#it's interesting though. we have the same illness (generalized anxiety disorder) and are similar in a lot of ways

[hello-vodka-goodbye-dignity7]

Deltarune characters as mental disorders

So I just thought this would be an interesting thing to do, no offense to anyone with any of these conditions, I myself am on the road to recovery from depression so...

Kris - Depression - Kris's character design and personality reminds me a lot of when I went through dark times, and he really just represents the illness to me a lot, as in the way for some people when they suffer from depression they just feel the lack of caring for themselves and their appearance, but at the same time though I feel like he also represents the road of recovery from depression, because of when darkworld Kris endeavored through insanely rough challenges on they're way to save the world (aka the recovery from depression), and I feel like this is a good representation of all people who have recovered from depression, whether on their own or with the help of friends and family

Susie - Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) - Susie is a character that screams ODD to me. For those of you that don't know ODD means Oppositional-Defiant-Disorder, which describes a person that has a bad temper, deliberately tries to aggravate and annoy other people, and especially directly defies orders from superiors. Susie fits this description, because all through out the series Susie directly opposes any opinion and quite literally runs the opposite direction. A good example of this would be at the beginning of chapter one when Susie is literally told that she is part of the team that is going to save the world, she literally exits the room and tries to find her own way home, literally ignoring everything Ralsei just told her.

Ralsei - Social Anxiety Disorder - I feel like Ralsei would be the type of character to have social anxiety disorder because even though he's very cheery and optimistic around his friends, however when meeting new characters he tends to get very nervous and refrains from violence. Also he tends to try to blend in with people and not really draw any attention, quite like when in conversation with a character Ralsei doesn't usually say anything out of pocket to draw attention to themselves, and whenever someone ambitious makes a move, flirtatiously and platonically, Ralsei will tend to take a moment to adjust from that unexpected action. Also, in game, whenever someone gets really close to Ralsei in game he blushes ever so slightly, indicating a sign of nervousness or unsettlement.

Noelle - Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) - This one was quite hard to analyze because Noelle and Ralsei are such similar characters. Both are optimistic, both are kind, both are non-violent unless they need to be, but the difference is Ralsei is a bit more introverted than Noelle. Some symptoms of GAD are the unreasonable worry and stress of simple events or regular actions, or excessive worry about said persons capability to deal with said issues. We notice these tendencies during Noelle's time in the darkworld when she stresses over the solution for when she has encounters with an assortment of characters like Berdly or Queen, for example. However, we also notice that Ralsei has a bit of this tendency too, however noelle has less introversion so we can conclude that she is more likely to have GAD.

Berdly - Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) - Oh. My. Fucking. God. There is no way in hell Berdly does not suffer from this disorder. NPD is exactly what it sounds like. According to HelpGuide.org, "But in psychological terms, narcissism doesn't mean self-love—at least not of a genuine sort. It's more accurate to say that people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are in love with an idealized, grandiose image of themselves. And they're in love with this inflated self-image precisely because it allows them to avoid deep feelings of insecurity. But propping up their delusions of grandeur takes a lot of work—and that's where the dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors come in." As stated in shown in the previous source before, people that suffer from NPD don't necessarily love themsleves, they love better versions of them. We see this from when in Chapter 2, Berdly opens up about his past and how he was very insecure about himself up until he won the spelling bee in first grade which mostly helped develop his ego complex even though he's not that great. And DEADASS this man BUILT a SOLID GOLD STATUE of a buff version of himself with NIPPLES wtf?!?!?

Anyways, props off to you for taking this long to read that, I spent a really long time researching on this so make sure to like and reblog, also reply in the comments if you want a part 2 with some of the main ANTAGONISTS next time!

[seeingteacupsindragons]

YuuMori has a lot of villains (it’s, y’know, about the villains). YuuMori has a lot of characters with mental illnesses and neurodivergences.

Most of the time when you see this combo, well. Mental health issues have a pretty strong stigma.  Usually the reason they’re evil. Something’s just wrong with them, and their mental health and inability to fit into society is another sign and symptom of it.

And yet, in YuuMori, we have these characters who call themselves demons, who are actively, intentionally, the villains of their story­—and their mental health issues are not one of their sins. They do not add to their villainy.

So Albert is obsessive-compulsive. Whether it’s OCD or OCPD can be argued, maybe (although I lean toward OCPD, myself), but he is in fact seriously mentally ill, desperate enough because of it to commit murder. Personality disorders especially are hard to treat, in part because they’re so ingrained into a person. Someone with generalized anxiety might see their anxiety as separate from themselves, but personality disorders are harder to distinguish that way—and it’s part of what makes them so easy to demonize, even more than most others.

But Albert’s? Instead of making his mind looked warped and twisted, his very soul seeming wrong, his reasoning makes more sense now than it ever did before. This was a boy desperate for relief from constant discomfort, from the dissonance between how he knew this should be, how he’d been taught things were meant to be, and how they so obviously were. And it’s very obvious that he is suffering from something outside himself. He is not suffering because he is evil and his soul is wrong. He was suffering before he’d done anything wrong at all.

His discomfort was one of the most rawly emotional moments he’s ever had: Albert is usually quite cool and collected, sometimes angry, sometimes smug, but he has typically felt quite distant, even on the rare moments his internal thoughts are shown. His mental health issues, his suicidal ideation, his OCD? Those were not villainous, not cool, not collected, not careful. Those were human and desperate and fragile.

And while autism is not a mental illness, in this case it performs a similar function for William. He and Albert both have brains screaming at them constantly because that’s not right. That’s not Just. That’s not the way things should be. That doesn’t follow the rules. This can bring people with obsessive-compulsion disorder to their knees and claw their own skin open. It can bring autistic people to wordless shutdowns. It brought Albert the brink of suicide and William to murder.

They are in agony. Unless they fix the wrongness. And they have tried, so many ways, to fix it, and so many of those ways have fail.

William’s guilt may also be agony, but he’s choosing between two different forms of torment. And he thinks one helps others. Not much of a decision, that, not for someone with a soul and a heart, someone who burns so hot with love and hate that he has to turn it into something.

William’s depression, his mental illness, the way his brain doesn’t conform to society, his guilt, his understanding of his own misdeeds is so deep and his self-image so wholly negative, compared how virtually every other character in this series, even John, who barely knows him sees him, and especially compared to how the audience who adores him so much they overwhelmingly voted him their favorite character sees him.

We know he knows what he did was horrible. We are confronted with it constantly. And we are inclined to forgive him even when he might not, because we know despite it all, he has a solid moral center, a good core, the moral understanding of right from wrong. His depression is so all-consuming how could he not? Those things cause his depression.

Albert and William are the focal point of the villainy of the story in many ways: the two who started everything. The two who birthed James Moriarty, Lord of Crime. But while Albert and William may have started everything, they are not the only two with mental health issues.

Louis has always been quite stable. Anxious, to be sure, type A, very high strung. But not really mentally ill—everything he was ever anxious about was entirely reasonable (of course, I have an anxiety disorder myself, so my evaluation of that might be off—but still, worried Sherlock might ruin William’s plan, might lead to his death, might ruin something, worrying about William’s death, worrying about Milverton? All entirely reasonable, thank you). Informed by trauma, surely, but not necessarily mentally ill.

Moran, though? Louis’s behavior is informed by trauma, but Moran’s is poisoned by it.  That double-dose PTSD not only from the war, but from his actions in The Final Problem tore him apart, and we saw it tear him apart. His PTSD pushed him into crime the same way William and Albert’s mental health did.

When Moran first gets his character focus, when his personality and character is delved into properly, it’s to show his trauma and mental health issues. His character is deepened, given structure and reasoning and understand, by showing us his mental illness, the way Albert just was in chapter 62. The way William’s has been for several arcs now with his depression.

I find Moran particularly interesting, because he’s not the only character with Shell Shock: John is also a veteran, and has a psychogenic illness from his time at war. When you take those two, loyal bosom friends of William and Sherlock, who are also set to contrast and parallel each other, down to their mental health issues and neurodivergencies, it becomes very apparent how differently the two teams have portrayals of their illness. Of course, John’s not a villain. Sherlock, for all that he can commit horrible acts, is not a villain.

But Sherlock suffers from bouts of listlessness and gloom just as William does—and he hides it even less. He doesn’t quite manifest as traditional depression the way William does—it really reads more like manic depression—but Moran and John’s PTSD doesn’t manifest the same way either. And Moran’s physical disability rooted in something more concretely physical than John’s and his struggle much more debilitating. The way he suffered pushed him to do worse things than John ever felt pushed into.

But suffering, like it did with Albert and William, makes us feel closer to him. It makes them these powerful men who call themselves devils vulnerable.

Human.

[veryvincible]

If tony meets the criteria for ocd, why do you still say he doesn't have it? Not disagreeing just curious

Disclaimer again: I am not a mental health professional, I am simply a mental health advocate with many years of research under my belt, as well as lots of firsthand experience with the diagnostic process and other mental health-related incidences with the medical field (in America specifically). So, as always, feel free to look into it yourself if you’re interested in it, because there’s always discourse in the (very messy) field of psychology. Anyway, on we go.

The thing to remember here is that, with fictional characters, we don’t get to delve into their minds as much as we’d like to; internal monologue, as deep and complex and beautiful as it can be, is still a collection of words to define a mass of feelings, and these masses of feelings can be attributed to so, so many things. When a therapist diagnoses you, they get to ask funky questions like, “Do you feel like your thoughts and concerns spiral, and you’re helpless to stop them?” “Thinking back to your childhood, do you think you exhibited similar symptoms that you’re experiencing currently?” “Do you, personally, have an opinion about what may have been a catalytic event for you adopting this state of mind?” and all sorts of things. Though those are much more formally put than most questions I’ve been asked by therapists, the gist is basically the same-- they get to deep dive into your history, your mind, your self-awareness, your body language, your feelings... and you’re one cohesive person with a cohesive story. 

For comic book characters, we don’t get to delve into that. We don’t get to go, “Well, his childhood was like this, and that explains these behaviors! We can assume his panic response is Like This, and we can assume his attachment style is Like This, and we can assume his symptoms are Like This, and we can assume he feels Like This,” but those are all assumptions, and we can’t probe further. On top of that, most of them aren’t even intentional-- sure, yes, Tony Stark is a very sad man, and most writers make him this very sad man, but I can guarantee that most writers aren’t specifically looking into MDD and writing Tony accordingly. Some may be drawing from personal experience, others may be drawing from assumptions, etc. Whatever the case, Tony is not a cohesive man with a psychological timeline wherein one event leads to a developed response, consistently.

Above all else, diagnosis is a tool for treatment-- yes, it is excellent to be able to better understand yourself and feel the relief that comes along with this, but diagnosis came into being for the sake of medical professionals being able to say, “Hm, you’ve got [whatever]. I will go tell the other doctor you’ve got [whatever], so that guy can help you, because he specializes in [whatever], or you can try these home remedies for [whatever], or we can delve into [whatever] emotionally with talk therapy.”

Because diagnosis is a tool for treatment, you get these funky little footnotes in the DSM (which, again, is not the end-all, be-all, but when it comes to fictional characters, it’s totally fine) and other diagnostic tools that tell you “Even if you meet all these criteria, this diagnosis isn’t necessary if these symptoms would be better explained by something else!” because treating you for every psychological condition you qualify for could be rough on your body, it could end up with conflicting treatments (especially if you make incorrect assumptions, or if certain symptoms are stemming from different physiological factors despite appearing the same externally), and it’s just kind of tedious.

Like, you could potentially exhibit every symptom under the diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety, but if you have severe PTSD from long-term trauma that’s made you super jittery, it might be accepted that Generalized Anxiety wouldn’t be the best diagnosis for you, because ideally the treatment you’d receive for PTSD (trauma counseling, medication, etc.) would help with that.

I will say here that having an “umbrella diagnosis” under which other potential diagnoses could fall is not the same thing as having comorbid disorders; you probably know that already, but I’m going to say it anyway, just in case. Comorbidity involves overlap but separation of diagnoses, whereas the whole “Don’t diagnose your patient with [whatever disorder] if these symptoms are better explained by another thing!” happens more often when the entirety of one potential diagnosis fits under a section of another, more fitting diagnosis. So, if you see anyone with very long lists of diagnoses (probably don’t put big lists like that in your bios, though, please-- that seems kind of dangerous), that’s not a sign that they’re, like, mental illness-hoarding or whatever the fuck, despite that being a very common assumption that a lot of neurotypical people (and honestly, other mentally ill people) can have. Bodies like to be balanced. When one thing falls out of place, a lot of other things might follow. Just a disclaimer for you here, because I feel it’s important to say.

So, that covers... most of the reason why I don’t personally like to point to Tony as a character with OCD. First of all, sure, he has what could be considered obsessions and what could be considered compulsions, but we can’t actually ask him, “Hey, do you think these thoughts are obsessive? Are these potential compulsions things you perform ritualistically in order to make the obsessive thoughts go away?”

And... I don’t know. I think OCD (for me, specifically-- I know there are others with OCD whose opinions differ, and more power to them) is something that has to be written more intentionally for it to read as representation. Sure, they might have what could be intrusive thoughts... but my intrusive thoughts don’t just feel like thoughts that “could” be intrusive. They are intrusive, unmistakably. My compulsions don’t just feel like solutions to the problems I’ve made up or exaggerated in my head; they’re irrational, fear-based, anxiety-inducing. It’s the way you make sure every upstairs door is closed before heading downstairs, because otherwise you get a tightness in your chest and you can’t focus or breathe quite right; or the way you get up out of bed to make sure your door is locked multiple times just in case you forgot; or the way you develop avoidant tendencies or overly communicative tendencies because if you don’t, the ramifications within your relationships could be unbearable. It’s having a voice inside your head that’s not just telling you you’re a monster, the perfect antithesis to everything you’ve ever held dear; it’s a voice inside your head that is the monster, a voice that sounds the same as your own, simultaneously overprotective of your well-being and overly interested in the total destruction of your person.

And... I’m not saying Tony doesn’t experience that. He clearly has this feeling of “I am a monster” inside of him. He clearly has that feeling due to what he perceives as his own shortcomings. But these are comic books, and though there are many ways you could introduce intrusive thoughts in an internal monologue, we don’t really get that with Tony as much as I’d need to in order to feel represented by him. We don’t get him thinking shit like, “You could abandon this all, you could leave this shit to the rest of the team, you could fuck off and live on an island somewhere else, you could hole yourself up in a room and never leave, you could kill them, you could kill him, you could kill everyone, you know for a fact you have the resources to kill everyone, don’t you want to make sure? What if your tech fails? What if you do kill everyone? What would happen, huh? How would that look? How would that feel? What do you think it would feel like to pick up their bodies, to look in their eyes and have nothing staring back at you? You could tell him you hate him. Not to save him from you, no-- you could just do it because you’re able to do it, because you’ve cultivated these relationships and you’ve fooled everyone into loving you despite knowing you don’t deserve it. You’ve tricked them, and every day you continue on like this you’re manipulating them, and you’ve taken so much from them-- they’ve put so much of themselves in your hand that you could so, so easily crush if you just took a second and did it.”

... And we don’t get the accompanying monologue of, “No, god no, what the fuck, that’s not who I am, that’s not who I want, I’m not like that, I love them, that can’t be who I am, if that’s who I am then what does that say about me, what does that say about the space I take up, what does that make me?”

Which is where the OCD version of “I am a monster” tends to originate-- the inherent inability to separate oneself from the illness, the difficulty in coping with an overactive survival mechanism ready to ensure you’re prepared for every single thing that could go wrong, very specifically the things you’re most worried about, because that’s what matters, right? The things you’re worried most about. And Tony’s most worried about love, about his loved ones, about the planet, about life.

But “I am a monster” doesn’t imply that internal monologue. “I am a monster” could be a legitimate analysis of what he’s been through and what he’s done, clouded by self-loathing instilled in him by his father. “I am a monster” could be something he’s thought since he was younger, not because of any specific symptoms he developed, but because of what he was told-- because he was told he was wrong, bad, unlovable.

I think Tony could get there. I think I honestly may have written Tony there at some point, just because it’s easy to write for me. But if we’re following standard diagnostic procedures with a man on a page who really hasn’t been written intentionally with anything other than substance abuse, symptoms of PTSD, and depression... I don’t know. It doesn’t read like OCD to me. It doesn’t feel like OCD to me, and if at any point it did, I think that would be more of me filling in blanks with my own experiences than it would be anything else.

(There is one canonical instance of “I could kill this person right now if I wanted to!” level intrusive-ish thoughts I can think of off the top of my head, and that is in the most recent Iron Man run, and that also doesn’t read like OCD to me because, honestly, nothing Cantwell writes with regards to mental health seems natural or authentic or accurate. Also, I don’t know if it really qualifies as an intrusive thought if it feels more like a justified outburst of rage to the character thinking it, so, uh. Hmm.)

[isa-ly]

THE TRUTH UNTOLD

TW: mental illness, eating disorders, depression, anxiety

I know the title might be a fun little hint to a certain k-pop song (which is a reference about three people will understand) but despite that little quirky pun, this post I’m about to write and that you’re about to read, is not gonna be easy. Or witty, or funny like some of the previous posts were. It’s most definitely going to be the longest one, though.

Because, in all honesty, this is the one post I have been absolutely dreading to make. However, it’s also the post that I kind of started this blog for because, unlike my depression, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia and quarter-life crisis, this is something only my closer circle and those who happened to ask, really know about. 

And, once again in all honesty, this is the actual reason I started therapy almost a year ago. Because in every way possible, shit had hit the fan so hard that there had been nothing left but to step on the emergency breaks. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. So, let’s try and start from the beginning.

I’ve talked about my more or less mental breakdown and burn out during my last year of university a few times now. Didn’t spare any details either. However, there is one thing that I’ve been mindfully avoiding that actually took up a pretty big part of that time of my life. The reason I avoided it, was because in my head, I kept running in circles on how I would phrase it and explain it in a way that would a) not sound too shocking and b) not make me look like a complete stranger to people who, until now, had no idea of what I’m about to say.

Eventually, though, I realized that I was doing the exact same thing I’ve always been doing. Which was searching for excuses to not talk about the biggest struggle in my life and make myself vulnerable. And I don’t want to make these excuses anymore because, really, all they ever did was harm me. So, here goes nothing.

