#(Still tho. Believe me I GET the mental instability and depression–

[sskk-manifesto]

Wow I sure love being psychologically tortured by an anime

[simptasia]

neurodivergence in abc’s lost

i’m gonna be listing off and talking about the canon neurodivergent characters in lost. i won’t be adding characters that i personally headcanon as neurodivergent in some way, what i’m writing here is elaboration upon what has been given to me by the show. please note that none of these people’s conditions or disorders were named in the show, so such diagnoses being named here are me taking that extra step based upon their symptoms

first of all i wanna point out that based on what i’ve seen the show, that the island’s healing powers applies to conditions inflicted upon the mind, not ones inherent to the mind. thats why daniel’s brain damage heals, but people like hurley and locke will always continue to have depression

hugo “hurley” reyes

schizophrenia and depression

our most prominently featured mentally ill character. it might seem bold to label him with schizophrenia when it’s never said that that’s what he has. but during his time on lost, he displays many of the symptoms: paranoia, pathological self loathing, delusions and hallucinations. now, it’s a fictionalized depiction of schizophrenia and that’s probably not even what the writers had in mind but it’s none the less a really, really good and respectful portrayal of it

it would take too long to list off all the times when hurley displays paranoia (heck, it’s easy not to notice how much its a part of his character) and self loathing. delusions? the situations regarding the numbers and his bad luck (canon never ever Proves what hurley believes to be true regarding that stuff)

they did an episode dedicated to hurley having hallucinations. a man named dave who drives him to self destructive behaviour, self hatred and attempted suicide. fun fact: when people with schizophrenia in real life have hallucinations, they tend towards just auditory. hurley gets visual as well as per Rule Of Drama. this is not a bad thing, just a narrative tool

(steering slightly into headcanon for a bit here but i personally ignore the dharma made Hurley Bird they revealed in the epilogue and just take hurley hearing that bird say his name as an auditory hallucination. for two reasons: one, hurley hearing/seeing things that don’t exist is already consistent with his mental state. and two, that bird literally, genuinely did not fucking say hurley)

extra notes

to be clear, in case there's confusion, hurley really does have magical powers. he can talk to dead people. that isn’t a delusion or hallucination. you can understand how confusing and distressing this must be for hurley

he's had a compulsive eating disorder since he was ten due to the pain of his father abandoning him. his struggle with this is well documented

at several points during the show he’s shown to have trouble spelling. he especially confuses his “y(s)” and “ies”. it’s not clear if this is due to poor education or a learning issue. or both, really. it’s safe to assume with him being poor, mexican and mentally ill, that school wasn’t easy for hurley

hurley has unjustifiably lived at mental health institutions on at least two occasions (the first time was against his will, second was volunteer)

john locke

depression

locke suffers from severe self esteem issues, and i know most lost characters do, but i mean to the point of irrational and destructive behaviour. he has an obsession with being deemed special in order to justify his existence. he also suffers jarring mood swings. (he can switch from calm and jovial to angry and defensive at the drop of a hat). when he was wheelchair bound, this threw him into a depression. when he failed to convince anybody to come back to the island, he attempted suicide. he would have gone thru with it too. he will go to extremes to make sure things stay the way he wants them to (killing an innocent woman so they can stay on the island, tying up and drugging boone so he won’t tell anybody about the hatch), and will fall into despair if he fails

also note that the things im saying about locke are not a comment on people with depression. i don’t think all depressed people kill and drug people. those were statements on locke’s character that i believe are a part of his mental state. my point is: he’s emotionally unstable and he tried to kill himself. and i think his extreme need for validation (from people and the universe in general) is especially concerning

to me, this all says to me that locke has clinical depression

locke isn’t as easy as the other people on this list to classify as Canon Neurodivergent but at least to me, i think it’s very obvious. like i feel bad being so vague but like, basically, watch any locke episode

daniel faraday

acquired brain damage, severe memory degradation as well as other neurodivergent behaviours (i’ll go into it)

he’s played by jeremy davies. enough said

okay, jokes aside. at some point in the past daniel and his assistant theresa were involved in some vaguely referred to time based experiments. while she was catatonicized, the accident left daniel severely brain damaged (also daniel spent years doing radioactive experiments without head protection, which would not have helped and indeed that is foreshadowing of this whole debacle)

apparently this left him in a state where he can no longer take care of himself, having been assigned a carer. his most outstanding symptom is that his ability to process short AND long term memory has been impaired

short term: he’s shown to have issues retaining memories from day to day. he wasn’t sure if he had met charles widmore already (he hadn’t). charles lays some exposition on him and when daniel asks why he’s telling him this, charles says, with sureness, that “because by tomorrow you won’t remember this”. counting on that to be an absolute fact seems silly to me but that does seem to the case. again, Rule Of Drama is in play here

