#(they have several but the main one is borderline pd and anxiety)

[chuuyaa-nakaharaa]

I prefer you like this.

*rolling on the floor, groaning.*

— @dazaii-osamuu

Not again.. Get up you idiot!

[beautifuldarkmind]

tw // s*lf harm, su*cidal ideation (sorry)

Hey, it’s the creepy NHS anon here.

Thank you for responding to my ask! I’m sorry you had such a rough time getting a diagnosis. You shouldn’t have had to go through all of that. Honestly it sucks that the NHS is so reluctant to diagnose anything mental health related.

When I was 14 I thought I had depression and anxiety. I finally convinced my mum to take me to the doctors when I was 16. The doctor was super nice. She tested my thyroid function just to make sure nothing else was causing my feelings, then referred me to CAMHS. That was…an interesting experience. I remember asking my counsellor to diagnose me, but then at the next session she said she couldn’t, that it “wouldn’t be helpful” because I was still growing. Now that I think about it, one of the days I was at school and during a class I was furious for some reason. I even said to a classmate that I was willing to fight anyone who got in my way. Despite my mum disagreeing with me, I cancelled my appointment that day. (My mum was worried they’d stop my sessions all together if I cancelled, but they didn’t.)

Fast toward to recent years and I’ve been on and off attempting to get a diagnosis. Last year (so when I was about 18) I asked to be referred to the autism clinic, and thankfully the GP accepted, but the clinic is still closed and even when it’s open I’ll still have to wait, possibly several years. Then I made another appointment (different GP) to be referred to a psychiatrist. She refused, saying that GPs are trained to deal with mental health issues. I brought up OCD, so she asked where I got my information from. When I told her I researched it online, she just brushed it off and then did the typical depression/anxiety test and she said both were severe, then said “take some drugs” (which is didn’t because I didn’t trust taking drugs prescribed by someone who did a 3 minute yes/no type quiz without actually fully exploring my issues).

I spoke to a different GP just over a month ago to get a fit note for my Universal Credit. It was supposed to just be to make adjustments to what I was supposed to do, but he didn’t ask what the note was for, so he marked unfit for work. Which is great because that’s secretly what I wanted but feared being judged by people around me for thinking I needed that (particularly my parents). I mentioned that I thought I could have OCD and CPTSD, and he didn’t deny it but he simply said CBT helps for both. He then asked if I was currently doing CBT and I said I’d done it before but I quit. (That’s a whole other story but tldr I really don’t think it was for me, or at least the “therapist” wasn’t.) He said he would send a self referral link.

Fast forward to a few days ago and I had another appointment with him to discuss my fit note (because it only lasts for a month and you have to go back to renew it, which sucks). He asked if I had referred myself to CBT and I said I hadn’t yet because I didn’t want to, and he said “please do that for me” in a somewhat stern voice. I then brought up BPD and I think he said he would refer me? Honestly I was a bit overwhelmed because he called 40 mins early and I was in the car with my dad, so I was super weary of him asking questions about what I was saying to the doctor (but he didn’t). He then brought up PD support groups, which I’m considering doing, but you have to call up the place and I literally hate phone calls. Oh, speaking of which, all the appointments from the autism one onwards were all on the phone, so not only was I struggling to process what they were saying to me most of the time, but I was also so anxious that I couldn’t articulate my feelings properly. :)

Anyways, I am 20 now, which I only mention because I feel the same as what you mentioned. My brother is married, my childhood crush is married, my friend who I introduced to my friend group who then proceeded to discard me is getting married. Everyone seems to know exactly what they’re doing. They all have friends. But not me. I haven’t had friends since I was 14, and even then I don’t think that friend group was entirely wholesome. They made me feel like an outcast, like I was weird, that I needed to be more like them and not be like me. Which has probably contributed to me having a very vague sense of identity. And I feel like I’m still 14 and yet everyone is expecting me to behave like an adult. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing with my life even tho I literally cried in the shop when I was pressured to choose between 2 pizzas.