Hello. My name is Isa. And for over a year now, I have been suffering from an eating disorder called anorexia nervosa.

The sheer act of just having typed this sentence out on virtual paper, threw me so hard that I spent a good 15 minutes simply staring at my laptop screen just now. I told you, this wasn’t going to be easy. 

Since the only place I’m really “promoting” this blog on is Instagram, I’m just going to try and somehow use that as a segue to this post. Over the last year, I’ve received quite a few messages from friends, family and sometimes also random acquaintances, whenever I posted a picture of myself on my story or feed. Some of them were jokey, some of them interested and a very select few were concerned, too. All of them were about my apparent change of appearance, however. Of course, I didn’t only receive those messages online. The people who know and see me in real life, the above mentioned inner circle, have known for a while and some of them, as much as I wish they hadn’t had to, saw all of it happen in real life.

I know I included it in the trigger warnings already, but I want to point it out one more time here because I know how incredibly triggering these things can be – especially to people who have struggled or are struggling with similar issues. So, if reading about body image, dieting, weight loss and eating disorders makes you uncomfortable or could trigger bad memories and behaviour, this post might not be the one for you. I don’t want to be patronizing, you know what’s best for you, just wanted to make sure to highlight it before I continued.

I also want to preface this by saying that I can and only will talk about my own experience here. I am in no way, shape or form an expert on mental health and eating disorders and what I’m going to say and talk about, is purely a narration of what happened in my own life. Eating disorders, just like any other mental illness, are very individual and I do not want to come off as blurting out generalizations about them. Just so that we’re clear here.

Therapy taught me that the psychological, biological and/or societal origin of eating disorders is still almost completely scientifically unknown. It is for that exact reason, that the various EDs are some of the most stereotyped and stigmatized mental illnesses there are – which is also why it took me so long to actually pluck up the courage and energy to talk about it. I imagined people reading about my anorexia and thinking: “Oh, I bet it’s because she was bullied for her weight when she was a kid”, or: “Well, just another one of those girls who wanted to be skinnier”. Possibly also: “I never would have thought that someone like her would end up with an eating disorder. She always seemed so confident!”

So, to combat the fear of coming off like a cliché or sob story, I knew simply had to tell my whole and honest story. Because even if I’m worried about being put in a box or labelled as something I’m not, it still happened. And it’s still my story. And to move on from it, or better, with it, I have to tell it. And I have to tell it right. 

So, here it goes.

Ever since I can remember, I have disliked my body. Growing up as a Human Person™ in this society, I realize that’s not really something that makes me stand out (which, if you think about it, is actually incredibly fucking sad). Apart from my own self, however, no one ever really shamed for the way that I looked and I was also never bullied or teased by others because of it. So, that’s a no for the “Oh, I bet it’s because she was bullied for her weight when she was a kid”-stereotype. It makes me want to gauge the patriarchal beauty standard’s eyes out, to think that never actively having been shamed for my body or weight, is something that I can consider a “privilege” in this world. I’m aware that a lot of kids and adults don’t have that twisted privilege, which, again, just makes me want to set the world of body ideals on fire, but I don’t want to diverge too much from the point of this post. 

Remember that society I was talking about? Yeah, with that around, having someone point out or shame you for how your body looks different from what’s considered the ideal, isn’t really something that’s necessary in order for you to still notice it and develop massive insecurities. So, even though I was “lucky” and “privileged” enough to have avoided being bullied for my body by real-life people, I still grew up not liking the way I looked, always noticing that my stomach, my thighs, my arms, my boobs, my butt, were different to those of the girls everyone called pretty. Which inevitably led to me harbouring a contained, yet undeniably significant amount of self-hatred for the way my body looked over time.

Now, I might have been one of many body-conscious teenagers, but, in quite stark contrast to that, I was also a seemingly self-confident one. Or at least I really, really wanted to be. It’s what everyone always told me I came across as. The loud, opinionated and self-assured girl, who didn’t care what people thought of her. Maybe that was to compensate for my own insecurities, maybe it was for protection, or maybe it was also because I just knew, or hoped, it was the right way to go. I believed and preached that how I looked, what I weighed and what I ate didn’t matter, both to myself and to all of my friends and family. I knew I was absolutely fine the way that I was, as long as I was physically and mentally healthy. I’ve always known that, and I fully believe in it too. And yet, here I am. About to tell you what both you and me are already suspecting: The story of how that knowledge didn’t end up protecting me as well as I thought it would.

Despite me always having believed in not giving a shit about beauty standards, ideal body types and the obsession with whatever the fuck “skinny”, “slim thick” and “lean” are supposed to be, it undeniably had an effect on me. Just like it has an effect on literally every other person, regardless of gender or age. It’s pretty much passed onto us the minute we’re born, like a part of our literal DNA. It makes me sick to my very core, but I always knew that this insecurity, no matter how much I knew it shouldn’t have ever been one and no matter how much I fought to stand above it, was woven into the very fabric of my being. The very minute we learn to interact with others and the world around us, the clear, limited and completely unrealistic image of how we’re supposed to look in order to meet societal expectations, is indoctrinated into our innocent brains – consciously, subconsciously and in literally every other way possible.

I don’t want to give a lecture on how society, media, and peers make us believe it’s necessary and right to chase bodies that, realistically, no one can ever outrun, but I felt like saying at least this much about it to set the base for what’s about to come. Certainly, this almost innate, underlying dislike for my body – or most parts of it – wasn’t the sole reason for developing an eating disorder in my early twenties. But it was most definitely a cruel predisposition that played a big part in how my anorexia unfolded and the leverage it had and still has on me.

I mentioned in the beginning how, despite it being one of the most common mental health disorders, there’s barely any scientific explanations as to how eating disorders really come to be. Which is why assuming that being unhappy with my body and the way it looked was the only reason I slipped into disordered eating, would simply be false. After all, I lived twenty-one years of my life being more or less fine with it. It was an insecurity, yes, but it didn’t dictate my every day life, it didn’t influence how I lived it. So, the “Well, just another one of those girls who wanted to be skinnier”-stereotype, doesn’t really prove to be fully true either.

Which leaves the last assumption: “I never would have thought that someone like her would end up with an eating disorder. She always seemed so confident!”

To which I can only say: Yeah, uh ... same? I mean, do you really think there’s anyone who found themselves developing an eating disorder only to think: “Oh, yeah, that makes sense, I always knew I’d end up like that!” Sorry, that was a bit dark. I know that this assumption is something that mostly I myself am worried about and that there’s no reason for me to actually get defensive. However, while most reactions to me talking about my eating disorder have been very comforting and caring, I’ve also had a few quite unpleasant experiences and well, those tend to have the harsher impact. So, please forgive my mildly cynical reasoning here.

Right, then. If I didn’t ever get bullied for my body or weight, didn’t just want to “be skinny” and really am that confident – how did this happen?

Well, I’ve already given part of the explanation just now, when I told you about my unfortunate predisposition of never really having fully loved or accepted my body. The other part of the explanation, lies in pretty much every other post I have written so far. Most of all the latest one: Control.

It was a real challenge to have written that last entry without ever mentioning my anorexia with even one word. Because really, for me personally, control is literally all it ever was and will be about. My therapist told me that it’s quite common in other eating disordered people too. But again, I’m not here to talk about anyone else, I’m here to talk about my own experience. And it starts just like I said in my last post: With losing control. And in many ways, the combination of always having disliked my body and suddenly having slithered into a massive life-crisis where I felt like I had lost all power and control over everything, was the very dangerous mixture that started it all. 

I don’t want to make it about that too much, but it’s still worth mentioning that after my semester abroad, which had ended in January of 2018, I had gained some weight. Weight that, having changed up my diet a few years prior, I had actually lost and that all of a sudden, was now back on again. It had just been a very wonderful yet also stressful time abroad and well, heaps of uni work, very little sleep and the general student lifestyle, just caused me to pile on a few kilos. The part of me that genuinely never gave a fuck about body standards, once again did genuinely not give a fuck about that. And yeah, when I came back, there were the occasional family remarks of “Look at you, gained quite a bit of weight there, didn’t you?” (which I know are made with no malicious intent, by the way, but, forgive me if I say this: just shut up) and I had also obviously started noticing that none of my old clothes fit anymore and I did indeed look a lot larger than in any of my older pictures. Was that a blow to my self-built confidence because we live in a society that rewards weight loss and punishes weight gain? Sure. Was that when I developed anorexia? Nope.

Because, if you’ve been following the timeline of my mental health issues that I have oh so passionately been crafting in the last few posts, it wasn’t until autumn of 2018 that I first started struggling with my back then still undiscovered control issues, which lead to my anxiety, depression, insomnia and – now that I’m telling my whole story – my eating disorder. Or, to be fully correct, disordered eating, back then. Because just like the rest of my mental health issues, this too, crept up on me slowly at first.

I remember the first time I had this very simple thought. At least, it felt simple. Simple, but so deeply wrong and dangerous. And yet once I had had it, it wouldn’t leave anymore. It should have rang all the alarm bells in my head. It really should have. But I understand now, that the reason I had this very simple, deeply wrong and dangerous thought, was because I was desperate to control something, anything at all. Regain power over just one part of my life, whatever that might be.

So, that thought kept coming back. Over and over again:

What if I just stopped eating?

I would snap out of it and tell myself: “What the fuck, Isa? That’s ridiculous. Also, what does that even mean, are you crazy? You love food, you love eating it and you need it to survive.” And I’d ignore it again. But it would come back. Every now and then, usually in the moments where I felt worst about myself, it would echo stronger in my own head and ignoring it would become harder and harder. It was a thought so insane and so ridiculous, I told nobody about it. My rational mind knew that it was totally stupid to even consider something like that, and so I felt stupid for doing it. Which is why talking about it was off the table for me, back then. It was my dirty, little, silly secret and I was going to keep it that way. 

I was smarter than that, I knew better than that. 

It didn’t change the fact that I felt so lost in university though, and even more lost in life, and so that shitty thought just wouldn’t leave me alone. Until eventually, I budged. And that’s the part where it really stops being witty and smart-assy. 

Because that’s the part where I made the decision to only eat once a day. And it was a decision that I fought for with an iron will. A decision that gave me control. Over all the wrong things.

I said I would tell my whole and honest story, but in case you were wondering: No, I’m not gonna give any numbers, not when it comes to weight and not when it comes to calories. Mainly because the only thing they do is create competition and shock value. Even to people who don’t struggle with eating disorders. And apart from that, they’re also triggering to me, even if it’s my own story. So, all I’ll say is that I limited myself to one meal a day. For an entire year. It didn’t always work, thank God for that in hindsight. But I tried to do it every day nonetheless, and even though it wasn’t a by-the-books eating disorder yet (which is a whole other rant I have but that’s not for now), it completely ruined my relationship with food, my body image and my own self-worth. 

Every time I ate, I would feel guilty, it made me feel like a failure. I had never experienced this kind of shame before, the idea of feeling accomplished whenever I managed to go without eating for almost an entire day. It was this sick sense of pride and, you guessed it: Control. And yet it wasn’t enough, because my body would obviously fight back, demanding food with every bit of power and rage it had over me. I felt awful. On top of university stress, panic attacks, anxiety, depression and insomnia, I was now also hungry almost all the time. And when I had my one meal a day, I wouldn’t enjoy it. I would simply gorge on it because I was so depleted and ravenous. And then I would feel guilty and hate myself for it.

This went on for many months. I hid it as best as I could and in most social situations, I would make exceptions so that people wouldn’t notice. Exceptions I would hate myself for, but they had to be made to keep this habit my aforementioned dirty, little secret. It was like an entire new personality was starting to form inside my own. A dark and hateful one that chipped away at all that confidence and rational I had built over the years. A few close friends suspected eventually that something was off, and some of them asked about it but I would immediately play it off as just not feeling well because of all my other mental struggles, the ones they already knew about. It was an excuse that made sense, so no one really dug any deeper. And I couldn’t really have given another explanation back then anyway. Because again, I didn’t know yet why any of this was happening. I didn’t know that not eating was a twisted and horrible coping mechanism, that I had developed to gain back some sense of control in my life.

At that point, I had started weighing myself too. Something that had given me a big, bad shock when I first saw the number on the scale. In my mind, it was big and bad too. I knew how much I had weighed pre-semester-abroad. And so I knew how much I must have gained and by now also lost again. And yet that number was still way too big. It crushed me. And sadly, only spurred me on more. I would try not to eat. I would “fail”. I would hate myself. Rinse and repeat.

And no one knew what was going on. Least of all me.

It got a little bit better over the summer of 2019, just like the rest of my mental health did. That was around the time I had finally made the decision to take a gap year and figure out all my issues. And that included the very bad eating habits I had developed over the last year. In a way, that decision was also a way of me gaining back control, which was presumably why all my other bad coping strategies, including the not eating, faded away a little. No more nightly panic attacks. No more insomnia. And a lot more breakfast, lunch and dinner. I still didn’t like my body, I was still scared of the number on the scale. But I was ready to turn my life around again, get therapy and fight that nasty, dangerous habit I had let myself fall into.

Unfortunately, as I already mentioned in previous posts, the therapy I was so clearly in desperate need of, didn’t work out as quickly as I had wished (again, thanks for that, health care system). I had gone to my first ever assessment where they had diagnosed me with anxiety and depression disorder. And, actually, the psychiatrist that I had had my first ever session with, had also decided to diagnose me with anorexia nervosa because according to her, while I hadn’t ticked all of the eating disorder boxes yet, I definitely did show signs of eating disordered and anorexic behaviour. To me, that had sounded quite ridiculous and harsh at the time. Anorexia? Pft, no way, I didn’t look like the girls from the shocking posters and depressing documentaries, it was no where as serious as that. (Tip of the hat to those stigmas and stereotypes I was talking about earlier)

But of course, she was right. However, they didn’t have a free spot for one on one therapy and group sessions weren’t really what I was looking for either. So, I went on a waiting list and never heard back from them again.

The cold season crept back in and the wonderful, warm and sunny-safe bubble I had lived in all summer, burst as quickly as it had been blown into existence. Everyone went back to work, back to uni, back to life. And I ... well, I went back to being lost. To not knowing what to do. To having to write my thesis I still couldn’t write for some reason. To having panic attacks. To having insomnia.

To not eating.

Only that after a year of being so miserable whenever I ate food and still feeling so awful in my own body, I decided I would have to change the way I was going about it. In my extremely mentally fragile mind, I thought I had to step it up if I really wanted results. And, as I like to say it, that’s when shit really hit the fan. In a way, it felt like I had spent an entire year sitting on a roller coaster ride that was slowly climbing up the incline, getting closer and closer to the inevitable drop. And just like on any actual roller coaster, when that drop came, it came fast.

It was no longer about just eating one and any meal a day. In the matter of a week or two, it became about numbers, calories, measurements, grams, milliliters. All of a sudden, I found myself meticulously writing down every single thing I ate and when I had eaten it. The food groups kept shrinking and so did my portions and the amount of calories I would consume in a day. I would set a new limit on Monday and decrease it again by Wednesday, pushing myself harder, restricting more and more with every week. All I could think about was food. And all I could do was not eat it. In what felt like a matter of seconds, a worry, a fear, a habit had turned into a full-fledged obsession. An addiction. And that’s when anorexia entered my life.

I’ve re-written this part over and over again because I’m desperately trying not to make it sound like a pseudo-romantic and tastelessly dramatic young adult novel. But I realize that’s just my fear of sounding like a cliché again. So, I’ll stop scratching and writing everything anew now, and just keep going.

In the first few days and weeks of crashing into this new, horrible world, I remember yet again thinking another very simple, yet dangerous and devastating thought. The one beside “What if I just stopped eating?”. And this thought, to me personally, was even scarier than the last one. 

It was the thought of: “What if I can never eat again?”

Because that’s exactly what anorexia felt like to me.

Many people describe it as a whole other person in their head. Almost like a foreign entity, taking over your life. And while I very strongly relate to these descriptions, I have learned that it’s best for me to not always manifest my eating disorder into a separate identity to my own, because in certain times, that gives it too much power and makes it seem undefeatable. Which it isn’t. So, I’m going to try and describe it in another way. The way I first described it to my therapist. With a metaphor, of course.

It felt like up until this point, I had been sitting in the car that was my own life, driving down the road of my present and future, looking in the rear view mirror at my past. I was the one with the foot on the gas and the breaks, I was the one that decided what turn or exit to take. Autumn of 2018 had felt like breaking down in that car, having to pull over and being lost in the middle of nowhere, without any signs to guide the way. My bad eating habits felt like someone stopping and pretending to help me, jump staring my car and having it tucker slowly again while following me at walking speed, with me still not really knowing where I was going. And finally, anorexia felt like that someone kicking me out of my car, buckling me into the passenger seat, taping my mouth shut and taking over the stirring wheel.

All of a sudden, it felt like I had no say in where I was heading, how fast I was driving or what road I was going down. For over a year, I had used this dangerous and awful habit of coping by not eating, to wield control and have power over something. And now, it had taken that power away again, like a pact with the god damn devil, and had started to use it over me instead. Which is exactly what eating disorders do, and what my anorexia did too. They give you a false sense of control because control is all you want, and yet all you can’t have. All you need to do is replace control with food. Because food is all you want, and yet all you can’t have. Anorexia gave me my own, fucked up metaphor for my control issues. 

I knew that what I was doing was more than just dangerous. It was no longer just trying to eat once a day, not managing to and then hating myself. This was barely eating anything at all, setting the bar lower each day and starving myself. And not in the figurative way. I lost weight so rapidly, I could barely keep track. The scale became my second home, the calories my worst enemy and food, or more trying to avoid it, the entire purpose of my life. Nothing else mattered anymore. 

Falling into anorexia has been the scariest and most horrible thing I have ever had to go through. It felt like I had lost myself. I was still there, in my own head, somewhere. Still strapped into the passenger seat. But I had no say in any of my actions. I just silently watched and witnessed, obeying everything my eating disorder told me to do. I know I said I usually avoid completely painting it as a separate person in my own head, but back then, back when I was still severely anorexic, that was just what it felt like. Like a literal parasite, that had latched onto me and was sucking me dry of any and every life force and fight I still had left.