long term: he can no longer access memories he formed many years ago, famously the memories he formed with desmond in 1996. all in all, this condition is highly plot convenient. can’t argue with results, really

no, i can keep going, i got more, this is daniel fucking faraday we’re talking about: his ability to remember 3 playing cards has been impaired (note that this is a skill most 4 year olds master), he forgot the secret code the science team were all taught and when he introduces himself to jack there is a long pause, in hindsight implying that daniel forgot his own name

like real life memory conditions, theres varying level to how much he does and doesn’t remember. he’s thankfully not in a 50 first dates situation and doesn’t forget everything day to day. clearly he remembers people if they’re around enough, like during his time on the boat. charlotte, miles, frank, naomi...

upon landing on the island, his memory slowly gets better (considering his condition beforehand, the fact that nobody comments on this is staggering)

when dan is fully healed? i could not say, i could theorize, but such things are nebulous. but still, the times we see dan without his brain damage, he still behaves like a neurodivergent person. just not like he was when he was brain damaged. he stims near constantly, has a tendency to repeat names and words (echolalia) and it’s shown that dan compulsively counts in his head. he counted up to 864 beats, if i remember correctly, which is about 10 minutes of counting in his head. by no stretch of the imagination is that neurotypical behaviour

(im not trying to sound defensive. and i don’t think anybody, anywhere, is arguing that daniel faraday is a neurotypical. unfathomable)

going into headcanon territory again, his ND traits, when not brain damaged, say to me that he’s autistic and/or has OCD and possibly anxiety. thats all theorizing on my part tho. but the fact of the matter is, damage or no, he’s neurodivergent

notes

his apparent need for tactile sensory input is legendary in the lost fandom. in layman’s terms: him pet pet. not just people but objects too. humans, overall, tend to touch things to process input better. many ND people do it more, and it seems daniel is a case of that (i am not making a solid statement on jeremy davies’ neuro state. that’s his business)

he shows an inability to properly process grief

he also shows shocking indifference to his own safety, resulting in reckless behaviour. how much of this is a result of his mental state or his upbringing is up for debate. i think it’s a combo of both

without his brain damage, he appears to have an eidetic memory

danielle rousseau

trauma induced mental illness

pretty self explanatory. the loss of her expedition, husband and daughter, as well as 16 years of loneliness (on THIS island) has resulted in emotional instability for danielle. she’s prone to paranoia, trust issues, irrational behaviour

she’s just not well. she’s right most of the time but she’s not well

libby smith

indeterminate mental state 

libby was institutionalized (the same place hurley was sent to) and placed on medication (which seemed like sedatives to me, based on her expressions). in the show it’s not what clear what put her there, but having just done some research, i’ve discovered that Word Of God says that libby became mentally unstable after the death of her husband dave smith. so this is probably another case of trauma induced mental illness. she must have had a pretty extreme episode to cause her to be sent to a place like that. something to think about

but alas, it’s libby, so not much info. moving on

benjamin linus

anti social behaviour disorder (is my best guess)

oof. depictions of mental illness with characters who are immoral are depictions of mental illness nonetheless. i feel almost silly saying this but: ben is not... okay

ben displays issues (at best) with empathy, compassion and morality. how much he cares about other people is highly debatable but one thing that's certain is that he does genuinely love his daughter. everybody else is ????

but the loving alex thing rules out him being a sociopath or having narcissistic personality disorder. and it is genuine because when he loses it with grief, it’s not a performance, because the only audience is us...

he’s a compulsive liar, lying even when it doesn’t benefit him. lying just because. ben is highly unpredictable, which isn’t inherently a neurodivergent thing, but when a person goes from a calm discussion to strangling somebody, all roads point to Uh Oh (i don’t know the technical terms for Uh Oh). many of his outward emotions are performed (the difference between his fake smiles and few real smiles is noticeable). he’s manipulative, he treats people like objects for his benefit/plans, he’s self absorbed, he has zero issues with murder unless it’s a child. he does have some moral standards. but overall, uh, [just gestures at ben]

also ben is repeatedly offended when other people don’t trust him, which is HILARIOUS, but also shows a cognitive dissonance on his part

hmm i need more here, im gonna break out the big guns

that’s some basic info there and doesn’t that line up with ben?

the article goes on to say that people with this can put on superficial charm. that is, behave friendly and “normal” when they have to. which ben is shown to be able to do

and this

“Serious problems with interpersonal relationships are often seen in those with the disorder. Attachments and emotional bonds are weak, and interpersonal relationships often revolve around the manipulation, exploitation, and abuse of others.”

