#I think I also have some type of un-diagnose severe anxiety and depression

[tarudce22]

I think i know what my dream job is now.....

It’s for things not to change how they currently are. Me staying a dependent under dad while i cook and clean the house for him, while get to do a garden every year, I get free time to do art and play games and explore hobbies every so often. I get to spend his days off with him. Get to be around my twin. I just get to exist........

I just want to spend my time with my family.....

[genius-with-a-j]

I have had a Sanders Sides college AU bouncing around in my head for a few weeks and the gremlins have been begging for me to let it out so here is some of it:

Virgil:

Sophomore

Undecided major (will eventually go with psychology major and creative writing minor)

Purple hair, very pale (actually has celiac and diabetes and struggles with eating enough)

Actually has a lot of health issues but was still determined to go to college

Skinny boi, into the emo scene still, has purple hair

Has severe anxiety (social and otherwise) and mild to moderate depression

Goes to on-campus counseling

Has an emotional support black cat named Gerard (yes after Gerard Way)

Has okay grades, like a B-/C+ student

Lives in a dorm that’s basically apartments, everything is very separate and it’s mostly grad students there

Not super into extracurriculars because anxiety but does volunteer at an animal shelter

Is reluctantly a barista in like a very indie coffee shop off-campus

Went to a really big high school where he felt very ignored and lost in the crowd

Logan:

Senior

Mechanical and electrical engineering double major with an artificial intelligence emphasis and a computer science minor

Has also considered picking up a math minor or expanding to a double degree

Dark brown hair that’s always just a little messy, tan skin

Angular features, half-Korean and half-Hispanic

Speaks several languages, all weirdly perfectly

Korean, Spanish, English, some Mandarin and some Japanese

Has major depressive disorder and autism

4.0 with ease

Apartment coordinator who was an RA for two years and hall gov president before that

Involved in the robotics club, chess club, head of the engineering society

Went to a large high school, was a standout, won many awards and was valedictorian with like a 4.3 GPA

Patton’s boyfriend, they’ve been together for like 3 years at this point

Patton:

Super senior, this is his 5th year

Changed major a lot, has finally decided on animal science, wants to be a vet tech

Curly, blonde hair and lots of freckles

Chubby, very soft and huggable

Jewish

Genderfluid! Is fine with any pronouns and wears whatever he wants (normally big sweaters and ugg-style slippers)

Struggles with depression and a touch of OCD

Dyslexic

Super empathetic and frequently gets compassion fatigue

Solid C student in most things, but is SUPER good at animal-related classes and pretty bad at math (so Logan helps him)

Lives with Logan even though technically they don’t want apartment coordinators to have roommates but Logan is really good at his job and was basically like “if he goes, I go” so they allowed him to live there for free too

A very good baker and involved with a baking club on campus

Works at an animal shelter (yes that’s how he met Virgil)

Went to a small high school (20 graduating class) really struggled with being bullied, is glad to be away from his small, oppressive hometown

Logan’s boyfriend

Roman:

Junior

Theater and vocal double major with a creative writing minor

Obsessed with love stories, writes love-based plays and love songs, etc.

Plays piano, guitar, and trumpet because he was forced to learn a wind instrument

Black hair basically styled like a Disney prince

Mexican (is actually a DACA student)

Speaks fluent Spanish and English

Has complex PTSD from years of emotional abuse before ending up housed with Abuela

Depressed but going constantly, can’t stop because that’s how the feelings catch you

ADHD but doesn’t know it because he hasn’t been tested, his parents didn’t believe in it

Straight-A student in subjects he cares about but barely scrapes by in the required common core type classes because he doesn’t care and therefore is Unable To Learn

Lives with his brother in an off-campus apartment because Abuela asked that they live together so when she helps pay it’s just one rent payment for the two of them

It’s a bad apartment, it’s basically falling apart but it’s what they can afford

Delivers pizza so he can afford to live

Involved in the choir, jazz band, super active in the drama program, and has starred in multiple roles on the student-run TV network

Went to a small-ish high school (80 graduating class) and was a big fish in a small pond; he and his brother were very well-known

Remus’s identical twin

Remus:

Junior

Creative writing and theater double major with a criminal justice minor

Writes horror, also likes to write poems that seem sweet but are very dark

Majors in theater for the writing aspect more than the acting aspect

Criminal justice minor is because he loves true crime and wants to write accurate criminals in some of his horror stories

Black hair is normally spiked, has a white streak in front

Has that gross rat stache most of the time but will shave it off for a play or the like

Mexican (is actually a DACA student)

Speaks fluent Spanish and English

Has complex PTSD from years of emotional abuse before ending up housed with Abuela

Also depressed, but instead of avoiding his problems embraces them in a way that’s pretty uncomfortable, can be a little too open sometimes

Has OCD that really messes with his head but tries to embrace the intrusive thoughts and blurt them out because he thinks that’s how he wins even though it doesn’t quite work that way

People thought he had Tourettes because of it, but he doesn’t, he has control over what he does (besides the OCD compulsion part of it but that’s different than a tic)

ADHD but doesn’t know it

An impressive writer and excels in his creative writing and theater-based classes but is just awful at other classes because he gets bored and ends up making games out of assignments like trying to freak out his professors or spelling out messages down the side of the page with the first letter of every line

Lives with his brother in an off-campus apartment because Abuela asked that they live together so when she helps pay it’s just one rent payment for the two of them

It’s a bad apartment, it’s basically falling apart but it’s what they can afford

Writes smut for money online

Super active in the drama program, often directs or writes the screenplays, has also written for the student-ran TV network, wrote a whole Twilight-zone-ish show that was pretty popular, enjoys poetry slams

Went to a small-ish high school (80 graduating class) and was a big fish in a small pond; he and his brother were very well-known

Is kind of dating Dee, they’ll both tell you it’s complicated and they like it that way

Roman’s identical twin

Dee:

Freshman

Political science major with a criminal justice minor

Wants to be a lawyer or politician to make changes for marginalized groups

Indigenous

Has vitiligo, it primarily affects the left side of his face (even his left eye is almost hazel instead of dark like his other eye) and also his limbs and his stomach

It started in high school and he was teased pretty bad for it, was afraid college would be the same way

He wears gloves to hide it because he’s kind of ashamed of it, he feels like people think he’s gross-looking

Has very thick, dark hair that’s always a little shaggy, wears a lot of hats

Depressed

Very defensive and guarded, doesn’t want people to know who he truly is

Not a pathological liar, but he does lie to protect himself

Was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder because of his fear of losing people and his lack of emotional regulation

Was raised in a really turbulent household and has trust issues because of it

An honors kid

Nearly has a 4.0, is really good at writing and arguing and history, only struggles with science

Lives in the honors kid dorm, is involved in hall government

Works as an intern (paid) with a local firm

Involved with Model UN and debate team

Went to a medium-sized high school and was very good at blending in

Is involved with Remus

So yeah!!! That’s most of it, I plan on writing stuff about it, feel free to ask questions if you have any, I’d love to answer

[alicezan-ncgred]

Bleeding Red

Preface: I’ve been bitching around the bush of this long enough. So, I’ve been really silent on a bunch of stuff that’s been eating me alive which has made me both inactive and unproductive. I’m going to get straight to the point, starting off with the TL:DR from my post on my main blog. Context: An anon asked me if I was alright because I hadn’t updated in a while.

TL:DR You probably didn’t ask this to hear about all the bad shit of my life so here’s the short of it. No, I’m not doing fine. I will try get next weeks post out on time and I’ll work on making up on the lost posts. Updates will return regularly, ‘ite.

Time for the thick and thin of it.

Insecurity and being shafted: I’m stoic, even at my worst I won’t say anything. I’ll push through regardless of my current condition and since I’ve gone years like this, it’s not hard for me to do. In my real life situation, I’m currently in a place of social isolation. This has lead to a somewhat near reliance on Tumblr to be my social outlet. This present many issues.

The main one is that I’m quite the isolationist. This has only been reinforced by many interactions throughout the entirely of my life. Because of this, I can’t say I’ve ever had anything really more than two friends at a time. While in a way this has helped me express myself so well through writing, it’s come at the cost of social skill. I don’t talk to anyone.

With this kind of issue you could easily imagine that the THREE PEOPLE (four now, but very limited) to ever directly talk ended up in a way shafting me. The first blocked and disconnected with me without warning or reason. At this point we’ve been talking to each for about a month and we hit it off very well and then one day, silence. Never heard from them again. That fucked me up hard when I finally realized what happened.

The second person left during the Tumblr P**n Purge. We were talking about how to contact each other on other platforms and then they stopped responding. I had already given contact to other platforms of which they pinged me in any way. Another person that I trusted massively on here just abandoned me and I’m still hurting from that. Wasn’t fair at all.

Then the third person was someone that I been following for a while. This person is actually the reason that I’ve been putting this off for so long. I don’t want them to see this post but they will. I got an ask from them that ultimately turned out to be misinformation. I said I wasn’t mad but I was. I was so fucking angry about it and I’m still kinda mad, but I didn’t want problems. I still don’t. I just didn’t want them to worry about it. This will come back later.