All my days would consist of trying to navigate around food, doing my best to avoid it, lying to everyone, most of all myself. I would look up every single nutritional information of everything, every meal at a restaurant, every drink. I had lists where I wrote it all down, tracking my calorie intake and weight loss. Documents that contained all the calories from every single food and also non-food item imaginable. It would start with things like fruits, vegetables and condiments and end with things like tea, vitamins, chewing gum and toothpaste. I would google how many calories a panic attack burned. I would pace up and down my room at night to get my step count higher. I would walk around the city aimlessly for hours every single day to avoid eating, no matter the weather, no matter the time. I would work out at the gym like a maniac and almost pass out every single time afterwards. At family breakfast, I would hide food in my sleeves and socks to avoid eating it. It was more than just ridiculous. It was insanity. But it was an insanity I couldn’t let go of.

Anorexia was the most twisted and horrendous full-time commitment of my life. I had felt lost and without purpose for so long and in the most fucked up way, my eating disorder had given me a 9-to-5 – no, scratch that, a 24-god-damn-7 job to do. It had given me a new purpose and a painful illusion of the things I had craved for so long. Control, willpower, strength, endurance. Only that it was exactly that – just an illusion. Because at the end of the day, I would go to bed empty, both literally and figuratively, feeling nothing and hating everything. Because that’s what anorexia does. It strips you of everything you have in life. It takes away every joy, every pleasure, every interest, hobby, passion or relationship, and it isolates you. Completely. It worms its way into your life and fills out every single nook and crack until it’s the only thing that seems to be left. And therefore, the only thing you still care about. 

It felt like losing my complete identity.

Mentally, I was at the worst state I had ever been in my life. This was around December of 2019. I had barely been keeping all of this up for over a month, but I was eating so little that I had lost an alarmingly large amount of weight very fast, which came at a high cost. I was always cold, I couldn’t sleep, I had awful headaches, I kept forgetting conversations and talks I had had with friends, I felt dizzy and nauseous all the time and worst of all, I was so cripplingly depressed that I didn’t even care about any of that. Because when you deprive your brain of nutrients this much, it just shuts down. And that’s what I did, too. I just went into standby mode, as I kept losing more weight and becoming more miserable with each day that passed.

Both my body and mind were running on nothing but adrenaline and thin air and I lived life in this absolutely isolated and horrible auto-pilot, where I continued on as if nothing was happening, as more of me, both physically and mentally, disappeared and was replaced with complete emptiness. I still struggle to find the right words to describe how I felt back then. The only thing that comes close is just complete nothingness. Like a fucking black hole inside of me that had swallowed everything and created a complete vacuum.

Writing about this makes me want to just close my laptop and stop. In a way, it feels like giving my eating disorder and the hardest time of my life a spot light. Like giving it attention and a stage to perform on, to flaunt its dramatic tragedy. I can feel that the anorexia loves that, relishes every word I’m typing about it, every second of attention I’m giving to it. And hate that, I fucking despise it. Because it doesn’t deserve its own stage. It never did and it never will. So, let’s try and move on to the part where things changed.

Back then, I might have become a master of lying and avoiding most people’s questions about me never seeming to be hungry or wanting to eat. But thankfully, there were a few of my close friends that had started to notice. Not gonna name any names, but you know who you are. And I cannot even begin to say how incredibly thankful and lucky I am to have had you there. Because even when I had given up on myself, you didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, oh no. I was still in a very, very bad place mentally, and my eating disorder was not planning on leaving any time soon.

But, with the help and intervention of said good friends and a few select, eye-opening experiences (that I won’t talk about because they really weren’t ideal but still ended up helping somehow), I finally realized the very obvious but up until then seemingly impossible thing: I had to start eating again. And I had to start now. 

And I did.

Looking back, I cannot even express how glad I am about that. Because it had started to become really critical. And I consider myself to be very lucky that it didn’t have to get even worse. That I was still able to make my own decisions and finally get help. Finding therapy was once again not easy but eventually, I did find an outpatient clinic that offered immediate consultation, as well as an appointment with a psychiatrist for medication and an internist for physical check-ups. And, to maybe bring back a slight sense of cheerfulness: It was also when I finally got to meet my therapist Kerstin.

Again, none of this was as easy and swift as it might sound like with me narrating it in those few sentences, but this post can only go on for so much longer before I get too drained and decide to just delete all of it again, so I will try and come to a close, for now. There’s still so much more to tell when it comes to my journey with my eating disorder and my mental health, because it’s nowhere near finished. And worry not, I will tell it – not so much for the sake of those of you who read it, but more so for my own. But for now, I want to finish by saying this much – mainly to myself again, but also to anyone else who might need to hear it: 

I know it might feel like you don’t care. 

About yourself, about what happens to you, about the future, about happiness. I know it might feel like you’re faking everything, lying to everyone and just pretending all the time. I know you might feel so horribly and painfully empty that all you want to do is sit still in the void of your own head and let the misery wash over you in dreadful peace. I know you might think that the only sense of comfort you can find, lies in the things that hurt you most. I know your pain seems like an old friend, one that will never leave you and therefore is worth staying close to. I know that continuing to fight on and struggling through life and all the hardships it throws at you, sometimes feels so impossible, that it seems easier to just give in and give up. 

The thing about that is, though: It’s fucking bullshit.

It’s nothing but a very mean and disgusting way of all your inner pain, trauma and warped coping mechanisms to try to pull you down to keep you “safe” from things that you can absolutely, completely and totally battle. And, yeah, it sure as shit ain’t easy. God, if I had a dollar for every time I had to pick myself back up after I stepped on a scale, after I ate something that scared me, after I looked in the mirror, after I relapsed, after I went back on track again, after I wished I could just melt into a formless blob and slowly whither away in peace– I would be a rich woman. But neither life nor capitalism work that way, unfortunately. So, why do I still bother? 

Well, because after going through hell and back, it’s the only thing I have left. It’s the only option there is.

You might not know who you are. You might not know what you’re doing, where you’re going, if you’re ever going to get better, if you’ll ever feel happy and at home in your own mind, body and life again. But what you can and should know, is that you can always try. Even if it seems pointless, even if it seems like you’re running in circles, wanting to bash your head against the wall because of how senseless it all feels. 

You can still try. 

And try, and try, and try again. It’s a choice and it is a hard one. Maybe the hardest one you will ever have to make. 

But I chose to make it, and I still continue to. Every day. With every morning I wake up, every therapy session I go to, every panic attack I breathe through, every depressive phase I crawl back out of, every meal I eat. I choose to do it, I choose to keep pushing because when it feels like all the bad and dark thoughts are more powerful than me and threaten to swallow me alive, making the choice to fight back as much as I can, is what proves that I am and always will be more powerful than them. 

Because this is my life. My body. My head. My brain. My mind. And I’d be a god damn fool to give them up to those inner demons that would never know how to treat them right, how to cherish them and keep them happy, healthy and alive. Because I think we can all agree that, at the end of the day, being happy is a hell of a lot better than being sad and empty. And so, at the end of the day, I realized that nothing and no one, not even my mental health disorders and past traumas, can take away what will always, exclusively and fully belong to me and me only: 

My choice, my happiness, my control – the right one, this time.

[toneelspeelster]

portraying trauma, a skam and remakes comparison

disclaimer: i’ll start this by saying this meta will be critical of the way wtfock portrayed their version of a traumatic experience (the gay bashing). if you do not want to engage with criticism on this, i’d advise you not to read. this will also discuss only a few versions (skam, druck, skam nl and wtfock) in particular because i didn’t want to make it too long and because i feel these versions deal with trauma in an interesting way. 

common reactions

in any case, i’d like to start with common reactions after experiencing a traumatic event, be it a sexual assault, emotional assault, physical assault etc.

1. anxiety and fear 2. re-experiencing of the trauma. 3. increased vigilance 4. avoidance 5. anger 6. guilt/shame 7. grief/depression 8. self image and view of the world is negative, trust is difficult. 9. difficulty with sexual relationships 10. substance abuse (i’d include negative coping mechanisms here too).  source

now, i mention this not because i think every remake hits these but rather because i want people to see what commonly happens after traumatic events to people and how wtfock in one instance (robbe/sander) misses the mark completely while in another (zoe) it actually sort of works. and how other remakes have dealt with the subject matter. 

first off: skam

to start with even’s traumatic experience and his response. i’m starting with even mostly because it’s the original series, not necessarily bc i think it’s the most elegant portrayal (bc it’s definitely not). but in essence, what it does show is the effect of a traumatic event in the long run. even’s experience at bakka, where he kissed one of his friends he had a crush on; who rejected him; even being in a manic episode; resulting in a suicide attempt and his self inforced isolation from his best friends by going to another school and ignoring their messages - it’s touched upon in his initial season but expanded in season 4. and still at least one year later, still even freezes up in fear immediately after seeing his friends. even is incredibly anxious; it’s clear he’s recalling past memories he’s been trying to avoid for forever; he feels immensely guilty (he wants to see elias, he really does, he just doesn’t know how) and even though i think even’s self image is not necessarily the result of this experience, it does have an even more negative effect on his self-image. even has difficulties liking himself, seeing worth in himself, even in season 4. after reconciling w him (however that even went we don’t know) he appears in one of their vlogs and still you can see how uncomfortable it makes him to talk about it. but, this is what it ends on: you see the strength of even reaching out to those he loves and for them being able to reach out to him too. in the end, it’s healing. it is discussed throughout the season.

 then, numbers two: druck and skam nl

i’m combining these two in one entry bc i feel like these two portrayals deal with the repercussions of traumatic experiences to the life of these two very well. 

first off, we have david, who came out as transgender at a previous school and was met with intense transphobic reactions; deadnaming, invasive personal questions and just generally awful treatment by people - it resulted in david feeling very unsafe, difficulties sleeping and hiding and running away in the hopes of avoiding these situations. it affects his world view of the world as unkind, and him forcing himself to be okay with being alone bc the only one he trusts is himself. he doesn’t let people too close (wanting to stay anonymous) and when matteo breaks up with sarah he runs bc matteo is getting too close. and then, it happens again. he’s outed on social media in his new school, having difficulties even doing his exams bc his teacher is being a transphobic dick and he’s scared of both him and the kids at school. he then, after staying with his godmother, hides himself away at an unsafe, abandoned pool and even staying there for a night. 

then, we have liv. earlier in her life, she’s implied to have had an eating disorder - a traumatic experience in itself. and although she seems very aware of her needing to be careful not to fall into those patterns again, it unfortunately does come to the front again when faced with the fact that she’s been sexually assaulted in her sleep and it’s been filmed without consent. as an eating disorder survivor, i’d say her body is already something she might have difficulties with. to combine that with sexual assault.. it results in liv isolating herself at home, resorting to doing her white(!) laundry multiple times in one week and her stress baking cookies only for her to give them to her roommates. her mum even asks her if she’s eating well - for a mother who seems emotionally and physically distant otherwise, liv must’ve not sounded well. even when she seems a little bit better, engel still comes over to check up on liv and cook for her. engel has similar ed experiences so she knows it’s not something that’s just gone one second to the next. 

these portrayals work well bc it is clear that their experiences have become a detriment to their view of the world and result in them resorting to very unhealthy coping mechanisms. they both clearly feel the loss of control, the triggering of (past) experiences; the avoidance and the isolation. liv feels immense shame, david feels immense anger and fear - they both have difficulties trusting people, even the ones they care about the most. 

but, in the end? 

david does let matteo subtly know where he is, bc he knows matteo will see him and find him. matteo calls him even out on it: you are not a damned vampire who needs to hide away, he says - something that david didn’t even see about himself until matteo told him. he finds support in matteo and all of his friends and his sister. he doesn’t need to be alone anymore. 

and liv? she tells her friends about her troubles eventually, and they support her wholeheartedly, telling her it’s not her fault and flashing boobs while doing so. liv finds the strength to confront her attacker and blackmailing him, and eventually her boyfriend tells her she needs to go to the police to report his brother. 

these are both david’s season-long storyline and liv’s multiple episode storyline (all her clips for the first week after her experience focus solely on this). it’s healing to see this happen to survivors of these experiences. 

as a ender: wtfock

i think it’s important to establish first that this is first and foremost about robbe/sander’s gay bashing. robbe and sander have been dating approximately three days when they are violently and verbally assaulted and seemingly left for dead in antwerp’s streets. the next episode makes a point of robbe and sander being hurt badly with bruises and cuts and black eyes, robbe doesn’t sleep much and is irritated quickly and sander has a very weird reaction to violence in general and doesn’t want to go to the police. later, robbe is scared that sander was put off by the idea of going to the police, that he felt forced. within that same first episode, robbe tells milan the true story and zoe a little off story and they react sympathetically, zoe even offering her doctor. robbe’s mum’s psych also refers him to a therapist and he calls her. 

but then the storyline, after episode 6? it ends? milan seems to weirdly reference it sometimes but it doesn’t come to any conclusion in the end. after reconciling sander and robbe have no trouble kissing in front of everyone. there’s no sense of robbe or sander having internalised a different world view after this experience. they even never discuss it ever again after that first week. robbe going to a therapist is not even shown or referenced at all, even with the opportunity being there with social media updates. there’s no real repercussions, except for loss of sleep and sander maybe sort of seeing it as a way of destroying something time and again but that’s more his world view bc of his mental illness i’d say. it’s a storyline for one episode, that’s it. and with how irresponsibly they portrayed it by not immediately showing them being alright or together or taken care off but waiting hours for an update, it triggered a hella lot of audience members instead. as a bisexual woman myself, i felt scared watching that. 

zoe’s storyline of having to testify even got more of an appropriate portrayal as she’s scared to testify and also feels pushed by the people who love her the most (milan and senne). her breaking up w senne feels more an actual genuine decision bc of messed up feelings about the whole situation (senne being quite... aggressive with how he approaches her about it sometimes.. it felt like he wanted it for himself mostly, not for her). her not being able to sleep and feeling exhausted, months after the actual traumatic experience happened. it has an effect on her and how she responds and how she makes decisions.

conclusion

experiences like these have repercussions. but apparently in belgium only sexual assault results in trauma. gay bashing doesn’t. it had no true purpose except to educate straight people about the plight of lgbt people being attacked violently. but, as people far more eloquent than i have said, why? homophobes will not watch this series and suddenly turn around. and the world is damned if people just don’t realise that beating up people is bad and shouldn’t happen. 

the true purpose of skam is to teach people of all kinds, and to show people of a certain minority, community or with same/different life experiences that there is hope, and a lot more to them than just what they have experienced. now even the good portrayals could have all benefitted from telling the audience that it’s good and okay to go to therapy about this... but at least they didn’t shy away from a storyline that shows how deep this runs for people. they devoted time to it.

and that’s all wtfock really needed to do if wanting to make a point by including this. they didn’t. it’s sensational fodder at best. and i think that the characters as well as the audience?

they deserved better than that. 

[smol-grey-tea]

Here's that Mental Wellbeing Competition thing I submitted if anyone's interested. I did wanna make my own MaDD information guide anyways and now that I think about it I might do something like this for other mental illnesses too.

Oh I also may have stolen some things people said for this but I put my own thoughts on it so it isn't just copy pasted oof sorry-

My Mental Illness

What has always bothered me about news, social media, and most people I meet is that they generally preach for mental health awareness and acceptance all the time, but I rarely hear people say much specific. They may reference anxiety and depression or may give suggestions on improving mental health, such as eating healthily or contacting friend, but the conversation typically ends there. In my opinion, the key to improving mental health awareness and acceptance is through sharing stories of those who have suffered through mental illnesses themselves, and starting conversations about specifically the more obscure and unknown mental health issues to encourage people to feel less alone about their own struggles as well.

I have chosen to give my story in hopes that it will help other people in my school too. The following details the mental illness I have, which is presently unknown to most of the world. Please read with an open mind.

Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder

Everyone daydreams: sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but it's generally seen as only a minor nuisance of every day life. However, what you may not have heard of is a coping mechanism mental illness called maladaptive daydreaming disorder (often referred to as MaDD), in which people may daydream excessively, to the point where it severely negatively impacts their daily life, taking up approximately 56% of the day. My daydreams are often elaborate stories with well developed characters, but some MaDDers may daydream about their normal life. 82% of MaDDers also report that daydreaming is usually accompanied by a repetitive movement, such as tapping, rocking, or pacing (like me), especially whilst listening to music.

Just like any other mental illness, MaDD can be caused by trauma, abuse or neglect, but it can also, in my case, be caused simply by boredom or loneliness.

Current Research

Unfortunately, as of the time I'm writing this in early May 2020, maladaptive daydreaming disorder is not recognised as an official mental illness by professionals because it is so newly discovered so it is currently still being researched. Eli Somer - the man who coined the name maladaptive daydreaming - co-authored several papers on it with Cynthia Schupak and Jayne Bigelsen. Bigelsen was also the subject of an early case study which saw her cured of MaDD with SSRIs, and more recently she has built a website to support people dealing with unknown conditions like MaDD: https://jaynerachael.com/groups/?maladaptive-daydreaming-disorder/

As it isn't an official mental illness, there is no official treatment, however personally, I find that using a diary app such as Daylio helps me remember to do important tasks as I feel proud when I keep a streak of not pacing for a long time or even just something simple like brushing my teeth. Other MaDDers recommend keeping the mind occupied with 2 tasks at a time or dedicating certain times a day to daydreaming.

Key Terminology

Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder/Maladaptive Daydreamer/MaDD/MaDDer/MDD/MD: MDD actually stands for major depressive disorder, and because MD can still be confused with major depression, MaDD is the acronym to use for maladaptive daydreaming disorder.

Immersive Daydreaming/Immersive Daydreamer/ID/IDer: An immersive daydreamer is someone who also has vivid and elaborate daydreams but they are not maladaptive and don't negatively impact their life.

Para: The people in our daydreams feel much more special and personal than simple characters in a story, so we coined the word para, which comes from the Greek word, meaning beside or next to.

Parame: A parame is essentially the 'me' that exists in the daydreams - for example, my parame's name is North.

Parain: A very recently coined term by a friend of mine - I don't have any parains myself but to some MaDDers, the term para is seen as a very positive word and so they don't feel comfortable referring to evil or 'villain' characters as paras so parain was coined.

Veritbond/Verit: Coined from the Latin word for true, veritbond/verit refers to a para that is a lot more special than the rest of them. To use a personal example, my verit, Red is the only para who I love and wish was real and I feel genuinely depressed when I don't daydream about him - this is completely different to the rest of my paras, and while I do care about them I don't really love or miss any of them.

