammation can be harmful, many don’t have a strong understanding of what inflammation is, or what it does. Inflammation is a natural, protective biological response from the immune system to fight off harmful foreign pathogens—bacteria, viruses, toxins— that cause illness and disease, and to help the body heal from injury. The symptoms of acute inflammation, including swelling and redness, fever and chills, pain and stiffness, and fatigue, are signs the body’s immune system is in “fight mode,” working hard to neutralize a threat.

We talk a lot about the dangers associated with inflammation. But the body’s inflammatory response it essential to our health and survival.

Problems with inflammation occur when this natural, protective response happens too often, or at the wrong times. Autoimmune diseases occur as a result of the body triggering an inflammatory response when there is no foreign threat present. Instead, the immune system’s pathogen-fighting cells attack the body’s own healthy cells and tissues. Multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus are examples of autoimmune conditions that develop in part from an excessive, misdirected inflammatory response.

Chronic inflammation is also linked to the development of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer—the major chronic and life-threatening diseases of our time. With chronic inflammation, the body’s immune system is in perpetual fight mode, activating disease-fighting cells that have no external threat to fend off. Over time, these fighter cells can attack, wear down, and cause damage to healthy cells, tissues, organs, and systems throughout the body, leading to chronic illness.

What triggers excessive, unhealthful, chronic inflammation? Poor diet, environmental toxins, stress. And, as research shows, poor sleep is a contributor to inflammation.

Sleep and inflammation are regulated by the same bio rhythms

In talking about sleep and the immune system, we’re tackling two of the most complicated processes of the human body. For all our scientific inquiry to sleep, there’s a tremendous amount we don’t know. Though it’s clear we need sleep to survive, scientists still don’t know why we sleep. The human immune system is tremendously complex, and scientists are still working to de-code its operations, to understand how it works—and why things go wrong.

One thing we do know? Sleep, immune function, and inflammation share a common regulator. Our sleep is regulated by circadian rhythms, which drive hormones and other physiological changes that cause us to move back and forth along a continuum of sleep and wakefulness throughout the 24-hour day. Those daily sleep-wake cycles we move through without much thought? Our circadian rhythms are working behind the scenes to keep us on schedule. When circadian rhythms are out of sync, so is sleep.

Circadian rhythms also regulate our immune system, and with it, our levels of inflammation. When circadian rhythms are disrupted, so is normal immune function. We’re more prone to unhealthful inflammation, and more at risk for diseases, including metabolic disease, cancer, and heart disease.

One way to help keep circadian rhythms in sync is to maintain a consistent sleep routine. Our bio rhythms thrive on consistency. Going to bed at the same time and waking at the same time every day reinforces the healthy circadian rhythms that govern both our sleep and our immune function, including inflammation.

Too little sleep triggers inflammation. So does too much sleep.

Scientists still have a lot to learn about the specifics of the relationship between sleep and inflammation. But there’s already a strong body of research showing that lack of sleep raises levels of inflammation in the body. Laboratory studies have tested acute, prolonged sleep deprivation—conditions under which sleep is restricted for 24 hours or more—and found this severe degree of sleep loss increases inflammation activity in the body. Scientists have also studied partial sleep deprivation, the kind of chronic, insufficient sleep that so many people experience in their daily lives. While the study results are mixed, many studies show this form of everyday sleep loss also elevates inflammation.

It might surprise you to learn that sleeping too much can also trigger unhealthful inflammation. A 2016 study reviewed more than 70 scientific investigations into the relationship between inflammation and sleep. It found that in addition to short sleep’s negative effects on the immune system’s inflammatory response, sleeping excessively also raised levels of key inflammatory markers, including C-reactive protein, which is associated with heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.

Getting the right amount of sleep for you—for most adults, that’s between 7-9 hours a night—on a consistent basis is one way to help avoid low-grade, systemic inflammation that’s associated with aging and chronic disease.

Just one night of poor sleep can spike inflammation

The long-term effects of poor sleep on health are a major public health concern. The influence sleep can have on inflammation is a significant factor in managing health and guarding against disease over the course of our lives. But it doesn’t take years, or months, for sleep to have negative effects on inflammation levels. According to research, it takes as little as a single night. Research has shown that one night of insufficient sleep is enough to activate pro-inflammatory processes in the body. A 2008 study found that one single night of partial sleep resulted in significantly higher levels of NF-kB, a protein complex that acts as a powerful signal to stimulate inflammation throughout the body. One noteworthy aspect of this study: the researchers found the higher inflammatory response occurred in female subjects, but not in male subjects. The differences in the ways women and men respond to sleep loss are important, and under-studied. Sleep’s effects over inflammation may be one area where women and men experience different degrees of consequence—and that could have implications for their vulnerabilities to chronic disease. This is an area of study that needs more attention.