I have no support system. My own parents seem very dismissive of my problems, equating everything to social anxiety. When I’m stressed out of mind to the point of feeling suicidal, my parents say “that’s just life”, which…well, feeds into the feelings. For years I’ve felt stressed. Then if I’m not stressed I feel absolutely nothing. And if I’m not feeling empty I am angry, sometimes for no reason. And if I’m not angry, I am curled in a ball trying to bottle up the urge to self harm and batting away suicidal thoughts.

It’s like I have a huge chain pulling me down underwater and everyone else is in the beach drinking cocktails or something. Sometimes I thrash and try to get people to notice, but people think I’m just having fun. Other days I just feel like letting the chain pull me down.

Please forgive me for rambling and probably not having a very consistent train of thought in this post. I have a tendency to blab on about my “problems” (if they even are that), I guess as a way to connect? Idk. This post makes no sense.

I hope you’re having a good day. <3

- 🌸✨ (in case I send another ask again, but I’ll try not to because I don’t wanna bother you)

So sorry you're going through something similar. My GP sounded exactly how yours was, the typical anxiety/depression test and then just throwing those at you.. they dont seem to be trained in diagnosing and they dont want to hear anything more either. It's honestly almost impossible getting a diagnosis through them, the system here is really messed up... its just disappointing and seems to be failing so many people including you.

It does sound like you're going through a hard time, it's not nice especially when you feel a loss of self identity, you dont even know who you are and just feel lost in life. I think that was definitely the main point of realising something was up.. I had a VERY distorted view of myself and others around me and that was why I'd often self sabotage everything and then I'd feel so empty and angry at the world and just explode...

If you can go privately then do so, therapists are not able to diagnose and they will usually tell you 'we don't like to label' but even without a diagnosis you can still see if you can access DBT therapy. Amazon also has lots of DBT workbooks that I've used and its helped me to really understand myself!

If you often feel invalidated by your parents then that is known to cause BPD or borderline traits, especially if you've been suffering with mental illness in childhood and they tried to claim that it was nothing....you mentioned anxiety and I was told the approach my parents may have took to my severe anxiety is what brought on many of my symptoms of BPD. You start to feel ashamed of yourself for feeling that way because your caregivers make it seem like the issue isnt important and you feel as if your feelings dont matter also because that is how you have been made to feel.

I'm not saying this is definitely the cause but in my case I was told that the constant feeling of invalidation may be why I have such a warped idea of myself and why I cannot regulate my emotions. I was never told HOW to regulate or shown how to, just told to ignore my emotions and now I dont know how to deal with them😀

but yeah I'd really recommend taking a look at some of those dbt books online or reading more into it so you have a better understanding of yourself. You've already taken the first step and that's identifying that something may be wrong so you are self aware and clearly want to change for the better 💕

I hope everything works out for you, it's not nice feeling this way but you've got this 🥺🙌

[likeabxrdinflight]

I have heard for like a decade that there is no way Harley Quinn would have had sessions with The Joker as an intern. I don’t know if I agree with this working in in-patient myself. I feel like The Joker actually wouldn’t be the most difficult patient in Arkham considering he can take care of himself and isn’t hallucinating or activity suicidal. What are your thoughts? Would Joker be more difficult than any other patient in the asylum in ways I’m not thinking of? The only other issue I can think of would be high turn-over rate in the asylum, which would mean they may not be able to afford to baby interns. Or possibly unethically lacking supervision sessions and supervisor burn-out. But what do you think about this? Do you think it is more or less realistic for Harley to have sessions with Joker? There could obviously be some stuff I’m missing. I also live in Canada so perhaps the U.S is more strict with psych interns.

In my experience as an intern in the US, we definitely get assigned some pretty tough cases. Throughout both my master’s and PhD, I’ve worked at a homeless shelter, developmental disabilities board, foster care agency, college counseling center, a specialized school for kids with neurodevelopmental disorders, and next year will be on a hospital inpatient unit. The easiest cases came from the disabilities board, hands down. 

