#both my current psychiatrist and this current therapist have talked about being really adhd and it makes sense that we're connecting

[neverendingford]

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[brad-bakshi-loves-bugs]

oh my gosh, did you just say you roleplay in your room?? dude (gender neutral)!! that’s so smart. and also really cute..:)

you talked about having ADHD. i’ve been having some trouble lately and i was wondering what it looks like for you? just to get an idea wether i might need to check it out or not.

thank you, i think...? this is the strangest ask ive ever received but i think being called cute is a compliment LMAO so ty

so like. adhd looks different in everyone it affects, and i always recommend reaching out to a psychiatrist or even just your physician if you suspect you might have some Fucky Stuff going on with your brain! i was diagnosed with adhd when i was 10 which is pretty telling for how severe mine is because they dont usually diagnose afab kids that young LMAO but again. everyone is different!

HOWEVER i will start this off by saying that i also have severe bipolar 1, which has a lot of overlapping symptoms with adhd. im not a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or a therapist (or any other -ist), and i couldnt tell you which of my Problems are adhd and which are bipolar. so here's your disclaimer to please not use me as the deciding factor for whether or not you have adhd! my adhd personally is life-altering and essentially ruined my childhood for various reasons, and it's still something i struggle with daily. not every case is so severe (most aren't, in fact), so take everything i say with a grain of salt!

but here's a list of things i attribute to my adhd, which is very far from a complete list, but it's what i can think of off the top of my head:

i HATE silence. whenever im doing anything i have to be playing music or listening to something or i cant focus at all, but it also cant be New Music or ill just get distracted and not be able to focus

on the flip side, i also cant fully concentrate if i have any sort of noise. so if im trying to have a serious conversation that requires my full attention, i have to turn off all music and essentially block my ears so that i can focus. no i dont know why but its SO FUCKING ANNOYING

i alternate between skipping every song halfway through because i get bored quicker than a song can finish or listening to the same song for 6 hours on loop and still wanting to listen to more of it. seriously, i listened to rockstar sea shanty by nickelback almost 400 times this year alone, and i only just discovered it in august

when i hyperfixate, i cannot do ANYTHING else or i get massively depressed and lose all motivation. i ended up in a psych ward back in october because the thought of doing my (easy and otherwise enjoyable) job made me self-harm because i was hyperfocused on watching a specific show and i couldnt do ANYTHING else. im a terrible employee

time management? not here! im late to EVERY SINGLE THING. i had an interview yesterday and i was late by 15 minutes. when i was working at petsmart, i can count on both hands the number of times i showed up to work on time in an ENTIRE YEAR. i have no idea why im like this and i hate it

i pace. a LOT. like, i spend several hours a day pacing. i literally just walk around my kitchen and living room and bedroom aimlessly. im like an npc, but instead of giving you helpful tips i just give you really shitty one liners and puns until you beat me to death

if im not pacing, im doing SOMETHING. whether im biting my nails, popping my knuckles, bouncing my leg, bobbing my head, anything. its physically impossible for me to sit still. like right now, im sitting at my desk typing on my keyboard, but im also shaking my legs violently and bobbing my head to the music im currently playing (it's hicktown by jason aldean. yeah, i enjoy country music. im a redneck sorry)

i SUCK at multitasking. like, even just listening to something and writing. or listening to someone and watching tv. or listening to two things at once. okay, so im starting to think im just really bad at listening. but STILL. my mom can work and watch tv at the same time, but if i try to do that i just end up watching tv and i cant get anything done. i absolutely cannot concentrate if two things are happening at once

i cant watch movies. i literally spend more time rewinding and playing back whatever i missed while i was checking my phone than i do actually watching the movie. im the same way with tv shows unless im hyperfixated on them, but at least theyre shorter so i can take more breaks

again, this is not a complete list. nor does this mean that if you check all of these boxes then you also have adhd, or that if you dont check them then you dont. i cannot stress enough that adhd affects every person differently. thats why its such a bitch to diagnose, and why the symptoms overlap with so many other illnesses and disorders.

i do hope that some of this helped! i have no issues with talking about my own mental problems because im a very firm believer that they should be destigmatized and more often talked about publicly, but i try to limit how often i bring up my own issues unless someone directly asks about them because i know not everyone wants to hear about them and that's fine too!

[thotsforvillainrights]

Hello! Ummm, sorry if match-ups are closed, I couldn't find anything for it-! But here! Sorry if it's long. I originally wrote it down on paper so I'm converting it!

-

I'm 19 years old, 5'5, have long reddish-brown hair and kinda pale skin. My eyes are pretty fucking noticable as they are pretty big! I am chubby overall, and heavier bottom set! I have chunky thighs, big ol butt, and triple D tits! I also have a thick Southern drawl, and moles all over my body!

My overall clothing style can vary, from American 80s' pop (colorful clothes, bellbottoms, button-ups, stripes, ect.) To today's funky little tiktok colorful shit that looks like a clown threw up. But I'm not really one to wear makeup, so just the clothes! I also LOVE short shorts and tanktops when I'm at home!

Currently I'm in college getting a psychology degree so I can later become either a child's psychiatrist or something like that. I love kids lots, and having a boyfriend/husband that doesn't like kids is an instant dealbreaker. I've always wanted to be a mother!

Awful, bad, knee-breaking, nut-cracking, debilitating daddy issues. I'm gonna be honest, I've went to therapy to talk about it and actually my therapist stopped calling back. Sucks. I have ADHD and Bipolar Disorder as well, and am rejection sensitive (but have learnt to be the brunt of it in the last one)

For my creative outlet, I really like reading and writing! I'm awful good at writing too! I've won a few writing competitions that I'm very proud of ! I'm very into helping people find creative outlets. It can help dissuade bad urges. I can also play the flute.

I do tend to hyper fixate, and when I do I can get pretty talkative! I love listening to people info dump, and I LOVE infodumping! I also loving listening to gossip, and am really good at keeping secrets. Honestly bomb at it!

I'm bigender, but typically I identify with my feminine side physically! Mentally it's a healthy mix of both I think. I am only really attracted to men, and I ain't really interested in women.

I love playing video games, and have a slight addiction to the funny ones. Like Among Us, Minecraft, Crush Crush, and Dream Daddy! I also really like dating sims lol.

I have a preference for children's movies, especially Pixar! I also love horror movies. I'm a huge movie buff, and have watched just about every Pixar and Disney movie. I HAVE watched every movie with Jack Black in it.

I'm a huge fantasy nerd lol.

I <3 big boys! Tall, fat, strong, any type of big adjective and I'm all gooey inside. (See: Barley Lightfoot from Onward)

My love languages include quality time, acts of service, and physically touch!

Always dreamt of having a pet bunny, even had planned out names for it. (Beef Whiskerton)

Hopeless sap, dead romantic, even the thought of being loved is enough for me to crumble and shake lol.

Longterm memory is good, shorterm is bad.

Demiromantic, hypersexual, crazy fucking sex drive. At one time I have gone and done it more than 3+ times a day for the beloved.

Amazing cook!! I'm a really good cook, and I can clean pretty well! Perfect housewife material! But I'm a lover of being at work, I like the feeling business gives me! So I would also enjoy a househusband! Either way I'm okay:>

Kinda philosophical at times. I like stargazing and tlaing about what ifs. What kind of universes are out there, what tragedies did they go through, maybe there's one out somewhere were we never met, or one where we weren't even born. Maybe one were everything's the same, but made out of hotdogs? Stuff like that.

I should also add that I have a large and extended family, that care for me very deeply and are excited (and preotective) whenever I bring a guy home! My family could occupy the entire state of Detroit lol.

And final fun fact/ party trick: I can pop one of my eyeballs out of socket. I have done it 3 times, only stopped because it started to hurt a little and I didn't wanna risk greater energy lol.

-

Sorry if this was long- thank you of you do end up doing this! Your writing is fucking awesome btw (this isn't me buttering you up, I'm honestly just really liking ur writing!!)

(I’m genuinely glad you like it, brb crying!😭❤️)

Match-Up #12

I match you with Koku Hanabata-

headcanon|scenario|imagine|match-up  

-Right off the bat do not kill me because of the obvious age gap between you two! I know he’s more around the likes of Giran, Compress and Chimera (and the other older characters) but I can totally explain everything if you give me a shot at it!

-Okay so you two didn’t click well at first but that’s mostly because he came off as annoying and cocky. You had just gotten a new job at his office without really even caring it was in politics. You probably blacked out and applied when you saw the hourly pay (and I would have too). He needed a personal assistant to help take care of things. Election season was starting up and he had his hands full when his other assistant retired early to get married and start his family life. Hanabata wasn’t going to hire you immediately at first but when you interviewed with him and one of his people he knew he wanted you around to help out. “Sir are you sure about them? You still have 28 more candidates to interview and this person has a fluke with their ability to memoriz-” 

“Tell them the position has been filled.” He smiled and quickly left the room.

-He got a lot of shit from mostly the other female (and some of the male or nonbinary) staff at his offices when he hired you as his assistant. Some of them were upset since they wanted to move up into that spot, others were mad because you were younger than them and they didn’t believe you could handle the work they could. Most of all, a LOT of people shit on you behind your back when they noticed the way he treated you. “Hmmm, I guess Mr. Hanabata just wanted a quick and easy lay. Jealously was buzzing around the office while you could care less. You didn’t know your coworkers didn’t like you and you definitely didn’t know right away that your boss had the hots for you. The only thing that mattered was having a cushy and well paying job. Besides, it would cover your tuition nicely AND leave you some time to study and focus on school as well. (Or maybe he tailored your schedule like that since he was falling for you so hard?)

-He was very annoying when you realized he liked you. The man didn’t stop bothering you. Not to mention how far his head was up his own ass most of the time. Although he ended up making you laugh to yourself a few times, you still tried to avoid him at all costs. Eventually you became curious about it and you genuinely began listening to his words instead of rolling your eyes and letting them pass from one ear and out the other. He was actually kinda funny, and really charming. You can’t deny he takes care of his appearance either. He kept his hair done, his face clean and well shaven, and his suits pressed to perfection. Not to mention that damned cologne that started to make you go crazy...in a good way. You had no idea how the man could take you rejecting him so often. You dealt with rejection not as a challenge like he did. You could’ve long since reported him to H.R but now you were starting to fall for him. The one day he didn’t show up in the office you were worried about him. You decided to send a friendly text message his way just to check up on him. Oh my God, he blew your phone up. When he called you, he would not shut up. I think eventually you snapped at him to leave you alone. While you worried about him firing you over this, he simply didn’t. He stopped texting you and calling you. He never took an extra second to hang by your office at work. He only contacted you when he needed something work related. He flipped a switch and it oddly made you sad...so you sucked it up and asked him out to dinner with you. Suddenly he was just fine like nothing ever happened. It would make for an interesting story to tell your future kids someday (believe me, he wants them).

-To him, you were so weird but in a good way. He never seemed to have a dull moment while with you. Your colorful style always kept his eyes, and your writing was so good he was considering sending you to Chitose’s office to work there instead! You read, played the flute, and did this really strange thing with your eyes one time while you were out with him and his friends that made Skeptic heave. You watched various children media that he usually had no interest in until he sat with you and watched a bit of it one day. You also played some games that made him question you with a chuckle. He opened up around you a lot, and seemed generally brighter around you. His friends liked you...well some barely tolerated you (geten and skeptic) but that’s a different story. Curious was taken with you and loved gossiping with you AND Trumpet about different things. At some point she knew to pull the plug since you and Hanabata both crossed over into info dumping. Though she considered herself a great friend of his, she couldn’t always handle how much he talked. Now that you and him were doing it together, she definitely needed a breather from time to time. It’s not like you two noticed her slip away anyway, ya'll were too busy info-dumping to each other lol.