reminds me of his situation with juliet. and locke. and his “friendships” in general

i snipped the wikipedia article for this because unlike the rest i felt,,, underequipped to talk about this sort of thing

ben being mentally unwell is clear enough in canon and i think this disorder is what lines up best with it. please note that ben is capable of change and growth (like people in real life who have such issues) and like the show i’m not gonna paint him 100% evil or irredeemable. i’m just saying what’s true

notes

ben says at one point that he doesn’t dream anymore. it’s highly probably that this is a lie, but if it isn’t, well that's not good. it’d mean his brain isn’t entering into REM sleep properly, which can lead to emotional problems

ben doesn’t blink as much as most people do, something michael emerson did on purpose. this can apply to some neurodivergent people

it’s shown that he was quite nonverbal as a kid. in the flashbacks in “man behind the curtain” little ben barely speaks

honourable mentions

pretty much all the survivors suffer from PTSD due the trauma of the crash

a great deal of the characters suffer from PTSD from trauma in general due to their awful lifes. like, abusive parents, war, loss of loved ones, etc

and i must note that ben, daniel and locke suffering from parental abuse, ranging from emotional to physical, is something to factor into their cases

claire, similar to danielle, also suffered trauma induced mental illness due to the loss of her baby and feeling like she was abandoned

sayid is depicted as dead inside during season 6 due to The Sickness, so thats like a magical form of depression. and one could argue that he already had regular depression beforehand

boone joked about shannon having bulimia. (whether or not it’s true, boone is an asshole) if it’s true, shannon has an eating disorder, which is considered a form of mental illness. espech one so self image based

self harm

self harm is not an inherent part of mental illness but such concepts are often linked so i felt i should mention some of these, it’ll be quick

hurley’s aforementioned eating disorder

charlie takes heroin as a form of self harm (that isn’t a theory on my part, it’s clear as day that charlie started taking it because his sense of self worth was so low that the drugs felt like the only option)

locke, hurley, (both as mentioned above), jack, desmond, michael and richard have all attempted/nearly commited suicide

so what can we conclude from this? well that's up to you, really. that i love lost a fuck ton? that the actors and writing in lost is amazing? that all the neurodivergent based depth got saved for the boys? yeah

but i wanna conclude with this: a part of what makes lost really special to me is that these people i’ve talked out here? they’ve suffered, and oh boy it was tasty suffering, but all of them, yes even libby, were more than suffering

these people have nuance. one way or another, these people (to varying degrees) were happy at times. silly. funny. angry. opinionated. they loved. they were loved. they lived and breathed as human beings. that means a lot to me

lost is a story of broken people given a second chance. take that as you will

thank you for your time

[yaz-the-spaz]

Hey I have a question, nothing to do really with your current convos but I had seen this video about zayn being forced out of the band. I personally don’t believe this because of all the stuff he was going through with his mental health and his ED but the video was saying how naughty boy was paid off and that the zouis fight wasn’t them it was management . They also touched on the subject of zayns contract almost ending and how he would have to pay like (cont)

How he would have to pay a shit ton of money to get out of the band ..which could be total bs idk I have no idea how that works. After googling tho I found like a tweet from naughty boy saying like “zayn who” or something like that. Also how like at the Asian awards he was with Preston which was weird cause Preston works with 1D and zayn was seen with him even after he “wasn’t suppose to”??? I couldn’t really find anything tangible. So I just wanted your opinion on the whole z being forced out

hoooo boyyyy, so this is a complicated question and i would recommend taking a look through my zayn leaving tag after reading this and i’m probably not gonna address every single thing you mentioned here just cause i feel like a lot of it has been talked about ad nauseam and you’ll probably see quite a bit of what i mean when you read through some of the stuff in the tag though i will try to address as much as i can, but i do fully believe that zayn’s departure was not all of his own choosing. emphasis on ‘not all’ because as i always say we’re all speculating here and ofc have no idea of the details of what all actually went down or how it played out but my current standing at the moment, having marinating a lot on the things he’s said and the way he said them over the years in addition to the events surrounding it all (the e.d. and visible weight loss, anxiety and depression ramping up, etc.) and just his character in general, is that if he wasn’t altogether forced out against his will and if it really was his own decision to leave it was because he felt like he had no choice (and therefore was essentially still forced out to some degree imo), whether because he was given some sort of ultimatum or manipulated somehow or felt like it was the only way to save himself and his relationship or what-have-you.