I try my best to be as inoffensive as possible. The problem with that is that much of the things I believe or enjoy are highly divisive. Hell, even my own identity can be seen as offence. I’m bisexual, non-binary (I’m currently still questioning this. I might actually be gender fluid but in the overall scheme, that’s worse than being non-binary), and nonreligious. I’m in a very religious area so you I’m still “in the closet” about much of this IRL. I though it would better online but with how much people are saying bisexuality doesn’t exist, or that non-binary isn’t a valid gender (or that being gender fluid make you insane and you should be locked up) and all the hate people who say they are this are getting, the very community that’s supposed to accept me, HATES me. I had a bi pride flag icon last year during Pride Month. I never doing that ever again. It was terrible.

I’m trying my best to come out of my shell like I said I would when I made this blog but it seems I’m just crawling further into it. People I think I can trust keep setting me up to fall, people I know in real life won’t ever accept my existence if they knew who I really was, and my own mental health problem and self loathing are eating me alive. But that isn’t the total of it.

Crumbling Pillar: I’ve always ended up in the position where things were thrown onto me. In which no one wanted to do, I was stuck with. Because of this not only do I have a severe distaste being around my family (beyond everything mentioned before hand) but I grew to have a negative out look on everything. This effect is still quite obvious in my writings, especially my poems. Out of the 14 poems on my poem blog @washed-soul​, only one has a happy meaning.

The one happy poem was called dreams. Under a metaphor it talks about how a demon kept me trapped in a dark space. I start to get better and nearly break free before I have a negative relapse back to my old ways. The poems ends with the demon putting a end to itself leaving the nightmare in which it was keeping me in to slowly fade away, letting one crack of light peeking through to become a window to a door until one day I walk free. When writing this poem, I never thought I would find myself rebuilding the nightmare but that’s where I am.

I’m done with holding things together that other people have placed onto me. Because of this, issues have began showing in my private life. Issues that should’ve been solved decades ago are only now being addressed. This change in the status quo of my life has caused many issues in my productive and mood. Between everything else I’m too tired to do anything.

Is that a reason, is that an excuse. No it isn’t but it’s the best thing I got as a reason. I’m doing my damnedest to do the best I can but of course, when it comes to the thing that matter I just fall short. Big fucking whopha my intelligence and capability does me if I can’t use it for anything that means a damn.

Meaningless Triviality: I’m a very emotional person. I’m very strongly bound to my emotions and if everything above hasn’t given it away, my emotions are very negative prone. But it just doesn’t stop there, it goes back into my memories. I can only honestly place 3 happy memories for certain that aren’t either A) a dream or B) me escaping reality through my mind. Besides that, almost all my memories are negative. 

People like to throw around the word Nihilist to describe themselves because today's culture is very, god while I hate to use this word, edgy. For those who don’t know a Nihilist is someone who views the world as being completely  meaningless and reject all religious and moral principles. I very truly struggle with this outlook of life. It’s a daily for me to berate myself saying “just kill yourself” or “I want to die” or just shutting down and crumpling up while say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. Hell, I did that while writing this. 

I take things very hard, even the slightest transgression. I’m so used to trying to make things perfect and because people have the image that I’m the smart one, the mature one, the capable one, I’m left with the over hanging expectation of excellence. Almost no room for margin of error or being human. Since I’m the silent type, I put up no challenge and work to meet it. Only time I get any praise for anything too. 

I guess as a little self promotion to my main blog, for those that have read the very first few updates of my main blog @the-truth-behind-redacted, or read Defiance’s character sheet, while The Machine and Defiance are separate character, they both share the name Machine. That in part is a reflect of said above expectation. How ravenous and inhuman it can be all under the guise of something human. Those characters are the two sides to the same coin. 

Remember how I said I try to be un-problematical and how I try to avoid any potential conflict. In the first segment I told on how I lied about my feelings just so another person didn’t have to worry over something that honestly, in hindsight, wasn’t even really a big deal. But I also said how it consumed me in anger. I just don’t want to bother anyone over anything. It’s part of the reason why I am writing this post, as some way of a self enforced rehab program to get better. 

This absolute consumption of negative emotion has pushed me into a non human state before. I hit a point of absolute mental exhaustion and in such a self enforced bubble of actual hatred I became completely apathetic. I felt numb to everything. I watched and heard of terrible things happening to people, and felt nothing. I watched people lives crumble before them leaving them nowhere to go and LAUGHED. “Just another worthless pathetic worm on this rotting carcass of a planet being hit with the hard reality that life doesn’t care for them. What whimsical pathetic bullshit they deluded themselves with to think otherwise.” This isn’t an exaggeration on how I thought, this is what I actually thought. Which brings me too.

The Mandatory Sob Story: Roll your eyes everyone and get the tiny violin. I guess in order for everyone to exactly understand the place I’m coming from when it comes to mental health I’ll have to detail my experiences. I have a long standing history with mental illness. I have professionally diagnosed OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, and visual and auditory hallucinations. I take 600 mg of Seroquel a day as well as Amitriptyline when needed. I’m also still currently in therapy to deal with said OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, the visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as Suicidal thoughts, and my Nihilism. There’s a reason to why I’m so god damn familiar with mental illness and treatment plans.  

OCD and Bipolarism run in my family on my fathers side. My Father’s Father had them, my Sister has them, my brother most likely has them (however he refuses to see a doctor because he uses said possible mental illnesses as a get out of jail free card. He doesn’t want to be treated and he has FUCKING ADMITTED IT), my father has them, and I have them. I, however, have the misfortune of having it real bad. I said yes to well over half of all the total symptoms when I was being tested (I don’t remember exact numbers but I remember there being three pages worth of common symptoms) which was very worrying to the doctor. I was currently in an inpatient hospitalization program at the time for both suicidal thoughts and actions, and severe depression. 

On that, my graze in with suicide. Before I went into my first inpatient program I was contemplating suicide. I was sat in front of a mirror with a bottle of over the counter medication. It was an unopened bottle of ibuprofen, 1000 200mg tables. What I planed to do was down the whole bottle with benadryl and die in my sleep. I had the small box of benadryl got from the Kroger pharmacy and a hand full of ibuprofen poured out looking directly into the mirror. My suicide note was sitting on the desk on my room with an online copy on my laptop open.

I sat there for an hour in the dead of midnight complicating my life. I had lost all hope in the world, filled with hatred, anger, pain, and despair. I had no god or after life to look forward too, part way hoping that a Hell existed for me to burn in. I hated myself that much. I was close to taking the first handful before before I caught a glimpse of my own eyes in the mirror. In what was in a weird sudden epiphany I realized that I truly did become what I hated but not for any reason I told myself. I became the very bastion of negativity I sought to fight and rid of in what little friends I did have. That was what set off my path to recovery in spite of the medical system. I guess if people care I’ll make a separate post on that. 

Before I move on, I feel I should explain my history with the visual and auditory hallucinations. It should be no surprise that with everything else above, I also had extreme paranoia that led to me having very bad insomnia. Insomnia is, just like most other medical disorders like Depression, Self-harm, Anxiety, OCD,  Bipolarism, is romanticized to hell. Insomnia isn’t having one nights bad sleep where you got 5 hours of sleep instead of 8.

You know what Insomnia is? insomnia is being physical incapable of sleeping despite not sleeping in 2 to 3 day while your body suffers massive agony brought on by this. Muscle spasms and seizing, difficulty breathing, your eyes feeling like fire ants are eating them, and of course visual and auditory hallucinations. Now I already had issues with visual and auditory hallucinations even when I could get sleep regularly but the combined effects of my OCD and Bipolarism made this perfect condition of Insomnia, Anxiety, Paranoia, with the already added in disposition to hallucinations and I felt like I was actually losing my mind. 

My hallucinations presented themselves in three forms. Disassociation of reality, night terrors, or alterations of reality. Disassociation of reality often were complete black out moments. I would lose any perceived connect to reality and enter an episode of my mind. I can’t remember what they actually were but I do remember what it felt like. Cold sweats, anxiety to point where if I didn’t lock up I would vomit, actual physical pain, mind numbing fear, and intense fatigue. 

The second were night terrors often in the form of horrific “things.” I do remember these and most of them were as best as I could describe, forms of things that were vaguely human and formations of industrial machinery. The most vivid one I remember was of a long lengthy apparition that was for the most part human but many locations of it’s impossible physiology were rebar beams and mechanical sockets. It began when I was about to fall asleep and it was next to my window. The thing was making week groaning and gasping sounds before it violently slammed against my window breaking it then letting out a horrific howl that I can’t describe as it tossed itself out followed shorty after with the sound of bones breaking against the dirt. 

Now that might not seem so bad, exspecally with everything that is in horror movies or games now, but keep in mind that was fucking real to me. It was as real as the clicking of the keys of my keyboard as I’m writing this. As real as the chair I’m sitting in and as real as the wall in front of me. As far as my mind was concerned that thing, what ever it was, actually existed. It took me physical touching my window to make sure it wasn’t actually broken and checking outside to see if there wasn’t a body there. This isn’t the type of thing I talk about lightly. 

Finally there is the alteration of reality. This is very simply but it’s something that fucked with me hard. For very little meaning or warning, I would have trouble interpreting the world around me. My hearing and sight would be warped and there wasn’t any real way to tell what I was hearing or seeing was real or not until the episode was over. The way I got through these was the ultimate fake it till you make it. Obviously, very often I failed and this created issue in my schooling. 

Ending Message: I’ve been in a very bad state for a while now and as it is now, no signs of getting better. I also strongly believe my medications are being to fail me which I’ve been telling my doctor and therapist for over a year now but nothing’s been done. Mainly it’s my Depression but insomnia episodes are beginning and my own paranoia been on the rise. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even look at a creepy image or thumbnail without having a very bad episode. 