Paracosm: This term refers to a daydreaming world or story. Some MaDDers have many different paracosms, some only have one, while I personally only have 2: the 1st (that I've name Shelter) is roughly 6 years old and the 2nd (Lost Children) is about 2-3 years.

Neuronarrative: The paracosm of a neuronarrator.

Thisverse: This word refers to reality, in comparison to paracosm or neuronarrative.

Paramay/Separatember: An online event in May and September in which MaDDers share their paras and talk about them, using a theme for each day of the month.

Daydream Crash: This refers to when a MaDDer feels sad or disappointed that their daydreams and paras aren't real.

Daydream Block: Similar to an art block or writing block, this refers to when a MaDDer finds it difficult to daydream. When I'm in a daydream block my mind often feels blank or blurry and it makes me feel depressed.

Daydream Trigger: This refers to something that triggers a person to daydream. The most common daydream triggers are music, TV, books, movies, etc.

Myths and Misconceptions

1. "But everyone daydreams!"

Yes, everyone does daydream, but maladaptive daydreaming involves daydreaming to an unhealthy extent. In my experiences, daydreaming often prevents me from eating, sleeping, staying hygienic, doing homework/revision, talking to my friends/family, doing hobbies, etc. It's maladaptive, that's why it's a mental illness.

2. "Why don't you just stop?"

Maladaptive daydreaming is a behavioural addiction and stopping MaDD would give me the same struggles that an alcoholic would have when trying to stop drinking alcohol. Daydreaming is constantly happening because I always have thoughts in my brain; I'm like an alcoholic with an endless supply of alcohol.

3. "That sounds so fun! I wish I had your creativity!"

MaDD can be fun in theory of course and the idea of daydreaming about such amazing things all the time sounds great but it isn't like that at all.

Firstly, I suppose I do have control over when or how I daydream but I have a very limited control over what I daydream about. I remember one point in the past where I was happily daydreaming about Shelter, my 1st paracosm, but I then soon started to daydream about Lost Children, and since I could only daydream about my verit in Shelter, this made me feel depressed.

Secondly, I also often have quite disturbing/dark daydreams. I call it an emotionally devastating/EmDe daydream because, when I daydream a para's pain, I can almost physically feel it, and it makes my heart hurt. EmDe daydreams have to be what I hate the most about MaDD because I would never want to see such horrible things happen to the people I love, and it makes me feel guilty for imagining such sick and disgusting things for my own brain's entertainment. I feel better though, knowing that I share these struggles with most, if not all, other MaDDers.

In addition to that, the obsession and connection with my parame has led to my own fear of needles and surgery, all because of her own trauma. My brain has created a fake person, with fake trauma, and given me real fear.

No, maladaptive daydreaming is not 'fun'.

4. "Isn't that just schizophrenia?"

No, all MaDDers can easily understand the difference between reality and fiction, and while our daydreams can be quite vivid at times, we know they aren't real. None of us have any sort of hallucinations, delusions or paranoia, unless we also have schizophrenia alongside MaDD - which isn't unheard of, since MaDD usually accompanies other mental illnesses, and people like me, who only have MaDD, aren't too common.

[gwens-lifestyle]

Hello. My name is Gwen, and I am a stay-at-home parent with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Food and lifestyle are integral and important parts of managing my physical and mental health. I am also married to a chef, and I'm interested in all things Hobbit-like-homey, which sometimes feels like a contradiction, living with chronic illness. I guess that I am interested in those things within the parameters of my health management.

I feels lonely sometimes, and like not everyone understands. And that's why I created this blog. I hope to maybe build community and share with other people who are also suffering with IBS and managing their mental and physical health living with chronic illness. However, all are welcomed, as long as it is kept supportive and respectful.

In this blog I mainly plan to document what I eat day-to-day, which might be boring to some people, as I tend to eat the same things over and over. Not much to do with IBS, though, it's just the way I tend/prefer to eat. However, it might be to some benefit to some, and it might also help me keep track, so here goes.

I have found great benefit in following a low FODMAP diet for the management of my IBS. If you have IBS and don't know what FODMAPs are, I highly recommend checking out FODMAPs and Monash University's research on them. It was recommended to me by my doctor and it has been life-changing.

So, I also plan to share some recipes for the benefit of others who might have similar FODMAP triggers and tolerances that I do. In respect to FODMAPs, I find that I tolerate lactose fairly well. I am a bit sensitive to fructose, fructans and GOS, but usually not too bad, and it depends on the food and how it is prepared. As for mannitol and sorbitol? God help me. So, my recipes focus on my tolerance for those FODMAPs.

That's pretty much all I got to say for now. I might add/delete to this later on. I truly hope that this blog will prove of benefit to myself and others out there. I know it can get lonely, living with a chronic illness. I know not many people truly understand. I know how frustrating it is when people try to find solutions for you, as if simply drinking prune juice is going to cure it. It is my hope that we can create a safe, supportive community here.

May we all be peaceful and well. ❤

[puppyexpressions]

Dogs and Depression

Could your dog be depressed? Do dogs even get depressed? Like humans, some dogs can occasionally suffer from bouts of depression. Although dogs do not have the same capacity for reasoning as we humans, it doesn't mean they cannot experience depression. In dogs, depression is not exactly the same complex clinical disorder that it is in people. However, dogs can certainly experience depression.

When dogs are depressed, they often appear sad, lethargic, and withdrawn. Some dogs will stop eating or eat much less than usual. They may drink only minimal amounts of water and lose interest in play. Eventually, some depressed dogs can lose drastic amounts of weight and develop a variety of physical illnesses. As a loving dog owner, you will be relieved to learn that you can actually help your dog.

Causes of Depression in Dogs

As a pet owner, how do you fight an invisible, inner enemy? The first step is recognizing the problem. There are several potential causes of depression in dogs.

Physical Illness: Many health problems will cause dogs to act depressed. Contact your veterinarian right away if you notice signs of depression in your dog.1 It is important to first rule out a physical cause for your dog's abnormal behavior before things get worse. If your vet does find a health problem, follow the treatment recommendations. Hopefully, your dog's depression will improve once he recovers from the illness. If not, or if your vet has ruled out all the possible physical causes of depression, it is time to start looking at mental/emotional reasons.

Grief: Dogs mourn the loss of human and animal companions just as you do.1 Perhaps a housemate or neighborhood dog he played with is gone (vacation, moved away, died). Or, maybe a child in your home has grown up and moved out. There is no way to explain this to your dog. Losing a playmate, especially an in-home playmate is often a reason for canine depression. We may not notice it very often, but pets definitely do grieve.

Environmental Changes: Moving to a new home, a general change of scenery (like a renovation), or even the weather can adversely affect a normal happy dog.1 You can't explain the reasons for such a dramatic change. It usually takes time for your dog to adjust to major environmental changes.

Fear: Your dog may have a fear or phobia that makes him seem depressed. Dogs sometimes show fear in different ways than you would expect. Your dog may be trying not to appear scared since that might make him more vulnerable. Instead, he just retreats from normal activities to protect himself.

You (the owner): Are you depressed or sick? Your dog will be able to pick up on your energy and may begin to feel similar to how you feel. Or, your dog might be depressed if you are gone a lot. This may be similar to separation anxiety (but instead of "acting out" your dog gets depressed).

Unknown: In some cases, there is no known reason for the depression. This can be very frustrating for you as an owner.

What to Do If Your Dog Is Depressed

Slow deterioration and loss of initiative are definite clues that something is bothering your dog. If this is happening to your dog, you need to address it right away and start to make life fun again. Once you have ruled out a health problem, an increase in your dog's activity level is the next step to helping your dog. Exercising with your dog is a wonderful way to begin.

Try to engage in fun activities with your dog, like games, fun tricks, and general training. Take some time to bond with your dog. You may also consider letting your dog play with other dogs or go to doggie daycare.

It's natural that you will want to pay more attention to your dog when he is depressed. This is not inherently bad, but do try not to coddle or overly comfort your dog. Too much coddling and comforting on your part may actually reinforce the sad behavior. It is very important to try your best to stay on schedule and stick to your normal routine.2 This can give your dog a sense of security and boost his confidence.

If the timing is right for your family, you may consider getting another dog. This may be helpful if your dog is depressed because of losing a companion. However, this could make things worse if your current dog does not accept the new dog. Proceed carefully.  

If none of these activities seem to be helping, your vet may still be able to help. Medications are sometimes thought of as a last resort, but there are cases when they are the best option. Some vets will prescribe a drug like fluoxetine (Prozac) though this is not right for all dogs.3 You may also consider seeking the help of an animal behaviorist.

You may not think depression is a big problem. While is true that it often resolves on its own after a short time, there are times when it only gets worse. If left too long, it could very well turn into a life-threatening physical condition. Get help with your dog's depression as soon as you can. Remember that the right place to begin is with your veterinarian.

[tidesreach]

if you could rewrite skam italia season 2 to more accurately represent bpd and its symptoms, what would you change?

The short answer is I wouldn’t really change anything. But the reasons for that require explanation, so buckle in, this is going to be a long one.

I think accuracy is a subjective term when applied to portrayals of mental illness. Because people have very varied experiences. So what would be an accurate portrayal of BPD for me might not necessarily be accurate for someone else. Since the revelation of Nico’s diagnosis and my various posts on the subject, I have had messages from numerous other borderlines. A lot of them – like myself – related to Nico in many aspects. But there are also some who didn’t – or who did in some aspects but not others. The fact of the matter is that it’s not possible to portray a disorder like BPD in a way that is wholly accurate and relatable to everyone in all aspects because people have such varied experiences. If you’re interested in another portrayal of BPD, I recommend watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. For me, some aspects are incredibly relatable – sometimes uncomfortably so – but others are not. But that doesn’t mean those aspects are inaccurate. Another portrayal of BPD is the film Girl, Interrupted (one of my absolute favourite films) – however, some people with BPD (myself included) relate less to Winona Ryder’s character, who is the character diagnosed with BPD, and much more to Angelina Jolie’s character. Like I said, it’s subjective.

It’s also important to note that though there are nine diagnostic criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder only five are required for diagnosis. So one person could have almost completely different experiences to another. And even if you do meet all of the same criteria as someone else with BPD your symptoms may manifest in different ways. For this reason people’s experiences with BPD can be incredibly varied. I meet all nine of the diagnostic criteria (it’s like winning a really shit lottery) – so I have experience dealing with all of them, but how I experience them may be very different to the way someone else experiences them. As an example: people deal with fear of abandonment in different ways. Some people self-isolate as a way to avoid abandonment. Some people may appear “clingy” e.g. they will send constant texts and make frequent phonecalls. Some people experience what we call “splitting”. Some people experience all three. Basically, we all have our own individual experiences and there’s no one way to be borderline. Symptoms can manifest in so many different ways.

I’m putting this under a read more to save everyone’s dashboards because it’s quite lengthy. But if it interests you, I’ve listed the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for BPD and how Nico’s symptoms accurately fit into that.

The nine diagnostic criteria for BPD are quite broad and are as follows:

Frantic efforts to avoid real and imagined abandonment.

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, often characterised by extremes between idealisation and devaluation (also known as “splitting”).

Identity disturbance: Persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

Impulsive behaviour that is reckless and potentially self-damaging (e.g. overspending, excessive alcohol or drug use, reckless driving, unsafe sex, binge eating, spontaneous decision-making, the list goes on).

Recurrent suicidal behaviour or ideation and/or self-harm.

Emotional instability (intense mood swings) e.g. intense episodic dysphoria, euphoria, irritability, or anxiety that can last from hours to days

Chronic feelings of emptiness and loneliness

Intense anger or difficulty controlling anger

Stress-related paranoia or severe dissociative symptoms (feeling disconnected from the world, or your own body, feelings, thoughts and behaviours)

It’s difficult to know how many of the criteria Nico meets as we have very limited background information to go on. After all, this is Martino’s season. Everything we see of Nico is in relation to Martino. Which makes it even more difficult to portray something like BPD. We have no inside knowledge of Nico’s thought processes, his past behaviours or what led to his diagnosis (hey, Ludo, can we uhhhhh get a Nico season please?). But he has to meet at least five of the above criteria to have been diagnosed. From what we have seen, the five he definitely meets are:

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (the back-and-forth with Marti, ignoring his texts then telling him he wants to be with him, freezing Marti out after his ill-advised comment on mental illness, going back to Maddi, the flipbook and the antidote, suggesting that he leave and his refusal to let Marti look at him when he was in a depressive state).

Impulsive/reckless behaviour (breaking into the pool at Halloween. Taking his mum’s car and driving to Bracciano. Milan in general.)

Emotional instability (I don’t think I need to give you specific instances here because his emotional instability becomes quite evident in general).

Chronic feelings of emptiness and loneliness (his speech about solitude in Nel Mio Letto explains this feeling perfectly).

Stress-related paranoia or severe dissociative symptoms (Milan, again).

He also shows clear signs of:

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships (his parents, Maddalena, probably his friends/the boy he liked from his previous school. But we have limited information on his interpersonal relationships outside of Marti – though that’s unstable for most of the season thus is a sign in itself – so whether there is a distinct pattern of unstable relationships is unclear at this point, but it’s very likely given what information we do have. Whether he experiences splitting or not is unclear, too).

Identity disturbance (when he asks Marti if he should get a haircut and a tux to meet his dad, when he proposes à la Love Actually, when he’s staring at his reflection in the hotel room window, when he’s rapping Earl Sweatshirt and boxing in the bathroom – these could all be signs of an unstable identity, but I wouldn’t categorically define him as having persistent identity disturbance since we don’t know if it is in fact a persistent symptom).

So, Nico meets at least five but very likely seven out of the nine diagnostic criteria. The only two he hasn’t shown any signs of are:

Recurrent suicidal behaviour or ideation and/or self-harm.

Intense anger or difficulty controlling anger

So, to reiterate, accuracy is subjective. Nico’s symptoms were incredibly relatable for me personally. They’re just not the only symptoms and not the only way symptoms can manifest. Like I said, I experience all nine of the diagnostic criteria. So it wasn’t even a 100% accurate portrayal for me because I experience other symptoms too (splitting, anger/rage, suicidal behaviour and self-harm, among others). But I did relate a hell of a lot to the symptoms Nico did experience and the way he experienced them. I’m also incredibly grateful they didn’t focus on the suicidal aspect because there’s a lot of stigma surrounding BPD in regards to suicidal behaviour being manipulative, and if not handled well it might have been counterproductive. It was so important to me to have such a hopeful portrayal for that reason, because we are often portrayed in a terrible light.

I think the main thing that confused people regarding accuracy was Nico’s episode in Milan. Because it looked similar to Even’s manic episode in the OG. Which I understand. But it wasn’t the same thing. Many people with BPD, myself included, experience psychotic symptoms. Psychotic symptoms such as severe paranoia, hallucinations, depersonalisation, derealisation or distortion of beliefs and perceptions aren’t uncommon (there are a bunch of studies on this if you’re really interested, because health professionals are still trying to determine the cause and frequency of psychotic symptoms in BPD patients). They’re generally triggered by stress. I’ve experienced brief episodes of psychosis on and off for years. This is what Nico experienced in Milan (triggered by the stress of his parents and Maddalena trying to control him) – Nico truly believed that he and Marti were the last two people on Earth. To me, his episode looked like severe dissociation leading into brief psychosis – or psychotic symptoms, if you will (episodes of psychosis in BPD tend to be brief). So while I understand that it was confusing, it was, in fact, a fairly accurate portrayal of psychotic symptoms in BPD. I had a far more severe reaction to Nico’s episode than I did to Even’s because I saw so much of myself in him. Would it have been helpful to portray Nico’s psychotic symptoms in a way that wasn’t so similar to Even’s manic episode? Absolutely. But the fact remains that it was accurate and it made sense in the context of the season and the metaphor that Nico got caught up in of him and Marti being the last men on earth. It wasn’t random, it was cleverly interwoven.

Sorry for how long this got, but I felt like to answer this question required some explanation. To summarise, I actually don’t think I would change anything. There’s a reason I relate so much to Niccolò. But I don’t contest that others with BPD might not have found it as accurate a representation as I and others do. That’s absolutely their right. Because symptoms are incredibly varied and we all have our own individual experiences.

