#cw self harm

[support]

Everything okay?

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If you are in the United States, please try:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) The Trevor Project (LGBTQ youth, ages 13-24) National Eating Disorders Association (online chat, text) RAINN (National Sexual Assault Hotline)

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[purble-gaymer]

some very normal meta knight for today <3 i’ve been rotating him nonstop for a week or two now

[borderline-culture-is]

BPD culture is weirdly enough feeling fine about the fact that you have classes with your fp tomorrow, knowing you'll leave class at some point to recarve their name into your skin

-💜🥀🔪

.

[xitsensunmoon]

He still loves your stupid face

@kandidandi screaming at you

[garbagechocolate]

Sometimes you just wanna

[oswaldswackywareshop]

tw for sh

well, i guess ill try this trend... (a few weeks later lmao-)

if this post gets 300 notes, ill try to stop self harming.

[anemoia-comic]

[sleepsucks]

[catboybiologist]

About to fall asleep ramble time, this has been kicking around in my brain for a bit and I need to get some form of this thought out

I was diagnosed with ADHD and gender dysphoria one day after the other back in August. Extremely stereotypically zillenial of me, I know. Handling both of these has dramatically improved my quality of life. yes yes insert discourse about how much you need to have dysphoria as a diagnosis, it's just a tool for the medical system that's ultimately meaningless, that's not what this is about.

There's one thing that was really, really weird about the experience of getting care for both of these.

Most treatment and public talk of transition and motivations to transition are about misery. How much despair your birth sex gives you and how gender affirming care is the only stopgap against suicide (oftentimes, used as a barrier to entry that it should only be given when it's at the suicidal point). How crushing dysphoria is.

In contrast, most of the public perception of ADHD is this cutesy, "omg look I'm so quirky" kind of thing. People talk of ADHD "superpowers" and how neat it is to have hyperfixations (I'm low key starting to dislike that word, even though it's an accurate description of many things- it's very overused).

My actual experience has been almost exactly the opposite.

I absolutely had gender dysphoria, and still do, and misery associated with being AMAB. But is that what defines my trans experience? No, and in fact, it feels like a more incidental blip in it. My trans experience has mostly been defined by joy, by feeling my mind and body slowly make me more and more content with my default existence day after day. And the exploration of it all! The social roles, the romantic dynamics, the friendship dynamics, even small aesthetics like clothes and makeup, and again, the body and mood changes. It's incredible and it brings me joy so much of the time. That, more than anything, has defined my trans experience.

In contrast.... ADHD has objectively made nearly every aspect of my life more miserable. Working with my therapist and my pysch, as well as feeling what it's like to be properly medicated, have shown me extremely well how much the constant feelings of misery I always seemed to have were caused by ADHD. ADHD means being unable to receive a baseline level of dopamine to function under normal circumstances, so your brain starts looking for any way it can get new sources. And wouldn't ya know it, novel stimuli are a perfect way to do that. Keep in mind that dopamine isn't just "the pleasure molecule" it's a neurotransmitter with a broad range of functions. If you don't have ADHD, or even if you do, I want you to think about how miserable of an existence that is. Your default state is depression and inability to do things. It has been for me for most of my life. Additionally, anxieties creep into your head and distract you far more easily. You're less functional. You can't do simple things most of the time. You're distracted and have anxiety spikes easily. Continuous tasks are hard. And day in, day out... You are miserable. Almost constantly.

Oh also, you're easily addicted to extreme novel stimuli. For me, it was self harm. And when that stopped working... Well, I was in a state of mostly background depression that was only punctuated by spikes of massive, overwhelming anxiety that my brain hooked itself on. At a certain point, I just wanted it to end, by any means necessary.

It's been almost ten years since that day, and at this point I can genuinely say that I'm glad I'm still here.

But it wasn't dysphoria that did that (it contributed a bit, but still wasn't the biggest factor). Or a depressive disorder. Or bipolar. Or whatever the big, more "scary" mental illnesses or neurodivergencies are. They tried to treat me for some of them, and it ended horribly. My symptoms fit mixed presentation ADHD perfectly, including my physiological response to stimulants. They don't fit anything else. I likely don't have any strong comorbidities, unless you count the symptom-level anxiety and depression. ADHD did all of that to me. The "cute and quirky" one.

By the time I got around to a diagnosis, my pysch was astounded that I made it as far as I did with symptoms as severe as mine. Tackling ADHD has removed so much misery from my life, it's indescribable. Adderall has been the only thing that has ever actually gotten rid of my constant anxiety.

It's not fucking cute. Keeping with this being the flip side to my dysphoria, I do try to keep it light most of the time, and I join in on all of the classic "whoopsie doopsie my ADHD" trains and jokes. You don't have to stop making those, hell, they're fun. There are cute and funny parts to having ADHD, and ways it's made my personality what it is. But don't forget that this is also something that makes people genuinely suffer well beyond the "oopsie I'm such a procrastinator!!!" Type thing.

Idk where this thought is going. It's just kind of an observation that's been kicking around in my head for a bit. So uh. Hope it at least generates discussion? Feel free to add your experiences if you think it'll help you. But fuck I need to sleep lol

[theartofasty]

waiting for the day when an indie game dev has the guts and wants to collab with me on a game with a traditional art aesthetic where I get to design the characters and/or hand-paint the model textures

[cornsyrupfromhell]

first prev next all

[artilite]

just a peek into siffrin's dark and twisted mindscape 🔥🔥🔥🔥

crowded doodle page of mal du pays ,, the ever,,,,

[kingprinceleo]

vampire au- damage control

[lackablazeical]

When you're depressed you gotta. You. The. Gotta. The dudes yk. Yk? Yk.

[ashleyslorens]

“The red on my nails is the result of Johanna's self harm that she puts herself through to kind of, you know, take her mind away from all the turmoil in her life, with, you know, being captive by Judge Turpin and that awful reality that she has. Me and Tommy Kail just kinda came together and thought this would be an interesting and gruesome little easter egg for Johanna.” - Maria Bilbao

[borderline-culture-is]

bpd culture is self harming as a cry for help and then not telling anyone

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