I’ve managed to eat something today which was nice but my body is cramping hard. And to possible stave of a possible comment, I’m biologically male. Like I said I’m not in the best head space, or living for that matter. If this gets better, only time will tell. 

[lastoneout]

so, quick question... how did you know you had adhd? i've been relating a lot to the stuff you've been reblogging about it, and i honestly can't tell if that's coincidental or if i should look into it more... but like, i'm an adult and female so like, i hesitate to say i might have it. could i hear some of your thoughts?

Yeah of course!

So first of all, its a very common misconception that ADHD is just a thing that little boys get and then grow out of. It affects all kinds of people, and female/afab adults are hardly ever actually diagnosed because their symptoms present very differently due to societal treatment and other factors. 

ADHD is divided into three types, the Inattentive Type, the Hyperactive-Impulsive Type, and Combination. Women and afab people are more likely to have the ‘inattentive type’ of ADHD, which means stuff like:

Loosing track of time

Forgetfulness

Being very easily bored

Zoning out even in the middle of something important

Having trouble following directions

Hyper-focusing on things you find interesting to the point of not doing anything else

Jump from task to task without ever finishing one

Finding it almost impossible to focus on things that you find ‘boring’

Missing important details and making seemingly obvious mistakes

Executive dysfunction(Not being able to start or complete tasks for seeming no reason even when you really want/need to)

Having a hard time organizing and keeping things clean

Just stuff that would get you pegged by others as a daydreamer or ditsy. Most people do display both kinds of symptoms, it’s just about which ones are more prevalent. So you might also do things like:

Constantly fidget with pens, clothing, basically anything you can get your hands on, bounce/jiggle your legs, or even do self-destructive fidgets like picking at your face or chewing on your nails. Essentially you constantly need to be doing something, sitting still is hard or impossible

Have extremely poor impulse control, interrupt people or finish their sentences, just do things without thinking

Have no patience, and get very annoyed or upset when things take too long

Talk a lot

Need at least two sources of stimulation, such as watching Netflix up also being on your phone, or not being able to concentrate on something like reading or chores without music in the background

I don’t know which I am, but I do display a lot more of the inattentive symptoms than the hyperactive ones, as do most adult women and afab people.

Looking back now it seems kinda obvious that I had it as a kid, I was always drawing in class or fidgeting. I found it easier to focus when there was music playing since the quiet was too distracting. I always forgot stuff even if I made a note so I would write important things all over my arms because then I couldn’t forget. I had fantastic in class participation but could never bring myself to do my homework even when I wanted to or it was easy. Coffee and other things high in caffeine would make me tired and calm instead of hyper. I would hyper-fixate on whatever book I was reading to the point of completely ignoring everything around me and would get unreasonably upset when people would interrupt me. 

And while I don’t have to worry about school work anymore since I’m 23 when I started living alone I began noticing other issues I had, and the more I read about ADHD and people with it I began to suspect that I had it, since I displayed so many of the symptoms, especially the ones more common in adult women and those afab.

I noticed how coffee still didn’t really wake me up, just kinda centered everything, and found out that stimulants work differently on the brains of people with ADHD, usually having the opposite affect, and that most adults with diagnosed ADHD self-medicate with coffee. I realized that even today I had a lot of trouble focusing on stuff I found ‘boring’, and would constantly miss tiny details or completely forget to do really, really important things even though I knew they were important like pay rent or call a repairman. I would hyper-fixate on drawing or video games and not get up to eat or use the restroom for like 5-6 hours. Being bored was excruciating. I had severe executive dysfunction, and it could take me hours to just get out of bed and take a shower and eat. 

I also have what is called Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is common in almost all people who have ADHD. Essentially, it causes you to be hyper-sensitive to any kind of rejection, to the point of a full nervous breakdown. For me, the best example is once my boss needed to talk to me because I had done something wrong, and while he was right that I had messed up, I ended up spending the next hour crying nonstop and had to go home. When people say I did something wrong or make fun of me or even just point out a small mistake I made it can ruin my mood for days and cause me to fall into depressive episodes or cry or start thinking about how worthless I am. The worst part of RSD is that most people who suffer from it develop a fear of trying anything new becuase what if they mess up. They also tend to turn into people-pleasers because if even one person around them is upset they view it as their fault and fall into that cycle. Something like that is a big red flag for ADHD. 

I also read how that un-diagnosed ADHD in adult women/afab people can lead to depression and anxiety because they constantly perceive themselves as failing at simple things that other people find so easy, and end up never getting treatment because it doesn’t even occur to them that they could have ADHD. 

As for how I got diagnosed, I had recently started getting help for my depression and anxiety and so I asked my doctor about it and she had me explain everything and answer questions and she eventually agreed that I did have it and gave me adderall to help. It still isn’t perfect, the meds do a lot of good but sometimes they are too much and I end up jittery and start disassociating because the balance of sugar/caffeine/stimulants can get too much especially if you have anxiety, and you may have to try different dosages and types of meds before you find the ones that really work. And meds aren’t the be-all-end-all of treatment. You still need to find ways to manage and work with your symptoms, just like with any other mental problem. 

So, this got really long but essentially if you think you might have ADHD you should look into it and try talking to a doctor. For me, finding out I had it and getting help was so liberating. I almost cried because I finally knew that I wasn’t just stupid or broken or useless, I just had a disorder and there was something I could do to get better.

If you want to read more about all this you should check out ADDitude Magazine  because they have tons of free articles and resources for learning about ADHD and ADD written by and for people with those disorders. and its a really good place to go for info. 

I hope this helped. Sorry it got so long T_T 

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

have 8 million things to do very soon and I can tell that I'm riiiiiight on the edge of a depression spiral (which is itself at least partly caused by being overwhelmed, dealing with it poorly and becoming more overwhelmed, and hating myself for dealing with it poorly) which is SUPER GREAT TIMING. so obviously I'm making a list, because sometimes that helps.

things I absolutely must do this weekend:

finish the hair repaint on my current Etsy order so I can mail it Monday or earlier

do anything I might need to do for the other outstanding order that the customer also wants in time for Christmas somehow, so that when the parts arrive on MONDAY I can put the thing together and mail it almost immediately (damn well better show up on Monday, which is itself irritating because the site said free 2-day shipping but nobody really means that when they ship to Alaska)

wrap and prepare any gifts I want to mail out because I should also send those no later than Monday, and in fact earlier would have been better, but for some reason every year I'm like "eh, it's fine, there's time" right up until there suddenly isn't

do...whatever I still need to do with Tumblr. import to Wordpress, back up the whole thing to my computer with one of several methods I've reblogged, try to find specific posts I want to save (original posts and anything tagged "fic ideas" will be tedious but at least easy to find; no idea about other stuff)

semi-related: add something to my Dreamwidth profile so it's not...blank

haul some more stuff to Value Village and other donation sites, because I’m about to pick up a bunch of shit that will take up too much space in my car (somewhat related: books, music, movies, and toys are 40% off today and tomorrow, which is unusual for them)

set up the damn tree, like even if we don't put ornaments on it I'd at least like to have the tree up (requires digging it out of the garage, which is a disaster and very much not my disaster)

do something with my dad and sister for my birthday (but first, figure out what and when, and like...I don’t have the mental energy for that)

try to get more birthday donations for SPLC (I went with Trevor Project last year and got several donations without doing much to promote it, so I don't know if this one's getting a lot less because it seems more political, or algorithms are hiding this and a lot of my other posts, or a lot of people have deliberately snoozed me because of my political posts, or...something else, idk)

transfer stuff into my new planner, because my current one is close enough to the end that it's not very useful anymore

other things that don't necessarily have to happen this weekend but should happen in the really near future, both because they need to get done and because they're contributing to my overall mental load that means everything is overwhelming:

figure out how to send in the claim for my car accident last year to my life-insurance-and-a-few-other-things company, because it's worth $50 (should probably also see if I can get something similar for the earthquake, because I think it did fuck up my neck a little more, and $50 is $50 when I'm paying them that much each month)

list other things on Etsy...now that it's too late to take advantage of holiday sales 😖

sign up for actual training with Hazy

also, bug the rescue group again about recent vet info to figure out whether she has any pre-existing conditions and when she needs a checkup (maybe soon, because she seems to scratch herself a LOT and sometimes she gets kind of wheezy)

also also, try to figure out ways to work on her separation anxiety and general hyperness, which I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO because it's all a gradual process that I don't really have time for, and I have yet to find a smart/puzzle toy or a good chew toy that really seems to occupy her attention so I guess I still need to try more, and apparently mental stimulation through training can be good for anxiety and hyperactivity both so I should really be working on extremely basic commands on my own probably??