-He was very much taken with you. He loved you and didn’t care if he needed to give up the world just to be yours, he would. Skeptic was up to his neck deleting various gossip articles and speculations about Trumpet when the press caught wind of you. A lot of them weren’t very friendly...some of them hinting at even the sickest of things with headlines like ‘Politician dating very young’ etc. Even with all the bad that came from it, there was some good too. You were a positive look for him! He lost a lot of voters that only wanted him because they wanted a shot at his heart, but he gained almost double that in people that had those old fashioned family values. With that, you might be stuck at home having to take on the housewife lifestyle for a while.

-He was very cliché romantic with you. Roses once a week to replace the boquet he got you last week, expensive gifts, constant elegant dates, lots of affectionate words being thrown around. He plays music to dance with you in the living room. He cooks meals for you (and he aint too bad at it). He listens to you about your little fantasy interests and your nerdy facts about fandoms or whatnot. He takes on house chores, and will do anything for you to feel like you aren’t overwhelmed. He will even buy you that rabbit you dreamt of if you promise him you’ll take care of it. He’s also very touchy and lets be honest here...his drive is pretty high for the most part. He holds back when you both finally get to that part of the relationship but when you display how much you can give and take, he stops holding back and matches up with you perfectly. Sometimes he just can’t help it though and he might go overboard. Your appearance is very attractive to him. He loves your hair and especially your eyes. The tush, thighs, and chest are a kill shot to him. Plus your chubbiness he’s so in love with. It’s you he cannot live without.

-Hanabata would wade through the lakes of hell to be with you. When he meets your family he’s nervous but determined to win their approval to be with you. It may be a long difficult road when it comes to that, but he’s already shown how persistent he can be so you needn't worry about him. I think the night he finally wins their approval he’s over the moon about it! You two are out back (or wherever is best at your childhood home), sitting on a blanket and stargazing when you start talking about all the things you have on your mind. Meanwhile he’s staring you down with bright and loving eyes. He’s gotten your family blessing, and he’s juggling a little grey box behind his back while waiting for the right time to show you what’s inside...

[nerdshrimp19]

I just need to talk about this...

This is going to be something completely different from my usual content on my blog, but I need to talk about this because I am still livid.

This is most likely going to turn into a long-winded rant, so I will provide a TLDR.

TLDR: A psychiatric nurse practitioner said it would not be worth doing diagnostic testing for Autism and ADD/ADHD because I have good grades and a healthy long term romantic relationship.

For some background, I have been doing online college for two years and with the pandemic I have been by myself a lot more. This gave me more time for self-reflection, and I have always been interested in psychology. I decided to look into ADHD for a new topic to learn about, and when researching I related to the symptoms associated with it. I found myself diving deep into this topic like I do with everything I enjoy learning about and eventually found myself researching Autism because of the comorbidity of the conditions. I also related with some, if not most, of the symptoms associated with Autism, to some degree.

So, I slowly introduced the idea to my parents and boyfriend that I thought I might have both or one of the conditions. My parents were quite dismissive, but my boyfriend thought that my suspicions held some merit. But that was enough for me to go back to getting mental health services. My anxiety and depression were/are also worsening, so I wanted to get back into it anyway. I got a therapist and told her about my suspicions, and we talked about it. She also thought that it would be worth getting me tested for the conditions. So, she got me set up with a psychiatrist to possibly get me set for testing. (Quick side note: the last time I was tested for anything was when I was around the age of twelve and I almost twenty now.)

Surprisingly, I was looking forward to this appointment because of the prospect of getting testing planned, which my therapist assured me I could set up. If you have had a psychiatric appointment, you will know that they will take your medical information like weight, height, etc. That portion went without a hitch, but I was still masking like I usually do with strangers in public.

When I was called back, I was initially encouraged by the fact he was younger than any of my previous psychiatrists hoping that he would be more open minded. I decided that I was not going to mask when I was in the room, so hopefully he can get a more accurate visual assessment. Then when my mother and I got to the room and sat down he introduced himself as a “mental health nurse practitioner.” But I was under the impression that he was a doctor, I brushed this off as a misunderstanding on my part because it is something I often do. Since it was a first visit, we went over the basics like medical history, mental health history, medications, etc. But, when I brought up the possibility of me having something else besides/alongside my current diagnoses, I was dismissed. Then I finally brought up getting testing done for ADD/ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder, and he asked me how I am doing in school. And I had good grades last semester. Next, he asked about my relationships, and of course I told him that I have a boyfriend who I have been with for almost four years. He decided that those two things alone were enough to say that he did not see a need for testing. Because according to him “it is not affecting me enough for it to be worth getting a diagnosis.” This man had the nerve to tell me that with me rocking back and forth, playing with a fidget toy to keep me calm and present, me making very little eye contact, both or one of my legs bouncing, and even after I told him that my father has diagnosed ADD and my brother has diagnosed ASD. Maybe if he looked anywhere besides my chest for a few seconds, he might have seen some of what I was doing. He attributed everything he was seeing and what I was telling him to my anxiety. Yes, I was quite anxious because I am horrible with crowds and strangers, which I told him. I also have lots of anxiety regarding medical settings because of chronic illnesses and mental issues. But of course, my people pleasing self just accepted this and did not press any further.

As soon as I was out of the building, I began telling my mom that it was not fair at all that he would not even consider letting me get testing. I also explained to her that he was going based of the typical, male associated symptoms of both conditions. “Does he not know that both ADHD and Autism present differently in women,” was what I asked my mom while trying not to cry out of anger in the car. Because I thought that I could finally get an explanation and label for why I am so different, and it was just taken from me. Even though this happened only a few days ago, I feel so much more isolated and invalidated than I did before the appointment. Having the opportunity to make sense of my life and myself being ripped away from me has effected much more than I thought it would.

I knew that it was harder for females to get a diagnosis for these things, but I was at least hoping that it would not be the case for me. It sounds naïve now, but my therapist validating me gave me hope that it would be different. My mom and I are looking into other people who might give me a chance to get tested and hopefully it will go better than that did. Although, I should not be surprised about any of this happening, mental health services in my state are a joke anyway.

Anyway, if you made it this far congrats you made it too the end of this way too long post. Thanks for reading what I had to say. This is not really adding anything to the discussion, but I just needed to tell someone, so again thank you for reading.

[tarysande]

Hey, I see you reblogging adhd stuff every now and when. I hope you're ok with me asking, how long have you known you have adhd? I am currently wondering if I have it and am sups unsure what to do about it.

I’m always okay with people asking about things I post!

Of course, because of the ADHD, I’m not always great at answering ;)

I’m especially willing to talk about ADHD because I know my journey to getting a diagnosis doesn’t follow the stereotypical path, and I’d be thrilled if my experience ends up helping other people out there.

My family doctor was the first person to ever mention ADHD to me. I was 36 at the time. Maybe 37. I’m 40 (wtf) now, turning 41 in a month (haha, wtf). I’ve had depression most of my life. At the time, I was deeply frustrated because my depression was well-managed, but I still couldn’t focus to save my life. When my doctor asked if I might have ADHD, I laughed and said, “With my grades*? Yeah, no.” *I was a straight-A student from elementary school through to the end of my BFA. HOWEVER, at uni I had a handful of ‘lower’ grades: a B-, a B, a B+ in classes I found A G O N I Z I N G L Y boring. I was also never a disruption in class—mostly because I entertained myself by writing novels and reading under my desk and listening to music by keeping my earphones under my long hair. The key was to answer a question in class right away, thereby diverting the teacher’s attention and leaving me to my own devices for the rest of the time.

The focus issues continued unabated. Months later, a good friend of mine who was also diagnosed with ADHD as an adult brought it up again, and this time I did a lot more research. And ... yeah, puzzle pieces started clicking together. A lot of them. 

I brought it up with my doctor, and she sent me to the one (1) psychiatrist in Vancouver who was a) covered by provincial healthcare and b) would deal with a potential ADHD diagnosis in a patient of my (advanced) age *stares into the camera like it’s the office*. He was a Real Jerk, but I did his bevy of tests and he reluctantly agreed that I matched all the criteria except that I had never done poorly in school or been a nuisance in class**. **these criteria are ridiculously outdated, often don’t apply to girls (or those who have inattentive-type or mixed-type ADHD), and should BY NO MEANS exclude anyone from an ADHD diagnosis. If, like me, you’re what they call “twice exceptional” (where being intellectually gifted can often mask the struggles associated with ADHD, autism, physical/learning disabilities), it’s EVEN EASIER to slip through the cracks. 

The psychiatrist upped my anti-depressants, which helped, but still did nothing for my focus. By the way? ADHD, especially in adults, is FREQUENTLY comorbid with other conditions like depression or anxiety. It’s almost like ... when your brain doesn’t do what you know it should do, WANT it to do, TRY TO MAKE IT DO, and you feel like a failure who’s not living up to her potential ... it makes you REALLY DEPRESSED!! Who knew?? After almost a year, I finally brought up the focus with my family doctor again, who was like, “Okay, let’s try some things, then.” Finding the right dose of ADHD meds is ... trial and error. And it’s exhausting. And sometimes you think you’ve figured it out, but you haven’t. I still haven’t landed on the BEST POSSIBLE solution for me, but I will tell you this: the difference in unmedicated-ADHD-Tara and medicated-ADHD-Tara is like night and day, even when my meds aren’t optimal. 

To give a very specific example, I’m a freelance writer and editor. My income from my first (medicated) year of running my own business full(ish) time was almost three times that of the unmedicated year before. This year, even with COVID throwing a lot of wrenches in a lot of gears, I’ve remained booked three to four months in advance, my focus is better, my self-worth is better (i.e., I charge what I know I’m worth), I’ve stood up for myself, I’ve *gasp* started planning(???). I’m not rolling around in piles of money, but I’m above the Canadian median.

I also speak to my therapist every two weeks (she’s wonderful—and she’s online, which is both cheaper and more accessible for me). I’m slowly understanding the value of meditation (if you have the Calm app I HIGHLY recommend Jeff Warren’s How to Meditate 30-day program. I’m on day 13. There’s no BS or vagueness; I love him.) I made an effort to change my diet and spend more time moving around outdoors. (Exercise is even more important for ADHD brains, it turns out.)

Now, none of this has been a magical cure-all. I’m in the middle of struggling with med dosage at the moment, which is freshly irritating. Even medicated, there are good days and bad days—which is totally normal. I just finished an editing project that nearly destroyed me because it was SO boring and I couldn’t get out of it (because I’d ADHD-procrastinated too long). Learning how to function in the neurotypical world with an atypical ADHD brain is WORK. There’s also a lot of emotion—grief, anger, frustration, joy—as you process the new information and mourn the time you spent lost, underachieving, “failing.”

One really great, really accessible resource is the YouTube channel How to ADHD. For people who want to dig into the science, I recommend Russell Barkley (HE IS SO SMART) and Ned Hallowell. There’s also a ton of information on ADDitude. Anyway, this is a lot of information, I know. There are some good self-tests on the ADDitude site. If you think you have it AND IT’S IMPACTING YOUR LIFE***, bring it up with your doctor. Know that you might run into some resistance because most ADHD meds can be (and are widely) abused, and people with actual ADHD get caught in that crossfire. Even though it’s hard because of ADHD’s effect on emotions (TOO MANY!! TOO STRONG!!), be prepared to face some scrutiny.  *** they’re always going to ask about how it’s negatively affecting your life.

[caffeineandcurses]

Stash’s Chai Spice Black Tea

Welcome, to my first venture into content-writing on this blog - journal? Post? 

I don’t really know what the kids are saying, and I don’t know that I ever really did, so let’s stick to blog, it’s nice and informal. I normally make a bit of fun about recipe blogs that start with a long rant of back-history, but it seems misinformed to not TRY to relate a bit of myself to what I’m writing, for the question of ‘why this’. For the well-intended record, let’s also start with ‘who am I’ - hello! My name is Kay. I’m a 23-year veteran of the internet (my twitter account is old enough to have a twitter account!), and a 33-year veteran of living, with a variety of hobbies and interests in the creative and the fictional. 