this ofc is gonna get wayyyyyyy long i already know, so putting the rest under a read more…

first off we’ll start with the bit you mentioned about having to pay to get out of the band. if you look at this all from a legal standpoint, there were a ton of contracts that were still in place (marketing/commercials, public appearances, events, the tour/performances, etc.) with the expectation of the participation of the band as a five-person unit, not to mention the contracts up the yin yang they would’ve had with the label and mgmt in general ofc. all of those contracts would have presumably included zayn as a still-standing member of the band at the time, and necessitated his signature/agreement in some shape or form to comply and fulfill whatever obligations those contracts entailed. those don’t just go away overnight. let’s say there were around half a dozen major companies if we’re being modest (i’m sure there was more than that but we’ll just go with that for example’s sake), that they still had existing/standing contracts with to do appearances and endorsement deals or events with. you can’t just call up half a dozen huge companies and be like ‘hey, yeah remember that contract we signed last year where we promised all 5 members of the band would show up to fulfill that obligation you wanted? well, we’re gonna have to cancel, so yeah what do you say we just rip all those up, pretend it never happened, draw up all new contracts for a 4-person band instead, and we’ll call it even?’ hell no. those companies/people are gonna be pissed as hell that they’re not getting what they’re paying for and are gonna want a shit ton of money for nulling/violation of contracts, the paperwork alone would be a mess (a la harry’s joke in the four interviews), not to mention the probable souring of what i’m sure were some long-standing business relationships. all of that is gonna be a huge months-long legal mess, involving lots of lawyers, lots of money, lots of sour feelings all around, lots of legal in-fighting, and back-and-forth paperwork, etc. then you’ve got the contracts zayn had with the label itself (and by proxy, mgmt) which presumably would have included his contractual agreement to finish the tour, be involved in any future albums obligated in their record contract, make appearances, do promo, etc. all of those contracts don’t go away overnight either. so the idea that zayn just woke up one morning, decided to leave, and hopped on a plane and that was that is pretty ludicrous imo esp when you consider all the things a contract can force a person to do even at risk of their mental and physical health (take a look through my contracts tag for more on this and/or look at rebecca ferguson’s situation for example). and even when you look at it from the flip-side, from sony/syco’s pov, when you consider all the things they’ve done just to keep people beholden to their disgusting shitty contracts, it’s absolutely mind-boggling to me how anyone would think they would just let zayn, 1/5 of their biggest money-making enterprise, just up and walk away without suing him up the ass and without any kind of repercussions (just look at kesha, for example). so yes, i fully believe that whether it was fully zayn’s decision to leave or not, he would have had to pay a fuck ton of money and legal fees and go through a fuck ton of shit to get out of all those contracts, and they would not have let him go that easily unless they were getting something they wanted out of it

(and side note: i think his $10 mill drop* in networth compared to the other boys shortly after he left, shows all that pretty clearly too) 

on the matter of him still appearing with 1d staff, that’s honestly the biggest proof there is that he was still connected to the band and to syco/sony even after he supposedly “left” and also a big part of what fueled the rumors/theories that he might still be coming back at the time. because, if i remember right, he was still listed officially as like a share-holder or partner or something in 1d’s business ventures for like a year after he left and also a ton of other legal/business-y stuff. if he had really cut all legal and monetary ties (and contracts) with 1d and syco/sony and every person or company associated with them within those first few days after he left as was claimed, WHY was he still publicly listed as a partner in all of 1d’s business enterprises over a year after he had “left”? why was he still employing/working with people on 1dhq’s payroll months after supposedly severing all contracts with them and everyone related to them? if he really had cut all ties and was completely alone and removed from everyone in 1d and 1dhq as he claimed in interviews and even in his book after the fact, then how was it he was still using 1d’s same security guards and staff? you’re telling me the company he just went through this huge public nasty legal and monetary battle with and violated a shit ton of contracts with to get away from is now totally a-okay with just letting him continue to use their employees? nah fam. literally nowhere in the business world is that believable. if i was with some company for five years, and then just up and quit in the middle of a huge project and cost them a shit ton in legal fees and violated all sorts of business contracts and company rules on my way out, they’re sure as hell not just gonna let me walk right back in and borrow one of their employees for my own private use

as for the zouis twitter fight, considering all the heaping evidence we have of 1dhq abusing using their accounts for nefarious reasons, it’s not at all far fetched to me to think that that fight could have fabricated, esp cause the quote on quote “feud” between them (and between zayn and ot4 in general) really only played out through twitter and print media, and personally i just have a hard time believing anything that plays out strictly through those mediums esp so publicly and also a hard time believing that liam and louis’ friendship would have remained so steady and seemingly positive/strong whilst louis publicly shat on liam’s best friend/boyfriend (depending on what you believe) over social media, though i mean it’s all a matter of opinion, and i’m in no way trying to force you to adopt my point of view if you believe their rift was genuine, that’s just my take on it

anyway, all that said, it has just never made sense to me that he would risk all the monetary and legal blowback/repercussions (not to mention the isolation, public ridicule, and and uncertainty/instability of starting all over with his career and contracts and business connections, etc. all of which one would think, if anything, all the stress of which would only make his mental health worse not better) that quitting the band would entail, especially mid-tour. like why not quit during the break they’d just had a couple months before? or wait it out just a couple more months esp knowing (which i’m sure he did by then) that the hiatus was coming up? and all this happens right before they’re about to go to the very countries that he has the biggest fanbase/the biggest connection to (middle east and northern africa - predominantly muslim countries) for the first time in their careers? it all just seems very fishy. and i also just don’t think he’s so callous as to have left them all high and dry like that in the middle of a tour unless there was some degree of manipulation/enforcement involved, but again that’s just me. take all this as you will and take a look through some of the stuff discussed on those tags i linked above and you can make up your own mind, but feel free to come back here if you have more questions or wanna talk further about any of this, and i hope this long rambly ass dissertation of an answer (sorry lol) finds you well :)

