#questioning ptsd

[shayandwildlifepack]

Little vent from us. We are kinda going through some shit rn.

We don't think there are any tw/cw but if there are let us know.

What do you do when you realize that you might not be able to work a "normal" job or maybe any job at all ever?

What do you do when you realize that your disabilities affect what you are able to do in ways that are so against what you wanted to do and what you wish you could do?

What do you do when disabilities are actually disabling?

What do you do when other people don't understand even when they are disabled themselves?

What do you do in any situations where disabilities affect what happens?

What do you do when you need to tell people and make them understand that you are disabled and that means you can't do the same things as others?

- Shay 🐾

What do you do when you are disabled?

[leafyeyes417]

So Danny had tried, he really had. He had moved to Gotham because he knew his parents wouldn’t look for him there. They had never found out he was Phantom but things had reached the point where both he and Jazz decided to go no contact.

But back to his problem. He had worked out with Frostbite that he actually only had one obsession, Space. He had been happy to know that, he had been getting tired of the constant struggle to keep both ghosts and humans safe while also dealing with ghost hunters.

So his move to Gotham was both to avoid his parents but also the reassurance that there were multiple heroes taking care of things. He had enjoyed the peace for the first three months but then he had started to get twitchy. He had tried getting some hobbies but by month six he knew he was out of options. He had especially clued in when he noticed a few classmates avoiding him thinking he was about to snap. Jazz had been resigned when he let her know the news.

So that’s why he was now sitting on a conspicuous roof, wearing a mask made in the Infinite Realms, waiting for a Bat or Bird to show up. He was coming out of retirement after all. Hopefully he would be able to work with the Bats instead of working around them. He really didn’t want to end up on the Rogue list.

[diamondnokouzai]

if magneto knew what the internet was then he would post to r/aita as often as possible and all his posts would be the top posts of the year. thats the kind of drama hes going through. he also gets permabanned from r/mutants for advocating violence

[sp0o0kylights]

I'm rewatching S3 and there's a part at the very end of the 7th episode where Mike tells Dustin he couldn't understand half of what he said over the walkie.

Dustin responds by going: "Goddamn low battery"

AND STEVE, our BOY responds by going "How many times do I have to tell you with the low battery!?"

WHICH MEANS: this is a situation that's happened before, specifically, happened enough between the two of them that Steve's bitched multiple times about how Dustin needs to replace his batteries more often bc he lets them go low.

So either somewhat vigilant Steve is canon OR (the more likely scenario canon wise) Dustin bothers the living shit out of Steve with the walkie and Steve just casually accepts this as part of their friendship, and gets annoyed when Dustin's battery dies on the reg lol.

[sexhaver]

Why are people acting like if you trigger a single veteran's PTSD every single person who suffers from it will have theirs triggered at the same time. Like I know why - this is tumblr - but still.

funnily enough i just got someone in my replies answering this exact anon for me

[aethersea]

it is funny though how kids' shows are so so so careful about death, no one's ever killed except MAYYYYBE the big bad, all those random side characters are fine, here have a quick shot of them before we leave just so you know they really did survive that 50-foot drop into a stormy sea,

and meanwhile kids' books nearly all agree that it's not an adventure until it has a body count.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Sasha using the title "Lord" in RiAAU after taking over Toad Tower and presumably killing Grime and stealing Barrel's Warhammer from him, and other political and military leaders assuming she's a man because, well, Sasha is a gender neutral name, so they hear Lord Sasha and assume they're talking about an adult male toad warrior. The second most powerful person in the known world and only real threat to the Leviathan reign!

Cue princess Marcy fleeing Newtopia and her father seeking refuge with his worst enemy hoping to offer information and political levarage in exchange for protection, perhaps even offering herself in marriage to transfer eventual inheritances and whatnot, and she finds out that Lord Sasha is not, indeed, a dark and domineering toad warlord, but a beautiful, terrifying girl her age that looks like her and oh god her poor little lesbian heart can barely take it.

[neurodivergency-meme-hub]

GENERAL NEURODIVERGENT EXPLORATION ASK MEME — EXTENDED VERSION

For muses with any form of neurodivergence—diagnosed or self-identified, visible or invisible, singular or overlapping. This meme encourages complexity, honesty, and introspection.