I’ve worked in some capacity with a wide variety of diagnoses ranging from depression and anxiety disorders all the way up to complex trauma and borderline personality disorder. Next year I’ll be seeing patients with even more severe pathology including psychosis, which plenty of my other classmates have already had experience working with. They’re not afraid to throw hard cases at interns at all, and if you do a rotation on inpatient you’re absolutely going to get short term cases too. 

Joker would be a hard case given his criminal record, but not necessarily because of his diagnosis, agreed. Active psychosis and severe anorexia, I think, are the most challenging disorders to work with if you’re a trainee and not specialized in any way. Some people do think personality disorders are harder, but I dunno...I’ve had PD cases and think it’s been fine, so...

Frankly the main reason I can see a supervisor not wanting to assign someone like the Joker to a young Harley is because he had such an extensive criminal record. If I were a supervisor I might be hesitant about giving that case to an intern if I thought there was a potential danger to the intern. Knowing his history of violent behaviors, that would definitely give some pause, I think. But if he had a diagnosis of, say, antisocial personality disorder and my intern was there expressing interest in criminal and forensic psychology...well I’d think you’d expect the intern to get some potentially tough cases. That’s the training they’re looking for, after all. 

You would absolutely never want an intern to not have strong supervision in a criminal/forensic or inpatient setting though, because those cases are complex. If Harley had had a good supervisor I’d like to think she might have been able to notice what dynamic was happening in the room, and maybe even been able to confide in her supervisor that she was feeling attracted to him. So if supervision was bad at Arkham, then sending Harley into that room with the Joker was absolutely a mistake and someone should be held accountable for that.

Interns get tough cases though. This is part of the training and part of the work. So I don’t think it’s super unrealistic that an intern, especially one coming in and stating they want a career working with these kinds of forensic cases, would be assigned the Joker. I do think it’s unrealistic if she doesn’t have supervision, though, and I’m not sure whether or not she ever did in the comics. 

[jewpacabruhs]

anyone wanna discuss the boys and mental illness? i know this site glorifies mental issues, and i don't wanna endorse that or force heavy problems onto animated children, but as a lover of psychology, and as a fanfic writer, i think it's interesting to discuss, and i'd love to hear other people's thoughts on it.

tweek probably has adhd, that's pretty much established, and he clearly has social anxiety. craig (and clyde)'s monotone could possibly code them as autistic? we don't know too much about clyde, but craig's love of space could be a hyperfixation, and his indifference to the main four could imply a lack of interest in social interactions. i used to identify pretty heavily with craig, around the time one of my therapists (i've had several) mentioned that i could have aspergers. just food for thought. even kevin - he seems to be a loner, and he loves star trek. i mean, obviously we all have hobbies and interests, whether we're mentally ill or not, and aloofness doesn’t automatically equate autism, but i'm just spitballing.

recently saw an analysis about kenny potentially having did (dissociative identity disorder if you’re unfamiliar). it's an interesting theory. while kids playing dress up shouldn't be mistaken for kids having multiple personalities, i get where the thought comes from, and i definitely think it's plausible. here's the post, if anyone's interested.

last but not least, cartman's psychology is obviously the most complex, and it's been discussed far and wide. while people tend to call him a sociopath or a psychopath (myself included, as sort of an umbrella term), i think he's more likely to develop a different cluster b personality disorder. now, i know from personal experience that personality disorders are hard to diagnose, especially in adolescents, let alone in children, but cartman's clearly mentally ill, even if we’re not privy to all his symptoms, since he’s only ten. as i said, people seem to lean more into him having antisocial pd, possibly because of the mentality that all violent humans must be psychopaths, and while that's justified, i think he shows plenty of symptoms of a borderline and histrionic personality, too. and narcissistic, clearly. i dunno, he's complicated. i could make a whole seperate post about him. i’d love people to get more in depth with the things i mentioned.

alright, that's all i got. anyone wanna add some thoughts?