[howilearnedtocope]

Thank you so much for your post on the permanence of mental illness. So many official health websites list a significant amount of mental illnesses as "cannot be cured." I had no idea it was actually possible to fully recover

You’re very welcome! Honestly, I was pretty shocked when I found all of this out. Every single resource I ever read for bipolar emphasized the life long nature extremely hard, and I had no idea that there was any conflicting evidence. And I was even more surprised to find out that BPD isn’t as unchanging as I’d heard either.

 Here are a couple sources I couldn’t fit into the original post.

Young adults may outgrow bipolar disorder Researchers have found evidence that nearly half of those diagnosed between the ages of 18 and 25 may outgrow the disorder by the time they reach 30.

This article references treatment success rates: According to the National Advisory Mental Health Council, the treatment success rate for bipolar disorder is a remarkable 80 percent. The recovery rates for other serious mental illnesses follow suit: major depression (65‐80 percent), schizophrenia (60 percent) and addiction (70 percent).

The Lifetime Course of Borderline Personality Disorder This article summarized a ton of info on BPD - here is one finding: Results extended out to 16 years using a slightly different definition of remission (no longer meeting diagnostic criteria for a period of 2 years or longer) and found that by 16 years, 99% of patients have at least a 2-year period of remission and 78% have a remission lasting 8 years. (This is huge: nearly 4 out of 5 people with BPD experience a period with NO symptoms lasting at least 8 years. Since the remission rate was also found to be very low this sounds an awful lot like recovery). The article also talks about the instability of adolescent diagnoses of BPD (only about 50% meet criteria 2 years later) and how studies have shown BPD traits tend to decrease over time

According to ANRED 60% of people with eating disorders recover fully with treatment, and another 20% recovery partially 

Study showing that Depression and Anxiety rates decrease with age (the introduction to this study cites about a dozen other studies that have shown the same result

About half of people with schiozophrenia recover significantly or completely with treatment  While there may be no cure for schizophrenia, many people with this mental illness can lead healthy and productive lives.“People tend to do pretty well over time,” says Ken Duckworth, MD, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

Note … if reading potentially negative stats about mental illness is upsetting for you, don’t click these links! They all have a fair amount of findings, and while there are some important positive ones there might be stuff that is upsetting too  (a real percentage of people don’t recover, maybe you have additional risk factors to not recover like I did, sometimes people who are counted as recovered still have some symptoms or issues, etc). While I find this inspiring and interesting now, I think when I was really mentally ill reading through these would have probably made me even more hopeless than before, despite all of the positives they do show!

However, after going back and forth about this, I decided it was worth sharing these just because I want to show that it IS possible to recover, even from severe mental illness, and to provide a bit of proof that I’m basing this on real info. I don’t think it’s good to fixate on specific stats for a variety of reasons (you may be one of the luckier ones, you may still have symptoms down the road but be okay with it even tho that thought is upsetting now, treatment is always improving so these numbers might get better, etc) and because fixating on specific stats can be used in an unhealthy way to try and make yourself feel hopeless. 

But … at the end of the day, there are lots of studies out there showing recovery, or at least improvement over time. Just believing in that fact can change so much

PS. Again - not trying to minimize the severity of these illnesses or the residual issues some have after they no longer meet criteria. Also not trying to make a promise or guarantee. Just want to show that the possibility exists bc honestly my medical team & resources did a terrible job of educating me about this and I honestly thought you were doomed to severe symptoms your whole life …

[confringo-]

2017 Goals So Far

Hi. I fucked up a lot, but I’m still going. 

1. Finish Rewriting Derek’s Laugh His Smile, His Laugh by December 31, 11:59PM. 

Okay. I’m basically halfway through the book. I’m also second-guessing myself and thinking that this is a complete mess and I’ve wasted all my time, energy, money into something that will fail at the same time I try not to put that out in the universe because thoughts are things (???? yup that’s something I believe in now I guess?????). I’m trying my best. It’s not the worst thing I’ve written and these drafts aren’t meant to be perfect. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. Neither is the second or the third. I’ve done so many changes to this story though I’m happy to say that at the core, it’s still the same story that I love and want to tell. So. I think that’s the important part. My professor hasn’t told me that I suck or that the story sucks. And a lot of my classmates and teachers are always like Look, dude, it’s not going to be great the first few times but it’s going to be if you keep going at it. 