This meme is crafted to respectfully reflect the wide spectrum of neurodivergent identities and experiences—including but not limited to autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, Tourette’s, OCD, schizophrenia, BPD, PTSD, DID, and more. It's designed for nuanced character development, trauma-informed introspection, and storytelling with depth.

---

IDENTITY & AWARENESS

1. When did your character first suspect that their mind worked differently from others?

2. Are they formally diagnosed, self-diagnosed, or undiagnosed? How do they feel about that status?

3. What labels (if any) do they claim with pride, hesitation, or ambivalence?

4. How do they describe their neurodivergence to someone they trust vs. a stranger?

5. How has their understanding of themselves changed over time—especially regarding their brain/mind?

---

MASKING, STIGMA & AUTHENTICITY

6. What parts of themselves do they hide to “pass” as neurotypical?

7. What emotional toll does masking take on them over time?

8. Who makes them feel safe enough to be unfiltered, unscripted, or raw?

9. How do they react to being misunderstood—fight, flight, fawn, freeze, or shut down?

10. What’s one moment where they chose authenticity over acceptance—and paid for it?

---

EXPERIENCES OF SYSTEMS (SCHOOL, MEDICAL, WORKPLACE)

11. How have institutional settings (school, work, clinics) handled their neurodivergence—for better or worse?

12. Have they ever been misdiagnosed, pathologized, or dismissed by professionals?

13. What accommodations do they need—and which ones do they actually receive?

14. What’s one system they’ve learned to hack, bypass, or subvert to survive?

15. How do they handle authority, especially when it invalidates or misunderstands their needs?

---

RELATIONSHIPS, TRUST & COMMUNITY

16. How do they approach relationships: cautiously, enthusiastically, unevenly?

17. What does “being too much” mean to them—and who first said it?

18. Who was the first person to see them fully and respond with acceptance?

19. Do they feel connected to a neurodivergent community? Or do they feel isolated even among peers?

20. What’s something another neurodivergent person once said that they never forgot?

---

EMOTIONAL & SENSORY LANDSCAPE

21. What sensory input do they crave, avoid, or feel ambivalent about?

22. How do they respond to emotional intensity—both their own and others’?

23. What does burnout look like for them? How do they know they’re close to it?

24. What’s their nervous system like on a baseline day: overclocked, under-responsive, scattered, stormy, numb?

25. How do they self-regulate—through movement, rituals, solitude, creativity, or other strategies?

---

TRAUMA, NEURODIVERGENCE & OVERLAPS

26. How has trauma shaped the expression of their neurodivergence?

27. Are they dealing with co-occurring conditions (C-PTSD, dissociation, anxiety, etc.)?

28. What’s their relationship with memory—fragmented, unreliable, hyper-detailed, or warped?

29. Do they experience time or identity in unusual ways (e.g., time blindness, depersonalization, multiplicity)?

30. How do they separate what is them from? What is a response to trauma or survival?

---

CREATIVITY, RESILIENCE & POWER

31. What form of creativity or problem-solving comes naturally to them—even if it’s undervalued by society?

32. How do they adapt under pressure? What unconventional strengths emerge when others flounder?

33. What have they had to teach themselves because no one else taught it their way?

34. What’s one thing they’ve built, created, or accomplished that reflects their unique cognition?

35. How do they define "thriving" on their own terms?

---

PHILOSOPHY, RECLAMATION & RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

36. What’s one thing they used to hate about themselves that they now see as sacred?

37. How do they respond to the idea of “normal”? Do they mourn it, mock it, or reject it entirely?

38. What does liberation look like—for their mind, body, and nervous system?

39. What parts of their neurodivergence are non-negotiable, integral, essential?

40. If they were free from stigma, survivalism, and shame—who would they become?

[silverthelovebug]

We never really got to see them hang out one on one during the events of Camp Cretaceous (except once, and they were competing to see who’s lack of a childhood gave them the better skill set so) Idk, we only get a snippet of their dynamic in Chaos Theory, I just think their friendship (especially as adults) would be pretty interesting :3

(Yes, some of these are headcanons ^^)