I got interested in the rituals of coffee around four to five years ago, but fell out of habit with it in 2019 due to digestive health issues. I was in the middle of a lot, then, and started to research and self-diagnose myself reading up on the symptoms and behavior of those with ADHD, under the purview of habits I noticed, and the relationship to my post-caffeinated self’s improvement. I still consumed a lot of energy drinks, sodas and teas to get my caffeine content, but it wouldn’t be until just this year, this month, March 2021, that I would get my answers.

I DO have the inattentive-type of attention-deficit hyperactive disorder. That is why, most likely, I am somebody who definitely benefits from a healthy relationship with caffeine. Someday, I may even be someone who benefits from a healthy relationship with a psychiatrist and/or therapist, and is on a proper medication for it, but, for now, caffeine is my go-to drug.

And let’s be honest: caffeine is a drug! And I’m NOT a doctor. Take use of it seriously. This isn’t my place to glorify abuse of over-the-counter substances. Just to talk about the habits I uptake, and share how I enjoy it, to maybe help others, and how I make it a fun habit for me, to stay attentive to what I’m doing and enjoy my experiences of reality.

I hope that wasn’t too much to get through - and if you skipped ahead to the next bit because you just wanted to know it and nothing about me? I don’t blame you. 

Today’s drink!

Stash’s Chai Spice Black Tea

With black teas, by the way, you normally have 47mg of caffeine per tea bag. Thank you, Google - please don’t laugh at my search histories.

An aside - what we’re really talking about with “chai” is “masala”. “Chai” just means tea! 

My preparation:

Two teabags

Temperature-safe mug

Two big spoonfuls of sugar

A splash of milk

Steeped for just under 5 minutes.

Most black teas say “3-5” minutes, and I enjoy a strong-tasting tea, so that’s my personal process. There’s a particular flavor of tannins on most black teas that I think the spiced flavor cuts, even if I have steadily added less and less sugar into how I drink it. 

I am not INCREDIBLY indulgent with my regular tea buys. I just have a stovetop kettle, and mostly use bagged teas for convenience, because too much to clean up after and sometimes I lose track of it if I just want my fix, which is honestly, a shame on ME. One day when I have a lot of disposable income, I would love to try one of the traditional masala chai recipes out there for the thrill. 

As it stands, on my CURRENT budget; I buy a lot of Bigelow brand teas, usually, but after not being able to find a flavor that REALLY appealed to me in its brand a while back, I bought a few of Stash’s, and I think they actually have the most appealing FLAVORED teas I had. Tea is the least jittery caffeine intake I indulge in that I still feel. Another bonus of the clean flavor, both on Stash and on the spice of the tea itself, is that it doesn’t feel like it leaves as bitter an after-taste that most plain black tea has.

Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy a good black tea without flavor - there’s something pleasantly floral about it once you adapt to it that’s “delightfully complex”, as it were. My other masala tea comparisons do mostly come from Bigelow, specifically, their Vanilla Chai. Memories of that one are from before I grew unhinged, steeping for longer, throwing in extra tea bags, so on and so forth, but I remember its flavor being less bold. Stash’s Chai Spice DEFINITELY feels like it has a more robust flavor, with cinnamon being the strongest note I am able to pick out.

About halfway through the drink is when I see myself start to bring my work into focus, and once it’s finished, I’m usually set on being able to hit finer details of whatever I was working on. 

The most strong hold of tea, or coffee, and its ritual, is also the concept of its power to make you sit, and finish it. If I have nothing pinning me to my workspace, I’m more likely to wander. But, PARTICULARLY with a fresh hot cup on my desk that I want to enjoy before it cools, I feel alert, compelled to focus with my leaf water.

A special note - when I first started drinking tea and talking about it when I was younger, a rando on the internet felt it necessary to inform me that I wasn’t drinking it right. Logically, I know now that person probably has a really unpleasant personality and younger-me shouldn’t have been so upset, but I want to state for anyone else who’s trying to enjoy a fun new beverage: all that matters is if it makes YOU happy. 

And if what you’re doing doesn’t harm anyone? Go ahead; try something weird. Maybe next time, I’ll dabble more into the weirder, cursed side of my snack interests, and we can encourage each other.

This will definitely not be my last time talking about tea, much less Stash, though there are a lot of other fun tea sources I’d love to talk about, and maybe, you’ll enjoy reading about. 

[modernidolater]

TW: Violence, dark humor, all that jazz. Go no further, angry shit, yadda.

So, yanno...i'm just gonna yell into the void about something.

When i was very young, I read a lot of encyclopedias. Most of my knowledge of the world was attributable to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which my mother kept because well, a home should have a nice, impressive looking set of books. Along with a bunch of other old books that just...really weren't the best choice for a regressive anti-technology apocalyptic fundamentalist cult, but then, as we used to joke, my mother doesn't have to make sense, she just has to make decisions.

So, I eventually started plumbing the depths to try and figure out "what the hell is wrong with my family."

While i didn't get an answer about my family in general, I did note that i seemed to be oddly suited to the definition of "psychopath," minus the whole "being a problem for society at large" thing. Asocial, low empathy, lack of guilt, inability to plan cohesively, difficulty conceptualizing consequences, near total lack of emotions except curiosity and rage, both of which are carefully stifled, aggressive tendencies...frankly, I look at my younger siblings and i can definitely assure anyone that asks that had I not been raised quite far away from society, or if I'd stayed in the cult, I would most definitely have been a problem for society.

But psychopaths are *monsters,* you see. They're so, so bad, you see. Everyone assured me, at great length, that I couldn't be that, no, no sirree. I was too nice. Too kind. I didn't punch people nearly often enough (largely because I don't like being punched outside of sex, and I like to be in charge of where I'm being punched, and even that mostly cause I'm kinda badly out together physically, but that's aside the point.)

I wasn't *hate-able.* My empathy was too high.

On that last note, I have spoken elsewhere and i believe here regarding my empathy. My empathy is specifically a learned skill picked up by reading Edgar Allen Poe's Auguste Dupin stories. Dupin explains his near preternatural ability to get inside people's heads by his learned skill of micro-mimicking body and facial language and then analyzing what he feels when he copies someone else. Works absolute wonders, particularly as up to that point (i was 8-9), I was using the classical technique of provoking and hurting people around me to experimentally figure out how other people worked. Admittedly, it's somewhat like recording a speech and listening to it at the lwvel of a whisper in a crowded room, but then mimicry is far less likely to get you punched, and see previous for my feelings on getting punched.

But now i had, for all intent, a system to demonstrate empathy. Thanks to my mother's abuse, I had a complete paranoid delusion aping guilt. I could check plans past others, and once I got my hands on Google at 14, I had the capacity to directly look up what the general, societal consequences of most actions were and model behaviors that achieved my ends. I further had 18 years of direct training in mind control and manipulation, thanks to my cult.

You may notice that what you just read sounds like the origin story of a serial killer. Ape people around them to avoid detection, paranoia making them scrupulous enough to not get caught, and careful study of laws to find the lines, plus a hyper manipulative persona.

Roll with me here. This continues forward.

So, i'm out and about, 2, 5, 6 years free of my cult. I have married a self avowed psychopath who actually HAS been diagnosed with antisocial disorder thanks to a teenage habit of theft and punching people. He is fairly sure I am not one, since I perform guilt and empathy fantastically, by rote at this point. I literally have days that my face hurts from faking emotions for too long, i am slowly developing agoraphobia because there are far too many people to mimic in a retail job, and my guilt subroutine is just a voice chanting in my head, "they're coming to get you, don't fuck up" 24/7 to the point that i am developing hallucinations, but yeah. It's definitely not psychopathy. At this point, that's just ASPD, and i'm just too darn social. Never that. I'm no monster, you see. I'm "nice."

About this point, I have learned to use mind control techniques to help people, carefully applying them with direct permission to help people open up and discuss problems. My near preternatural ability to get into people's heads, my ability to find information, and my absolute lack of fucks about morals (thus making me wildly nonjudgemental), makes me the go-to confidant for many of my friends. This neatly surrounds me with people that can smooth my life out, but you can't tell people you're friends with them cause the world is made of grey paste and you're deathly bored 24/7 and being allowed to pick through people's minds and help them optimize is the closest you get to not wanting to shoot yourself or others. Or that you carefully maintain contact with people so you can check and make sure you're not doing anything jail worthy. Or that a large group to mimic lets you blend in easier, and finding one that also is transgressive, but socially permissable (thanks, kink) blows off some steam.

Of course, people that don't know me find me deeply off-putting, as I am at this point rapidly learning to turn off the mimicry when not immediately interacting with people. This results in me appearing utterly emotionless, but as soon as people talk to me, bing, back on. I had also joined the kink subculture, giving my hedonistic and transgressive sides an outlet.

I'd also gone to the trouble of getting a multifaceted degree. Ostensibly, my degree is "multimedia journalism." If you aren't aware, this means I have a degree in research, interpersonal communication, public speaking, written communication, mass communication, some psychology, critical thinking, media creation and analysis. In short, I have the literal perfect degree for figuring out, communicating with, and functionally understanding people, as well as a vastly enhanced ability to locate obscure information.

Fast forward again. Three mental breakdowns, four years of therapy, poking at my gender, figuring out a lot of mental health problems, and a rotating series of diagnoses, life is...slowly improving. I've left a toxic marriage (toxic on both sides), moved to a completely new place, started over. I have sort of resigned myself to focusing on my (admittedly annoyingly complex and wide ranging) physical disabilities.

And it comes up, in talking to my partner, that his adoptive mother displayed (she's dead) quite a few signs of ASPD. And he asks curiously if there's any connection between ADHD, autism, and ASPD, mainly cause the "personality disorder" part. PD's can, with long or early exposure, sometimes be passed on, you see.

Guess what's being studied, right now? Not a connection between ASPD and ADHD. A connection between psychopathy and ADHD. Wait, but I thought psychopathy wasn't a thing, says I? I thought there was only ASPD, now?

Ah, but for you see, the DSM is a load of horseshit. And i have heard that from multiple communities with different relations to it, and from multiple therapists, psychiatrists, professors...as a general rule, when the people who use it, the people it's used on, and the people who teach it all agree that a document is manure, I get a touch distrustful. I get more so when current studies use umbrella terms disavowed by a document known for being reductivist and that has been noted as having a great number of entries that were manipulated deliberately to make them as narrow and unusable as possible.

So anyway.

Turns out that while no, ADHD and Autism don't make you a psychopath, there's a distinct overlap. Empathy issues are a possiblity in all three, though both ADHD and autism can create *hyper*empathy. Inability to navigate social constructs is another point of overlap.

But really, it's the serotonin deficiency that hurls it across the line for me. And the genetic factors. Can psychopathy result from environment? Yeah, seems so. But there does seem to be a genetic and neurochemical component. Which is...curious for a disorder presented as purely a traumatic abreaction that creates dangerous amorals.

I then looked it up. And wouldn't you know, psychopathy is only pathologized as ASPD/APD, and DPD? The former is the sort of psychopathy that is characterized by violent amd criminal antisocial behavior, and the other an inability to understand and perform social mores at all. But this is the DSM, so these are of course diagnosed by problems caused for others as a first line.

Violation of societal norms, lack of emotions other than rage, aggression...it's almost like the same people that named a serotonin and function deficiency Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to enshrine the disorder only by those aspects that make neurotypical people uncomfortable rather than seeking to help the neurodivergent person, the same people that invented torturous behavioral correction therapies to "fix" the neurodivergent person? Those strike me as people that might possibly have looked a serotonin deficiency that causes rage, limited emotions, impulsivity, difficulty conceptualizing consequence, and potentially a hell of a lot of other fun side shit and decided to call that "Doesn't get along with others well" disorder.

What really kicks it in the teeth for me, however, is that psychopathy used to mean more than "a social pariah." You see, Theodore Millon, the guy that wrote the book on personality disorders, noted between 5 and 10 subtypes. Do you know what they are?