[tiredbiplantlady]

let me reframe everything and justify myself for literally no reason

This is my belief for myself: diagnosis doesn’t mean shit. symptoms are symptoms, regardless of diagnosis you treat the symptoms that cause problems. some people on this website long for diagnoses and then do nothing with the information except use it as an excuse for their shit behavior. everyone, no, but lots of people and it helped me develop a toxic af mentality. at any given time we all could relate to like 8 different “disorders” - that doesn’t mean you have it and it doesn’t matter whether you do or not. everyone has problems and issues unique to them that deserve recognition and treatment. diagnosis mean treatment, it should never be a label for the sake of having it. 

all that being said, the past almost 2 years I have been quite certain I had BPD (borderline personality disorder). Maybe at the time the diagnosis was accurate. i have also been in therapy for 7 years and had my current therapist refer to me as “borderline” and hear me out about why I feel I had it. He treated me with DBT techniques and addressed my emotional reactivity and my trauma. I don’t know if I ever fully fit a typical diagnosis, but I absolutely had borderline features/symptoms, including impulsivity, emotional reactivity, and transient paranoia. at times I felt surely it was “severe” enough to really meet the diagnosis and at other times not so much. I think that’s normal, especially when it was on my mind. 

Regardless of whether or not I have BPD, I absolutely had a hypomanic episode (didn’t require hospitalization, and was called so by my therapist) that lasted approximately 3 months followed by a period of detachment and then a depressive episode mainly characterized by a sense of hollow/emptiness and disinterest, isolation, and poor self-perception. I’m not sure if it fully met the criteria for MDD, which is necessary, unless it’s an Otherwise Specified diagnosis. In retrospect, looking back through my early teen years as well, there are several instances of MDD, general dysthymia, and mixed episodes that involved genuine delusions (somatic/health related). I think it would be reasonable for a psychologist to look at my former experiences and recent symptoms and make a diagnosis of bipolar II or bipolar atypical. 

it doesn’t really matter - i refuse medication, though I’ve considered trying something new. anti-depressants never helped me, just gave me weird dreams and some of them made me more depressed (I tried 3 different brands). diagnosis should be made for the purpose of treatment and my treatment is working for me and medication is not of interest to me, so like I said, there’s no real reason for me to be justifying or even writing about this except that it’s on my mind. 

I think if I had BPD, 7 years in therapy helped it stay as controlled as it did. I think the type of person i am helped a lot and my willingness. I think at the core, my issue is trauma and any mood problems whether BPD, BP II or both are a result of that. I no longer meet the criteria for PTSD, which is my official current diagnosis (past from other shrinks include: dysthymia, adjustment disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and ADD) and its presence in my life is mainly relevant only in explaining behaviors as I maintain my progress and continue forward. I think the skills I learned with the DBT treatment help with any potential bipolar symptoms anyway. 

The things I currently feel are the symptoms I should be concerned with are mood regulation (generally mild, sometimes moderate) with depressive/self-defeating symptoms and impulsivity associated with hypomania (reckless spending and sex are the main ones). I have also struggled with binge eating in the past - long term and recent which is associated with BP II. These are things I have always done and know I do, so again, it doesn’t make a difference what the label of the “cause” is because the “cause” to me isn’t a word defining a “misfiring” in my brain or something. I feel there’s some genetic stuff but the majority is learned or experienced that then shaped my brain. Not inherent., it’s trauma and learned behaviors from experiences and patterns and modeling from the past. 

Bipolar and mood issues run in my family - grandma was diagnosed MDD with psychotic features (could have easily misdiagnosed, also MDD+psychosis is considered high potential for bipolar development), uncle diagnosed bipolar with mixed episodes/psychotic features. Personality disorders do too though - avoidant PD in mom and a sibling and schizoid in uncle though that’s uncertain. There’s some evidence mood disorders can develop from trauma (what’s up). I think I have a lot working for justifying whatever diagnosis, but ultimately again, it really doesn’t matter. I’m just spewing thoughts.