(Look, you don’t just sprain/break your ankle on concrete and not have lasting consequences without the proper treatment. Yaz was running on that foot on the daily !! And you can see it still affected her all the way through Season 3 !!! So, yeah, Hits her with the chronic pain beam)

( ‼️Also Major Chaos Theory Spoilers ‼️)

[autumnsunshine10]

What was I

When monsters performed

Pirouettes below the bed I slept

And visions crept in my head

Extra ships extruded through cracks

In bottles, caps screwed on loosely

Mother Goose with a garden hose

Duck duck noose no mystery

Madcap madness sheer lunacy

Caught me on the slide and kissed me

Plucking petals to feed the wind

I'm loved, I'm loved not

Even now taking a magnifying glass

To the past clears nothing up

Good thing who I become

Isn't set in stone by

What I was

Prompts: needing to say it was madness; extra ships; what was I

[lesbiansunsetshimmer]

The Professor Layton series is so fascinating because you’ve got this silly lil puzzle game with some silly little characters who have the most insane trauma happen to them, but they just never speak of it again?

Like, there’s no place for it in the narrative of the games, it would be weird for them to bring up the trauma of previous games in other games (especially since a lot of people only play one or play them out of order), but also there’s just so much storytelling potential there that is wasted. And truly it keeps me up at night.

[bbcphile]

Mysterious Lotus Casebook and Complex PTSD Representations: Part I

One of my favorite things about Mysterious Lotus Casebook is how surprisingly nuanced and unusual its portrayal of complex PTSD is. So many shows either introduce character trauma to make the character Sad and Brooding, Angry and Violent (if they’re a villain) or Hesitant to Start a Relationship (if it’s a romance), and that’s usually as in-depth as it gets. If they address the unique after effects of child abuse that lead to complex PTSD at all, it’s usually either explain why a character is a homicidal monster (which is all sorts of problematic) or it’s limited to a single phobia, which can be overcome by the Power of Love, or it’s just something that crops up occasionally for Plot and then forgotten about the rest of the time. 

Mysterious Lotus Casebook gives us two deeply traumatized characters–Li Lianhua and Di Feisheng–who each have clear symptoms of complex PTSD, and yet, their cPTSD manifests completely differently because of the types of traumas that caused it and their relationships to the people causing the traumas. And their manifestations of cPTSD affect just about every level of their being, including their sense of self, their decision-making, and their relationships with others, and it includes some of the incredibly important manifestations of cPTSD that are almost never shown in media while avoiding the most insulting stereotypes! 

PTSD vs cPTSD

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is an anxiety disorder caused by experiencing a single (or short lived) traumatic event (an accident, assault, medical emergency, fighting in a war, etc), where the symptoms last for longer than a month. Symptoms include things like reexperiencing the event (flashbacks), avoidance (of things related to the event), changes in mood (depression, anger, fear, etc), and issues with emotional regulation (hypervigilance–being constantly on the lookout for threats–irritability/angry outbursts, etc.).

Complex PTSD happens if someone has experienced long term, chronic/repeated trauma that induces hopelessness and no chance of escape (survivors of extended child abuse, human trafficking, domestic violence, prisoners of war, slavery, etc.). It’s also often interpersonal in ways a car crash or medical emergency is not, and is particularly linked with chronic trauma during childhood: chronic stress hormones introduce literal physical changes in a growing brain, particularly the amygdala (which processes fear), hippocampus (which is responsible for learning/memory), and the prefrontal cortex (which is responsible for executive function), so it can affect every aspect of life and also affect a child’s progression through developmental stages. In addition to these physical changes to the brain, the prolonged trauma–particularly the helplessness–distorts a child’s sense of self, the perpetrator, and the world in ways that alter their decision making, their memory, and their future relationships. 

For instance, whereas a traumatic event that caused PTSD might make you depressed or not trust the person who harmed you (or to fear driving), the trauma from cPTSD might make you suicidal, blame yourself for your victimization, decide to isolate to avoid interpersonal relationships to keep from getting hurt, or become obsessed with never being harmed again.

Basically, cPTSD has the core symptoms from PTSD with some extra challenges, including issues with emotional regulation, self-concept, interruptions in consciousness, difficulties with relationships, perceptions of the perpetrator, and systems of meaning.