Nomadic

(including schizoid and avoidant features)

Drifters; roamers, vagrants; adventurer, itinerant vagabonds, tramps, wanderers; they typically adapt easily in difficult situations, shrewd and impulsive. Mood centers in doom and invincibility

Malevolent

(including sadistic and paranoid features)

Belligerent, mordant, rancorous, vicious, sadistic, malignant, brutal, resentful; anticipates betrayal and punishment; desires revenge; truculent, callous, fearless; guiltless; many dangerous criminals, including serial killers.

Covetous

(including negativistic features) Rapacious, begrudging, discontentedly yearning; hostile and domineering; envious, avaricious; pleasures more in taking than in having.

Risk-taking

(including histrionic features) Dauntless, venturesome, intrepid, bold, audacious, daring; reckless, foolhardy, heedless; unfazed by hazard; pursues perilous ventures.

Reputation-defending 

(including narcissistic features) Needs to be thought of as infallible, unbreakable, indomitable, formidable, inviolable; intransigent when status is questioned; overreactive to slights.

(It should be noted: the features listed above are simply what each presentation is most likely to display if disordered. A reputation-defender may not display narcissm, a risk taker may not be histrionic. A malevolent [what a terribly judgy name...] could be negativistic, or avoidant, or histrionic. And so on.)

Now, ya may be going, "wait, hold up, narcissism is on there! We still have that! Schizoid is on there, we have that! Sadism, paranoia, we got all those things!"

Flash quiz: do you know what a personality disorder is? It's a series of learned behaviors that require moderation and unlearning.

Why yes, they did spin multiple neurotypes off into diagnoses that require behavioral therapy to "fix." Why on earth would you think they wouldn't? They're still trying to use reparative therapy on auties. Hell, near as I can figure, histrionic got spun into Borderline Personality disorder. You know what the therapy for that is? DBT, aka, "it IS your fault and you SHOULD feel bad."

Beyond knowing there used to be different flavors, did you know that there is about a millionty scare articles about how psychopaths are everywhere? Guess why.

What do you get when someone has an absolute need to see what's on the other side of the hill and no real fucks to give about how you get there? You get scientists, explorers, people utterly driven to find out. Think about how many of our science and exploration heros are noted as deeply weird and off-kilter. We have whole stereotypes about this. There are books and articles devoted to the transgressive personas and behaviors of famous scientists and explorers.

What do you get when someone is belligerent, paranoid, truculent, violent, fearless? Snipers. Literally. The army has openly stated they like psychopaths quite a lot. Someone that can look at a map of human lives and commit calculus with the phrase "acceptable losses" makes a damn fine general, wouldn't you say? Hunters, too. Make a good king? Or bounty hunter. Or, if we're going to be honest, a martial artist. Hell, think of all the ways our society accepts violence in real terms and symbolically. Management. Video gamer. Espionage. Actuary. Pest control. There are THOUSANDS of of societal uses for people like this.

Covetous? Well, banks are openly quite loving towards psychopaths. CEOs are indicated here. Businessmen. Fandoms with collection as a function have any number of anecdotes of individuals who have an intense drive to get more. "Focused on the chase, rather than the victory, to the exclusion of all else" is considered a positive, laudable personality trait. To put it in other terms, "can't stop, won't stop, never done." Sports players, yes? Football, rugby, hockey...

Risk takers are the real standouts, in terms of societal love. Doctors. Firemen. EMT's. Skydivers. Extreme sports players. Equipment testers. The list goes on. Society loves risk taking psychopaths. Hell, look at the diagnostic criterion up there: it's mostly traits with high positive connotations.

Reputation defending? Politics. Law. Advertising. Acting. Writing. Religion. Leadership of any kind.

I'm not talking out my ass here. All those fields have been noted as friendly towards, attractive to, and having a high representation of people who fit the behavioral model of psychopath.

But only if they're useful. Like literally every other non-normative neurotype.

Society loves ADHD and autistic people when they're displaying savant abilities or when they can mask well enough to use their sensory and cognitive differences to societal ends.

And if they're a problem for people around them, that's treated. The underlying difficulties? The societal structures that punish and harm them? The pain of adapting their entire neurobiome to do all the work of interfacing with different neurotypes while being driven to harness anything useful and discard the rest of their brain? No, we don't treat that. That's just the price of doing business. "Pull yourself up and don't be a problem."

And here's the problem, in plain terms: psychopaths who learn to cope, to mask, to adapt like I did are never diagnosed. I have spent most of my life fairly concerned about the fact that I seem not to have emotions or compunction, that i am always consciously working to figure out and connect to people around me on the most basic level, that I am constantly working to keep an active model of social norms going at all times. And I don't mean "shake hands, eye contact." I mean I have the same mental conversation regarding "don't shoot that person" and "use a turn signal." All prosocial behaviors, all social behaviors period, are a struggle to understand.

The funny thing is, it also makes antisocial behaviors difficult. Shooting someone seems remarkably inconvenient in many cases. Regardless of whether I care about getting caught or not, shooting somone will interrupt my day.

Not shooting them also seems remarkably inconvenient in many cases. Yes, it'd be a pain in the ass to shoot them, but then again, if I do it correctly, I only have to do it once.

But again, "correctly" is a wildly unfixed variable, and the whole question won't come up if I always ensure I fail the "do i currently have a firearm" step. And I don't. Ever.

That's how my brain works. Y'all go on about moral and ethical and legal reasons. That's an exhausting conscious mental conversation to have every other day, so my shortcut is:

"Should I shoot them? Oh, right, I don't have a gun. Guess not. Should I get one? No, cause I might shoot someone, and that'd be a pain in the ass. Welp, no shooting people."

And so it goes. I don't understand any social norms. Good or bad. I have all the problematic issues still, mind you. Environmental factors. I mimic and I was raised in an apocalypse cult in Oklahoma. I spend a lot of brain space sorting between prosocial behaviors and the violent antisocial behaviors I was taught were prosocial.

Because, you see, I can't really understand the prosocial behaviors, but I can see they work. And antisocial behaviors don't, really. Have i impulsively pocketed something? Couple times. Even got away with. Can't steal a house, though. And theft gets boring, for me.

Ok, except piracy. I may quite enjoy piracy.

Cooperation with a larger whole can and does yield benefits. Forcing myself to sit through mind numbing gratification delays does seem to yield results that are beneficial, though I really try to keep that one to a minimum. I refuse to be bored if I can help it. Making nice talky sounds gets me shit faster than making angry talky sounds.

Possibly this is a result if being raised manipulative. No idea. Kinda don't care.

Point is, I'm one of the psychopaths that, while not immediately useful, is also not actively a problem. So no-one will listen when i talk about everything being gray and cold and exhaustingly complicated because people make no sense and almost all my emotions are dialed so far down it's a joke i lack the ability to laugh about.

No one has believed me that the one emotion I have in spades is rage and that i have to literally consciously work out from first principles why violence is a bad option as my sole method of controlling that, my ONLY EMOTION OF ANY STRENGTH, which I cannot allow myself to feel for any length of time because I start losing sight of that consequence model and I worry i'll make a mistake I can't unmake. Or that it took me two decades to learn not to smash things I need when someone looks at me funny. Or just smash them.

Or that i have to keep my hands in my pockets and chant "don't steal" in my head some days. That I wear tight clothing with shallow pockets to make stealing harder so that, like guns, I simply can't do it easily and therefore short circuit my behaviors.

People are more than happy to hurl me at any problem that requires a lack of emotion, but if I dare to be less than appropriately emotional on a date? At a wedding? Funeral? If I make an error and don't diagnose it myself and perform contrition appropriately, regardless of if I knew there was a social or personal rule there? Well, I'm fired/broken up with/punished/evicted.

But I am not actively a problem for society. So none of those things are worth diagnosing. Or helping in any way.

And those that are useful? Are often fed utter horseshit and encouraged to break society. Bankers creating recessions. Generals commanding useless wars. Cops. Doctors that uphold a broken system. Politicians that pursue a broken society.

I know, I can see, that ASPD people catch a shit ton of shit cause they get blamed for "useful" psychopaths mistakes, and none of the benefits when said same psychopaths are lionized. Looking back at what it was, and what it is now, pathologically speaking, it makes perfect fucking sense for the asshats that designed a diagnosis to only include the people they don't like as the "sick" ones, and label the "good" ones as "heroes." Makes a nice distinction there between people we want to demonize and people we want to lionize for having the exact same chemical imbalance, and neatly creates a fall group when any of the "heroes" trip up. Silence those who can't cope, elevate those that can, treat neither effectively, and if an elevated one stops coping, we can just "realize" they were "sick" all along, and oh, yeah, those sick people are so bad, you guys, nothing like those heroes at allllllll.

I am...so tired of this society bullshit.

So anyway, I'm a psychopath. Paranoid, some schizoid. So whatever grains of salt you feel like taking, grab 'em, I guess. I'd mostly like for people like me to stop being weaponized, lionized, or punished for having a different neurotype. I'd like to be able to talk to a doctor about that and for there to be some options beyond "stop that," "get locked up," "have you considered the army" (yes, a doctor actually asked me that as a teenager) or "you seem fine, tho."

And if you resonate with this, well...I'm 32, never been arrested, mostly managed to avoid terrible shit, and I've got a life, couple partners, and I'm surviving, so like. You can do this. Lotta people wanna tell you you can't have this or that cause "you're not bad, tho." They're stupid. Y'ain't evil, just different. Don't let them get to you.

And (this is a joke) if you decide to shoot someone, do it once, correctly. Saves time.

[welcome-to-the-petting-zoo]

Ahh, thank you for your response. I don’t think she’d do anything particularly bad, but I tend to overthink things when I have something I want to talk abt after being shut down so many times. She has prescribed me to physiatrist already for OCD, so I was debating just asking them or something. However, getting meds for even OCD js something that is hard for me since I am currently convinced if I take them I Will Die. So, I’m in a bit of a complicated place. Thank you for the advice, Tp!

Hey again Anon,

I'm so sorry, it sounds like a really tough situation. I'm sorry to hear you're having a hard time taking meds, I can see how it would further complicate things for you.

In any case, I would definitely advise you to bring up all of these things with both your therapist and the psychiatrist. I know it must feel really anxiety-inducing, but what usually helps me in a situation like this is reminding myself that nothing you can say will make them judge you, freak out or even really surprise them. These people are there to help you and you don't need to hide your worries from them. Actually, addressing your issues or fears together can even be therapeutic, and it gives them a chance to respond to you and reassure you and/or explain to you what would happen during assessment, treatment, if you choose to take meds, if you choose not to take meds, etc. and then the two of you together could make a plan that makes sense for you.

And I would definitely talk to the psychiatrist about getting assessed for ADHD, I don't know if you'd need another referral for that, this might be the case, but even so the psychiatrist could point you in the right direction. You can also ask your therapist if she could talk to you about ADHD in a more general sense and whether she could help you find some coping techniques that might help with your symptoms.

That's actually what I'm doing right now as well, I've been diagnosed with autism last year, and I'm still adjusting to the fact that a lot of my issues won't go away, so I've asked my therapist if she could help me learn not only how to accept my disability, but also how to live a happy and fulfilled life with it. So far, it's working surprisingly well for me, so I hope you and your therapist could do something similar.

I wish you the best of luck, and if you feel like it, keep us posted!

- Fox

[applesauccce]

What’s up gamers, back at it again with complaints and over sharing about my life. I swear I’m not turning into a life blogger, I just want somewhere to spew my thoughts that isn’t google docs. (Quick tw: gaslighting, emotional abuse, homophobia, eating disorders)

Anyways, so as a quick summary, I got on decent meds, have seen a real difference, but am still having a multitude of problems. Brain fog, inability to concentrate or focus on tasks (even if it’s something I want to do, like cleaning my room or painting), extreme memory loss, both short term and long term, an excess of nervous energy that prevents me from sleeping or concentrating, over sensitivity to various stimuli, food texture sensitivities, etc etc etc. I’m working with a very nice psychiatrist (he’s been very supportive) and hopefully will remember to find a therapist to work with as well.