It’s easy to write off a single night of poor sleep as no big deal. But every night of sleep counts. Along with your ability to function at your best mentally, and feel your best physically, a commitment to getting a full night of restful sleep—every night—makes a difference at a cellular level, in your body’s ability to keep inflammation in check.  

Stress is a major player in the sleep-inflammation relationship

You’ve heard me talk before about the deep connections between sleep and stress. Stress is a common obstacle to sleep. Worried, on high alert, agitated and anxious—these emotional and physical states of stress make it difficult to fall asleep and to sleep soundly throughout a full night. In turn, not getting enough sleep makes us more vulnerable to the physical and emotional effects of stress. We’re more likely to sink deeper into a stressful state when we’re tired and short on rest. Many people fall into a difficult cycle: ending the day stressed out, having a hard time sleeping, feeling exhausted and even more stressed the next day—which leads to more problems sleeping.

This chronic sleep-stress cycle does more than make us tired and irritable. Stress is also a trigger for inflammation. At a biological level, our bodies respond to mental and emotional stress as they would to a harmful pathogen, or to a direct physical threat: with a “fight or flight” response that alters immune system functioning and kicks inflammation into higher gear. Over time, chronic stress creates systemic, low-grade inflammation that wears at the health of our cells and makes us more vulnerable to disease.

We’ve all heard the adage that stress is bad for our health. Science is now identifying just what that means, and how stress contributes to disease by stimulating inflammation. A 2017 study identified the critical connections between chronic stress, increased inflammation, and the development of a range of diseases including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and depression. Researchers in this study illustrate a relationship where stress-induced inflammation is the “common soil” from this spectrum of serious, chronic diseases can grow.

Sleep has a powerful, dual role to play in this complex interaction with stress and inflammation. Sleeping well can work directly to keep inflammation in check by avoiding the pro-inflammatory activity that occurs in the presence of poor, dysregulated sleep. And sleep offers us significant protection against stress, itself a major contributor to chronic inflammation—a now known pathway to disease.

Gut health matters, too

One of the most exciting areas of sleep and health research involves the human microbiome. (I’m a member of Scientific Advisory Board at UBiome, an innovative organization that’s dedicated to investigation and education of the microbiome and its impact on health, performance, aging, and disease.)

Our microbiome is the vast, dynamic, ever-shifting collection of bacteria and other micro-organisms that live within our bodies. The largest collection of this microbial life resides in our intestines—hence, the focus on “gut health.” This intestinal body of microbiota is often referred to as the “second brain,” because of its profound influence over how we think, feel, and function.

(I’ve written in detail about the connections between the human microbiome and sleep here, and here.)

We’re learning more all the time about the importance of gut health to sleep and overall health. An unhealthy gut contributes to chronic inflammation. How does a gut become unhealthy? Poor diet, stress, medication and illness are all contributors. So, too are disrupted circadian rhythms and poor sleep. Poor and insufficient sleep appear to change the composition of our natural microbiota, decreasing beneficial bacteria and increasing bacteria associated with disease. The emerging science points to a powerful two-way street between sleep and gut health. Sleeping well is one way to help maintain a healthy gut. And maintaining gut health—by managing stress, exercising, eating a healthy diet that’s rich in prebiotic (fiber-rich) foods—can help you sleep better. Both those pillars—healthy sleep and a balanced, thriving gut—can work to limit harmful inflammation, and may help deliver long-term protection against disease.

Chronic and systemic inflammation doesn’t always come with symptoms. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a pervasive risk to our health. Sleep well can be a potent tool in helping guard against this often silent, and damaging, form of inflammation.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM

The Sleep Doctor

www.thesleepdoctor.com

from Your Guide to Better Sleep https://www.thesleepdoctor.com/2019/01/01/5-things-to-know-about-sleep-and-inflammation/

from Elly Mackay - Feed https://www.ellymackay.com/2019/01/02/5-things-to-know-about-sleep-and-inflammation/