[ra-lek]

Hi! I know you’ve touched on the topic briefly before, but if you don’t mind I’d love to hear any more in-depth thoughts you have on autistic Elliot. It’s one of my favorite headcanons and it’s always fascinating to see other people’s thoughts on it! (Also I just wanted to say that you have a really interesting way of analyzing the show and you seem like a such a genuinely chill, kind person, thank you for being awesome)

heya, i don’t mind at all!! this headcanon is great and there’s a lot of material to work with and analyze so i’m absolutely on board with elaborating more; 

but first i gotta establish a few things:

i am not a professional and can’t talk about autism the same way i’ve talked about body language or dissociative identity disorder. mainly because i’ve done essays on the latter and am more educated on the subject, unlike with this specific disorder.

but yo that doesn’t mean i don’t know anything cause psychology is my sHit- i just felt it was necessary for you to know that i’m not as confident in my analysis as i usually am; so feel free to correct me!!

next, in canon, elliot is diagnosed with clinical depression and social anxiety disorder. with a couple of ’delusional’ mentions thrown here and there. however, we most certainly know he suffers from DID as well- and the fact it’s his MAJOR problem and hasn’t been properly acknowledged by the show leaves us with room to speculate.

and finally- i’ve been diagnosed with and am being treated for clinical depression and anxiety disorder. so i will point things out from my perspective here as well, since people with anxiety have similar symptoms to people on the spectrum and/or people with ADHD/ADD. (sometimes even OCD)

alright now that that’s all clear we can finally start looking at his behavior!!

first and foremost, autism & ad(h)d are developmental disorders because the symptoms for them can generally be noticed in early childhood; as opposed to anxiety which is a mental illness. so it’s entirely possible to have a cocktail of disorders in your head.

i’m bringing ADD up a lot because i’ve been speculated to have it & am supposed to take some tests- but am not officially diagnosed yet. now that we’ve got my entire family history, blood type & credit card number laid out, we’re ready to go.

anyway, these are the symptoms:

1. difficulty with communication & interaction with others

this is probably where anxiety, add and autism collide the most. though in very different ways- and they’re not exclusive to people with one of these diagnosis only. 

for example, eye contact. i’m terrible at it. people with autism & anxiety are also pretty darn bad at it, and elliot might seem that way at times; he hides a lot- but not as often as he tends to hold an intense eye contact, instead? which can also be seen as an ‘odd’ thing to do in social communication. as in, not noticing if someone’s uncomfortable under such gaze, let’s say.

that brings me to the next topic which is uh, coincidentally, communication.

he is quite blunt when it comes to it, has a distinctive ‘flat’ #elliotvoice tone. @mototwinkclub pointed out a few instances last time this topic was brought up, such as saying “i’m okay with it being awkward between us” to matpat ollie or “not at all, actually.” with gideon- and he doesn’t do it to be rude. doesn’t really realize it’s ‘bad’ to say it like that, either.

i mean i know he said he’s trying to work on his social anxiety but that’s not quite how you’d go about it? i firmly believe he suffers from generalized anxiety. obviously, that includes social anxiety as well; but this way you could explain why he’s way more concerned with…everything else. and is pretty straightforward in conversation.

since i referenced the pilot, one of the first lines he says about himself is “i don’t know how to talk to people. the only person person i could talk to was my dad- but he died.” which brings us back to the developmental aspect of this disorder. since he’s indicating he didn’t know how to talk to people even when he was a kid. which is true, in every flashback we see he either doesn’t talk at all or talks very little.

what’s interesting though- although he’s bad at reading 'conversation’- he’s extremely good at reading people. and the fact he 'looks for the worst in them’ contradicts the usual aspect that’s brought up when it comes to an autistic thought process, which is made out to be like “if i wouldn’t do this, then why would anyone else?” and it’s not the way he thinks at all.

instead, he feels empathy on a moral level if that makes sense? people on the spectrum are said to either be too empathic or not at all. and it’s hard to pinpoint elliot? because, clearly, he cares for people as much as he doesn’t trust them. use an example the reason he leaked ray’s information. he literally said “but then i keep thinking about those people.” but we haven’t seen him empathize with, for instance, vera- even when he gave a pretty tragic backstory. he can tell who the bad guy is. 

when it comes to spacing out, he does it all the time. people on the spectrum do it all the time, i certainly do it all the time. but we have to focus on what he is thinking about when he does it- because that is our indicator. 

we usually see his thoughts filled with paranoia, over-thinking, analyzing, etc,.. which i associate with anxiety disorder mostly? but, we have to take into account something he suffers from the most and it’s dissociative identity disorder. so not only does he space out, but he tends to dissociate, as well. perfect example for this is when he mutes the world around him. or just doesn’t listen.

once again, from the pilot, when angela tells him “stop thinking about something else while i’m talking to you!!” he isn’t actually daydreaming or spacing out in the usual sense- he’s recalling the night (mostly for the viewer than for himself let’s be honest) she’s talking about and we see that he was too anxious to go in. he doesn’t tell her that.

now let’s talk about his no-touch policy for a second. that’s something a lot of people on the spectrum have in common. i think it’s, once again, one of those cases where one could be either completely touch-starved or aversive. though we can’t ignore the fact he’d been abused when he was young. 

as i was going through the pilot for most of my evidence here (as you can notice) there’s a very small detail at the beginning when ron leans in to ask “are you blackmailing me!?” and we can see elliot flinch in genuine fear. this is not the only instance where he seems afraid to get hit. breaKs my goddamn heart.

but he’s also the one to initiate contact sometimes- and he often misunderstands the situation. shayla told him not to ask, he kissed darlene, tried kissing angela on the train that time when she denied him- he does it cause that’s what he thinks he should do. 

2. restrictive or repetitve behaviors

he’s absolutely all about those routines- he doesn’t want anything destructing his ’perfectly constructed loop’ anytime he has one. (season 1 starbucks, season 2 jailtime, season 3 ecorp) but it’s important to point out that in all of these scenarios, he’s been to one to break the loop himself. by realizing they weren’t making anything better.

there are a couple of nervous ticks he has, general fidgeting with his hands/hair/hoodie- all of these apply to every disorder we’ve mentioned here.

comfort item/food is a very good one!! since we’ve only ever seen him eat fries, he has a “crying corner” in his room, he’s constantly 'hiding’ under the hoodie. probably the main comfort item.

he’s also insanely hyperfocused on technology and numbers and hacking, obviously- he has a clear routine every time. burn the disc, delete the folder, write a song over one of the cds, shove them under the table. same goes for when he thinks he’s fucked up- throw stuff in the microwave, destroy it, you get the image.

speaking of those cds though, if he can remember exactly which song he wrote for each person he’s got data on; that could be a damn good indicator of it!!

all of this could be a combination of whys and becauses which is super fun if you ask me. elliot is complex and, although i share 2.5 disorders with him, i can’t relate to his actions/coping/thoughs completely all the time.

it just tells you how different everyone’s brains are, you can’t restrict a disorder to a specific pattern and only consider that when diagnosing somebody.

so, in conclusion, elliot could very possibly be autistic!!

[jealro-blog]

It’s Kind of a Funny Story

It’s Kind of a Funny Story follows the recovery of teenager, Craig, who willingly admits himself to a mental hospital after feeling suicidal. The movie focuses on his progress on dealing with anxiety, depression, and girl problems. He makes lots of friends and cuts a few out for the sake of his well-being. The movie ends with Craig starting an unlikely relationship with Noelle, another patient. He learns to let go of things out of his control and simply enjoy the small moments in life.  

 Authentic:

Criteria

For this section I will be focusing on whether the portrayal of Craig promotes myths and misunderstandings about anxiety and depression. To do this I will analyze the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and depression that we can observe in Craig’s behavior and whether he is similar to most people with generalized anxiety disorder and depression.

Facts

Anxiety is mental illness that causes ongoing anxiety and worry that makes it difficult to carry on every-day tasks. The illness is characterized by overthinking, stress, nervousness, and excessive worry. These can manifest themselves in ways such as having great difficulty handling uncertainty, inability to relax, persistent restlessness, difficulty concentrating, inability to let go of worry, and overthinking plans (Mayo Clinic, 2017).

Anxiety can also present itself through physical symptoms. The individual may experience trouble sleeping, sweating, fatigue, irritability, stomachaches, and muscle tension (Mayo Clinic, 2017; Carey, 2017). Anxiety can be treated through cognitive behavioral therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes (Carey, 2017).

Depression is a mental illness that is characterized by a persistent feelings of sadness and loss of interest (Mayo Clinic, 2018). Individual may experience angry outbursts, loss of appetite, irritability, sleep disturbances, hopelessness, anxiety, feelings of guilt, fixation on failures, troubled thinking, loss of interest, and suicidal thoughts. Depression can be treated and managed through cognitive behavioral therapy and medication (Mayo Clinic, 2018).

Examples from the movie

In the film, there are many aspects of Craig’s behavior that can be characterized as symptoms of anxiety and depression. Throughout the film, Craig claims to be preoccupied with the idea that he won’t do good on his summer school application. He seems to have tunnel vision surrounding this and Nia. He can’t seem to focus on other things. We see in the film that Craig obviously has suicidal thoughts. He actually checked himself into the hospital. We see him attempting to jump in the beginning of the film.

           He experiences loss of appetite once in the hospital and gives his burrito to another patient. He reveals to the psychiatrists that he feels stressed. He has a problem with stress vomiting. He experiences loss of interest when he fails to turn in 5 labs at school. He experiences hopelessness when he stopped taking Zoloft because he feels like he still can’t handle things as well as others. In the film, Craig mentions that he takes medication. He is also seen going through some art therapy.

Analysis of Examples

The movie assumes that medication (at least in the beginning of the film) is the only way that one can feel better if they have depression. For example, Nia asked Craig if he takes anything for the days when he feels depressed. Also, once his friends found out that he was hospitalized they asked him if he could get them Vicodin, assuming again that depressed people always have medication. Another stereotype is the depressed people just need to “chill.” The movie reinforces the idea that depressed and anxious people are just thinking about things way too much and that it is entirely in the head and easily controllable. Another stereotype that is passed through the film is that mental hospitals are “crack dens” or “looney bins” full of really crazy people.

The movie may also be also be stereotyping the notion that all depressed people cut themselves through the portrayal of Noelle. Though it may be true that they harm themselves in some way, I do think it is difficult to differential between what is a stereotype and what is true about self-harm. I think it is difficult to determine if the media has publicized the concept of cutting yourself because you are depressed. However, I understand that if Noelle was not a threat to her or others’ safety, she may not have been admitted in the first place. I think the film may be adding to the misconception that everyone experiences depression in the same way, i.e. cutting.

One positive thing this movie does show is that being mentally ill is not completely debilitating. For example, Craig and Noelle are able to carry on with everyday tasks. It’s also breaking the stereotypes that only women get depressed (Craig is the main character and he is depressed). Also, the movie is good at showing various aspects of being depressed through Bobby. Bobby can sometimes feel very angry and irritated, hopeless, experiences self-loathing, and has reckless behavior. So, I give the authentic rating a white heart.

 Attractive

Criteria

The criteria I will use will focus on the positive personality traits of Craig. I will be examining how he handles his mental illness throughout the movie and his outlook on life.

Examples from the Movie

The film does show a lot of positive personal qualities of the characters who are mentally ill. Craig is a very good artist and singer. He helped his roommate to finally come out of his room. Bobby is a good friend, humorous, and very resourceful. Noelle is brave and learns to let others in. Everyone in the movie experiences growth. Craig learns to think positively about the future. Noelle learns how to trust others and learns that her scars are not the only thing she is. Bobby learns to control his behavior and emotions and is able to leave the facility before Craig and Noelle.

Analysis of Examples

The film started with Craig not being able to control his anxiety and jumping to awfully big conclusions based off of one action. Throughout the film, Craig learns to express his emotions in a healthy fashion, through art and music, and learns to not think so irrationally. There was a moment when he overacted about not being able to get his essay for college completed. He stated that he was so unfocused that the deadlines would pass, he wouldn’t get into his dream school, he wouldn’t be able to get a good paying job, and the he would be stuck working for minimum wage. This is a pretty big jump to conclusions. Throughout the film he learned to think more positive and rationally. So, I give the attractive rating a light green heart.

Friendly

Criteria

The criteria I will use will focused on the support Craig received from his family and friends, and how they responded to Craig being held in the mental hospital.

Examples from the Movie

His (Craig’s) mom and his sister check in on him regularly. His mother seems to be more devoted to his well-being than his father. He makes friends within the hospital fairly quickly. The movie didn’t show his best friend as being understanding and supportive of his issues. Nia only came by to visit Craig because Aaron had broken up with her. Craig even tells his roommate that he doesn’t have any friends (outside of the hospital). The movie also showed Bobby as not having a good support system either. He was pictured getting yelled at by his wife.

Analysis of Examples

It is clear to see in the film that the father is in denial of what has happened to Craig. It could be that he blames himself a little for what has happened. It seems like his friends just think he was sad. His friends didn’t sound too concerned when they heard he was in the hospital. Nia seemed to be the only person who understood how Craig felt. However, in the end, Nia only came to visit Craig because she and Aaron broke up and she was lonely. When more people found out he was in the hospital, they all asked him if he could get them drugs. Aaron told him that he needed to chill more and that there was nothing wrong with him. In the end, Aaron does come back and apologizes to Craig. It could be that Aaron was trying to hold onto his pride and ego that he was being insensitive to Craig. In the end of the film, he admitted that he also felt kind of depressed sometimes. Bobby throughout the film was mostly always getting a negative conversation over the phone or in person. I think this shows the frustration that families can undergo when they have a loved with a mental illness. Bobby’s wife seemed like she was just losing her patience. I think the way most people responded to Craig’s illness depicts how uncomfortable we still are when we talk about mental illness. We distance ourselves from uncomfortable situations (like his father from him), and we sometimes downplay what people are feeling (like Aaron did), and we can sometimes try to take advantage of people who are ill (like Nia attempted to). So, I give the friendly rating a grey heart.

Hopeful

Criteria

The most important criteria are the sense that Craig has a possibility for a positive outcome in regards to the changes in his symptoms of anxiety and depression, the relationship with his family, and his relationship with his friends.

Examples from the Movie

The movie does show a positive outcome for the characters who have a mental illness. Bobby ends up getting into a group home and starts to repair his relationship with his family. Craig ends up starting a relationship with Noelle, who makes him happy. He stops worrying about the expectations others have of him and he learns to let go a little bit. He also learns to look forward to things in the future. Craig repairs his relationship with his best friend Aaron. Muqtada learns to leave the bedroom and socializes with others after they play Egyptian music.

Analysis of Examples from the Movie

Craig’s progress is really easy to observe throughout the film. I think that this perception could be inaccurate, however. I think that it is unrealistic how quickly Craig was able to get over his anxiety and depression. It could be that it was all situational, but in case it was not, this could lead to people thinking that progress will come very fast and recovery will be short. I think that an important thing to take away from this film is that Craig sought out help voluntarily. Noelle finds Craig to be the first person who doesn’t ask about her scar right away. Craig learns to have patience and tells Noelle that when she’s ready he is sure that she’ll tell him. This is where we see that he is starting to let go of things he can’t control. He lets go of negative thoughts and really embraces the relationship he could have with Noelle. In the end we see how Aaron has a moment of enlightenment that shows how mental illness is not something to be ashamed of. However, I do still think that the illness is downplayed when he says, “sometimes I get depressed, or whatever.” I think this goes to show how we are still embarrassed to admit it to ourselves in front of others, that we may not be okay. So, I give the hopeful rating a dark green heart.

Helpful

Criteria

The most important criteria for this section is the professionalism that mental health professionals in the film exhibit towards the patients.

Facts

Psychiatrists are licensed workers who can prescribe medication, diagnose mental conditions, and provide therapy (NAMI, 2019). Psychiatrists also determine the cause of one’s mental illness to be either environmental or internal (Williamsville Psychiatry, 2019).

Examples from the Movie

The movie does show all the mental health professionals as acting in an ethical and professional manner. The psychiatrist really is supportive of Craig and tries to understand him and help him. She doesn’t downplay his thoughts and emotions and offers advice. Even the hospital staff is friendly. One exception is in the beginning of the film when the hospital receptionist simply handed him a clipboard after he stayed "I want to kill myself" and continued on with the conversation she was previously having over the phone. Dave, one of the psychiatric staff members, was friendly to him as he was introducing Craig to other staff members and giving him a tour. 

 Analysis of Examples

Dr. Minerva acted really professional when she would interact with Craig. She actively listened and didn’t make his anxiety seem foolish or small. She offered a lot of words of wisdom for him to learn to let go of the control he was trying to have. Even when he was panicking after hearing that he had to be there for five days minimum, Dr. Minerva kept her cool and was able to reassure and calm him down. She also did something that I think is really important. She broke the stigma of mental illness in front of him. She told him that he didn’t need to be embarrassed because it is a medical condition. It was really unprofessional of the receptionist to continue speaking on the phone after someone had just admitted to wanting to end their life. So, I give the helpful rating a light green heart.

 Final rating is: white heart, light green heart, grey heart, dark green heart, light green heart.

References

Carey, E. (2017). “Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” Retrieved from

https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/generalized-anxiety-disorder

Mayo Clinic. (2017). “Generalized anxiety disorder.” Retrieved from

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/generalized-anxiety-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20360803

 Mayo Clinic. (2018). “Treatment-resistant depression.” Retrieved from

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/treatment-resistant-depression/art-20044324.

 NAMI. (2019). “Types of Mental Health Professionals.” Retrieved from

https://www.nami.org/learn-more/treatment/types-of-mental-health-professionals

 Williamsville Psychiatry. (2019). “The Role of Psychiatrists & Psychologists.” Retrieved from

https://www.williamsvillepsych.com/psychiatrists-psychologists-roles.

[wings-of-a-storm]

(1/2) I don’t think it’s fair to compare your feelings for the OG at this point in the story to your feelings for the remakes at the same point. Obviously with the OG, the only knowledge we had was what we had seen so far, and we had no idea what was to come. It was all so new to us, just like it was to the characters. It’s different with the remakes. I know each version is making things their own, but the general outline of the story is the same. And that outline is seared into our brains, so

Hi there, anon! I’ve seen a lot of concerns like this going around fandom and figured one would come my way at some point. It’s healthy to address though so I will do my best to. (I’ve divided things into categories so that I can try and express myself better.)

Skam in any form is great:

I felt this real kernel of sadness when I saw you say Skam og will ultimately lose when comparing remakes. Skam is an incredible show with its own incredible strengths, and you need never fear that that will be taken away by other people preferring this or that in other versions. It’s true that remakes have the advantage of building on Skam’s core material and changing things up with the benefit of hindsight or just different cultural contexts, but they are all so good in their own ways.

Skam had an amazing third season. Skam Italia had an amazing second season. Skam France is having an amazing third season.

I adore that each version of Skam comes with its own cinematography, mise-en-scène, music style, and above all: varied character personalities. Even though you know the basic premise (that core foundation of Skam’s Evak season), you’re still always kept on the edge of your seat because you never quite know how a character will behave when their personal contexts are all so different. Their inner demons manifest differently; their home life situations manifest differently; they have different ways of expressing themselves, of dealing with other people, of viewing the world depending on what type of school peers surround them; of viewing the country they live in, etc. All that is what makes watching different versions of the same base concept so interesting and enlightening each time.

Neither is better or worse, just different.

The mine field of Skam comparisons:

I need to quickly take this opportunity to discuss the mine field that is Skam comparisons – it feels like an inevitable part of this conversation.

Okay so: I think it is natural for human beings to compare things in order to make sense of their world. Every day we come across new concepts and stimuli, which we subconsciously group into pre-conceived categories in order to try and begin understanding them. There’s just too much to take in otherwise and we’d never be able to make sense of things. There’s a whole anthropological/psychological concept based on it called ‘Categorisation’ (but my uni days were long ago and lord knows where that text is in my room anymore).

So I do understand that some people feel uncomfortable with Skam comparisons, but sometimes they are a subconscious method of making sense of new stimuli. On this blog, I will make comparisons because that is how I process things. :)

Skam’s cuddling in bed scene:

Skam’s cuddling scene is iconic. The framing is something I will clutch to my chest until the day my heart stops beating. The first time I watched that scene, I loved it. I was moved. I was so riveted by the philosophical conversations they had with one another (I never wanted them to stop talking!). I liked seeing how they were together. I found their gentle kissing to be so sweet and affectionate.