Basically, we’ve been running through the potential causes for my issues and will slowly eliminate them. The current list of most likely causes of me not being able to function is as follows. Adhd (runs in the family on both sides, I have a lot in common with adhd individuals), Autism (likely, based on my behaviors), PTSD (welcome to Trauma Town), Anxiety (no shit Sherlock), and Depression (my current meds need more time to take full effect). Currently we are waiting to see if giving my current meds more time to take effect will help at all, but it’s very likely that it won’t solve everything.

Now here’s my problem. My mom (bless her heart in every way, she is an angel on earth) is extremely supportive in every way. She listens to me, validates my worries, asks genuine questions about my experiences, and is generally open minded to most everything. She genuinely wants the best for me and has learned over the years that her idea of what’s best may not necessarily be the solution, so she has chosen to be open minded and supportive.

My father on the other hand (my parents are divorced btw, you’ll see why in a moment) is the exact opposite. Take every boomer parent that thinks they know best. has the most set in stone and stubborn mindset, and throw in a heavy dash of narcissism (scratch that, pour in the whole container) and you have my trash bag of a father. To name just a few things that he does/says.............(brace yourself, it’s a long list)

Barely tolerates me being queer (pansexual, told him. Non binary, cannot tell him unless I want to be disowned, abused, and murdered)

Believes that women shouldn’t work after they are married and they need to have kids

Claims that trans, nb, and gender fluid people are “corrupted” and have been sent by Satan to destroy the nuclear family

Thinks “the gays” are some angry liberal movement, “just like those awful BLM people”. My favorite things he’s said is “they just want govenerment funding and special laws passed to give them the power to sue religious people”, “if you want respect, why don’t you go out and organize your gay friends and do a service project to show you’re good people”, “if someone’s uncomfortable with a gay person, they have the right to refuse service!” “But what if was the other way around? What if a gay person was uncomfortable with a religious person and refused them service?” “Thats discrimination!”, “I tolerate gay people! I’ve had gay friends!” “......you do realize that means next to nothing right?” “hOw RuDe!”, and finally “yeah, you’d marry a woman just to spite me.”

I was prescribed birth control by my dr for extremely painful periods. I then happened to go visit my bf at the time and since I didn’t want to stay in my moms house (had issues with her husband, he’s a nice guy tho, we chill now), his mom offered to let me stay in their spare room, as long as I kept the door locked at night. He found out and immediately called me a whore and said I was ruining my life, had used his insurance to get the birth control to have sex, and was a disrespectful disgrace to the family. He then proceeded to tell his entire family.

When I was talking about the possible diagnosis for my issues, I mentioned autism and he laughed and said “you don’t have autism, you’re normal. Plus, you don’t look like it, and you’re smart. Trust me, I know mental handicaps, I grew up with a handicapped sister.” (His sister does not have autism and is an extreme case, she needs round the clock care). Like thanks for invalidating my thoughts and research, saying I don’t look “disabled enough”, and saying I’m too smart to have problems.

When I was discussing my eating issues, I mentioned that it was likely I was/am anorexic, based on my behaviors and thought process surrounding food. He laughed and said “oh don’t be dramatic. You’re not anorexic. Look at you! Still plump and healthy, you have meat on your bones!” I told him it wasn’t about physical appearance, it was about the mental process about food. He rolled his eyes and said to stop self diagnosing myself. Like thanks for again invalidating me.

Is in general, a gaslighting, narcissistic, self righteous bitch who thinks he is the most amazing and religious person in the world. He constantly complains about not being able to find a new wife (I wonder why /s)

Not to mention his absolute cultish fanaticism over religion. Like don’t even get me started. He’s the reason that people think Mormons are cultists.

Anyways, so my dad sucks ass, but thinks he’s a god among men. The only reason I moved in with him was because at the time my mental health was really bad and I was having a very hard time dealing with my moms husband. Things are a lot better now and I’m lowkey considering moving back in with my mom bc holy fuck I am so sick of dealing with my father.

Also I’m trying to find a therapist to help me figure things out and help find a diagnosis. If it is autism, I’m going to shove it in his face and laugh at him. And if/when I get diagnosed with an eating disorder, I am also going to shove it in his face and tell him he’s a bitch. Can’t wait till he realizes that all his children hate him and are never going to “choose to live with their daddy” bc they’d rather not be gaslighted and emotionally abused.

[lowdoseenby]

Hey! Would you mind telling how did you go about getting diagnosed with ADHD? I hope your medication helps! Good luck!

Totally!

So my situation might be kind of unique, but honestly I don’t think there is a normal way for adults to get diagnoses with ADHD. I also definitely have atypical symptoms.

I got diagnosed through my gender therapist. Now that I have transitioned, my therapist and I are focusing more on mental health. His specialty outside of LGBT+ therapy is anxiety, so he is totally well equipped to help me with this.

We both decided to focus on mental health, and we went over my symptoms and mental health history. I was already diagnosed with depression and anxiety as a teen, so we have been focusing on my symptoms that don’t line up with those. I told him that long term I wanted to start medication for anxiety/depression/whatever we determined I had.

I mentioned that I do experience mania and manic episodes, but wasn’t sure if I was bipolar, but I did know my mom is bipolar. We went over the diagnosis criteria for bipolar disorder and I just barely didn’t meet it (Which when I saw my doctor this weekend and filled out a questionnaire we also found this to be true).

Now being that close to meeting the criteria means I still could have it, but it could also be something else. My therapist mentioned that bipolar disorder and ADHD can get misdiagnosed for each other fairly commonly, so we went over those symptoms. I also barely didn’t meed the criteria for ADHD, but at that point my session was over. My therapist mentioned that he was all for self-diagnosing and finding communities, and encouraged me to kinda look into both these things on my own and see if either felt like my experiences (He especially encouraged me to do this because I mentioned that I would see things about ADHD and relate to them, but be too scared to admit it to myself).

So I did that. There is a few posts from a while ago on my blog about doing that. And I found I had more ADHD experiences than bipolar. And me and my therapist understood that the diagnosis criteria, especially for ADHD, was biased towards boys and kids, and me being 20 and afab may mean I didn’t fit it exactly. I also have found that the thing that bothers me the most every day, for hours, is executive dysfunction, which is strongly associated with ADHD. And when I mentioned this to my therapist, and we started talking about how serious this was, he knew that I needed medical intervention. 

So at this point I needed to find someone to prescribe me medicine. I could find a psychiatrist to help me narrow down and treat me, but the psych he wanted to recommend me had just moved, and he didn’t know any other trans friendly psychs in the area (not that there aren’t any, but I was going to have to find one on my own). I wasn’t interested in risking it with a psych that wasn’t recommended to me, so my therapist mentioned that the doctor prescribing my testosterone may be able to do it. She is a general doctor, so I wasn’t sure, but we decided to try this. We also decided that our best bet was to start by treating ADHD, because my most debilitating symptom is ADHD related, and then treat the other stuff as I get used to the medicine or what not.

So I called her office and said “I am a current patient of Dr and was wondering if she could treat me for ADHD.” and the nurse asked if I had been diagnosed and I said yes, by my therapist. They asked that I bring in a letter and I was good to go. At my appointment she read the letter, which said basically that in my therapists professional opinion, I was suffering from ADHD symptoms and needed medical help, much like my gender dysphoria letter. Then we talked about my symptoms, and my doctor agreed that I am kind walking the line of several things (bipolar, ADHD, Depression, Anxiety, maybe OCD or autism), and agreed that we would start by treating the ADHD and then add on an anti-depressant and/or anxiety medication as we find things that work. I have a check-up in one month to see how the medicine she is prescribing is working.

So TL:DR I talked to my therapist about wanting mental health treatment, but wasn’t sure if what I was experiencing was just depression or anxiety. We decided ADHD was the best bet, and that is what I am starting to treat. My doctor and I are both on the same page of ‘if this works, awesome, and if not we will start trying other things.’ So no matter what I am getting treated.

If you don’t have a therapist, but do have a family/general doctor, it can’t hurt to ask. It really is just up to the doctor if they feel comfortable treating you or not, and if they don’t they typically have someone they can recommend you to.

So this is super long, sorry if that is too much information, I just feel like maybe I am unique in not being sure of my diagnosis and having atypical symptoms, so if anyone else is out there trying to get help in a similar situation I wanted to include all my self-discovery.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #175

“imagine living like a king someday, a single night without a ghost in the walls.”