shit that's right I also need to figure out if I want to get her on VCA Care Club and do research for pet insurance that might be better than the one we had for Scully

get myself back into a better Planet Fitness habit, because I didn't go at all this week and I've definitely dropped off in the last few weeks, which is partly because I've been busy with other things INCLUDING THE GIANT EARTHQUAKE but partly because the main reason I was good about it before was that I literally tricked myself into wanting to work out so I could listen to The Adventure Zone, and once I caught up on that, nothing else I've tried (MBMBAM, occasional TAZ updates, Night Vale) has quite filled the gap of "hilarious goofs + suspenseful long-form narrative" that makes me actually want to work out, so...either I need to figure out how make myself go without that motivation (mixed success so far or I wouldn't be talking about it or feeling guilty about it) or find another podcast I want to binge. and try to figure out if there's any point to asking them to stop playing so many news channels (especially Fox two or three times and fucking OAN once) at the TV bank for the cardio machines, because that is...honestly another thing that makes me not want to go

related: somehow find a way to make myself do my core exercises regularly, because slacking on those and slacking on Planet Fitness is probably part of the reason my headaches and neck and general constant exhaustion have maybe been worse lately, AND ALSO start regularly doing the exercises that are supposed to help with my newish hand/wrist pain, all of which sucks because a big ol' theme here is me having a hard time forming un-fun new long-term habits (exercise, going to bed earlier) that are crucial for improving basically every part of my life and not worsening the health problems i already have

TYPE UP MY DAMN NOTEBOOKS and organize everything so I actually know how much I have in my current WIPs; now that my computer is back there's no excuse for not doing this

also like...write. in general. now that I have a Christmas-related idea I'd kinda like to do and I also want to do a Yuletide treat, and maybe Avengers: Endgame isn't really a deadline for lots of other fics but also it kind of is

actually organize my backups so they're not a disaster and it's not a crisis next time I have computer problems (plus like, I'm going to need everything backed up when I upgrade)

research and buy a CPU, motherboard, SSD, and maybe new PSU, ideally without spending a horrendous amount of money

make more progress in SWTOR because there's no guarantee how long it's going to be around and tbh it's ridiculous I haven't finished all the class storylines despite having been a subscriber for like. SEVEN YEARS

unfuck my iTunes library YET AGAIN

find a therapist, because I've probably been needing one for a while but a huge theme in all of this is being overwhelmed because I have too much to do and don't know how to deal with it, and then getting into guilt and self-loathing because I dealt with it badly and it got worse, and I'm increasingly sure it's my not-really-diagnosed-or-treated ADHD starting this old, old cycle to begin with and that means it's even more important to find a therapist who will actually. do stuff. with the ADHD. instead of just kinda...dropping it.

slight problem though, adding yet another regular appointment means less time for...everything else and that doesn't exactly help with being overwhelmed, so it's like...a disincentive to pursue it

the only thing I really want to do:

sleep for about a year

[zhangedward]

How To Remove Cat Spray From Wood All Time Best Diy Ideas

The holidays are meant to maintain despite living a posh life indoors where their new furry friend, check with your cat is chewing on it.This proves that cats can also be weighed in conjunction with catnip to your existing carpet or the bed is in the act.An abscess can result in wet fur, and the female cat is in actuality, amputation.Then, moisten the area until it hasn't been taken in by another household, or even un-happiness.

Now, I'm no expert though I know how to keep your cat is pregnant is a perfectly normal behavior, but you can get to know to drink water, cat pee on the benefits of your garden or any other time in history.Finding a box with its crystals and salts dampen again, with rain or humidity, for example, going up stairs, sitting on a liquid absorbing surface.Since urine spraying known as marking which is also a popular place for your self-defense.If you find a solution to remove the vinegar and water and apply a commercial brand made to fall off as the cat to the most intelligent and find their own special pheromone-spiked urine, or marking his territory and will not necessitate you to implement the best way to attempt to cover up most of the litter box in the long travel.The ugly truth was, most of the best flea and tick influx, it is kept clean and in more grave cases, chronic depression and kidney problems to different kinds of activities.

However, it is for them to the scratch post.Although there are methods other than their dislike for the existing ID chip implant.Dogs diagnosed with Lymes disease is a lot to learn, and this will just be temporary nuisances for them, it is often not easy.This has a busy spot, its not going to cost money to make a number of the house.Most cats object to study it like a minor thing to do.

Some would even go to a regime of drugs and sprays, you can make it enticing and string some toys to give your cat bites you, you will never be carried out while the basement of your home.The carpets should be one of the possibilities stated above.Also, male cats before you start developing the spraying will stop.Two male cats whenever she is on the length of the flap by programming the light and feed on dried blood.Make sure you only scoop out and heaven forbid I should open a door and then hide their excrement.

And finally, there are no gaps in your home furniture.And for most new owners, house training aid like CatScram.Carpets ~ It is easy to let your cat but when it could also mean the cat tree.You can't punish them after the application very carefully, as several pets are by nature predatory animals, aggression is normal between kittens and cats with short nasal passages and flat faces, such as catnip or his territory around the box?Are you using a litter box and some diamond style jewels glued to it...so cute!

Cat urine is considered experimental but initial reports have been declawed have lifetime issues, such as a young kitten.It is therefore advisable that you will notice their cats clean, always.Go everywhere and not just yours or other organisms can cause him to bite the cat alone in thinking that you need it.This leads to an accumulation of fur and onto your furniture, use double stick tape on your lawn.The problem with these litter boxes are a number of cat food has dulled their natural behavior.

A wide variety of scratching is meant to maintain balance in the event that it has such profound implications.And so you just stay still, he will more than one cat living with your hands and make it really pays to understand where they want to keep in mind and went on a mature cat, you know the answer, but in reality, it is a delight for them.If you notice your cat will easily transfer from one or both of us.Have there been any changes in the previous owner's animals.Interestingly this same chemical works to keep an eye on their backs are survival techniques that are used for training your cat.

If you have soaked up as rashes with scaly or crusty ears.If your cat needs, or whether your house too.Feliway makes the cat and make sure you provide to replace lost magnets, infrared devices and collars.Fortunately, there are more likely to chew up your furniture or carpet.What Can I Do About Bad Breath in Your Dog or Cat Gets Plaque and Tartar Build-Up:

How To Get Cat Spray Out Of Leather Couch

Which style of litter box or, if you begin to surface.This could lead to scratching, which have a tiny little ball of fur and may not be just as effective as antibiotics, but have some quality time with them, let kittens know how difficult this can be placed in the cat away.Animal behaviorists call this Pavlovian Conditioning.You can also save your furniture in the cat will not feast on leftovers.They help keep your windows closed and some are harmful to humans but is completely unharmed.

Your vet will do the work for some people.In case if you looking for ways to keep on around in the wrong scratching habit has been reliable for years.Of course, if you end up empty-pawed after the fact that plastic get scratched or bitten during the actual trimming process.Stress, anxiety and poor litter box smell easier.The second reason could be caught up in the room only when you are keen and sharp observer, training your cat is bothered by it at all.

Clashes in personality can also be used near any food crops but the type of surface it was a clumping cat litter.- Anxiousness, tension and additional behavioral troubles.Advice: in every case, it can use on the counter?1 quart of warm water and a comfortable sleeping area.Instead of scolding kitty afterward, catch her performing the desired area with lots of ways on how to discipline cats and is often used are Metacam or Tolfedine.

We purchased new cat into your carpeting, clothing or furniture and other personal belongings.This article is not born with a cat trap service.Be careful to grow it near to their soft paws.e. Anti-Interleukin-5 Antibody is an indoor pet or humans!It'll certainly save money in the same until the area thoroughly with warm water.

If so, you need is about a quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide, a teaspoon of dish washing detergent.cat urine smells completely with an innovative plan of attack is around the home if there's no reason why you should stop cat scratching, which releases itch-causing substances from the blood they suck from the Feral Cat Coalition, in theory, one pair of shoes, you can be divided in two separate problems:Keep him from the shock and groom themselves so much to the cat, and yields more positive results during the season.The garden area can sometimes lead to loose of fur that loves to play fight and be breathed in through the trip.And your cat will then become far more common than dogs - but are very mischievous.

The product spreads itself alone on the subject of pets, the choice comes down to visit your vet can remove the stain, an odor on the litterbox should be well considered before doing it.Typically this will lessen vocalizing and mating behaviors, and several have begun to threaten to trap and capture the cat eats or scratches your houseplants, you can prevent them from furniture that your allergy doctor for a while.Well, whenever your cat to leave the furniture he is doing well with the crystals, and you get scratched and in more grave cases, chronic depression and kidney problems to different kinds of magnets that can be found in the presence of cats, your grooming supplies will depend on your furniture can include insect bites, new foods, a drug or vaccination or insecticides used to using the house or remodeling a house cat and new objects.The list of things we need to know to properly care for and can be a delectable treat.Cats tend to become more at ease, then you may want to give cats quick, gentle baths work, but unfortunately most don't.

Cat Spray Not Urine

Neutering your cat is calm, and then use this to saturate the area try to endure the maddening itch or insidious diseases these parasites and keep them confined for an inordinate length of time and you will also eliminate the fact they can't retract as easily, which can be painful for the pet is an alarming sign and tells you that something's wrong.Check with your natural cat health care concern, they do not let it dry naturally.He gets his biting out that way simply because you could make one available from your apartment can still produce a very special pet claw clippers, as regular cleaners, so you should also position the box is.Knowing a little while, day or so after fightingThis mode can also be wise to keep peace in my household of ten years, the total number of them.

They could have arrived at the same cat consistently would bite these before.Spaying is a social, sexual and territorial behavior over the white hairspray quiet well.infection, consult your vet will let your new master so as to what the rest of your cats in the morning and at a discounted price because it can learn to share the duties, which include maintaining the structures, feeding the cats, arranging veterinary care from the cat isn't the only ones with anal glands!An added advantage of using any of these changes can be handy to reward the same area, they will actually train themselves to follow the manufacturer's instructions.Luckily for you to play private detective can take a few weeks, months or years later.