I also started to worry a little because Even had a very sombre, ominous expression at one point when all was quiet and Isak couldn’t see. That expression was classic foreshadowing and I was wary of it. That sort of expression shouldn’t have been there in such a sweet scene; it was so jarring and out of place. Because of it, I knew it wouldn’t all be rainbows if Even was dealing with something that he wasn’t verbalising (be it the messy situation with Sonja or not).

In other words, Skam’s cuddling scene was a scene that achieved much more than just the heart-warming sweetness of a new couple infatuated by one another: it had layering which set multiple threads up and didn’t necessarily provide a complete emotional catharsis for its characters. It was brilliant writing that will always stand up on its own.

Rewatching Skam knowing all the twists = watching Skam France

As Evak’s story unfolded, we were eventually exposed to all of Even’s secrets and all the hard lessons Isak had to learn on his own journey. That meant that once the season was done, we were able to do something really cool: we could rewatch it armed with new knowledge.

Old scenes could be re-framed into something new, into something even more heavily nuanced: I rewatched Skam knowing that Even saw Isak on the first day of school (and how that changes things); I watched knowing Even has bipolar disorder; I watched knowing (Trigger Warning) that he has suicidal thoughts sometimes and once tried to act on them; I watched knowing how the misinformed and unhealthy views Isak had on mental illness was going to wreak havoc on his own life.

It meant I got to enjoy Skam armed with all the necessary information, just like I am watching Skam France now with that information as context (which isn’t necessarily accurate since we haven’t seen the entire season yet and are just using the base concept of Skam, but you get what I mean).

So yes, in that way, I can ’ fairly’ compare Skam’s cuddling scene with France’s cuddling scene. I know what Even was going through in that early stage of Evak’s relationship, just as I know that Eliott seems to be in a similar situation.

It will always come back down to this: Isak, Even, Lucas, and Eliott are different people, living in different countries, surrounded by different peers, with different cultural norms and behaviours. Evak have a very different relationship to Elu. That’s okay! One is not better than the other; they are just different and resonate differently to different people. (It’s also dependant on the way the showrunners choose to portray that storyline, which I will talk about in the next section).

What I was trying to express in my post about my initial reaction to Skam France’s cuddling scene was an acknowledgement that each couple is different and has brought out different reactions from me. Evak were in love but a little more cautious/reserved (which I’ve heard fits the Norwegian culture as well as their personalities); Nicotino were in love and very warm (which fits the Italian culture); Elu are in love and going full bloody throttle.

I, myself, am an Evak: I need that caution and reserve until I feel sure of things. I can’t handle the huge fireworks type of passion where you throw all of yourself into it and expose yourself that deeply, that quickly; that sort of intensity is an enemy of my anxiety disorder where I need control over everything. And that is why Elu’s cuddling scene brought out such a strong reaction in me: their emotional intensity is everything I fear in my own life.

Skam og and Skam France have a different style of storytelling that is no better or worse than each other:

When I said I felt fear when I watched Elu’s cuddling scene, it was with Elu as the context, not Evak. I find Elu’s sort of intensity dangerous for anyone to experience; that type of happiness cannot continue on that trajectory without some sort of force knocking it down – be it even just the smallest disappointment of an argument, for example. When you feel that intensely, the come down of it – by its very nature – is more intense. And knowing France’s M.O so far, that is exactly their point with filming the scene this way. They want us to jump off the love cliff with Elu so that the fall is as brutal as possible.

It wasn’t Skam’s style to turn the amplifier up to level 11 and I am glad for that. Their style was so laid back and raw and deceptive with its simplicity. It worked so well with the natural reservation of their culture (not being as touchy-feeling with peers, for example). There is a real power to subtlety and Skam perfected it.

Skam and France just use different storytelling methods is all. Naturally, the more overt in your face with emotions type of storytelling will bring out more intense first impressions. It doesn’t make France better or worse than Skam though.

We’re all different with our tastes; at different stages of our life, we might connect more with one storytelling method over another. Some days I crave overtly intense emotional rollercoasters like in Skam France because I get to vicariously feel things deeply in ways my anxiety disorder and its neurotically clenched reservation prevents me from feeling in my own life. But some days I want the art of subtly that Skam brings because I don’t have to exhaust myself in the same way while still feeling things deeply.

I love all Skams, guys. This show has my heart and soul!

This got long (as per usual)…

I hope I was able to express why I (and undoubtedly others) react the way I do with Skam France’s season, why I think it is fair for us to compare any of the versions, and how that shouldn’t diminish the value of other Skams. Thank you for stopping by to express your own feelings on it. :)

[amphtaminedreams]

Mental Health Awareness Week: My Story

Hi to anyone who’s reading this!

My name is Lauren and this is my first personal post on my Tumblr (which I’m using because I am a granny who can’t be arsed to work out the basics of Wordpress). My intention in making this blog was ultimately to talk about mental health and fashion and things that interest me and I suppose I knew that ultimately I was going to make a post like this but I just didn’t realise it would be so soon. But then Theresa May lit up Downing Street and it was Mental Health Awareness week and Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness month and I realised, best to just get this out of the way before I can start making excuses to put it off until the end of time. It’s a hard post to make because I don’t exactly know who the audience will be; I’m writing it for the mental health community and anybody who’s interested in what Borderline Personality Disorder is/looks like but I’m also conscious of the fact that one day my family and friends and even potential employers could be reading this. How much detail am I supposed to go into? A lot of people still feel uncomfortable discussing topics like this; they start seeing you a different way when they know you suffer from a mental illness, even though you’re the same person you’ve always been. It’s also hard to know where to start when I’m talking about my mental health. I feel like other posts of a similar nature tend to have a clear start, beginning, and end. A clear cause or inciting incident, one self-explanatory, well-understood diagnosis, and a clear pathway to recovery. I don’t have a single, defining trauma I can pinpoint anything to, and I don’t think I have complex PTSD (which is often conflated with BPD but as I understand it, not always the same thing). I have a family history of mental illness and a series of less significant events that in hindsight might have affected me more than I originally thought, but until I became able to think about concepts such as “mental health” and self-image and relationships in the abstract, I believed that I generally had a pretty happy childhood. My family did their very best and they loved me and we always had a roof over our heads and food on our plates. When I did start to conceptualise my mental health, I kind of thought of it as a wave of depression and insecurities and anxieties that hit me when I was in my early teens. I think this is the same for a lot of people. Only when I got a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (which I will shorten to BPD for the purpose of making this easier to read, lol!) in October 2018 did I question that.

I’ve done a lot of questioning since I got the diagnosis, the same kind of questions that make this post hard to write. Am I really that ill? Am I not just being dramatic? Do I have any right to feel like this given the privilege I have? When in reality, this deep-rooted gut instinct to doubt who you are and what you have a right to feel is an intrinsic part of BPD.

There are 9 key symptoms involved in the disorder, 5 of which must be experienced to a degree that is severe enough to affect your day to day functioning in order to receive a diagnosis. My formal assessment which took place during my stay at an inpatient psychiatric ward in October 2018 revealed I was just on the cusp of receiving a diagnosis; in 5 of the 9 categories I scored highly enough that the symptom was impairing my ability to function, thus I only just qualified (lucky me!). That’s what mental illness is really, a collection of ingrained and/or inherited behaviours that are inhibiting one’s day to day life. With regards to BPD, these 9 behaviours or symptoms are as follows:

1. Fear of abandonment (check).

2. Unstable relationships.

3. Unclear or shifting self-image (check).

4. Impulsive, self-destructive behaviours (check).

5. Self-harm (check). 

6. Extreme emotional swings (check).

7. Explosive anger.

8. Dissociative experiences (check).

9. Chronic feelings of emptiness (check, check, CHECK).

See, when the diagnosis was first suggested to me informally by a community mental health nurse in June of 2018, I was a bit like…what?! That can’t be me! I don’t have outbursts (it’s okay if you do and you’re working on it)! I don’t scream and throw things (again, okay if you do and are working on it)! And I’m definitely not manipulative (any person can be manipulative so I don’t even know where this one comes from)! That was, like, all I knew about BPD. Stereotypes. Think Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction type bullshit, we’re talking the woman that coined the phrase bunny boiler. I didn’t know that BPD can present in a million different ways, based on the person who’s suffering with it, because I thought BPD was the person. The widespread consensus on BPD isn’t the most humanising. So I hope me explaining how it’s affected my life and the way its presented itself over the years helps in turning the tide, which so many amazing people have already begun to do by sharing their stories. My aim is to do the same.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about the areas in which BPD has affected my life since my formal assessment, in which I felt I learnt a lot more about the disorder. In particular, the idea that I was always this happy child that got hit by a wave of inexplicable, crippling depression once I hit my teenage years. I remember during the assessment, the doctor asking me to talk about my early relationships and it kind of struck me at that moment that I’d been going through this pattern of switching between extreme attachment towards versus extreme devaluation of my relationships with the closest people in my life for as long as I could remember. My first real best friend of several years basically stopped speaking to me (and in hindsight, I do not blame her, lmao!) when we were about 12 because I can only imagine she was sick of me either picking a fight or desperately seeking her reassurance every time she dared to hang out with another friend. I remembered how it felt when she did choose to spend time with somebody else rather than me: “oh my god, she likes them more, she finds me boring, she hates me and she doesn’t want to be friends with me anymore! Everything’s over! I’ll never find anyone who loves me like she does because why would they? I can’t go on with my life until I know that she isn’t going to leave me!”. I think at that age, everyone has that shrill inner voice that doesn’t exactly consider logic or react in the most sensible way, but instead of my shrill inner voice going away, it just faded to more of a constantly niggling monotone that continued to affect the way I behaved around other people for years to come. This was just one of the signs that things weren’t as they should be from an early age. I think I was around 13 when the Child Adolescent Mental Health Services (otherwise known as the dreaded CAMHS), whom my parents had initially got me referred to for sleeping problems, diagnosed me with generalised anxiety and social phobia. Social phobia, despite this being its DSM name, is more commonly known as social anxiety. This came about after I had undergone successful CBT for said sleeping problems and thought I’d just drop it in, as you do, that basically, every social interaction felt like I was putting on a desperate show to keep the few remaining people left in the theatre from walking out. I told them that school was emotionally exhausting me. Whilst after the first couple of rocky years of transitioning from primary to secondary school I had developed a close group of friends, I still felt like aside from the closet few of them, absolutely nobody liked me. That was definitely true of some people, but likely not to the extent I envisioned it. I had come to feel, I suspect due to a combination of genes and a few environmental factors, like I was inherently unloveable and annoying, and even though I’m in a good place right now, these are things I continue to struggle with. When you’ve believed these things for so long, to act according to them is second nature.

The thing about BPD is that it’s hard to determine what is a co-morbidity and what is part of The Disorder™. I’m still not quite sure whether my social anxiety was in and of its own issue or if it was driven by the borderline symptom of fearing abandonment. Even recently, during a period of relative stability, I went back to my GP about dysmorphic thoughts concerning my body and appearance as I believe they go beyond the threshold of what is to be expected as part the unstable self-image facet of BPD. Whilst I can accept, for example, that the self-harming and binge eating I began indulging in around the same time I received my anxiety diagnoses were my way of coping with the mood swings and chronic feelings of emptiness I was also experiencing (get me working in the checklist of symptoms here, I imagine this is how film writers feel when they namedrop the movie in the characters’ dialogue), I have a feeling the image issues I have would exist regardless of the influence of the unstable self-image part of BPD. I mean, would perfectionism alone take me to the extremes of punishing myself for missing out on all A*s by an A or two at GCSE and A-level, forcing myself to do a degree I had no particular interest in just because the university was in the single digits in the international league tables, or at one point eating only apples for 10 days until I could barely stand up because I wanted to look like those girls on 2013 emo black and white Tumblr? Probably not. But you don’t need to have an unstable self-image to latch onto the idea that only the very best will do in today’s world, lol (typed with a totally straight face)! Yeah, if the niche that is socialist twitter has taught me anything it’s that, that’s like, late-stage capitalism for you. It’s hard to look at myself and know what is a good quality, or just a character trait, and what is disordered. I think when you call a mental illness a personality disorder, the people who are labelled with it are inevitably going to have that problem.

Surprising absolutely no-one, trying to fit into these ideals I had created and emotionally detaching myself from my friends and family didn’t do any good for my wellbeing. I gave into self-destructive impulses with increased frequency and as I went into sixth form and drifted even further away from the few people I did feel close to, I began to experience derealisation (not depersonalisation, though this is something a lot of people with BPD do experience). This would come under the dissociative experiences symptom of the BPD. It was like my eyes were glass windows and I was just watching life unfold in front of me from the other side. It’s not as if I didn’t have control of my actions, I did, I threw myself into revision, but it all just felt slightly unreal, like I was going through the motions, almost robotically, detached from everyone around me. Everything was muted. Generally, I find that my mood swings between 5 different states: lethargic depression, extreme distress, anxious irritability, an almost mania like sense of confidence and purpose, and a more pleasant calmness. The best way to explain how I experience this switch is that I can almost physically feel the gear of my brain shift, with this change of energy then flowing down to the rest of my body. My thoughts take on a different tone of voice, my body feels heavier, or if I’m going up, it’s like I can feel electricity running and crackling through me. It can happen in a split second, and it can be random, though often it’s triggered by something as small as a phone call or how much I’ve eaten. If multiple plans fall apart at the same time, it can be enough to make me angry at the world and distrustful of everyone in my life, closed off and weighed down. However, back when I was experiencing this derealisation, I remember only really switching back and forth between feeling numb and feeling passively suicidal; I feel like I lost my teenage years to this big, grey cloud of meh-ness that fogged up my brain and obfuscated my ability to regularly feel any positive emotion. To use a cliche, there was this void inside of me that nothing would fill and I had learnt that trying to use relationships to do this was dangerous for me because without sounding melodramatic, it hurt too much when I felt they weren’t reciprocating my love (what a John Green line, lmao).

My fear that people didn’t like me morphed into paranoia that even the people I was supposed to be friends with were ridiculing me the second I left the room; please don’t laugh when I say my greatest pleasure during this time was to go home at lunchtime to avoid having to spend an hour sat with them so I could eat Dairy Milk Oreo, nap and listen to The Neighbourhood (careful, don’t cut yourself on that edge!). I put on a lot of weight due to binge eating, would often leave sixth form early or skip it altogether, and saw my GP, who reestablished my anxiety diagnoses now with an exotic side order of depression. When it comes to NHS services where I live, I’ve kind of won the postcode lottery. There’s a large, conservative elderly population which I’m assuming is the reason our area receives a lot more funding than other, debatably more deserving other areas, and this meant that along with prescribing me the first of many SSRIs I was to try, I was also referred back to CAMHS. I’d been discharged from them about 2 years prior, and what had back then been about a 1 or 2-month waiting list to be seen had doubled in longevity since. I say I won the postcode lottery because, in a lot of places, it’s not uncommon for people to still be waiting to be seen by their local mental health team over a year after they’re first referred. Even so, the help I was offered was very minimal; I met a counsellor once every couple of months that didn’t really specialise in any particular kind of therapy and would kind of just talk at me for the hour I saw her. This was in spite of me expressing suicidal feelings and regularly self-harming.

That being said, by the time I left sixth form, I had finally found an SSRI that worked to blunt the intensity of my social anxiety. I was attending my “perfect” university with my “perfect” grades and (prepare yourself for the twist of the century) I finally managed to get my lazy arse to the gym, and get to that “perfect” weight. I was forming emotional connections with people for the first time in years. On a shallow level, in my first year of uni, things were finally beginning to look up, and yet I was experiencing worse mood swings than ever, becoming more dependent on drugs and alcohol to function through these, and throwing myself into intense friendships where anything less than utmost enthusiasm on the other end of the relationship would send me back into that “oh my god, I’ll never make another friend in my life, I’ll always be alone, I can’t deal with this, the only way to deal with this pain is to end it!” mode. I don’t know why things got so drastic so suddenly. Maybe it was being away from my parents, or maybe it’s just that late teens/early twenties are a time when negative emotions do tend to get more serious after being repressed for years and consequently accumulating. The whole having to be the smartest person in the room to maintain a sense of self shtick was also taking a bit of a hit because university is bloody hard and everyone’s bloody smart and bloody passionate and here I was not even understanding what the assigned reading was trying to say let alone having any brilliant ideas about it to contribute; I was so quiet in one of my seminar groups the lecturer forgot I existed in a class with a grand total of 9 students. Big fish in a little pond to little fish in a big pond syndrome or maybe just more simply put, imposter syndrome, is a real thing and when you struggle with your identity anyway, it’s enough to throw you off completely. I finished that year with a first but I told myself it probably wouldn’t happen again. A couple of days later, feeling shit and overwhelmed, I did what I’d taken to doing to manage my emotions, and got high. The delusional episode ended me up in A&E for self-harm, and when they let me go the next day, I travelled back to my family home and pretended nothing was wrong.

The whole “act like everything’s fine” approach doesn’t work in the long term. 10/10 would not recommend. Without my parents around, when I went back to uni in September, everything fell apart again. I was using drugs every day, either not eating at all or binge eating, self-harming, binge drinking regularly, skipping all my lectures. Honestly, when I think back to that time it’s like I’m watching myself from outside my body. I was feeling very done with the dumpster fire (how very American of me) that was my brain. I was done with the constant 100mph up and down internal monologue. I was done with trying to cope and to hold myself together. I intentionally overdosed multiple times and after one sent me to A&E, my dad brought me home from university. It was a horrible shock for my parents: they knew I was a worrier that could be a little closed off and miserable sometimes, and they were the ones who’d first taken me to CAMHS when I was younger, but they’d struggled with that, and so from then on I’d tried to keep my issues to myself. To be honest, I don’t blame them at all for not realising anything was drastically wrong. I did a pretty good job of hiding my problems; everyone had their own things to deal with and so I became quite adept at internalising my feelings and acting “inwards” rather than outwards. It was also definitely a case of things escalating whilst I was away. With all this in mind, the overdose kind of came out of nowhere for them, but I was so detached from reality I didn’t even consider this at the time. Thankfully, I can’t really remember how they actually reacted either. Benzodiazepines do that to you, a little tidbit of information that all these teen rappers and social media personalities hyping up Xanax fail to mention. I think my dad made the decision to bring me home rather than have me stay in hospital in London, as was offered, because he thought that would be better for me. However, a few days later, after numerous, distressing visits from the crisis team (another name that will be regrettably familiar to anyone who has experienced severe mental health problems before), where I can only assume a lack of time and recourses on their part forced me to repeat what had happened over and over again to the revolving door of staff members, I took another overdose. I had become paranoid that they were out to get me and falsely believed that I was too much of a burden on my family, who were having to take time off work to look after me. This time from A&E, I went on to stay in a psychiatric ward where I was given the formal diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder I mentioned earlier. And it’s here that my life changed forever, I believe for the better.