Have you ever had a teacher hit on you? Not to my recollection. Have you ever seen your ex’s new partner? If so, what do you think of them? I don't know or care if he currently has one. Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months? Done it twice now, it's not difficult if you're picky and serious with who you date. Does anybody know about your sex life other than your partners? Well my mom was somewhat aware of things that were happening. What was the last piece of candy you ate? Good question. I got my tongue re-pierced because of a bar length issue with swelling, and now this one is just shy of long enough to disable me from biting down entirely (they're snake eyes, so across the tip). I'm only just getting back into eating soft things very slowly unless I want pain, so candy's a no. I have to wait no less than three weeks to get a correctly-sized bar, and it's only been just over one aaaahhh. Have you ever been dared to do something you totally regretted? No. Is your room painted or wallpapered? Painted. What is the best kind of pizza in your opinion? I'm an American I stan them meat lovers. Is there something that someone has done to you that you cannot forgive? No. Well actually idk, I still don't know for *sure* if I forgive him. Like I'm completely over it and it no longer affects me, but I could never ever ever ever look at him even remotely the same or even consider trusting him. I don't think that's supposed to happen when you forgive someone. Have you ever broken a plate/bowl? Accidentally by dropping. What is your favorite restaurant? Olive Garden. Has anyone ever drunk called/texted you? I don't think so. Do you know anyone who has a homosexual parent? No. What type of music could this world live without? Pure screamo (no, not as a carpet term for metal). Are any of your pets “overweight”? No. Who’s the last person you cried over? Does myself count? Did the house you grew up in have a fence? Yeah, but not all around. What’s your YouTube channel name? 0zzkat. Who of your FB friends has the cutest toddler(s)? Uhhhh idk. Anastasia's baby girl is pretty cute, I guess. Did you decorate pumpkins this year? No. :/ They were totally gone the day we were gonna get one (the day before Halloween so no, we weren't that surprised lmao). What’s the craziest color you’d dye your hair? More like what color WOULDN'T I dye it? What’s the coolest hobby one of your friends has? Uhhh. Idk. Name a video game you can play over and over again? Shadow of the Colossus. I've beaten it around 30 times. Would be more if I didn't lose the disc, buuut it's actually coming in the mail now! What is something that will make you laugh instantly? Don't show me that fucking Linkin Park "crawling in my crawl" worm video. Name a movie you wouldn’t watch solely based on its name? None come to mind. What’s your dearest souvenir? *shrugs* What was the last strong scent you smelled? Probably coffee bc of Mom. Have you ever been in an unconventional relationship (long distance, polyamorous, same gender, age gap, etc)? If so, what challenges did this relationship present, and were they worth overcoming? Long instance + same-sex simultaneously. Distance is fucking hard when you really want each other's company, especially for emotional support. Being same-sex makes me nervous due to potential violent homophobics, especiiiiaaaally living where I do. I do it regardless, but even just holding hands leaves me worrying some asshole is going to cause a problem. I know my sister's husband isn't at all fond of it either and I'm 99% sure he's why Sara's never met the kids. But anyway, all those things are absolutely worth it. Would you ever consider something like a poly relationship, assuming everyone involved was alright with it? What are some things you think you would or wouldn’t like about it? Absolutely not, because I strictly believe in the exclusiveness of love. What is the most unhealthy relationship (whether friendship or romantic) you’ve ever had? What made it so unhealthy? Do you still talk to each other? Colleen, probably. We are just about the antitheses of each other, yet we were "best friends." We disagreed too frequently, she was drama-ravenous, we kept leaving and coming back, etc. No, we don't talk now, and I refuse to ever do so again as friends. Have you ever been abusive in any way? Were you able to change or make amends, or, in general, what do you think people should do to make amends in that situation? No. I absolutely do not believe in "making amends" with your abuser. Keep them the fuck out of your life. Have you ever forgiven someone for being abusive or allowed someone toxic back into your life? Did this person change for the better or not? Toxic... you mean Colleen? Did it too many times, and no, she didn't. Do you feel like your age matches your emotional development? If not, what age level or maturity level do you feel best represents where you’re at? Part of me says no, another says yes. I guess it depends on the subject. What is one thing about your personality that embarrasses you, but you can’t seem to change it no matter how hard you try? Have other people called you out on this embarrassing thing? Being socially awkward as all hell, and yes. When was the last time you did something “meant” for children? Do you think it’s okay for adults to do these things (ie. watch cartoons, have stuffed animals, dress in cute clothing, etc), or do you think there’s an age beyond which it becomes unacceptable - and if so, why? I was playing Spyro just earlier today lmao. In almost all cases, no. I do believe that something like a full-grown adult playing pretend with dolls or something may be questionable, but even then there's not a real reason I can give you. What was the last thing to “trigger” you (as in, in a true mental health sense, I’m being serious here) and how did you cope with it? What kinds of things do you tend to find triggering? What do you do either avoid or face your triggers? Something PTSD-related, but I can't remember exactly what it was, I guess because I got past it pretty quickly. There are certain songs I should avoid, I canNOT look at the medicine I ODed on, I don't like seeing or being near large knives at all... If you’re diagnosed with anything, do you feel that it accurately represents what you’re experiencing? All of them, yeah. What is a complaint you have about the mental health industry or about the type of treatment you’ve received from a mental health service? Have you ever had any particularly bad therapy experiences? I feel that too many people working in the field care far more about the pay than the people. I can't guarantee a professional truly cared about what I was dealing with until Holly Hill. I've had one particularly horrible psychiatrist that threw diagnoses and pills around like they were nothing (the most ridiculous being ADHD, which I in no way exhibited), and a long-time therapist I had was pretty bad, something I realized only after I started with my current one. She was strict about that "you've got an hour, you're staying an hour, you're leaving no later" shit, and we always ran out of things to talk about so I'd just be sitting there super uncomfortably and numerous times start crying because I felt so awkward, and she'd just take it as a sign that I wasn't telling her something. She drove "and how does that make you feel" and "what're you thinking of" into the goddamn ground. Yeesh, having been a mental health patient for so long, I could really write a novel here. When was the last time you realized you might be the source of a problem and NOT someone else? Hm, idk. I'm so uninvolved with others that that's a hard question to answer. What are some minor physical discomforts that really bug you (eyelash in your eye, a wedgie, rumpled socks, etc)? HAVING THE BOTTOMS OF YOUR PANTS GET WET. I hate chapped lips, too. Do you prefer vertical or horizontal stripes? Horizontal. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? No. Are you ticklish? YEAH. Have you ever tried to make your own alcohol? No. If you were to join one of the armed forces, which would it be? I wouldn’t. Have you ever been in a submarine? No. Have you ever been in a hot tub or sauna? Only hot tubs. Do you believe there used to be dragons? No. What was your first alcoholic drink? A Mike's hard lemonade. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? Idk, I was a baby. What was your first detention for? Too many tardies. Did you ever have a treehouse as a kid? No. Have you ever been on radio? No. How long has your longest ever phone call been? A few hours. What is a meal you eat extremely often? Or do your meals & food choices vary a lot? Ummm I guess some kind of chicken is common? When was the last time you felt unable or unwilling to speak your mind to someone? Idk. What was the last thing you changed your mind about? Uhhhh how am I blanking, I change my mind on things every five minutes. Who was the last friend you saw, and what did you do together? Sara's both my girlfriend but also the only "friend" I ever hang with now even tho we live several states apart lmao. I was there two weeks, so we did an array of stuff. Who tends to show up in your dreams? Do you ever wonder if you appear in anyone else’s dreams? Hell, I barely ever remember my dreams. Jason still shows up maybe ehhhh around or maybe less than once a month, and I have no clue why other than maybe there's some PTSD effects I don't actually detect or something? It's not like I think about him much, so I really don't see why he shows up, but the theme is constant: awkwardness seeing each other again, and he sometimes tries to get back with me (thank FUCKING GOD even in my dreams, I don't). Sara's in some dreams that I remember. Mom, maybe. What is something you wish you could say to someone who is no longer in your life, or something you wish they could know? Nothing. What is something you do to feel better when you’re scared? I'll usually turn to YouTube for a distraction. Who do you feel you can count on the most in life? Is there anyone you wish you could count on more? Mom. What is the strangest book you have ever read? How did you find out about it? Probably Bite Me by idr-who. I actually don't remember. What was the last thing you broke? How about fixed? Another sensor came off the keyboard. :') I dunno about fixed. Is there a sign or symbol that means a lot to you for whatever reason (eg. seeing certain animals or birds, 11:11 or other repeating numbers, syncs, butterflies, hearts in nature, etc)? Butterflies and semicolons. Hence my semicolon butterfly tattoo. Do you have any personal ghost stories or paranormal experiences? Yeah. What do you get complimented on the most? My hair. What is something unusual that you find attractive? why does?????? everyone hate fedoras tbh?????????? What time do you tend to eat your first meal of the day? And your last? BOY this varies so much like fuck. Sometimes I don't eat breakfast at all, sometimes I do right when I get outta bed. Dinner can be at like almost 10:00 with Mom's schedule, or I may have it like five hours earlier. What was the subject of the last video you watched? I'm getting into a horror LPer and I'm binging her Silent Hill playthroughs. How would you describe your overall aesthetic? I like pink but bloody guts and brains are cool 2. What is the most challenging meal you have ever cooked? N/A What was your favorite thing to do as a little kid? Play video/computer games. Have you ever been close to drowning? No. Do you watch any Japanese anime? Not currently, but I've kinda had the urge to pick an interesting one up? Do you have someone who is protective of you (father, brother, etc.)? Mom and Sara above anyone else. Where was the last place you went, that you hadn’t been to before? Uhhhhh good question. I don't exactly go to new places often. Do you have any bad habits you aren’t working on changing? If so, do you ever think you’ll try to break them? I don't believe so off the top of my head? Then again I think everyone has little bad habits they don't try to improve upon, but I can't think of anything serious. When was the last time someone surprised you with their reaction or behaviors? I'm sure something with Mom, but idk what. Are you good at committing to things like Nanowrimo or Inktober? Nope. What is your preferred method of expressing yourself? Writing. Or drawing if I'm in the mood. Have you ever reached out to a crisis center for mental health support? If so, how was the experience? I tried to reach the suicide hotline via their online one-on-one chatroom because I was too afraid to actually call, but I ended up waiting I think 45 minutes before the OD happened. When was the last time you did something you were afraid to do, and how was the outcome? I drove at night and ordered food at a drive-thru myself. It went well. What is one positive thing you believe about yourself? I have a strong sense of right and wrong. What is something you have been through that has made you stronger? Depression as a whole. Other than money, what is something you wish you had more of in your life? Social life, success, and motivation to name a few. Is there anything that you tend to ignore for the sake of your sanity? Sure. Mental health stuff flares up sometimes if I think about some things too deeply. What was the last thing you argued or debated about? Did you eventually agree, or did you have to agree to disagree? Getting rid of Bentley, and neither, really. Mom knows we shouldn't have him for a world of reasons, yet she refuses to try to find a far more suitable home for him or at least talk to Nicole about it (he's her dog, but she doesn't live here), who's never even paid him almost any attention. I could rant about this for hours. What is something you wish was different about your family? THAT WE WERE CLOSER. What is your main struggle or focus in life right now? Getting out of the house/becoming more of a functioning adult. Are you more dramatic or stoic? I'm neither extreme, really, but I'd say I'm much further from stoic. Are you on medication for anything? If so, do you feel like it helps? Have you ever been afraid to take medication or had a particularly bad experience with it? A lot, but the only ones I feel don't work are the ones for my tremors and knees. I was on one med for a while that I was scared to take because it made me vomit (safe to say I wasn't on it long), and even my life-saver med made me sick at first, but I took prescription nausea pills to ride that out as my body adjusted. Do you prefer having long or short nails? Short, but not too short. When was the last time you had an argument with one of your parents? Idr. Do you tend to eat the same few things all the time or do you vary your intake? Would you consider yourself to be a picky eater? Are there any commonly enjoyed foods that you don’t like? I'm picky and definitely have a limited palate. Some foods I can think of for the last question include fried chicken, BBQ, watermelon, tacos, all cheeses but American, aaaand I'm blanking again in an area I should have a book about. Do you have good body image? Do you feel more confident about your body or your personality? What is one thing about yourself about which you do feel particularly confident? Ha, as if, so personality. I like how open-minded I am. How likely are you to compliment other people? How do you react or respond when you receive a compliment? What are your favorite types to receive? It depends on the person, the atmosphere, and my anxiety level. I sometimes fear complimenting people because I don't want someone to be like "um why is she talking to me?"/"is she flirting with me?"/"why did she notice that?", etc. I become so giddy (at the very least internally) when people compliment me because of how my self-esteem is, and I really appreciate them. The compliments that mean most to me are regarding my photography. With how badly I want to be a successful photographer, people seeming to genuinely like what I do has actually made me smile like an idiot and giggle publicly. It just means a lot to me. Describe the last thing you reblogged? How many posts do you tend to reblog during a day? A clip of Mark having a fit over a dog in RDR2. How much I reblog varies greatly; depends on how much I get on Tumblr that day, what I feel like sharing at that moment, what I queue... Have you ever lost your cool at work or somewhere else important? What happened as a result? No. Do you listen to your friends’ advice when they give it to you? Depends. If it's Sara, I usually do. What’s the last kind of soup you ate? Vegetable. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced? It is pierced. The most memorable time that you skipped school, what did you do? I don't recall. Did you ever have a favorite teacher in high school? What made them your favorite? Coach Collie. He was very friendly, wise, his sense of humor was great, he cared deeply for his students, was super chill, shared life advice all the time, etc. etc. Can you think of a time when you were really obviously judged by your appearance? What happened? Not that I recall. What’s something your mother told you growing up that you actually listened to? Mind your manners. What are three emotions you experience regularly? Stress, content, but also discontent. What is your favorite Halloween candy? Reese's. Is there anyone who refuses to communicate with you? *shrugs* What was the last lengthy packet you filled out? Something for vocational rehab. Is there something you still can’t do even though you’re an adult or might be expected to do this thing? I don't have a job or drive. When was the last time you congratulated someone? Were you happy for them, indifferent, jealous? When I found out one of my closest high school friends is pregnant. I was obviously happy for her. What would you say is your STRONGEST emotion? Maybe not the most frequent, but the most intense? And what emotion do you feel most weakly, even if you might feel it more often? Anger; envy (but it's not often). Have you ever gone somewhere in your pajamas? What makes this acceptable or unacceptable to you? Plenty times, but it depends on my level of shits given and the location. Honestly wish pjs were more acceptable in public places cuz like why not, you've got clothes on, just don't go around where everyone can totally see your dick, ass, or tits. Other than the usual things like IDs, etc, what do you always carry with you when you go out? My phone. What type of photography do you enjoy looking at? Do you take any photos yourself, and if so, what types of things do you prefer to photograph? LOTS!!!! I particularly love fantasy-styled portraiture or macabre work, and omg give me soft lighting. I'm a sucker for emotive or conceptual portraits and the like. I like to photograph an array of things, but my faves are nature and animals. Have you ever gone out for the Black Friday shopping rush? Did you enjoy it, or not so much? Or, what’s the busiest shopping day you’ve ever experienced? Nope. Busiest shopping day I indirectly experienced was when I worked at GameStop during the holiday season... nope. It's a small store and it was flooded. I hated it. Idk about one where I/my family was the shopper. Do you enjoy reading diaries or stories you wrote from when you were younger, or does it embarrass you? If you’ve kept them, was there a particular reason for hanging on to them so long? No. No. No. NO. I can't stomach going any further back than '15 at the RP forum because fucking cringe. All old stuff like physical journals and such, they're long gone because I never want to see them again lmao. What would you say was your first true hobby? What about your most recently developed one? Hmmm, probably video games were the first things I was *really* deep into. Recently developed... good question. Is there one thing that throws off your mood more than others, whether it be lack of sleep, lack of food, heat/cold, etc? I'M FUCKING /CRANKY/ IF I'M HOT. Serious lack of sleep makes me moodier. What is one common area of life in which you feel you have little to no experience (college, children, marriage, etc)? Work and independence. What kinds of things are you likely to complain about? HEAT. If it's hot to me, you're gonna know. I'll complain if my stomach especially hurts, sometimes with other pain. Do you like to put any extra effort into your food in terms of presentation, or do you prefer to just put it on a plate and eat it as it is, no frills? I don't cook, so. But I'd definitely be the latter. When was the last time you were mean or rude to someone else? How about the last time someone acted that way toward you? I hung up on this insurance agency or whatever they are that call me every other goddamn day. I dunno about the second question. What kinds of things are most likely to make you lose your temper? Have you ever done something regrettable or embarrassing while angry? I fucking dare you to ridicule the mentally ill in front of me. Goddamn dare you. For the second part, not to my recollection. Do you have a large dog? No, both our dogs are medium-sized. If not, are you afraid of them? Not at all. Do your parents know that/if you smoke? I don't. What is the reason you last received money? Mom borrowed some from me so she was paying me back. Is anyone in your family sick? Not to my knowledge. Are you very upfront about things or do you "beat around the bush"? The latter, typically. Do you ever write poetry just to get your feelings out? Not really anymore. Middle and high school? I was all about it. I wrote only one poem this year. How many bones have you broken? None. Whose house did you visit last? My sister Ashley's. Have you ever bought a fragrance by a celeb because you liked who it was? No. Do you have a gazebo at your house? No. What’s your favorite brand of bottled water? Essentia.