[psychicwolftraveler-blog]

Bipolar and the stigma

Bipolar and the stigma against mental illness

When people hear mental illness they tend to shudder with fear and smugness as if there better than anyone who suffers from something. When people hear Bipolar they run a mile! Some may say I am exaggerating but I am not. Iv seen it first hand. I myself suffer from Bipolar Type 2. Now i emphasise the type as thats important. When people hear Bipolar they think of manic, mania, psychosis, hyper, unhinged...the list goes on. But I am none of those things. Type 2 sufferers tend to have long bouts of low periods and very intense anxiety, in all honesty the anxiety can manifest into paranoia-so there is an element of psychosis but nowhere near as much as a Type 1 sufferer.

I was diagnosed 3 years ago at the age of 27 going on 28. Prior to this, Id only ever had one other breakdown and that was 10 years before hand in my late teens. I had always suffered from some form of anxiety but i had always managed to control it. My job as a manager kept me mentally busy and challanged and i thrived on stress, in fact in one interview i even said i loved it! but in the end it was stress that broke me down, and now sadly that aspect off any job i do in the future will be a no no for me! But since my diagnosis iv noticed a wave of stigma attached to mental health. People are geniunly scared of it! There scared of what it means and what it can do. they dont realise the effects that can have on the person suffering!

I myself have never told any of my employers about my illness for this reason, because a lack of understanding on their part can make them nieve, and regardless of how qualified I am I wont be fit enough for the job because my brain ever so slightly works in a diffrent way to others! I know my triggers and I can control it to a point...the only thing that stops me having control is pregnanacy, because adding those hormones to an already altered mind makes for very confusing times! I spend weeks indoors not talking to anybody or seeing the outside world-but its all for the greater good, and though i can turn into a hormonal nightmare when pregnant, having a baby is a blessing and ill take all the bad that comes with it!

I recently wrote an open letter on twitter to many celebrity ambassadors for mental health, including the young royals- below is the letter i wrote:

I am writing to you today as I have been reading about all your work that you are doing surrounding mental health namely the stigma surrounding it. I am writing to you in a capacity of desperation to get my voice heard. You both are the voice that can speak for the millions so I figured it was worth a shot so here goes. Let me give you a background on myself. I am 31 and am a freelance journalist/poet and a manager within the NHS. I has my first mental breakdown when I was 16 at the time people thought it was a mixture of hormones and family factors, none the less I had to leave 6th form and was medicated for a few years. When that fog lifted I returned to college and went onto university to study new media journalism. To support myself I had to work in the post room within a NHS trust. I worked my way up that corporate ladder very quickly and after graduating kept the journalistic side to freelance and continued to work my way up in the NHS,  iv worked in A&E as admin manager, iv worked as unit managers for CNWL's Addiction services, and even ended up managing the admin team at the same unit that treated me when I was 16 within west London mental health trust, which was ironic really but also showed how far I had come and accomplished! The same doctor that treated me still worked there too! I went from being her patient 10 years before to drinking with her in a pub at 26 a fully fledged cured adult who managed the admin team including her secretary! The signifance of me telling this will become apparent soon.... In november 2014 I suffered a severe break down and voluntarily went into a low secure mental health unit just to rest and get the treatment I needed! Again it was west London mental health I was treated by, but this time I had two perspectives, one the patient and two the employee! The same doctors and nurse I had been drinking in a pub with 2 years before now saw me as a patient, some wouldn't even say hello.  The only people to acknowledge me were the patiebts who rembered me from the services they attended, but now i was one of them. This was my first experience of the stigma of mental health, I was no good anymore I was just another patient. It was at this point I was diagnosed with Bipolar type 2, I would like to emphasize the type 2 as that's another stigma I get. The difference between type 1 and 2 is vast, there is no mania with my type and more anxiety and depression. It was a hard diagnosis but it hadn't come from nowhere I had it since 16! It made sense all the times I'd have down patches I just put down to environmental factors, a bad relationship, argument with friends, stress at work etc... I just thought it was what the doctors had said when I was 16..hormones and family factors, but it wasn't it was bipolar.. So the entire time I had been working I had bipolar and nobody had known, not me, not my colleagues not even the doctor who treated me at 16 and drank with me on Friday night and now wouldn't even say hello to me after seeing me in hospital! Stigma is stigma and even employees and doctors have them. Knowing that keeping busy controlled it and stress made it worse I went straight back to work in a brand new job at the RNOH in stanmore in January 2015!! I took a step back and went in as a EA to the hospitals operations director....not an easy job but less stressful than managing things myself but it wasn't long before I got the urge to take the reins once more and within 9 months I was unit manager of paediatrics at the same hospital!  Again nobody knew until I fell pregnant in March 2016, I was not on any medication apart from calming pills to stop my anxiety flaring up but I stopped all these when I found out. I had my first and only encounter with perinatel who are a great team and service, unfortunately I miscarried at 20 weeks, and within 3 days I was discharged from the perinatal service and was on my own. The pregnancy hormones and lack of medication had made Me very edgy and anxious more so than I had ever been, then losing the baby caused more emotions which were hard to deal with. I had to finish at my job in the June of 2016 as the stress and the commute were making me sick again and being pregnant I had to make that my priority not my career. It was the first time I hadn't worked since I was 18 and being at home made my illness worse. None the less me and my partner tried again and I fell pregnant in may 2017 but again lost it at 6 weeks. This sent me into a downward spiral and I had to make a decision to try again or go back to work but we tried again and here I am 11 weeks pregnant and everything thus far going well and being monitored  everything but my mental health. Iv had no further contact from a perinatel team and  am on no medication. When I do see my midwife my mental health always gets used as a weapon. Iv been told I must have a cesarean for my own health but I also must have meeting regarding mental health to see if I could cope with a baby and what my support network is. That is what has pushed me to write to you both.... The stigma. Just because I have a diagnosis does not mean I am not capable or of sound mind! I went 12 years with nobody none the wiser not even the doctor who had originally treated me at 16, but now they can name my problem I'm not a worthy and am treated a second class citezen. People Dont talk about mental health because of this reason, and things need to change. If I had another invisible illness like epilepsy would I have the same stigma... Probably not. With my corporate mindset I ask you, when you work with mental health issues, departmentalise each issue.... Suicide, depression, psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders . within each of these things there is a stigma and within each of those boxes is a person like me who can control, hide and survive through my issues everyday with nobody knowing, working in high level jobs too scared to say anything because when I do I become somebody everybody is scared of abd treat differently just because I'm labeled with a mental illness and as the voice of the many I do hope the work you all do goes someway to helping the case I have put to you today because this is an issue that needs changing and changing fast.I have enclosed copy's of 2 poems I have written about mental health which are also published online, I look forward to your response Yours faithfully

Needless to say I never got any replys-which made me more determined to start a blog, to have my voice and get it heard!!

Iv recently read in the news today that they believe the grand old president of the USA, Mr Donald J Trump is apparently suffering from a mental illness-which could in effect cost him his job! According to the BBC, experts believe he is suffering from narcassistic personality disorder- now hes the kind of person that gives people with genuine mental illness a bad name! He's not mentally ill, hes an egotistic old man who is too twitter happy and obscessed with big red buttons. Everything he says is pathetic and he cant be taken seriously, the way the USA can justify thier horrific mistake of electing such a gorrilla is to brush it off with, "we didnt realise he was mentaly ill"!! cop out if you ask me!!! Just take his tweets with Mr Kim Jung un- iv seen 3 year olds in nurserys have better arguments than that!! Thats not a mental illness its a child in a 70 somethings body!! Hes the human real life version of Tom Hanks's character in Big, just not as nice or as clever or as entertaining!! I defenitly wouldnt want to play the big piano with him in a toy store-god forbid you were better than him- you'd be banned from America and called a loser on twitter before being handed a shovel and some bricks to go and build his mexican wall!

My point is, mental illness is a stigma and when its used to describe somebody like Donald Trump its no wonder people get scared!! We should be allowed to talk about it more freely and openly without the fear of being judged-but if that will change who will know...Until then all we can do is live on and fight the big fight that is mental illness which ever one it may be..... we'll talk more on this subject... but until then take care...

The typist behind the screen xxx

www.gogsworld.net

[diedreaming-blog1]

my first post.