I’ve improved. I like to say that I have. Taking my master’s in creative writing isn’t a complete bust. I’ve learned things about writing and how I write and what I write that I wouldn’t have learned if I just sat on my ass all day thinking that my writing’s the shit. I had voices in my head telling me what works and what doesn’t work before but now I have many more. That’s not a bad thing. I like being able to edit myself constantly even though it’s so frustrating to keep on writing the same scene for an hour and a half because IT JUST DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT. 

I’m not super optimistic about finishing the story by the deadline but I’m not pessimistic either. I can do this. I will do this. Fuck everything. 

2. Fit in your clothes. 

Considering that I don’t fit in a good 90% of my pants and I don’t feel comfortable in 60% of my tops... I’m not doing so well here. This is making me question my depression and mental health because I’m always like WHAT IF IM JUST SUPER LAZY???? AND IM HIDING BEHIND A FAUX MASK OF MENTAL INSTABILITY. 

But then. Like. Whenever I think of going to the gym, and talking to a cab driver, and then having to exercise, it fills me with so much dread that I’m like demotivated. I miss having a treadmill in the house and I’m lowkey willing to buy myself a treadmill just so I can start exercising at home. But idk. Ok. I have some money. But I’m not sure if I’ve got enough to get me through it, you know? Will it be an investment???? Should I just suck it up and go to the gym?? Or should I start shopping around for cheap treadmills? 

I mean, I do need a new iPad case and a new battery for my laptop so...I might just do that??? I need to start going around tho. Look at things. See the world.

My friend is free on Wednesdays. There’s gonna be a ton of people next week because of a holiday here in my city....But it might just be the perfect time. Sales and shit. Hmmmmm....

Anyway, after being stressed about passing my summer classes, getting my UK visa, and then actually getting into the UK, I think I have time to worry about my gym time again. 

3. Survive job at least until August 23. 

It’s safe to say that I’m doing fine. I wrote this thing during a low time in my “career” as a customer service rep and right now, I think I can manage this year’s horrors. The holidays are upon us and I’m like BRING IT ON BITCH. 

4. Maintain YouTube channel (2 videos a month)

lol bitch I can’t even maintain myself. I’m giving up on youtube for the time being. There’s so much shit to do and so little time and so little mental capacity. I want to do a gaming channel. but. Like. My laptop’s shit so I’m not going to do that until I have a decent thing to do that with. I still have to upload a video explaining why I’m not on YouTube for now. Not that a lot of people care but it doesn’t feel right since my last video was like CAN’T WAIT TO DO THIS EVERY MONTH FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR LOLZOR

More than halfway through the year and I’m really tanking on these goals. But I am not deterred. I have my breath and my hands and some semblance of a motivation. I will do this! TEARS TO SWEAT!

[tiredbiplantlady]

bipolar ask posted by loloren69 

General:

1. Type 1 or type 2? 

I don’t really know. I could speculate as a psych master’s student, but I don’t feel comfortable making that call. I only know my therapist told me I was bipolar, said I was manic, and described mania to me and specified my behaviors that fell in line with that, no doubt about it, which would indicate bipolar I

2. Self-dx or professional dx? 

Self-suspected, professional confirmed 

3. Are you currently hypo/manic, depressed, mixed, stable, or not sure?

Hypomanic at the least, but it feels like I’m coming down because I’m exhausted for the first time in a while and 6 or 7 days of barely sleeping  

4. Do you have any other mental illnesses/disorders? 

I’ve had a diagnosable form of nearly every anxiety disorder in the DSM at different times since childhood and was diagnosed with various disorders from ADD to dysthymia and adjustment disorder. I consider my only other still-valid diagnosis to be PTSD, but it’s in remission.

5. When did you first start having symptoms? 

In retrospect I’d say the mood problems started around 15, but it got way worse in 2014 and worse still in 2015. the depressive symptoms were out of control and may have been a mixed episode (age 22) 

6. When did you realize/learn that you have bipolar? 

I suspected it briefly as a teenager even though I didn’t know shit about it, but didn’t think about it again until the past year and then the past few months my therapist identified symptoms I described as hypomania and in the last week as mania 

7. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis?

I don’t know if my former diagnoses were necessarily “misdiagnoses” - I think symptoms change over time, new things come up, other things trail off. I think one professional can see symptoms and call it one thing and another professional can call it something else. It’s complicated and subjective. 