[nicolekidmanwigfactory]

ok, so listen to the shit my psychiatrist told me yesterday because IT. IS. JUICY. (TW: eating disorders)

i need to vent but here’s a read more in case you wanna skip this because this is LOOOOOONG

i was describing to her how i’m currently pricing out personal trainers to help me start exercising again in a healthy, non-disordered way because the last three times (in the past 18-24 months or so) that I tried to start working out again, I found myself spiraling and getting overly anxious or unrealistic about my goals, so i’d either overexercise, restrict, and/or purge.

as i described the height of my exercise compulsion-- highest intensity elliptical for 60 minutes or 2000 calories burned (whichever came second) every single day, no exception (Sundays were my off day and I relished them)-- from seven years ago, which was worse than the actual bulimia at times, she just cut me off and said an hour a day wasn’t too bad, ignoring 1. the 2000 calories thing, 2. that i weighed about 130lbs less I do now, and 3. i was either severely restricting or compensating for binge behaviors from voracious appetite swings 4. caused by hormonal fluctuations 5. due to then-undiagnosed thyroid cancer.

BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE. then she laid into my dietitian and said eating disorder dietitians in general are overly focused on “making sure their patients are comfortable eating” instead of losing weight (if they're ones who need to, of course). ummm...getting me less regimented in my eating is the fucking point. i’d eat something i wasn’t “supposed” to and then purge it somehow (exercise, vomit, restriction, etc.). <-- that’s the fucking basics of the fucking disorder, and that’s not even explicitly mentioning the mental illness aspect.

again, she told ME, A LONG-DIAGNOSED, DEPRESSED GRADUATE STUDENT WITH A HISTORY OF TREATMENT FOR BULIMIA AND OTHER EATING DISORDERS that i need to lose weight. Yes, i know that. does she really think i don’t know that? i wear my clothes and look in the mirror and have been in eating disorder treatment for the past five fucking years. what makes her think this is news to me? does she not think i don’t remember how I bust my ass off to healthily lose 100 pounds in college, and then gained it all back (and then some) in FOUR FUCKING MONTHS when my bulimia turned into binge eating disorder and my EATING-DISORDER AND QUASI-SUICIDAL MIND tricked myself into thinking this was the healthier option?! BECAUSE I SURE AS HELL REMEMBER. she does have the point that my weight is not healthy in the long-term (of course i know that), but neither is a fucking depression and any kind of eating disorder.

i WANT to lose weight but my dietitian agreed to work with me on the condition that my focus COULD NOT be on losing weight (she was gonna work with me no matter what, but she’s a genius with how she approaches her clients) until my eating patterns were stable and the frequency of my disordered behaviors dropped dramatically (which they have- i’ve only purged ONCE in the past year. My binges are not just far and in between but also much smaller and cheaper than they used to be). so if she’s gonna come after my dietitian, this psychiatrist is also coming after me because i would not be where i am without her (+ my therapist).

okay, i did expect some of this coming into the appointment though, so i did subject myself to this a little. she said some of this stuff in october at the first appointment i had with her but i was able to talk back against it in my head and discuss it with my therapist and i didn’t think about it again for a couple weeks. but the shit she was saying yesterday was just so much more inappropriate and insensitive that I only tolerate it for the refills on my meds.

i’m not saying she’s an awful psychiatrist. i just feel she needs to work on her bedside manner, or at least with her overweight eating disordered patients (because we already feel pretty shitty about that, and you don’t even need to have an eating disorder to feel that) or she needs more training in eating disorder treatment protocol. at one point in both appointments, she implied with the subtlety of a sledgehammer that it won’t be possible for me to have good self-esteem at my current size and weight, which completely defeats the point of body positivity and loving yourself at any size (FYI: Loving yourself at any size ≠ pro-obesity. Anyone who says otherwise is looking for a socially acceptable way to hate on fat people. The key word is “any.”).

All this said, she is a capable clinician. the medication regimen she has me on is working beautifully. my depression is so much more stable and the highs and lows of my mood are more like speed bumps and potholes than the mountains and ocean trenches of before. my anxiety is under much better control too (though a lot of that is because of the strategies I’ve been working on with my wonderful therapist) and the anxiety is also more situational. after all, i did go a gay bar by myself last weekend for the first time ever (it was at 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon, but i still did it despite the anxiety!). 

I am also so appreciative of her ADHD diagnosis. I was apprehensive at first because the diagnosis was so quick and not even the focus of the appointment, but the medication she put me on is working. i thought that high school killed any enjoyment i once had for serious, intellectual reading, but since the medication i’ve started paging through the plethora of books i’ve bought over the years but never read and gotten absorbed by random pages even though i don’t know what’s going on. I don’t remember the last time was able to concentrate for extended periods of times without a deadline or outside pressure. i can read lengthy journal articles in record time and still absorb the information. the only downside is they kill my appetite, which she admitted she is part of the reason why prescribed them for me. (this part i’m not that upset about since i have been on binge suppressants for years and I see this as an additional tool- I’ve had no urge to abuse them other than the ED voice that instinctually tells me to, but I’ve just ignored it from the beginning).

so even though she is highly insensitive to my needs, she is also a highly capable and otherwise qualified psychiatrist. however, during therapy today, i discussed her comments with my therapist and that I would continue to see her while i searched/waited for an appointment with a different psychiatrist, since I had to wait 7 months to see this current doctor. instead, my therapist jumped on the phone, called a couple numbers and was able to get me an appointment with a psychiatrist she trusted for right after the new year. so i only have to see this current one once more and that’s only so I can get refills and continue my current medication regiment, which been working wonderfully for me.

i didn’t mean to make this so long but it feels good to get this out. my clinician is gonna inform my dietitian (which is making me impatient for my next appointment because she was ready beat a bitch last time because of this doctor and i want to see what she has to say this time) and then, if i didn’t mind, she wanted to bring this up with some managers at her location. i don’t care if she informs some higher ups, i just don’t want my name to get back to the psychiatrist until after the next/last appointment. i’m also going to file a complaint, not for vengeance or anything, just so her superiors can hopefully let her know how other patients might interpret her comments.  

at least for me, this psychiatrist’s comments aren’t about me not being able to handle what i don’t want to hear. they were unprofessional, inappropriate, and frankly, uninformed and dangerous. if i hadn’t been further along in my recovery, i might have been liable to abuse my adderall as an appetite suppressant for weight loss purposes, start exercising and dieting again when i’m not mentally ready, or just accept her fat-shaming for what it wasn’t since since it was coming out of the mouth of an MD.

But I’m lucky to be in a place where I can recognize those comments for what they are. And I give credit to my therapist and dietitian, who’ve gotten me that place in the past year and a half (and I guess the current psychiatrist deserves some credit too for her medication regimen that was effective right off the bat, but that’s where I’ll leave it). And to the therapists, dietitians, and doctors I’ve have in the past five years, but mostly to my current ones, because they got me back on track when I moved back to WI and then further along than I have ever gotten before. Their voices are nagging in my ear to myself credit to, so I guess I played my part too.

@lorinwasadiver let me know when you’ve read this bc i want to know your angry thoughts

[30-days-of-autism-acceptance]

30 Days of Autism Acceptance Day 16

Talk about treatment.  Have you been through any therapies?  What ones did you like?  Which ones didn’t you like?  Do you think autistic people need therapy for their autism?

As I was only diagnosed in 2014, I have not had and therapy specifically for my autism. I have been in therapy/treatment since the age of four when I got my ADHD diagnosis.  Since then a string of other disorders has been diagnosed, some of which I’m still being treated for.  I’ll talk more about my other diagnoses on the 21st.

I’m currently in counselling, which I like.  It’s nice to be able to talk to someone about my problems.  My therapist is good though I’m still not really used to her.  My previous therapist left about a year ago, I was with her for 10 years.  It was upsetting and I’ve still not really adjusted to this new person.  She’s good though, helping me work through some issues I have with my anxiety/depression and transness.  I also see a psychiatrist, who prescribes meds for dealing with my depression and anxiety.

When I was younger I had both play and art therapy, which I think were okay.  I’m not sure how much they helped but I didn’t have any negative experiences with it and it didn’t really feel like therapy, so I guess that’s good.  When I was in my early teens I went through a several sessions of group therapy for social skills training.  I don’t really remember much about it and I doubt it increased my social skills but it wasn’t bad or anything.  Right before I received my autism diagnosis I also attended I think like 2 sessions with a psychologist which I quickly realized was not for me.  All kinds of weird questions about how I was feeling and what made me sad.  It was pretty much the classic ‘and how does that make you feel’ situation.  I just found the whole thing kind of bizarre and didn’t go back.  

Overall I don’t really think autistic people need therapy for being autistic, we may however benefit from therapy for certain symptoms of our autism e.g. speech or occupational therapy.  Any therapy we get should be with the goal of helping us learn coping skills and how to succeed; therapy should not be forced assimilation to the neurotypical world such as with ABA.

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research // “kids on drugs: how pharmaceutical companies are catering to kids”

I

When I was 17, I was admitted to a partial hospitalization program at my local behavioral health hospital. I was depressed, anxious, stressed and on the brink of suicide, and I knew I needed help. If you know anything about me, you know that I talk a lot. I love talking about myself. But at this point in my life, I didn’t have the energy to talk to anyone about anything, even talking to these doctors about what was wrong with me was mentally and physically exhausting.