DFS and LLH: CPTSD Symptoms

There’s so much more to say about this than I can cover in this superficial introduction, so this will be the first of a series of metas; I’m hoping to go into more depth about some of these categories in future posts (the DFS and emotional regulation/violence one is already drafted, so stay tuned). 

Difficulties with Relationships (problems with trust, communication, missing red flags): Both DFS and LLH have a history of trusting the wrong people and not trusting the right people, both in the past and in the present of the show: in the past, LLH missed the fact that SGD hated him and DFS missed the fact that JLQ was obsessed with him, and as a result, both sects were destroyed, many people died, and the two almost destroyed each other. If they had communicated with each other instead of fighting at the donghai battle, they might have realized they were being set up and could have worked together, but their difficulties with trust after perceived betrayal made that impossible for them. They both have a history of overlooking red flags in the present–DFS in particular, keeping the red-flag-personified-JLQ around despite her history of poisoning people, including himself–and they both tend to struggle with relationships in the present: LLH runs away from and/or drugs the people who care about him, and DFS sends endless mixed messages by not telling Li Lianhua most of his plans to help him. 

Self-Concept (Self-hatred and self-fragmentation): Li Lianhua is basically the poster child for having a negative self concept: he has an overdeveloped sense of self-blame and responsibility, even believing he deserves to die for leading his men to their deaths, and once he learns he was manipulated and SGD was behind it all, he seems to think it’s his own fault that he was manipulated, lied to, and abused. His self-loathing is so extreme that he imagines his earlier self, Li Xiangyi, to have died, and tries as much as possible to be nothing like that earlier persona. His repeated insistence that Li Xiangyi and Li Lianhua are NOT the same person is reminiscent of the fragmentary sense of self that comes with more extreme trauma, like Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or Other-Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD), where traumatic experiences are so painful that people form different alters, or differentiated self-states, that can have different names and skills and memories and identities. 

Di Feisheng doesn’t have the self-hatred or guilt that LLH does, and it seems like he tries to skip over questions of self worth, blame, or hatred by focusing exclusively on staying true to his code of ethics he’s developed for himself and focusing on gaining the strength necessary to fight for his freedom from mind control and the Di Fortress. But even though he’s kept his Di name, kept his goals the same since escaping Di Fortress, and hasn’t tried to separate himself from his trauma the way LLH did with LXY, he’s even more willing than LLH to take on different identities: it’s literally one of his martial arts skills. The Bone Constriction Skill lets him become someone else for a time, whether that’s a child or Shi Hun. It fits well with his willingness to be whoever he needs to be to accomplish his goals: he’s perfectly willing to be seen as a heartless villain if it lets him protect LLH, and he’s willing to flirt with and pretend to be jealous of JLQ to get information from her, and he’s willing to be LLH’s a-Fei, both with and without his memories.

Interruptions in Consciousness (Amnesia and nightmares for Everyone): LLH and DFS both have nightmares and flashbacks/memories of traumatic events, and as mentioned above, both have interesting hints of having fragmented/fluid senses of self. They both also dissociate, or separate themselves from the present when dealing with traumatic things:  LLH spaces out and gets stuck in his past memories about SGD when talking to FDB after burying SGD, and DFS dissociates from physical pain so as not to make noise both after he’s been stabbed and poisoned with Wuxin Huai and again when JLQ is torturing him in her water dungeon.

They both also have dissociative amnesia that takes away trauma memories, although one is from a poisonous incense plus the magic of qi macgyvering:  LLH forgot the existence of his older brother who died in front of him, and DFS as a-Fei had just about all of his memories (except a few of killing as a child) taken away. Amnesia is a huge part of cPTSD, because it’s the brain’s way of trying to protect you from truths that you might not survive. It can manifest as blocking out one single traumatic event, a bunch of thematically or temporally linked traumatic events, a skill set related to the trauma, or, in the case of something like DID or OSDD, just about everything. It’s endlessly fascinating to me that the show gives us one example of definite traumatic amnesia through LLH, and then seems to almost transform the experience of having DID and being a new part and finding yourself with a new name and very little else into an exaggerated fantasy setting (interestingly, people often report experiencing debilitating headaches when they try to regain memories behind the amnesia barrier). I doubt this is what they were actually going for, since DID is almost universally portrayed incorrectly and offensively in media (one of the alters is almost always portrayed as a serial killer, but that’s a rant for another day), but the different names and the presence of amnesia with LLH made it a fascinating enough parallel that I had to mention it.