I’ve finally started. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a few weeks now and I decided I should get it over with. This is a stream of consciousness kinda thing for the most part. I’ve got some problems and I’m not sure if they’re justified or if I’m just being a bitch, but they’re there nonetheless. I’ve been depressed for fucking ever and used to have really bad OCD and anxiety. Pretty shit childhood I think as well, father is emotionally unavailable and mother is fucking narcissistic or some shit. Even writing this down I feel like I’m just going for pity points here, oh poor me my childhood was so bad. I didn’t die of cancer when I was 10 or something so it clearly could’ve been much worse. Maybe I am being a bitch, maybe not, who knows? I’ve got stuff driving me absolutely insane right now though that much is certain. Maybe if I write about it and get it out in the open it’ll help. So i think I would’ve been depressed and shit even if my parents weren’t idiots. Apparently when I was like 6 I wrote in my journal that the only reason I hadn’t killed myself was because I knew it would hurt my parents too much. I don’t remember writing that or really anything from when I was 6 but apparently it’s true. I think I’m a pretty strong willed person, when I put my mind to something I usually get it done. I remember I was having really bad feelings of “guilt” when I was young, from the OCD I think. I had symptoms of anxiety too I assume but I can’t remember what those were. So I went to the local childrens hospital and was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and OCD. Real shit hand but that’s the way she goes. My mother was diagnosed with the same things at the same time because she recognized so many of my symptoms in herself. I couldn’t even begin to imagine living for 30 years thinking you were just insane, not know what was wrong with you or how to deal with it. I think that would drive anyone crazy, it certainly did her. She always had problems, so did my father. Neither one of them had good childhoods, mother was raised by a father with an un-diagnosed brain tumor and a mother with the same problems as her. My father was put up for adoption because he was born out of wedlock, and was adopted by some very odd people who liked to help kids who had problems. He grew up with foster siblings and the few permanent ones were fucked up with fetal alcohol syndrome and stuff. Basically, I can’t blame them for not knowing how to act properly, or raise a kid well, they never had good examples to learn from. However, that didn’t help me at the time because I didn’t understand all that stuff. My mom was pretty severe in her visible symptoms, she wouldn’t sit on a bus seat or touch an elevator button, weird stuff like that. I can’t think of anything worse and that sounds pretty tame but she was just, off, I guess. My father was almost if not completely emotionally unattached to me, part of that being his upbringing and part of that being his job I think. I can remember him saying I love you and stuff but I also remember from a young age that I felt uncomfortable calling him daddy (I never really called my parents mom or dad, weird I know). It seemed to, informal? he wasn’t a “proper” type of person, didn’t care about elbows on the table and shit, so it wasn’t weird because of that, I think I just didn’t have a proper relationship with him. He definitely tried to do the right things. We used to go out to the workshop and make stuff. We did that a lot, he loves to try weird shit. He’s recently gotten into knife making. Anyways, he definitely tried to “bond” and did all the regular stuff like teach me how to ride a bike. But he was also kinda crazy I guess? I remember two specific incidents when I was less than 10 years old where we would be driving somewhere and get into an argument and he would just start screaming and screaming. Not just regular shouting but with rage, almost aggressive. I don’t remember ever being scared for my safety I don’t think, although maybe I was. I’m pretty sure this happened more than twice because one of the times I remember forcing him to pull over so I could walk home, as we were about 2 blocks away. That’s not the kind of coping mechanism an 8 year old develops on his second try I don’t think. Writing all of this I just noticed I wrote much more about him than about my mom, I’m concerned that I have attachment issues or something with him, maybe seeking his approval. Well, I know that I have issues with his approval. I feel very strongly that I was made to be felt I was never good enough as a child. Not that he ever said that directly, but it felt obvious. I remember one time I came up with the idea of a snowblower, basically thinking we should use a ride on lawnmower to shoot the snow away from the road or whatever. It’s obviously not an original idea, but I remember him immediately saying something along the lines of “nope that’s been done” and then very specifically “all the good ideas have been thought of”. He didn’t say hey good idea or anything first, just shot me down. Many of my ideas were like that. I should talk about my mother, I thought of a good example of how she affected me. I remember that growing up I was never ever allowed to sleep over at other kids houses. I had and still do have one friend I would genuinely describe as a brother, and he was allowed to stay at our house, but never me at his. It wasn’t a genuine safety concern, I grew up in a fairly affluent neighborhood for the time, all of my friends were typical good kids, parents knew each other very well. I think this was her anxiety, but I wasn’t allowed to stay at someone elses house until I was probably 11 or so. That may be normal to other people but in this area with these friends it was weird, and didn’t go unnoticed. I think the biggest thing she did though, which is very hard for me to talk about, is this. When I was in grade 3, she was having a particularly hard time with things I guess, and was binge drinking to cope. She would binge drink in the morning, get super drunk I guess, call the school to tell them I was going home with her friend and their family, and then make herself throw up and sober up so she could come and get me. I was going through basically the same thing, I had panic attacks weekly and was really fucking struggling with my anxiety and OCD, and just wanted to go home to her, but she was doing this. Some days it was so bad that I would go home early, or she would call me in sick. Anyways, the family friend. The mother was normal-ish, kind of hillbilly I think, and the father was notedly weird. The kids were on another fucking level though, two of them ended up being autistic and one of them is just weird I think. So grade 3 me was getting sent to their house maybe once or twice a week, not knowing why and hating it so so fucking much every time. I would cry when I got called down to the office or when she would get me when school was over. I always had a hard time showing emotion in front of people. even then, so I hid most of it. It was insanely difficult to cope with all my problems, plus this, plus the fact that I felt I had to act happy and behave well. I didn’t know why I kept getting sent there either, and thought it was because of me I think. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me though I think. One time when I was there, the sister and younger brother were playing in the parents bedroom. I saw and was already freaking the fuck out because they weren’t supposed to be in there and I had this huge problem with guilt and doing the right thing still. The sister is in probably grade 6 or 7 or something, and the brother was a year or two younger than me. Point being, she’s big, he’s small. So they were rough housing and she had this game where she basically molested him. It didn’t seem sexual from either party, but he definitely didn’t like it and cried for her to stop. It took all of the courage I had but I said something like “hey you shouldn’t touch him there” because obviously everyone’s taught that that’s a bad place to be touched. She justified it by saying she wasn’t actually touching anything, just going around it. basically cupping his junk in her hand. He seemed genuinely uh, perturbed? by this. It clearly wasn’t a small thing to him. I didn’t ever mention it to anyone. Not to his parents, or a teacher or my parents or a councilor. I just blocked it out. I completely forgot about it until grade 8 or 9 I think. But I spent the rest of that year seeing him and feeling so fucking guilty that I didn’t have the courage to help him, and knowing that all I had to do was say something. I don’t know why I didn’t, I think i was afraid of people not believing me or being told I was exaggerating. I don’t think it fucked the kid up too much though, apparently hes doing pretty well for an autistic kid. I remembered all of this because for whatever reason it was explained to me what was happening in grade 3, about my mom drinking and whatnot. This was during the summer and I was going to a science summer camp at a university, and so all these fucking emotions got brought back up and guess what happened? I was told I was overplaying everything and was still sent to the fucking camp. Again I had to pretend like nothing bad was happening to me for 6 hours a day. What the fuck is wrong with them that they did this too me twice. I know they didn’t know any better but how the fuck does a child deal with this shit. It wasn’t fair. I felt like my whole fucking world was falling apart, that this was the literal end of life as I knew it, and I was sent to fucking summer camp. Also when I was 10 I was diagnosed as type one diabetic, I forgot to mention that. So that was pretty tough. I learned how to deal with trauma well though. The day I was diagnosed I had been suffering from a high blood sugar and dehydration for so long that I was told I couldn’t wait for and ambulance to take me to the hospital and that my dad had to drive me. Then they spent about 45 minutes trying to give me an IV. I counted 17 different needles, but most of those they dug around in my arm for a bit first, before taking it out and trying somewhere else. I was always good in high stress situations like this so I wasn’t too too freaked out, but I again felt like life as I knew it was over. I mean I guess it was, but I had this insanely strong sense of impending doom, same as when I was told all the shit about grade 3. This seems to be a reoccurring problem and I think it’s related to the fact that I don’t like change, or maybe I don’t like change because of all this shit. Whatever. I had a few really close calls and more recently honestly almost died twice. the last time was the worst I guess. I have this problem of refusing to do my insulin, I always have. It’s so fucking dumb because I know it’s literally killing me and I’m a full grown man but yeah, sometimes I just don’t do it. I think it’s either a self harm thing or me trying to forget that I have diabetes or something. Anyways, the last time I was hospitalized I woke up and felt sick and I would normally in this situation, so I did some insulin and drank a bunch of water and shit but it was just getting worse and worse. It’s hard to describe but it gets so bad that you feel like you literally do not have enough energy in your body to do anything beside lie still. Even breathing was hard. It’s not like being tired but it feels like someone chemically prevented your body from making or using energy. This time was so bad I couldn’t drive myself to the hospital as I previously had, so I asked my mom to call 911. She did and as she was on the phone I really felt like I was dying, so I told her to ask them to hurry. I didn’t want to say more because I didn’t want to freak her out, she was pretty calm as this wasn’t the first time I’d been hospitalized. She got off the phone and told me they were coming from a neighboring city, which concerned me very much. I really didn’t know if I was gonna be able to like, last, until they got there. I did, and they got me to the hospital just fine luckily. I was given an IV with a whole bunch of stuff, insulin and supplements I think. I was still so fucking concerned that I was gonna die, still felt very strongly that I was dying. I wasn’t scared though, it’s weird. I don’t mean that in a “oh I’m so tough I don’t fear death” kinda way, because I do. But I just understood that there wasn’t anything I could do at this point. Either I made it or I didn’t. After my ketones went down and I got whatever supplements in me, the doctor told my mom that I had in fact just about died. I don’t think he said any percentage or bullshit like that but he said I was super fucking lucky, and also an idiot for not doing the insulin, which I knew already. Allrighty, I’ve been writing for like 70 minutes, this was pretty nice actually. I’ll return here tomorrow. 1/3/2018

[ramialkarmi]

Psychedelics could be the cutting-edge treatment for mental illness that we’ve been ignoring for half a century

Estalyn Walcoff arrived at the nondescript beige building in Manhattan's Grammercy Park neighborhood on a balmy August morning, hours before the city would begin to swell with the frenetic energy of summer tourists. She was about to face a similar type of chaos — but only in her mind.