When I came into the hospital, I told them my story. I knew I had depression and anxiety prior to being hospitalized, but I never sought treatment. I also had trouble sleeping at night. My anxiety constantly kept me awake until 2, 3, or even 4 in the morning when I had to be awake at 6 for school. At this point, I would have done anything not to feel so empty, to feel some emotion and to get more than 2 hours of sleep at night. So I caved, and I took the medication as prescribed by my psychiatrist. My first day in the hospital I was prescribed 10 milligrams of the antidepressant, Lexapro and 50 milligrams of the antipsychotic drug Seroquel.

To clarify for those who do not know, antipsychotics work by “blocking D2 receptors as well as a specific subtype of serotonin receptor, the 5HT2A receptor. It is believed that this combined action at D2 and 5HT2A receptors treats both the positive and the negative symptoms. The atypical anti­psychotics currently available on the market include clozapine, risperidone, olanzapine, quetiapine, paliperidone and ziprasidone.” (Tung & Procyshyn, 2007). More intense side effects of these drugs include tremors, inner restlessness, muscle spasms, sexual dysfunction and, in rare cases, tardive dyskinesia, while less severe side effects include weight gain, diabetes and lipid disorders.

I also want to preface my story by saying that I was never really into the idea of being medicated, nor did I know a lot about these types of medications, at the time at least. I was put on an antidepressant, which I just assumed would make me not depressed. I was also put on an antipsychotic, and I had no idea how that worked. My doctors initially told me they gave me the antipsychotic to help me sleep. It helped. But it helped too well. After just a week of taking this medication, I was finally sleeping for about 6 hours a night, but I still felt like it wasn’t enough sleep. I’m not sure if this was just my body reacting to finally getting sleep for the first time in years, but I’m pretty certain it was the medication that made me feel like this. I felt like a zombie. I was still exhausted, even though I felt like I was doing everything I possibly could to get a good night's sleep. This medication also made me feel emotionless. I felt like I literally couldn’t be happy and it made things worse. I felt that things would never get better, and I felt this way for about a year.

Almost a year after I got out of the hospital, I was at an appointment with my psychiatrist, who told me that he wanted to try to get me off of the antipsychotics. At the time, I was completely dependent to this medication. It was the only thing that would help me sleep, and I felt like if I didn’t take it, or if I took anything else, that the darkness would come back and my anxiety would creep back up and I wouldn’t be able to sleep. If I was off the medication, I felt like I would have gotten worse, and things could have gotten very ugly. But I accepted it. I knew I had to move on, and be able to figure out a way to sleep on my own, or at least without the intense medication. My doctor then prescribed me hydroxyzine, which is an allergy medication. He promised me that it would give me similar effects to the seroquel, but without all the side effects. I tried it a few times but I knew I definitely slept better with the seroquel. This medication only lasted a few hours, so I was back into this dangerous cycle of only getting a few hours of sleep. The days I took my new medication, I felt defeated, like no medication would ever work.

Eventually, we found medications that work for me, and what these are doesn’t matter. Some days I want to just stop taking the medication altogether, but I am also so scared of what would happen and who I would become if I wasn’t on the medication. I didn’t learn until about 6 months ago, the negative effects that these antipsychotics have on your body. Things finally started to make sense, and I understood why my body did the things it did. When I was first given the antipsychotics, that first month, I gained almost 15 pounds, that never went away, no matter what I tried. I felt sluggish, and even lazy, despite being a competitive cheerleader and working out 6 days a week. My exhaustion was a side effect of this medication.

Today, I am still coping from these side effects. I have learned a lot though. I learned that my doctors put me on antipsychotics because they thought I could possibly be bipolar, and instead of treating me correctly, they just gave me the medication and that was it. When I talked to my therapist about this rather recently, he suggested the fact that I might be bipolar, but that they definitely shouldn’t have treated me the way they did. To be misdiagnosed is very insulting, and to be mistreated is even worse. I feel like I could have progressed so much better while in the hospital and even afterwards if I have been treated correctly.

Unfortunately, I am not the only one that gets mistreated or misunderstood by doctors. For example, take the case of Andrew Rios. When he was 5 months old, he had his first seizure. He was then put on epilepsy medication. At 18 months old, his medication gave him more adverse side effects, such as him acting violently and erratically. He was then prescribed the antipsychotic, Risperdal.

In Andrew’s case, he saw some of the most intense side effects of antipsychotics, at such a young age. His parents became very concerned when he started to scream in his sleep, and would talk to people that were not there. Once the family researched Risperdal, they found out that there were no antipsychotics that were approved for children younger than five years old. (Schwarz, 2015). The main issue here is that “the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the American Academy of Neurology have no guidelines or position statements regarding the use of antidepressants or antipsychotics on children younger than 3.” (Schwarz, 2015) It should also be noted that many doctors would theoretically like for there to be more studies of these drugs on young children, but they do not want to subject these kids to the dangerous and adverse side effects of the medications.

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The overprescription and misuse of antipsychotic medications greatly impact children specifically. This is not because most kids are diagnosed with psychosis or schizophrenia, but because doctors, teachers, and parents alike don’t always know how to deal with: autism or other learning disabilities, mental illnesses or other disorders, or just kids that are “bad” and “act out.” it is important to look at other reasons why these medications are being prescribed, such as looking at the doctors: how qualified they are to be prescribing these medications or what things may influence them to prescribe a certain drug over another. These medications are also prescribed because they are relatively cheap, and for a low-income family, it is much easier to just take medication rather than involve a child in therapies of any kind, mostly cognitive behavioral therapy or group therapies for the specific population impacted.

A reasoning behind why so many people are on these medications is that some doctors, teachers, parents or the patients themselves don’t really know how to deal with a patient's mental or physical illness. The most popular diagnosis among all ages of people prescribed antipsychotics was ADHD, which it is important to note that there is a whole other section of pharmacology dedicated to ADHD and ADD. (Penfold et al., 2013)

On “Last Week Tonight,” John Oliver talked about how pharmaceutical companies market to doctors in a very strange way, and that most psychiatrists are paid directly or indirectly by these pharmaceutical companies. Sometimes these doctors will even conduct research about certain drugs and have to say that it works because a pharmaceutical company is funding the research. The show mentioned a website where you could search your doctor and see if they got paid, how much they got paid, and what specific companies paid them. The psychiatrist that prescribed me Seroquel was getting paid over $850 a year, just from pharmaceutical companies. About $300 was from the company Astrazeneca, which created the drug Seroquel. (John Oliver, 2015)

My case isn’t the first and definitely will not be the last. Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, chair of Emory University’s department of psychiatry reported to the university that he made exactly $9,999 from talks and research he did with the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, but failed to report another $500,000 and also violated many of the university's policies regarding research with third party companies, in 2004 alone. (Angell, 2009)

Another influencing factor in prescribing antipsychotics is because they are relatively cheap, and much cheaper than therapy or other interventions. My parents spent well over $8000 for my hospitalization, $230 for monthly psychiatrist visits, $150 for therapy every two to three weeks, but my medication was only about $25 every month, and this was all under my private insurance. Through my research I found that therapy can treat these children that are acting out or are actually mentally ill, but it takes on average about 12 therapy sessions to see a full affect. For me, that’s 6 months of therapy, which would cost $1,800, and that’s just for my specific therapist. Medication for 6 months would cost the same as one single therapy treatment for me. It is also important to note that the “correct way” of doing things is to have “comprehensive psychiatric assessment prior to initiating psychotropic medication to determine the nature of the child’s illness and whether the antipsychotic medication is an appropriate course of action.” (Harrison et al, 2013)

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Many scholars, doctors and journalists alike have really questioned the ethics within studying antipsychotics on children. In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association issued a list of questionable uses of antipsychotics, basically setting guidelines for doctors prescribing these antipsychotics. Some of these limitations include: “Do not prescribe for insomnia in adults without a severe mental illness diagnosis and do not prescribe to children or adolescents for anything but psychosis.” (APA, 2013) While these guidelines are accurate and reasonable, it is obvious that they were not implemented for many doctors, or taken seriously. It’s great that we had these guidelines, but if there is no regulation or laws that essentially forces doctors to follow the rules then there isn’t much use in having the rules in the first place.

Just this year, Minnesota senator Al Franken proposed the Mental Health in Schools Act. This act promotes a school-based mental health program that is run with the Secretary of Education and the Attorney General. It increases government funding for mental health education and promotion in schools, and essentially insures that schools will have trained personnel that can deal with mental health. Although this bill is great, and it is good that we’re starting somewhere, there are not many specifics as to how this is all going to get done.

The most important thing to do to prevent these cases from ever happening is plain old good education. If we educated parents on their children’s illnesses, they may understand how it can be treated. If we educated parents about medication, they may decide they don’t want to give their children medication. If we just educated the general popular about mental illness and how to properly treat it then maybe there wouldn’t be this negative connotation attached to it.

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Diagnostic testing

I have had four (five, if you include the specialist) run mental diagnosis on me. And constant through every one (even the specialist) was the mention of ADHD. The first time (age 12) was by a general pediatrician who told my mom she could discard the ADHD diagnostic results (which she did) and instead of finding ways to help it, was completely swept under the rug and treated me like I 'just liked to play with things around me' The second time (age 13) was by a pediatric therapist who wasn't really that big on diagnostics. (I've now heard that they've constantly both under and over diagnose an array of illnesses and disorders) they didn't even finish diagnostic testing before they said "I mean, if you even have ADHD, I still wouldn't give you medication. If you need it to get through middle school, what happens when you're in high school? Or collage?" And marked my medical report as 'potentially borderline, but very minimal' and all my ADHD symptoms were projected onto PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression. The third/fourth time (age 13/14) was by two different specialists. One being the absolute WORST psychiatrist I've ever seen. The other being a specialist on autism. The psych took my baseline diagnosis and said "I don't normally deal with people this childish" (this isn't meant to be mean to the dr. They just weren't a good fit for me because they spent more time working with intense depression (why I was sent to them) personality disorders, severe OCD, and schizophrenia) they referred to ADHD as being 'childish' constantly, but at least acknowledged that it was a real thing. After getting back from a long trip, my family presumed I was autistic (Aspergers to be exact) because I had all the major characteristics for it. But when I went to go get tested the specialist said after a few sessions "I do not think your child is autistic, but have you ever heard of ADHD?" Where my mother promptly replied "they don't have ADHD. That was the first thing we tested for." Keep in mind, all the previous times I was 'tested' they were all disregarded due to personal bias of parents and doctors. The last time (age 15) was with my current doctor. The first time we met I was still 14 and when ADHD was brought up, my mom completely shot it down. I'd been seeing her for about a year when I was telling her about my experiences over the two months I hadn't seen her. She instantly started asking me questions that I knew from previous ADHD tests. After finishing the entire test, she did a full evaluation on the diagnosis and looked at my medical history to see what other doctors I've had said about it. She finally diagnosed me with ADHD which she said was "pretty obvious to the entire medical staff" I'd been working with recently. I finally got put on medication and it's actually been helping. The reason I'm saying all this is there is a LOT of bias in the mental health community. I wasn't able to actually get medication for a disorder that I'd known I've had for 3+ years prior because I was finally old enough to make medical decisions on my own, and didn't need my parents consent for everything. And I know medication is not the right treatment for everyone, but some people it can help them on an tremendous level. Now don't even get me started on how much my medication costs. And I get generics! To anyone under the age of 14 and struggling with mental health, this isn't over. (The reason why I say 14 is because that's the age of medical confidentiality where I live. Know your rights kids!) and if you can't afford medication, or don't like to take medication, there are plenty of other options that can still help. The thing is, I got lucky. I only had to go through 4 doctors. Never be afraid to tell things to medical professionals. Even if you think they might ridicule you for them. I don't really know where this post is going. But, just don't be afraid to ask for help. And, if you don't have enough money to go to a mental professional (because some insurance companies think that mental health is something that's really easy to pay out of pocket.) talk to a school psychologist. They can't give you a medical diagnosis or prescribe medication, but can provide professional guidance. (The lines are a bit blurry on that one because of the types of degrees they have, but yes, they can give you a legal, educational diagnosis) please don't be afraid to reach out. Especially to resources at school or in your community.