It changed my life for many reasons. Firstly, it was incredibly validating. To learn that I didn’t have a plethora of different problems but rather one problem, the different facets of which can present themselves in many different ways and affect multiple areas of your life, was so, so reassuring. It not only gave me a clear treatment path but helped me to understand that there was a reason all this was happening. Additionally, the events forced me to open up to my parents and for them to grasp the severity of the situation. After all these years, I finally felt like I had a support system. My parents had always been there before but I had emotionally distanced myself from everyone, and being a “typical teenager” I believed they didn’t understand me (get that angst). I think in retrospect they didn’t understand me because I wasn’t using the right words. I didn’t want to sound dramatic so whenever I spoke to either of my parents about how I felt, I downplayed it a lot. My mum, who works so incredibly hard and has a lot on her plate herself, had a tough upbringing so her approach to me being miserable was pretty much telling me to be grateful for what I had. Had she known what I was really getting at, I know that she wouldn’t have reacted like this to what I was saying. The minute I got my diagnosis, she went out and bought every (mildly offensively titled) book on how to support someone with BPD out there and I learnt today has even been trying to bring an emphasis on mental health into her workplace! She is a wonderful person.

With all this being said, my main piece of advice for other people who are newly diagnosed with BPD or just suffering from any kind of mental health condition is to be brutally honest with the trusted people around you about what you’re dealing with. It will be uncomfortable but I can promise it’ll be worth it. With something like BPD, having a support system who know exactly what you’re dealing with, minus the vagueness and the bullshit, is so, so important. I say this because, despite Theresa’s green lights, neither she nor her party are doing much in the way of providing the funding for professional help. When I first came out of hospital, I had a lot of nights where I felt incredibly depressed, almost as depressed as I did before I went in. Prior to my family knowing about my BPD diagnosis, I would have dealt with these feelings in unhealthy ways but this time, I could go to my mum and stay with her and just cry it out until the feeling passed. That is also a useful sentiment to remember, that the feelings will pass. It’s in the nature of BPD to swing around, when I’m not experiencing a period of depression, and that’s something I find it helpful to remember. I personally really like the Youper app to track my moods because when I do get suicidal, feel anxious or wired, I have something to look at objectively to remind myself that I did feel like this before, in fact, I felt like this yesterday, but a few hours later I told the app I felt okay again. It also helps you to dissect your irrational thought processes and identify “thinking traps”. Meditation, ASMR and CBD are big parts of my life and stability, though I would recommend doing some research into the latter before trying it yourself.

On a less subjective, more physiological level, I notice that my medication really aids my emotional stability; when I have been off it, my mood swings are a lot more intense. So whilst medication isn’t for everyone, it can be something to consider talking to your GP about to see if it could be beneficial for you. Another help is the DBT skills course I completed in March, DBT being the abbreviation of dialectical behavioural therapy, the treatment specifically developed for BPD by Marsha Linehan. If you have time, she’s a great person to do some research into. She herself was diagnosed with what doctors called an “incurable” case of BPD yet she’s gone on to do the most incredible things and help so many people also suffering from the disorder. Not only did DBT provide me with a skill set of more functional coping mechanisms for both interpersonal insecurities and individual struggles, but I liked the fact that once a week I got to be with a group of people who really understood what I’m dealing with and didn’t judge. Even if you can’t find a DBT group, it’s worth checking to see if there are any mental health peer support groups in your area for this reason. I found that being around people who are dealing with similar issues helped me to see my own struggles more objectively; it reminds you that what you’re experiencing is not about you personally and that whilst you may feel isolated, you’re not. The world hasn’t got it out for you. It’s a condition that many people experience. In terms of the feelings of emptiness BPD causes, I have found that since my diagnosis, I’ve actually had more of a sense of purpose in life. On a practical level, having therapy along with a year out of uni and the presence of a constant support system has had me time to get back into writing properly. What I’ve found to be even more rewarding, however, is my participation in the online mental health community.

Something I wasn’t made aware of prior to my diagnosis was the amount of stigma there is still towards mental health issues, Borderline Personality Disorder especially. It really is one of the most demonised mental health issues in and outside of the healthcare system and that’s a hard fact to learn, because it’s a difficult enough condition to learn to manage already without knowing that there are people out there who think you’re a monster for it and are going to judge everything you do through a certain lens. Whilst we are a lot more accepting as a society of conditions like depression and anxiety, conditions such as bipolar, schizophrenia and personality disorders are still greatly misunderstood by wider society who have largely taken their understandings of these illnesses from ill-informed media portrayals and shallow, surface-level observations of a sufferer’s behaviour. I doubt the name “personality disorder” helps matters; it’s hardly the most flattering description of what we’re dealing with I’ve ever heard. I’ve found that even mental health professionals and other mental illness sufferers have a negative bias towards BPD. There’s a widespread view that we are dangerous, manipulative individuals who choose to be difficult and act erratically, that our behaviour is not “organic” like that produced by other mental health problems. I have no idea where the latter assumption comes from. Most experts on the condition tend to agree that the mood swings, impulsive, destructive behaviour, and irrational thinking originate in the hypothalamus and come from a faulty fight-flight response or other atypical brain structures; in other words, BPD has a biological basis. Whilst I agree that we can learn to change our coping mechanisms, the idea that they are as a result of anything other than pure desperation and mental anguish is incredibly puzzling and dehumanising. Simply looking the causes of the condition up online or doing a small amount of research from a credible source debunks all the common BPD stereotypes, yet people like to speak about it as if they know everything about the condition just because they’ve heard a few horror stories. There are nasty people in the world. Some of them have BPD, but that doesn’t mean everyone with BPD is a nasty person, and the bottom line is that most people suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder will hurt themselves before they hurt anyone else. We are so hypersensitive to any changes in our relationships in the first place that the last thing we want to do is damage them. When we say something feels like the end of the world, that’s because the emotional dysregulation part of BPD really makes it feel like it is. We’re not being dramatic or trying to get your attention. In fact, I can say for certain that despite feeling this way on a daily basis for about 7 years, I rarely actually voiced the sentiment. I still don’t. But I should be able to. To give the example of one person suffering from physical illness and one suffering from a mental illness, where both publicly talk about the pain they’re experiencing, why is only the latter of the two called an attention seeker? If the former tweeted about how much pain they were in, nobody would bat an eyelid. Why is this? When so many people experience mental health problems? When the gender who are typically expected by society to repress their feelings accounted for over 70% of suicide victims in the UK last year? It’s clear that keeping our feelings to ourselves and suffering in silence doesn’t do us any good, so why are so many so eager for us to continue doing so? I think being open about mental health simply needs to be normalised, and that once it is, hopefully, this sentiment will die out. I find that by being open about my mental health on social media (still quite selectively, I must admit! I can’t see myself making a post about BPD on Facebook any time soon!) has given me a sense of purpose because I do feel like I’m helping to normalise this kind of honesty. With regards to the stigma that surrounds BPD specifically, I feel that my presence online and my support of others helps to show that we’re just human beings who are struggling, not the awful mythos that surrounds us.

To finish, one of my main goals in my recovery is to be more compassionate to myself. BPD is a hard enough diagnosis to have without constantly internally doubting and questioning it. I find that as the months go by, I am feeling more and more stable, and this leads me to question if I was ever sick, especially since I only displayed 5/9 of the borderline traits in the first place, which meant that I only just met the diagnostic criteria. I don’t have psychotic rage or complete blackouts and tend to act inwards rather than outwards. I am what is considered within the mental health community to be a “quiet” borderline. I know theoretically that this doesn’t make my condition any less valid, but for this reason, part of me fears moving towards being “well”. Because if I’m well, then I feel like I’ve lost part of an already fragile identity. Of course, I’d rather not have BPD. But because I’ve been expressing symptoms for so long, I worry what’s left of me without it. At the same time, I fear going back to a place where my BPD is so severe that I have to go back to hospital. So really, it’s like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. It’s a double-edged sword. Is that enough cliches? The thing that I wish more people could understand is that mental illness in itself is traumatic and that even when you’ve moved on, what you experienced will always be a part of you. You still need that support. I’m not going to lie, resisting the urge to indulge in old coping mechanisms and habits is hard, and whilst the sense of pride I feel every time I don’t, or every time I use responsibly something I’m used to abusing is rewarding, there are days where waiting for the need to use them to pass is very long and very hard. I need to stop telling myself that just because I am feeling better than I did, I don’t deserve that support anymore. I do. I still deserve compassion. I still deserve a safety net. I still deserve a sense of understanding from the people around me. I deserve all of it, as does everyone else. I also deserve to be proud of how far I’ve come already instead of berating myself for not having come far enough. As I write this I haven’t self-harmed in 169 days, have been at my current job for coming up to 6 months, have an interview for a psychology course at the uni I came to love in a week’s time. I’m finally somewhat healthily managing my weight for the first time in years! I have also decided that once I do return to university, my reason for being there is not contingent on me maintaining firsts; my mental health, and what I do with the degree is much more important. I would ultimately like to go into clinical psychology and do as much as I can in that area to help people going through similar issues. With the current state of the mental health (and healthcare, in general) system in the UK, it’s definitely easy to get disheartened that the services it provides will never be adequate due to funding issues. However, in the meantime, I think the more of us with lived experience that can get into mental health care, the better the service that eventually is provided can be. Every week I’m thinking of new things I’d like to research once I have the footing, epigenetic and intergenerational trauma and the use of psychedelics and the benefit of peer support groups. There’s always a way to turn the negative into a positive, even if it takes time to learn how to do so and I think after all these years, I’m finally getting the hang of it. If my brain has been a “dumpster fire” for the last however many years, then I don’t want to let the ashes go to waste. I’m going to make them into some really morbid confetti! As I sit here writing this, I can firmly say I am happier than I’ve ever been. Game of Thrones is pissing me off (might do a post how identity and attachment issues lead to a correlation between BPD and obsessive character fixations at some point because BOY has that been driven home to me this week!) but tomorrow I’m going to an ABBA party with uni friends, Yvie Oddly is smashing drag race, and my cat is lying next to me purring. It gets better. The hard days become less frequent and they get easier to cope with too; you can learn to ride the waves and find reasons to continue doing so, regardless of how tiring it might be sometimes.

My pipe dream for this time next year is that we have people in government who really care about the invisibly ill of this country. That Downing Street can do more than turn green. I hope that we get to see more realistic and sympathetic portrayals of BPD in the media that draw attention to the issue without glamourising or romanticising it and that we get more portrayals of queer, disabled and POC experiences of mental illness too as it’s not just skinny caucasian girls that deal with this shit! Most importantly, I also hope that I continue to flourish, and wish the same for everyone struggling with mental illness/any kind of turmoil. Anybody who reads this ’til the end, wow! Thank you! It was a bit of an essay but what do you expect coming from an ex-history student and wannabe author, lol! Please let me know if there is something you’d like to see me post about on this Tumblr, such as any specific BPD symptoms and how they might present, how I deal with social anxiety and body image, or even anything completed unrelated to mental health! God knows I love the sound of my own…prose? Is that the right word to use?

I hope you enjoyed reading!

Lauren x

[self-critical-automaton]

Whats Been Going On With Me Lately

So basicly the TLDR is:

I’ve been super ill in weird and new brain ways since about mid-december, when withdrawal from my antidepressants resulted in strange intense psychological events, and I’ve been dealing with the fallout and day-to-day distress ever since. I’m terrified that i might have suffered permanent alterations/damage to my mental state, but who can say.

Details under the cut for anyone who wants to know how ive been doing, or wants to hear about what happens when you quit a high dose of fluoxetine cold turkey after five or six years.

Or for anyone who is going through something similar and wants some info/hope, since withdrawal experiences seem to be super idiosyncratic and variable and its almost impossible to find detailed descriptions.

I’d really appreciate it being read, esp. by people in my life, but dont feel compelled or whatever idk i dont make the rules but srsly please read it if you can it took a lot of time and effort

PS: this and several other articles on that blog were a huge help to me getting through the first couple phases, if you’re having trouble with withdrawal please go read PPS: fine to reblog, in fact please do

In 2017 I started getting painful physical side effects from my antidepressants, which gradually got worse until in lateish-2018 I decided to stop taking them outright. Everyone ever says you shouldn’t quit antidepressants cold-turkey, and they are right, but I’d been taking them inconsistently due to the pain, and I was beginning to suspect they’d stopped helping me anyway, so it seemed the best option.

I quit in probably mid-October and for a couple months felt much the same as usual, but then around the 13th of December it all kicked off. At first I had no idea what was happening, and I thought I was suffering a sudden and intense flu coinciding with a bad depressive spike, but after a couple days I figured out that withdrawal can be offset by weeks or months in rare cases, and decided this is what must be happening. That first round of Withdrawal Time had a few soft-edged but distinct phases (lasting about a week each), and I went through by far the worst experience in my entire life, closely followed by the second-worst and then third-worst.

Round One Start! Phase One: intense existential dread

It kicked of very suddenly, around the 13th december, getting rapidly worse over a couple days. I was paralysed with fear as my mind sunk into thinking in infinite circles, unable to do anything other but endlessly contemplate and debate morbid philosophical topics, forced to confront the inevitability of death, emptiness of life, terror of oblivion, impossibility of afterlife, and so on. I also suffered sensory experiences similar to those ive heard described by people who take drugs like LSD, or very severe fever dreams. Sensations of expanded perception, becoming trapped in imaginary scenarios on other planes, that sort of thing.

In this phase I ate almost nothing, and over that week lost 4 or 5 kg. I also had some flu symptoms, mostly as fevers and chills, and could ony, really sleep in short bursts of a couple hours each. There was very little I could safely occupy myself with, as almost all media (books, games, film, fiction and nonfiction, everything really) would in some way trigger me into thinking about an existential topic, and then the terror would resume. I spent what time I could working to fix the problems with my life that I had suddenly become aware of (my social isolation, my medial issues, my mental health, etc), so I made a lot of phone calls, doctor visits, and applied to some mental health counseling services. I also started looking for avenues to make friends and acquaintances online and in person, and did a lot of research on antidepressant withdrawal.

Towards the end of this phase, the dread got more manageable and began to ease off, and I found I could play simple puzzle games to help occupy myself during the day. Listening to certain podcasts also was a source of relief and distraction. However, things remained bad in the morning and evenings, and I ended up referring to these times as ‘morning hell’ and ‘evening hell’. Also, I began to keep a basic daily log of my symptoms.

Phase Two: generalized anxiety

As I segued into this phase, the existential dread mostly withdrew during the day, leaving instead a sense of severe generalized anxiety. I’ve had issues with anxiety in the past, but it’s always been event-related or social, so Generalized Anxiety Disorder style anxiety was an interesting addition to my mental health cocktail. I still suffered the existential dread, but primarily during the Morning and Evening Hells, and as occasional spikes during the day. Mostly, I felt like it was off to one side somewhere, and felt anxiety about thinking about existential topics.

I got little done, but was able to occupy myself with podcasts, housework, simple games, and (oddly enough) Star Trek: The Original Series. Almost anything else I tried would worsen the anxiety, and threaten to trigger existential dreads. During this time I started sleeping more normally, but also began waking every night with chest pains and leg pains, which of course caused a great deal of anxiety about heart issues and blood clots. I also began to feel like I had begun to ‘wake up’ after having sleepwalked through the past year or so.

Phase Three: misc badfeels and weird sensory effects

As phase 2 segued into this one, around christmas day, the anxiety started to recede during the day. I’d get a window of safety varying from half an hour to a few hours, usually starting in the early afternoon. I began to leave the house more, going for walks with my partner, which could occupy me safely during bad feeling times. During those windows, I often still felt bad, but it felt like a ‘normal’ bad, like depression and ennui, rather than the very active generalized anxiety or severe dread. I also began to be able to read again, and to play games more widely. I committed to attending some local social events (some board games/RPG things, and a support group) and mostly tried to get on with life. 

I was frequently quite sluggish and slow, and didn't usually get much work done, even napping occasionally. As my days improved, my nights worsened, with bad sleep and bad dreams. I would also have odd brief sensory effects, such as hallucinations and waking dreams. For the first time since withdrawal started, I began to worry that I was slipping backwards and getting worse again. Up until that point, I had felt like, as awful as I was feeling, there was a slow but consistent improvement.

By early January I was having inconsistent bouts of the existential stuff and the generalized anxiety in the day, but looking back probably not as intensely as in the earlier phases.

Phase Four: inconsistent rehash

Phase four was similar to phase three, except without the consistency that phase three had (at least earlier on) of ‘morning bad, day safe, evening bad’. It also lasted longer than the ‘about a week’ of previous phases. I had ups and downs of general bad feelings throughout the day, with occasional spikes or longer bouts of existential fear or generalized anxiety, and I developed an aversion to going to bed (as most mornings would feel worse than evenings). I usually slept badly, and I started waking up during what I’m pretty sure were sleep-panic-attacks an hour or so after going to sleep. Chest pains and so on were very common and worrying, so I talked to the doctor a lot and ended up on some cardio waiting lists.

I had some depressive episodes which felt very much like the kind of depressive episodes I’ve had over my life, and about the same topics, though more intensely. It was almost comforting, in a back-to-normal sort of way.

Frankly, this whole phase felt like a random jumble of previous phase symptoms and pre-withdrawl mental health stuff, almost like dimming lightbulbs on an old electrical system, fading in and out and going on and off randomly and unpredictably.

Towards the end of January, I had a bad bout of flu, but during that time I felt a lot better in mental health terms. I don’t know if this was due to the distraction of a big obvious ‘thing to survive’ or if it was a natural upswing as part of the arc of that phase. After I got over the flu, I had a couple days of existential stuff reasserting itself, and I was worried that it was a second bout of Phase One, but I stopped recording my log on the 5th of February, so it’s hard to recall anything past this.

