#therapy!!! the thing you just experienced was therapy!!!

[thebibliosphere]

Calling you out for excellent self-talk strategies.

I’ve noticed in your posts about ongoing health that you often finish up with something along the lines of “I am experiencing Situations and Limitations, and this is ok. It is unpleasant, but still ok”

(Ok as in morally neutral, not as in everything is fine and normal and should be ignored)

And like… I can’t articulate how much I appreciate seeing that. It’s helpful as an outsider to see things put into context like that, and it’s also excellent modeling. Because I try so hard to talk to myself the same way, but sometimes it’s… just… really hard. And seeing other people using the same words makes it feel a tiny bit easier, for me, like it’s a little more real. And maybe it is actually ok.

Thank you for noticing, and I’m glad it’s something you find validating.

It’s actually something I’ve learned from radical acceptance therapy.

Too many people think that acceptance means either giving up or that you’ve found a way to be positive about something, when in reality it is a neutral stance.

I work daily to accept the curve balls my complex health needs throw at me. I am not happy about them, and nor do I need to be.

I refuse to embrace toxic positivity and say I am thankful for the challenges I overcome because I am not. No one needs to be thankful for surviving suffering. You are not obligated to find meaning in your pain.

It can just be something that is.

But nor should I view myself as negative.

I can acknowledge that I have negative feelings toward it, but I refuse to assign moral value to my situation because health is morally neutral. I will not berate myself with shoulda, coulda, woulda. That’s the path to madness and one I’ve been down many times before.

It’s far more healthful for me to say, “wow, this sucks. What can I do in this moment to care for myself that is realistic and mindful of my limitations?” and move on from there.

Sometimes the answer is “nothing” in which case I accept that all I can do is rest and be kind to myself over it.

It’s hard. But it’s a skill worth learning.

[cokoweee]

Heavens to Betsy I’ve been meaning to go on this rant forever but I keep forgetting for some reason

Quick disclaimer- I’m not analyzing your comic at all, I just notice little accuracies that make me happy.

~

Ok coming from a psychology major student, your description of PTSD and mental health issues is actually pretty dang good. Idk if it was intentionally researched or not but there’s like a ton of stuff that’s consistent with real life trauma and it’s quite frankly impressive

Again not sure if this was intentional or not but the thing on his back reminds me so much of old school electroshock therapy which I adore bc

A: it causes confusion and memory loss which you’ve shown and

B: kinda implies that maybe he did his own research when deciding how to deal with everything or

C: again is incredibly accurate in the fact that most trauma patients continuously seek pain out, and in turn report feelings of extreme boredom and numbness when not actively experiencing pain or reliving trauma. In his case going borderline catatonic when he’s not freaking out.

On the topic of “freaking out” a lack or decrease in serotonin leads to a more reactive and intense episodes in PTSD. Or, because the little guy is like mega depressed coz of the whole situation, he gets way more intense and violent episodes that someone who was on like Prozac. And would tend to be more on edge and sensitive to triggers.

Then there’s his family. For some background, there’s a part of your brain called the amygdala. It typically works to control basic emotions, but responds very well to fear. In traumatic experiences, it pairs with the hippocampus (the memory center of the brain) to store vivid and occasionally sensory memories.

When a memory trigger is provoked and brought back into consciousness, it actually changes slightly depending on the context of which it recalled. Those memories are changed to fit how we make sense of them. So if he feels guilty for his brothers death, then his memories will reflect it whether or not it’s actually true.

Essentially, him having his brothers showing up all the time (looking the way they do) is really bad for him on multiple levels, and not just because they’re triggering visually. They’re like actually impeding his ability to recover by keeping him in an aggressive form of already intense fight or flight that comes from trauma.

On a happier note, one of the best ways to improve is to establish and nurture caring relationships. Awww

Aight ima stop here so I don’t bore you to death with random psych facts, but like kudos to you my dude because I could go on forever about some of the stuff in there

Uh yeah

-writing anon 🤡

WRITING ANON? SLAPPING OUT ANALYSISSISIS AND SHIT?

Bein real I dont do much research on shit even tho I should. I just go off what I’ve seen/ learned throughout the years. It’s always good to hear I’m doin ahit right tho!

Lowkey right with the shock tho. Or high key lol. Seeking pain there’s other ways people do it but mmm somehow this seemed the tamest way. Oh writing anon u silly lil saltine cracker

[zombiejette]

Cis men will still literally do anything but go to therapy. Even perform therapy on stage to themselves while a captive audience watches their one-man mental breakdown. But real therapy? Never heard of her.