 Problems with Emotional Regulation (Lashing in vs. lashing out): Li Xiangyi and Di Feisheng are polar opposites when it comes to struggles with emotional regulation: whereas LXY turns his anger inward, directing it all toward self-hate in what’s often called a “toxic shame spiral,” both after the donghai battle and after he finds out about SGD’s role in his shifu’s death, DFS lashes out physically at those who have harmed him, usually via choking people, although he is usually exerting an impressive amount of control over his emotions and strength. To put in perspective just how different their emotional strategies are and how much effort DFS puts into emotional regulation, compare how much more calm he is than LLH during any revelation of past betrayal or painful information, any scene where they confront the people who have abused them, or any scene where they learn they’ve been wrong about something big; LLH is most likely having an emotional flashback (re-experiencing the emotions from the earlier traumas) and DFS is probably compartmentalizing them or dissociating from them to process later/never so he can stay semi-functional and not show a potential opponent a weak spot. 

NOTE: This means that DFS is loooong overdue for a very dramatic breakdown when it eventually all catches up to him and he can’t distract himself from it anymore.

Perceptions of Perpetrators: In this way only, Di Feisheng has one advantage: he knows the head of Di Fortress is a cruel, abusive tyrant. While he clearly still fears him, even as a physically strong adult (he has nightmares, flashbacks, and dedicates his life to being free from him, which means he still to some extent feels young, small, and helpless when he thinks of him), DFS knows that he hates him and wants to be free of him. This is probably part of why he’s spared some of the self-hatred LLH experiences: he knows he didn’t deserve the abuse because seeing it happen to other children means he knows the abuse wasn’t a personal reflection on him. It does, however, motivate him to want to be stronger and invulnerable so as to never be helpless again, and that obsession is what drives him to have a single-minded focus on reaching the pinnacle of the jianghu.  

It’s so much more complicated for Li Lianhua (and for a more detailed analysis, check out this meta): the childhood perpetrators were manifold–a slew of bandits, whichever children and adults on the street would abuse him for existing and being poor–it probably felt like life itself was to blame. It’s no wonder that when his shifu and shiniang took him in, they were the ultimate rescuers whom he hero-worshipped, so when he felt he made a mistake and his life fell apart, he blamed himself: at least there would be someone to blame that way and something he could do about it (try to kill his past self and hate everything about him). It’s also very telling that LLH doesn’t blame JLQ or YBQ all that much when he learns they poisoned him, and that he’s more angry that SGD murdered their shifu than he is that SGD set him up, hated him, and was the real mastermind behind everything he had blamed himself for; he struggles to stay angry at people who harm him, and would rather blame and hate himself for being tricked than hate the person who tricked him. So, whereas DFS tries to destroy the people who abused him, LLH tries to destroy himself.

If you read this far, thanks! I’m probably going to be posting the DFS and emotional regulation/violence against perpetrator meta next, because it’s drafted, but if there are any of these you desperately want me to talk about more sooner rather than later, let me know! :D 

[bl0oregardf0ster]

Did something i found on Pinterest lmao

[surrtasm]

Im back 1 hour later with my own nameless oc

U might recognize the second piece, as it isn't new

[kaidee-koo]

TW: Vent/cuss words

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Im so fucking tired of everyone saying my regression is weird. Im so fucking tired of everyone saying thinking theres shit wrong with me. Dont you know I already know that? Dont you understand shes gone? Dont you understand that IM here now? And dont you fucking understand that Im trying to heal HIM?

She was killed, now I am all thats left and if thats not good enough for you then fuck off

[yingdu-lover]

angel cheng xiaoshi selfcest and creepy ghost cheng xiaoshi being jealous of next timeline cheng xiaoshi and seducing lu guang AU were NOT in my 2025 bingo card.