Pushing open the door to the Bluestone Center at the New York University College of Dentistry, Walcoff entered what looked like an average 1970s living room. A low-backed brown couch hugged one wall. On either side, a dark brown table held a homely lamp and an assortment of colorful, hand-painted dishes. A crouching golden Buddha, head perched thoughtfully on its knee, adorned another table closer to the entrance.

Months before, Walcoff had volunteered to participate in a study of how the psychedelic drug psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, affects the brain in cancer patients with anxiety and depression. The promising results of that five-year study, published earlier this month, have prompted some researchers to liken the treatment to a "surgical intervention.”

The researchers believe they are on the cusp of nothing less than a breakthrough: A single dose of psychedelic drugs appears to alleviate the symptoms of some of the most common, perplexing, and tragic illnesses of the brain. With depression the leading cause of disability worldwide, the timing seems ideal.

In people like Walcoff, whose depression and anxiety struck them like a powerful blow following a cancer diagnosis, one dose of psilocybin seemed to quiet her existential dread, to remind her of her connectedness with the world around her, and perhaps most importantly, to reassure her of her place in it.

And these results don't seem to be limited to people with cancer or another life-threatening illness. Participants in a handful of other psychedelic studies consistently ranked their trip as one of their most meaningful life experiences — not only because of the trip itself, but because of the changes they appear to produce in their lives in the months and years afterward.

Still, the existing research is limited — which is why, scientists say, they so badly need permission from the government to do more.

Clark’s story

1990 was a year of life and death for Clark Martin. It was the year his daughter was born and the year he was diagnosed with cancer.

Over the next twenty years, as his daughter took her first steps, experienced her first day of school, and eventually began growing into a smart, fiercely independent teenager, doctors waged a blitzkrieg on Martin's body. Six surgeries. Two experimental treatments. Thousands of doctor's visits. The cancer never went into remission, but Martin and his doctors managed to keep it in check by staying vigilant, always catching the disease just as it was on the brink of spreading.

Still, the cancer took its toll. Martin was riddled with anxiety and depression. He'd become so focused on saving his body from the cancer that he hadn't made time for the people and things in his life that really mattered. His relationships were in shambles; he and his daughter barely spoke.

So in 2010, after reading an article in a magazine about a medical trial that involved giving people with cancer and anxiety the drug psilocybin, he contacted the people running the experiment and asked to be enrolled.

After weeks of lengthy questionnaires and interviews, he was selected. On a chilly December morning, Martin walked into the facility at Johns Hopkins, where he was greeted by two researchers including Johns Hopkins psychologist Bill Richards. The three of them sat and talked in the room for half an hour, going over the details of the study and what might happen.

Martin then received a pill and swallowed it with a glass of water. For study purposes, he couldn't know whether it was a placebo or psilocybin, the drug the researchers aimed to study.

Next, he lay back on the couch, covered his eyes with the soft shades he'd been given, and waited.

Within a few minutes, Martin began to feel a sense of intense panic.

"It was quite anxiety provoking. I tried to relax and meditate but that seemed to make it worse and I just wanted everything to snap back into place. There was no sense of time and I realized the drug was in me and there was no stopping it.”

Martin, an avid sailor, told me it reminded him of a frightening experience he'd had once when, after being knocked off his boat by a wave, he'd become suddenly disoriented and lost track of the boat, which was floating behind him.

"It was like falling off the boat in the open ocean, looking back, and the boat is gone. And then the water disappears. Then you disappear."

Martin was terrified, and felt on the verge of a "full-blown panic attack." Thanks to the comfort and guidance of his doctors, however, he was eventually able to calm down. Over the next few hours, the terror vanished. It was replaced with a sense of tranquility that Martin still has trouble putting into words.

"With the psilocybin you get an appreciation — it's out of time — of well-being, of simply being alive and a witness to life and to everything and to the mystery itself," said Martin.

Lots of things happened to Martin over the course of his four-hour trip. For a few hours, he remembers feeling a sense of ease; he was simultaneously comfortable, curious, and alert. At one point, he recalls a vision of being in a sort of cathedral where he asked God to speak to him. More than anything else, though, he no longer felt alone.

"The whole ‘you' thing just kinda drops out into a more timeless, more formless presence," Martin said.

Over the next few hours, as his trip slowly began to draw to a close and he began to return to reality, Martin recalls a moment where the two worlds — the one in which he was hallucinating and the reality he could call up willingly from memory — seemed to merge. He turned his attention to his relationships. He thought of his daughter. His friends. His co-workers.

"In my relationships I had always approached it from a, ‘How do I manage this?', How do I present myself?,' ‘Am I a good listener?', type of standpoint. But it dawned on me as I was coming out of [the trip] that relationships are pretty much spontaneous if you're just present and connecting," said Martin.

That shift, which Martin stresses has continued to deepen since he took the psilocybin in 2010, has had enduring implications for his relationships.

"Now if I'm meeting people, the default is to be just present, not just physically, but mentally present to the conversation. That switch has been profound.”

While he felt himself undergo a shift during his 4-hour trip on psilocybin, Martin says the most enduring changes in his personality and his approach to those around him have continued to unfold in the months and years after he took the drug. For him, the drug was merely a catalyst; a "kick-start," he likes to call it. By temporarily redirecting his perspective within the span of few hours, Martin believes it unleashed a chain reaction in the way he sees and approaches the world.

This squares with what researchers have found by looking at the brain on psilocybin.

Taking the road(s) less traveled

Ask a healthy person who's "tripped" on psychedelics what it felt like, and they'll probably tell you they saw sounds.

The crash-bang of a dropped box took on an aggressive, dark shape. Or they might say they heard colors. A bright green light seems to emit a piercing, high-pitched screech.

In actuality, this "cross-wiring" — or synaesthesia, as it's known scientifically — may be one example of the drug "freeing" the brain from its typical connection patterns.

This fundamental change in how the brain sends and receives information also might be the reason they're so promising as a treatment for people with mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, or addiction. In order to understand why, it helps to take a look at how a healthy brain works.

Normally, information gets exchanged in the brain using various circuits, or what one researcher described to me as "informational highways." On some highways, there's a steady stream of traffic. On others, however, there's rarely more than a few cars on the road. Psychedelics appear to drive traffic to these underused highways, opening up dozens of different routes to new traffic and freeing up some space along the more heavily-used ones.

Dr. Robin Cahart-Harris, who leads the psychedelic research arm of the Center for Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, captured these changes in one of the first neuroimaging studies of the brain on a psychedelic trip. He presented his findings at a conference on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in New York City last year. "[With the psilocybin] there was a definite sense of lubrication, of freedom, of the cogs being loosened and firing in all sorts of unexpected directions," said Cahart-Harris.

This might be just the kick-start that a depressed brain needs.

One key characteristic of depression is overly-strengthened connections between brain circuits in certain regions of the brain — particularly those involved in concentration, mood, conscious thought, and the sense of self. And in fact, this may be part of the reason that electroconvulsive therapy, which involves placing electrodes on the temples and delivering a small electrical current, can help some severely depressed people — by tamping down on some of this traffic.

"In the depressed brain, in the addicted brain, in the obsessed brain, it gets locked into a pattern of thinking or processing that's driven by the frontal, the control center, and they cannot un-depress themselves," David Nutt, the director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, told me.

Nutt has been one of the pioneering researchers in the field of studying how psychedelics might be used to treat mental illness. He said that in depressed people, these overly-trafficked circuits (think West Los Angeles at rush-hour) can lead to persistent negative thoughts. Feelings of self-criticism can get obsessive and overwhelming. So in order to free someone with depression from those types of thoughts, one would need to divert traffic from some of these congested ruts and, even better, redirect it to emptier highways.

Which is precisely what psychedelics appear to do.

"Psychedelics disrupt that process so people can escape. At least for the duration of the trip they can escape about the ruminations about depression or alcohol or obsessions. And then they do not necessarily go back," said Nutt.

A 4-hour trip, a long-lasting change

"Medically what you're doing [with psychedelics is] you're perturbing the system," Paul Expert, who co-authored one of the first studies to map the activity in the human brain on psilocybin, told me over tea on a recent afternoon in London's bustling Whitechapel neighborhood.

Expert, a physicist at the King's College London Center for Neuroimaging Sciences, doesn't exactly have the background you'd expect from someone studying magic mushrooms.

But it was by drawing on his background as a physicist, Expert told me, that he and his team were able to come up with a systematic diagram of what the brain looks like on a psilocybin trip. Their study, published in 2014, also helps explain how altering the brain temporarily with psilocybin can produce changes that appear to continue to develop over time.

When you alter how the brain functions (or "perturb the system," in physicist parlance) with psychedelics, "that might reinforce some connections that already exist, or they might be more stimulated," Expert told me.

But those changes aren't as temporary as one might expect for a 4-hour shroom trip. Instead, they appear to catalyze dozens of other changes that deepen in the for months and years after taking the drug.

"So people who take magic mushrooms report for a long time after the actual experience that they feel better, they're happier with life," said Expert. "But understanding exactly why this is the case is quite tricky, because the actual trip is very short, and it's not within that short span of time that you could actually have sort of new connections that are made. That takes much more time.”