[bugmistake]

been getting really into sitting in the dark with my headphones on. this is a nothing post. mutuals come over and sit in the dark with me

[alliswyattonthewesternfront]

while i'm on the topic of my weird 19th century style childhood. when i got chicken pox as a kid, my sores became really badly infected, much more so than my siblings. i was scolded for picking them too much - even though i wasn't picking much at all because i was too weak to itch the pox sores most of the time.

for several weeks i was in a cycle of being made to take oatmeal bath after oatmeal bath, scolded for picking my sores and"faking sick to get out of going to church", and still somehow getting sicker every day. a mystery.

my bellybutton eventually turned into a black boil with a cracked and oozing center, and after 3 days of that and me refusing to wear any clothing but a very worn old navy T-shirt dress, my mom finally took me to a real doctor. i was around 8, i think? i vividly remember laying in that final oatmeal bath and thinking that if i turned my head to the left and took a deep breath i wouldn't have to hurt anymore. not even in a depressed or suicidal way! that was just the most practical solution my childbrain could come up with lol.

i told my mom about those thoughts on the drive to the hospital, and (sing along if you know this one) she told me to stop being so dramatic.

anyhow, it turns out my pox sores had become a staph infection. i was on an IV drip for, idk, maybe a day? time is fuzzy. one of the nurses told my mom if she'd waited even one more day, there wouldn't have been anything they could have done. i know that shit had that bitch feeling guilty because i got a milkshake on the drive home. a SONIC milkshake, so the whole thing was worth it tbh

[thethingything]

local man discovers he's gotten into the habit of using DBT techniques without actually being taught them because at some point he realised that the things we get the urge to do when we have strong emotions often aren't healthy and that he doesn't like how he feels afterwards so he started noticing when that was happening and going "fuck that shit" and doing the opposite instead

[seventeendeer]

just played sonic frontiers for the first time for a couple hours and in my professional Sonic Expert(tm) opinion, we need to crowdfund therapy for whoever directed this game. or, if I ever manage to locate the willpower to finish this fucking game, for me

[lokh]

being aware of your own shortcomings but not knowing how to fix it. sooooo frustrating lol <3

[regallibellbright]

Both my brother and father are frequent GMs for the ttrpgers in our social circle. They also each play in the other’s game.

This leads to fun situations like a week or two ago when my brother brought up giant undersea scorpions being a thing that exists in casual conversation.

Dad: That’s coming up in a game.

Bro: (His girlfriend, who plays in Bro’s) already forbade them.

Mom: *laughing* I love that you both went straight there. You and she just knew he’d do that.

Me: Who do you think he learned from? And who plays in his games and therefore KNOWS exactly what he’d do?

Bro is, I believe, the one who suggested to Dad back when we were still kids the phrase “carnivorous crickets,” before realizing he was giving the GM ideas. Horrifying arthropods are in fact part of his GMing style.

So anyway, Dad’s the GM tonight, Bro’s visiting his girlfriend, so I just heard the alarm go off and Dad go “time to go kill some adventurers.”

I told him to have fun.

[crockettmarcel]

um. I think that there should be mandatory therapy for everyone at med. they’re all a little bit fucked if I’m honest

[dxxtruction]

///

[dancerfelix]

Guy who got so much new trauma it actually might have given me a personality shift again

[princesssarcastia]

the problem with repression is that it's like carrying tension in your jaw. i would know, i do both. the problem is that even once you realize you're doing it, you can't stop doing it. you can only jolt to awareness a few minutes or hours or even days into the process and try to consciously will yourself to stop. and you have to do that every single time, because somehow, without you noticing, your body trained itself to do these things in good and bad times both.

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt my dupes some more, and it's such a joy imagining them working together to try and invent new stuff for their needs with their limited resources, especially when it comes to the guys anywhere but the main colony where the only actual scientist lives lol

[spirithaus]

trying to find a therapist but like half the ones near me who take my insurance publicly base their practice on pseudo science. can i just die

[volinare]

It's kinda like before anti-psycotics I experienced my innerworld, my subconscious, the observable world, and other people innerworlds all on top of each other. They mixed together and when information was missing it was hard to tell as it was all so messy.

All those realities still exist, and they still exist all at the same time. Now, they are all the same world, instead of layered realities. Delusions no longer exist in bubbles that I get stuck in but as a part of the world that contradicts or doesn't contradict other parts.

The world is like nothing else. I'm still depressed, suicidal, and delusional. But now I can like sorta feed my self and keep my body clean. I had all the tools before to do so, but my entire life I couldn't keep up and I never knew why. I thought maybe trauma and autism, those still play a part but like literally my life is just. Exactly the same but I shower and pick up things I don't want to step on off the floor.

My self awareness too. It's always been a struggle for me to understand how I'm perceived. I'm constantly, as I think most people do, reflecting, making changes, and grieving. But now progress is more satisfying. I can make plans that have more moving parts and understand situations without that sliding reality feeling. Even if my actual follow through is the same.

I dissociate a lot still

I tend to react well to medications and antipsychotics are nothing to mess around with. But I but a lot of thought (I was lucky to be able to) into starting them and the results just. They weren't what I was expecting. Like, I expected them to work, but like. like look at this I wrote this long silly post that stays on topic and moves between subtopics. I didn't even plan that. My thoughts are just. Literally organized. And I was able to write in an organic way before my delusions got worse last year, but it still wasn't like this and I wasn't always able to.