8. How self-aware are you on a scale of 1-10? 

LMAO I am the most over-analyzing, self-aware person - easy 9 or 10

9. How many people know about your bipolar disorder? 

Couple people. I’m skeptical about talking about disorders, especially new diagnoses because I’m insecure about what people think because I’ve received several from different professionals, and outside people tend to just see a shifting diagnosis and think I’m making shit up “new year, new diagnosis” always gotta have “something wrong with me” to talk about. Which isn’t how I feel and labels don’t really mean shit, it’s the symptoms and their treatment I care about. A label is just a fast way to describe something complex. sorry it took a while to figure out what was wrong and i went thru many labels before landing here

10. Are any of your family members bipolar? 

Two formal diagnoses/very related diagnoses that I know of (grandma - MDD w/psychotic features, highly likely undiagnosed bipolar based on past behaviors (delusions, hallucinations, yelling on top of a roof, etc. police called, institutionalization), uncle - bipolar I w/psychotic features). some others I suspect, imo

11. Name three fictional characters you relate to and/or headcanon as bipolar. 

Uhhh Ian Gallagher. I’m not creative with this right now and I haven’t thought about this at all. 

Hypo/mania:

12. When hypo/manic, do you get euphoric, dysphoric, angry, creative, social, or several of the above? 

It depends. It seems like I get euphoric, creative and social sometimes, and euphoric, agitated (not angry), and dysphoric other times. But those cluster together

13. What has been your longest hypo/manic episode? 

I think it was from November 2016 to January 2017, so like 3 months, but it was the first “episode” I noted and kept even some track of after the fact. I may have had others in the past. 

14. Have you ever had a psychotic episode? What symptoms did it include? 

I’ve had two depressive episodes that I can specifically certainly note that included delusions (lasted just over a month to two months) of the somatic variety. 

15. What kind of impulsive decisions have you made? 

Where do I start? Over-spending, over-eating, drinking to excess, impulsive risky sex/sexual situations/hypersexuality, getting tattoos/piercings (kinda goes with spending, but I mention it specifically because it’s permanent), long-distance travel without telling anyone where I was going, cheating, lying, not thinking ahead and it hurting people, falling in love, ending relationships, general recklessness and selfishness. I’m sure there’s more and I’m not proud of it in the slightest, so please don’t think I am. 

16. What’s the most money you’ve spent in a single day while hypo/manic? 

$200-300

17. What’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep? 

Period...um. I couldn’t say. Probably 2 with NO sleep and with minimal sleep (3-4 hours) over a week

18. Are you a creative type? Have you ever made a poem/song/other artwork about being bipolar? 

I’m creative, but I don’t write about being bipolar because I never fully considered myself to be so until recently. I’ve written about mood instability and trauma a TON tho. And much of my art work is and always has been about duality, mixed emotions, extremes, and highs/lows. 

Depression:

19. When depressed, do you get suicidal, bored, anxious, guilty, or several of the above? 

It depends, but I’m mostly unmotivated as fuck and empty. I start feeling worthless and unlovable and I hate myself. Sometimes I feel suicidal, but have never attempted and won’t. I’ve self-harmed and planned how to kill myself, but was never intending to do it. I’ve spent the majority of my life in a state of constant anxiety so there’s that, especially when depressed. Irrational guilt and sluggishness are common for me with depression. Once in a while my mood dives along with my energy, but my mind is over-worked and highly anxious, which is when the delusions I’ve had occurred. 

20. What has been your longest depressive episode? 

Fuck...months upon months. I couldn’t tell you. Maybe even a year or more, which is why I was misdiagnosed as dysthymic as a teenager 

21. How do you cope with depression? 

In the past, I didn’t. I suffered massively. Now, I’m still not so great with it. I talk in therapy and I write, but even still I tend to stay in bed and feel numb/mope/distract myself with anything I can. I tend to be able to function enough to go to school because I feel like my life and future depends on it, am anxious as fuck, and do my best but end up with late work, being withdrawn and feeling doomed to fail, believe I’m doing far worse than I am and that I’m awful and don’t deserve to be there

22. Are you a sleep-all-day depressive or an insomniac depressive? Do you overeat or lose your appetite? 

It depends, but in the most recent past, sleep-all-day and overeat. But I’ve been sleep-all-day and no appreciative and I’ve also been insomniac and overeat (2013-14) 

23. When is the last time you cried or had a breakdown? 

Tuesday August 1, 2017 (9 days ago) 

24. Have you ever self-harmed? 

YUP. Razor blades/cutting, punishing binge-eating, starvation, and abusive risky BDSM/relationships/sex 

25. Have you had problems with substance abuse? 

Not really, but I’ve drank a little lately 

26. Have you ever attended AA/NA/etc? 

No 

27. Have you ever attempted suicide? 

No 

28. Have you ever written a suicide note?

Yes, but it was just to get it out. I threw it out after I wrote it. 