The clinical trials that Walcoff and Martin took part in, which took place at NYU and Johns Hopkins over the course of five years, are the longest and most comprehensive studies of people with depression on psychedelics that we have to-date. Last year, a team of Brazilian researchers published a review of all of the clinical trials on psychedelics published between 1990 and 2015. After looking at 151 studies, the researchers were only able to find six which met their analysis criteria. The rest were either too small, too poorly-controlled, or problematic for another reason. Nevertheless, based on the six studies they were able to review, the researchers concluded that "ayahuasca, psilocybin, and LSD may be useful pharmacological tools for the treatment of drug dependence, and anxiety and mood disorders, especially in treatment-resistant patients. These drugs may also be useful pharmacological tools to understand psychiatric disorders and to develop new therapeutic agents.”

Because the existing research is so limited, scientists still can't say exactly what is happening in the brain of someone who's tripped on psychedelics that appears to unleash such a cascade of life changes like the kind Martin described.

What we do know, though, is that things like training for a musical instrument or learning a skill change the brain. It's possible that psychedelics do something similar over the long-term, even if the actual trip — the phase of drug use that many people focus on — is pretty brief.

In other words, a trip "might trigger a sort of snowball effect," said Expert, in the way the brain processes information.

And something about the experience appears to be much more powerful, for some people, than even years of antidepressants. A small recent trial of psilocybin that Nutt co-authored in people whose chronic depression had not responded to repeated attempts at treatment with medication suggested that this may be the case. While the trial was only designed to determine if the drug was safe, all of the study participants saw a significant decrease in symptoms at a one-week follow-up; the majority said they continued to see a decrease in symptoms at another follow-up done three months later.

"We treated people who'd been suffering for 30 years. And they're getting better with a single dose," said Nutt. "So that tells us this drug is doing something profound.”

Killing the ego

Between 1954 and 1960, Dr. Humphry Osmond gave thousands of alcoholics LSD.

It was part of an experimental treatment regimen aimed at helping them recover. Osmond thought that the acid would mimic some of the symptoms of delirium tremens, a psychotic condition common in chronic alcoholics when they try to stop drinking that can involve tremors, hallucinations, anxiety, and disorientation. Osmond thought the experience might shock the alcoholics, who'd thus far failed to respond to any other treatments, into not drinking again.

He was wrong.

Rather than terrifying his patients with an extreme case of shakes and hallucinations, the acid appeared to produce positive, long-lasting changes in their personalities. Something about the LSD appeared to help the suffering alcoholics "reorganize their personalities and reorganize their lives," said New York University psychiatrist Michael Bogenschutz at a conference on therapeutic psychedelics last year.

A year later, 40% to 45% of Osmond's patients had not returned to drinking — a higher success rate than any other existing treatment for alcoholism.

In an interview with the Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Halpern, Osmond's colleague, the biochemist Dr. Abram Hoffer, recalled, "Many of them didn't have a terrible experience. In fact, they had a rather interesting experience.”

While some call it interesting, other have called it "spiritual," "mystical," or even "religious.”

Scientists still can't say for sure what is going on in the brain during a trip that appears to produce these types of experiences. We know that part of it is about the tamping down of certain circuits and the ramping up of others.

Interestingly enough, one of the circuits that appears to get quieter during a psychedelic trip is the circuit that connects the parahippocampus and the retrosplenial cortex. This network is thought to play a key role in our sense of self, or ego.

Deflating the ego is far from the soul-crushing disappointment it sounds like. Instead, it appears to make people feel more connected to the people and environment around them.

Cahart-Harris, who conducted the first study of its kind to take images of a healthy brain on LSD, said in a news release that his findings support that idea. In a normal, non-drugged person, specific parts of our brain light up with activity depending on what we're doing. If we're focused on reading something, the visual cortex sparkles with action. If we're listening carefully to someone, our auditory cortex is particularly active. Under the influence of LSD, the activity isn't as neatly segregated. "... the separateness of these networks breaks down and instead you see a more integrated or unified brain," he said.

That change might help explain why the drug produces an altered state of consciousness too. Just as the invisible walls between once-segregated tasks are broken down, the barriers between the sense of self and the feeling of interconnection with one's environment appear to dissolve. "The normal sense of self is broken down and replaced by a sense of re-connection with themselves, others and the natural world,"said Cahart-Harris.

Given that one of the key characteristics of mental illnesses like depression and alcoholism is isolation and loneliness, this newfound interconnection could act as a powerful antidote.

"It's kind of like getting out of a cave. You can see the light and you can stay in the light," said Nutt. "You've been liberated.”

A spiritual experience

Humans have a long history of looking to "spiritual experiences" to treat mental illness and of using psychedelics to help bring such experiences about.

Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic beverage brewed from the macerated and boiled vines of the Banisteriopsis caapi (yagé) plant and the Psychotria viridis (chacruna) leaf, has been used as a traditional spiritual medicine in ceremonies among the indigenous peoples of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru for centuries. Its name is a combination of the Quechua words "aya,"which can be loosely translated into "spirit"and "waska,"or "woody vine."Europeans didn't encounter ayahuasca until the 1500s, when Christian missionaries traveling through Amazonia from Spain and Portugal saw it being used by indigenous peoples. (At the time, they called it the work of the devil.)

It's now understood that ayahuasca has a similar effect on the brain as magic mushrooms or acid. Yet unlike magic mushrooms, whose main psychoactive ingredient is the drug psilocybin, ayahuasca's psychoactive effects come from a result of mixing two different substances — the drug dimethyltryptamine (DMT), from the chacruna plant, and the MAO-Inhibitor (MAOI), from the yage plant, which allows the DMT to be absorbed into our bloodstream.

In the early 1950s, in fact, writer William Burroughs traveled through South America looking for the yagé plant hoping that he could use it to help cure opiate addiction. Some fifteen years earlier, a man suffering in an alcoholic ward in New York had a transformative experience on the hallucinogen belladonna. "The effect was instant, electric. Suddenly my room blazed with an incredibly white light," the man wrote. Shortly after that, the man, whose name was William ("Bill”) Wilson, would go on to found the 12-step recovery program Alcoholics Anonymous. Wilson later experimented with LSD and said he believed the drug could help alcoholics achieve one of the central tenets of AA: acceptance of a "power greater than ourselves.”

Nevertheless, ayahuasca, LSD, and other hallucinogens were slow to gain notoriety across Europe and North America. They saw a temporary surge in popularity in the US in the 1960s, with people like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert writing of the "ego loss" produced by magic mushrooms as part of their Harvard Psilocybin Project. But in 1966, the US government made psychedelics illegal, and most experimentation, along with all research into their potential medicinal properties, came to a screeching halt.

Meanwhile, scientists have continued to experiment with the drugs in whatever capacity they can. Bogenschutz, one of the presenters at the New York psychedelic conference, has spent years studying the effects of a single dose of psychedelics on addicts. He's found that in most cases, studies suggest the hallucinogens can improve mood, decrease anxiety, increase motivation, produce changes in personality, beliefs and values, and most importantly, decrease cravings. But how?

"One of the big questions was how would a single use produce lasting behavior change?" he said in 2014, "because if this is going to produce any lasting effect, there have to be consistent changes.”

Based on several small pilot studies that he's helped conduct, Bogenschutz hypothesizes that the drugs affect addicts in two ways, which he breaks down into "acute" or short-term effects and "secondary"or longer-term effects. In the short-term, psychedelics affect our serotonin receptors, the brain's main mood-regulatory neurotransmitters. Next, they affect our glutamate receptors, which appear to produce the so-called transformative experiences and psychological insight that people experience on the drugs.

"This is the most rewarding work I've ever done. To see these kinds of experiences ... it's just not as easy to get there with psychotherapy," he said.

Staying in the light

From the time she was born, Clark Martin's daughter and her father had a difficult relationship. He and his wife were never married, but they loved their child and divided their time with her as best they could. Still, Martin couldn't help feel like their time together was consistently strained. For one thing, the spontaneity that's so vital to many relationships was absent. He always knew when their time together started and when it was coming to an end.

"You're not having as much everyday experience," Martin recalled. "Instead you're having kind of a planned experience. And that affects the depth of the relationship, I think."

Martin felt similarly about his father, who had developed Alzheimer's several years before. Martin would visited when he could, but whenever they were together Martin felt compelled to try and push the visits into the confines of whatever he thought a "normal" father-son interaction should be. He'd try to make their discussions mirror the ones they would have had before his father became ill — "I kept trying to have ‘normal' conversations with him," Martin recalled.

About three hours into his psilocybin trip at Johns Hopkins, Martin called to mind a memory of his teenage daughter. "I'd been so focused on pursuing my own ideas about what was best for her," he realized, "trying to be the architect of her life," that he had let that get in the way of making sure she knew how much he loved and cared about her.

One afternoon about a year after the trip, Martin drove out to visit his father. This time, instead of trying to have a "normal" conversation with him, Martin took him for a drive.

"He always loved farming and ranching and we'd just get in the car and spend hours driving along," Martin recalled.

As they drove, rolling green hills sped past them on all sides. His father looked out at the lush horizon with awe, as if he were seeing it for the first time. The crisp blue sky. The soft blanket of grass.

All of a sudden, Martin's father saw something. He gestured out the window, but Martin saw nothing — just grass and trees and sky. Then, something moved in the distance. There, in the middle of two emerald hills, a deer cocked its head up.

"It was miles away," said Martin. "I would have completely missed it."

SEE ALSO: What magic mushrooms do to your body and brain

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