Interstitial Period

I’m pretty sure that for most of February, I felt ‘back to normal’, and was feeling more-or-less how I had been before withdrawal kicked off. That said, my capacity to occupy myself has not really recovered. I’m occasionally able to play games or read, but I often have a bad sense of ennui. This may be my natural yearly Seasonal Affective Disorder, or a natural depressive episode (I have consistently if infrequently had times where I’m unable to occupy myself and suffer ennui, just as part of being a depressed person), but I’ve not had one this long before.

I have a strong fear that my cognition/way of being/mental state has been permanently altered by that first phase, that it in some way ‘opened my eyes’ and now I will never be able to go back to how I was. I’m scared that I might never be free of this existential dread lurking in the back of my mind, but also trying to dissemble, forget, or distract myself feels like a foolish naivety. Its something we all have to face, so postponing the inevitable is pointless, but also I can’t overcome or accept it, so I’m trapped in a limbo.

Round Two?

After feeling mostly ’back to normal’ for a while, I’ve been having some bad times again. For about a week or so (end of febuary/beginning of march), I’ve been having existential fears and the ‘big mix of generalized bad feeling’ again, on and off during the day, and especially in mornings/evenings. I was very afraid that it was the beginning of a downslope into a full repeat of this entire cycle, but it’s been pretty consistent so far, rather than getting worse.

I’m hoping that this is indeed Round Two, and that its just a lot less bad than Round One, which would be consistent with what I’ve read about this stuff.

Final Thoughts

Phase one was the worst thing ive gone through in my life, but on good days I feel somewhat optimistic that it’s had a ‘rock bottom’ kind of effect, that I can find some positive things to come out of it.

It’s given me some perspective, and it’s helped me come out of a sleepwalking time in my life. I feel what i’m missing in my life much more keenly (social isolation/ lack of friends, lack of passion, lack of purpose/drive/meaning in my life), but I’m also able to work on them to some extent for the first time in years.

That said, I know these take a lot of time and work to fix, but it’s hard not to look at the glacially slow progress i’ve made as ‘no progress in basically three months’, and sink back into the things-will-never-get-better-so-why-try kind of depression.

I’m gonna keep trying, though.

[rimurutempest-bounced]

questions for neurodivergent folks ( from @shitborderlinesdo )

post here!

if ur autistic:

1. do you stim?

yes, sometimes! i’ve suppressed a lot of it over time but i still do some subtly.

 if so, what are yr favourite stims? 

touching/tapping the tips of my fingers together, stroking soft patches of skin(esp backs of my hands, wrists, or parts of my thighs, hips, ankles), cracking knuckles, stretching fingers/feet/arms/legs rly far, rapid blinking(though i also have a tic involving blinking which is similar, but involuntary), bubble wrap,flicking light switches/door lock mechanisms, bouncing on toes, toewalking, chewing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(esp pens/pen caps and similar textures), biting, mouthing/lipping things, clacking my teeth lightly, whistling, leg jiggle sometimes, jumping, skipping, hopping, and a few other rly specific things (like involving swimming, or being on something and hanging so im upside down and stuff)

2. happy stims? chewing, biting, skin stroking, finger tapping, skipping, hopping, jumping 3. negative stims? snapping fingers, “hiccuping” (it’s a little giggle/hiccup type thing i do, but idk what to call it), teeth clacking, leg jiggle, exposing too long to extreme cold temps, hitting head against things 4. favourite textures? idk how to explain the soft-smooth i like; silk usually looks like it should feel like this, but it doesn't. also when people talk about “plush velvet” the texture that comes to mind is good, like a really nice stuffed animal or a cavalier king charles spaniel with super soft fur, but real velvet feels bad lol. also just most fur in general, esp rabbit, cat, certain dogs. some wing or chest feathers on birds like doves. milk weed fluff. soft, squishy, fuzzy caterpillars(not the bristly guard hair ones. more like forest tent caterpillars), moon jellies, soft leather/suede, really smooth grey granite, polished shiny pink granite, lambs ear/mullein 5. least favourite textures? some types of linen are VERY BAD but idk what they are, they’re like stiff and scratchy and feel super cold? gummy bears, ew. really hard chocolate in cold ice cream, a lot of faux furs, like so many, most (sheep)wool, scallops, often times chinchilla fur feels bad, most velvet, esp crushed velvet, potato sacks, a lot of plastic bags/thin plastic film 6. what's a pet peeve of urs involving a specific sound? squeaky plastic is the worst, esp from plastic wrap. teeth grinding/bruxing is bad, hearing people having sex in another room/apt, heavy footsteps/stomping, esp when fast like running, door slamming, when people slam their hands on a table because they just thought of something, the sound quality of like...having water in your ears/popped ear drums, where everything feels muffled and almost whispery/far away, but also REALLY LOUD AND CLOSE... 7. a specific sound that makes you Really Happy? al snoring softly like a cat, my cat snoring, cats purring, crackling fires, wind whistling, waves lapping, thunder rumbling, THUNDER CRACKING, wood creaking in a strong wind, that soft snuffling of cat/dog noses, the sound of rodents digging in bedding or eating millet, angel caller bells(bola, fairy callers, whatever you call them) 8. when were you diagnosed (self or professionally)? about 6 years ago what has changed with the diagnosis? i dont hate myself for as much of my behaviours/thinking/speech patterns. im slowly trying to let myself let go of “survival mode” NT behaviours i was forced to learn 9. are there any behaviours you have that, prior to diagnosis, didnt make much sense, but now they do? too many to list lmao 10. what kind of representation would you like to see of autistic ppl in media? girls, trans folks, autistics of colour, just less cis white boy perfect example savants. autistics with “atypical” autistic symptoms. autistics with ugly meltdowns and other unpleasant symptoms. autistics who are messy eaters, who can’t dress themselves, who struggle with everyday tasks and self care. autistics with “useless” special interests that cant be reworked to make them more productive genius types. LOUD autistics.  

if ur mentally ill:

11.when were you diagnosed (self or professional)?

6 yrs old or younger

12. what is your diagnosis/are your diagnoses?

BPD, (various types of)depression, DPD/social anxiety(when i’m alone)/agoraphobia, panic disorder NOS, mood disorder NOS, DID, ADD/ADHD-PI, ASD, gender dysphoria at one point, conduct disorder or whatever it was called. IED. all i can think of. all diagnosed professionally over the years, though ASD is not on any official records because i asked it to be left off to avoid that specific abuse/stigma.

13. is the community youve found with other mentally ill ppl helpful?

mostly no. but in some ways, yes. i appreciate having more access to info, hearing relatable stories, common symptoms/experiences that help me understand things better, etc. close friends with illnesses/disorders are nice, but mostly i know them for other reasons outside of diagnoses.

14. do you find it challenging to tell ppl yr mentally ill?

absolutely

15. what are the most effective coping mechanisms youve found?

im not sure. i just...cope? somehow? not always effectively, but idk.

16. have you ever been to therapy?

ya

if yes, what helped and what didnt help?

i hate group therapy. in individual therapy, i like having my husband sit in on the sessions for support. therapist NEEDS to prompt me and ask active and specific questions. setting clear goals with clear steps helps. a lot of more “creative” methods actually are super unhelpful for me.

17. do "find your happy place" exercises help you or no?

sort of? i don’t try them much. usually they make me sadder that im not there.

18. what are some of the most Tiresome Cliches ppl tell you to deal with yr mental illness (i.e., "just do yoga!")? 

“everyone gets depressed”, “yoga”, “fresh air, sunlight, and exercise!”, “essential oils”, “meditation”, “_______ diet/supplement”, “mind over matter”, “lose some weight” (THIS DOES NOT MEAN NONE OF THESE CAN BE HELPFUL AND I DO WANT TO DO SOME OF THESE THINGS, BUT STATING THE OBVIOUS ABOUT THIS SHIT AND BEING CONDESCENDING IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING)

19. what books / movies have really helped u?

none in this regard

20. what kind of representation would u like to see of mentally ill ppl in media?

idk. better. sympathetic without condescentding, infantilising, or demonising. sympathetic recovery stories, showing a happy ending, but not some “theyre cured” BS

if ur chronically ill:

21. when were you diagnosed (self or professionally)?

asthma - like 4 yrs old, tendonitis - like 13 yrs old, unspecified pain/inflammation - 2019 professionally (like 2011 ish on my own, but really it started when i was ~13), nocturnal epilepsy - not done with diagnosis process/testing as of july 2019, a few chronic infections that don’t affect me any more were diagnosed when i was a kid, idk

22. do you find the support system with other similarly affected ppl to be helpful?

i’ve not been involved much, tried it out, really

23. what do you struggle w most on a daily basis?

pain/inflammation/stiffness in joints, back, neck, shoulders, feet

24. what helps you most?

i wanna say sleep, but it actually makes everything worse so, new diet(anti inflammation), making goals/plans, spirituality, going to healing places like the woods or by the sea or mountains, massage, soft comforting petting from my husband

25. what do you want to tell able-bodied and neurotypical ppl in regards to chronic illness?

it’s not the same. yeah maybe “everyone has back pain”, but my pain and your pain are different; they happen for different reasons and they affect us in different ways. if everyone is in pain we should do something to make life easier for everyone, not dismiss people who are suffering.

26. how do u keep your strength on a daily basis? i dont

27. if yr family supportive?

mostly yeah?

if not, who do you find the most strength and support in, outside of yourself?

my husband, regardless

28. what kind of representation would you like to see of chronically ill ppl in media?

show me people who find creative, easy, free/cheap ways to be comfortable/improve symptoms. do not fucking cure them to make them happy. let them be happy and comfortable by finding new ways to do things, no by erasing their obstacles.

if u have bpd:

29. when were u diagnosed (self or professionally)?

2014, i think? though it was suggested by a therapist in like 2008 or 2009

30. do you think the support system in the community is helpful?

no

31. what are some of the ways you keep yrself grounded and remind yrself to Take a Step Back when bad feelings get in the way of rational thinking?

remind myself other people have autonomy, think about how i would feel if someone reacted to things i was doing the way my brain wants to impulsively react to them, talk talk talk, find something else to do as distraction

32. coping skills?

idfk what they are, they’re just there. usually.

33. how do u keep yrself in check when impulsive mood swings come around?

uh, mostly i covered this in 31. gotta reset focus on something else, find distraction that produces different emotions until mood passes

34. what skills do you use to remind yourself that you are loved?

husband. doesnt always work, but mostly.

35. who has been the most supportive of u?

husband.

36. how has your diagnosis changed the way you view yrself and yr interactions w other ppl?

more mindful of others feelings and needs, esp my mum with BPD

37. what kind of representation would you like to see of ppl w bpd in media?

not fucking abusive/manipulative or miserable. let us struggle but have great supports and practice effective coping skills so we can build stronger relationship bonds and enjoy socializing and/or things that are personally important

all ppl:

38. how do you deal w ableism that comes at you from all directions?

laugh about it with my friends i guess?

39. who in your life is the most supportive of u and yr recovery?

husband

40. who are some people on tumblr who have really helped u in yr journey?

well, i met cieran here. alice has been a good influence. there’s a few of you for sure, though maybe not all specifically for these sorts of things.

41. best coping skills?

i dont know

42. most irritating Ableist Cliches ppl use to tell u yr not good enough?

infantilizing me(comparing me to a child), mocking my productivity/commercial success, “daddy issues”, trying to gaslight me into thinking i’ve been abusive because we disagree on something/i pointed out something they dont like

43. best most supportive thing anyone's said to you? 

“i want to be like you when i grow up”

44. songs for Happy Times?

counting stars, gooey, just about anything by MIKA, most “meme” songs

45. songs for Not-Happy Times?

a lot of hozier, bastille, of monsters and men, rage against the machine, flobots

46. non-triggering movies that discuss mental illness?

im not sure, i know there are some i love that i could list, but none are coming to mind. not a movie but: moomin and most ghibli media, esp kiki’s delivery service.

[impactsandincomes-blog]

Hard Times, or a Hard Life? The Differences Between Situational Depression & Clinical Depression.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. In a perfect world, every day would be Mental Health Awareness Month, right? Right. But unfortunately, that’s just not the case. We’ve been programmed & conditioned into believing the only method to fixing your problems is simply acting as if they don’t exist. Or that things could just “be worse,” putting your emotions and well-being into a metaphorical category of importance. So if it doesn’t meet the criteria for “pressing” it’s just gotta be put aside for the time being. If that wasn’t bad enough, generational curses and family dysfunction add to the pile. You tell mom and dad you haven’t been feeling yourself, or you’ve been stressed out trying to keep up with your studies, and they ask if you’ve tried “going out with friends to get your mind off things, or going to bed earlier?” Because where they come from, you simply didn’t have the time to be sad or stressed. Especially if you were trying to make a living and put all your children through a decent college. Yeah, desensitization at it’s finest. But the reality is, that we’re all guilty of being desensitized. Not just with each other, but with ourselves.

Before I say anything else, let me just add that it’s completely okay to be sad and go through the blues every now and then. We all feel sadness, and even.. depressed (yes, I finally said the word you’ve been dreading to hear). But not all Depression is the same. Which means how we cope with it can’t be the same either. Understanding where your Depression is coming from can not only help yourself, but it can be beneficial to the people around you and how they can possibly be supportive of you. To keep it super simple, it’s knowing how to check in with you; taking note of what you’re feeling, why you’re feeling it, what’s triggering it, etc. 

First and foremost, I do not have a degree in Psychology. I don’t have a certificate or any type of training in this area. If this is a deal breaker for you, then please feel free to click off this page. I promise I won’t be offended. All I have to offer you are my own personal experiences and insight I’ve gained throughout my life. If that’s enough for you and you’re willing to take a chance with that alone, by all means, please keep reading. 

My mother has suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder (Clinical Depression) for as long as I can remember. You would think that having a family history meant that I was pre-dispositioned to be depressed or have some type of mental illness too. But by the grace of God, I wasn’t. And thanks to a very difficult path I walked solely by faith, along with receiving the right therapy over the years, I know that I will never be. But it wasn’t always this simple to figure out. When I was younger, I often suffered on & off from depression- or what I thought was “true” Depression at the time.  I was maybe only 14 or 15 years old when I first started to experience it. I really couldn’t grasp what was happening to me and why I felt this way. It was true that my mother had been sick for a while, but it was at this particular point in my life where I started to really notice all the other shit that had been piling on top of that from the years prior. I only knew what Depression was based on what I would hear the doctors tell my mother. They would refer to it as a condition, and talk about medication and all sorts of confusing bodily things. There was no way I was prepared for this (I mean who ever is?) But it really didn’t make sense to me. Mind you, being depressed— you already have this negative and self-limiting outlook on life and yourself. The “Why Me?” Disease, as I used to call it. How could I have this condition, when I had a pretty happy life before I found out my mother was sick? I mean, I didn’t have the perfect childhood, but it wasn’t all terrible. I knew I was an angry kid, wether or not I wanted to admit it at the time. “It’s not like I asked to be put in this situation…” — the common response I would give to doctors who tried to force me to take medication, like my mother.  “If I wasn’t here (here being my current home at the time) then I wouldn’t even be depressed. And I wouldn’t need this f**king medication.”  Ding, ding ding. 

The answer was that I wasn’t depressed. I had the symptoms sure: constant crying, irritability, anxiety, loss of interest in people or things. But the truth is, the symptoms or things we feel, don’t always represent the true circumstance. In this case, there was no doubt that emotionally I felt depressed. But physically/neurologically, I wasn’t. 

It turns out that what I was suffering from was Adjustment Disorder (Situational Depression). Listen, no type of depression is more “real” than the other. They both can present significant challenges. But knowing the differences between the two, is important to what type of treatment you may need and how severe the condition is. Situational Depression, or Adjustment Disorder, is a short-term form of Depression caused by difficulty adjusting to, or dealing with traumatic events/changes in your life. Recovering from Situational Depression is possible when a person has come to terms with the situation and feelings associated with it. It may sound cliché, but I promise it’s true. When I changed my situation, I changed the way I felt. Finding the right therapist helped tremendously. I’m not saying that you have to run out and get a therapist every time you feel down (although it doesn’t hurt). You have to find what ultimately is effective and best for you. 

Clinical Depression on the other hand, is a bit more complicated. Clinical Depression, or Major Depressive Disorder, is severe enough to get in the way of every day life and basic functioning. Unlike Situational Depression, there are usually several factors, such as your genetics or chemical imbalances in your brain— which is what I was referring to earlier when I said physically & neurologically I wasn’t depressed. In other words, it’s not just about dealing with a difficult situation. If your sadness doesn’t physically alter or effect the neurotransmitters in your brain, there’s a very strong and likely chance that you are not clinically depressed. Of course, only a doctor or psychiatrist can determine that. It still won’t change how you’re feeling or get rid of your pain right away, trust me I understand that. But knowing is really the first step. Recovering from Clinical Depression may require a bit more in depth treatment or more major life style changes. Walks outside and therapy just might not do it. Regardless, that’s perfectly okay too. 

The differences I explained here are only a small, but crucial part of a bigger picture. Once you come to understand that, I assure you you’ve already begun your process in healing— whatever and however that may look like for you. I was able to transform my situation, even though it took tremendous effort at times. It was often a struggle and each day presented difficulties. But not all days were as bad as others. (A hard time). In fact, there were some good ones. Usually being away from my source of stress or sadness contributed to my good days. But still, a good is a good day. It was those few good days that helped me eventually separate myself from my mother’s issues, where every day was difficult no matter what. (A hard life). Although we shared similar symptoms, understanding where my Depression came from was a major part in how I chose to move my life forward. It ultimately effected what decisions I made in my treatment and the kind of support I needed around me, it gave me a new perspective on approaching mental illness, and most importantly, it taught me that answers are important. But, only when you know the questions to ask. Particularly, the questions you ask yourself. There goes that part about checking in with yourself, again. And there’s no “perfect” or “proper” way to check in with yourself. You just gotta start somewhere. Asking yourself simple things like “Do I regularly invest in my health? Is there anything I’m holding onto right now that I could let go of? Is my sadness effecting me from functioning daily?” It forever changed my life. I believe and pray, it can change yours too. 

For more information, symptoms, and treatment options regarding MDD or AD, feel free to check out some of these links: 

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314698.php

https://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-types#1

https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/April-2017/Situational-Symptoms-or-Serious-Depression-What-s

With love and overstanding,

- LG