Other symptoms and treatment:

29. Do you ever dissociate? 

Y U P 

30. Do you ever have hallucinations? If so, what are they? 

No hallucinations. I’ve thought I’ve heard shit before, but I’m pretty sure it was a fluke and I want to believe in ghosts so. Call me crazy if you want, but what the fuck ever. I’ve had delusions only 

31. Do you see a therapist? Do you feel like it’s helping? 

Yes and yes 

32. Are you on any medications? Do you feel like they’re helping? 

No, not anymore, and I fucking hate anti-depressants, refuse mood-stabilizers and anti-psychotics and maybe want to keep having some anxiety meds

33. Have you ever been hospitalized? 

No, and I want to keep it that way 

34. Have you ever attended group therapy? 

No, but I’ve conducted roleplay group therapy baahaha

35. Have any of your symptoms gotten worse over the years? 

Yeah, I think the manic shit has gotten worse over the last 2 years 

36. Have any of your symptoms gotten better over the years? 

I think the depressive stuff has gotten a little better, or maybe just less frequent  

37. Do you have a favorite coping method? 

What does that mean...healthy or unhealthy...I guess I like meditation and I fucking miss working out A LOT. I like drinking as an unhealthy thing, but I’m sure I’ll hate it as much as I hate binge-eating once it catches up to me if I let it get that far. I’m tired of gaining weight after the 80 pounds I lost, and it’s really fucking with my self-esteem, makes me feel frustrated and sick 

38. If you could choose to be neurotypical, would you?

 No 

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

hhhhhhhooooly shit i love oriane so much but like. haha i know i’ve said before that she’s like me in 2012 but i??? had forgotten the extent to which that’s true?

Doubtless the incapacity that prevented Mme de Parme from distinguishing the true wit of the Guermantes from certain rudimentarily acquired forms of that wit (which made her believe in the high intellectual worth of certain Guermantes, especially certain female Guermantes, of whom afterwards she was bewildered to hear the Duchess [Oriane] confide to her with a smile that they were mere nitwits) was one of the causes of the astonishment which the Princess [Mme de Parme] always felt on hearing Mme de Guermantes [Oriane] criticise other people. But there was another cause also, one which I, who knew at that time more books than people and literature better than life, explained to myself by thinking that the Duchess, living this worldly life the idleness and sterility of which are to a true social activity what, in art, criticism is to creation, extended to the persons who surrounded her the instability of viewpoint, the unhealthy thirst, of the caviller who, to slake a mind that has grown too dry, goes in search of no matter what paradox that is still fairly fresh.... When an intelligent, witty, educated woman had married a shy bumpkin whom one seldom saw and never heard, Mme de Guermantes one fine day would find a rare intellectual pleasure not only in decrying the wife but in “discovering” the husband. (3.643-44)

the narrator then refers to this as her “morbid need of arbitrary novelties” and compares it to fashions in litcrit whereby mediocrities “come to take the place of men of genius who were described as tired simply because idle intellectuals had grown tired of them, as neurasthenics are always tired and fickle” (645). and idk, i mean, this vein of whining about critics is not exactly new either lmao; i have encountered the 19th century’s brand of anti-intellectualism before, and. of course, when this kind of disdain for depressed ppl comes from someone for whom i don’t already know that it drips w/ same-feeling i get real annoyed! but my point is that in oriane i love this bratty quality, because of how well both i and the narrator recognize it as intellectual understimulation?? and am glad i can see this mentality that way--viz., w/ fond nostalgic shadow-pity rather than either -contempt or defensiveness--after havin spent years there myself, rather than being able only to disdain it which... is tbh more often what i’m encouraged to think of it, both by happier people irl and by books?

AND WHAT’S FUNNY IS THAT LIKE. from my first read-thru a year ago the only marginal comments i recall having made on oriane are one instance of “alright that settles it i Don’t Care For her” and... an expression of similar indignation on discovering (ca. 3.300 but i’m too lazy to find the exact page) that she reputedly hates puns. HOWEVER ORIANE does not hate puns, as pages 635-40 make clear! but maybe she (like her husband, whose main social role however is to brag about oriane’s jokes) pretends to despise them out of affected humility?? that’ssss certainly what i did back then. and... god i’m sorry this is a disorganized post i’m very tired but it’s. so funny to me that i didn’t like her at first? of COURSE i didn’t. and n.b. oriane is infamous for not getting along w/ most women, presumably from shadow-contempt!! (tho i suspect from my own past example that frustration w/ ppl who shy away from deliberate rudeness has somethin to do with it too.) so at any rate i find oriane delightful, but feel kind of preposterously sorry for her, and am, granted, a little embarrassed by everything she does bc she’s exactly what i’m like when i’m bored! but mostly i’m just glad things’re goin better for me now.