#I will get my mental health figured out

[scribefindegil]

2024 Recap: It was bad! 👍

[realbeefman]

stacy is sooo interesting because she's in love with house but knows that they will never ever be able to have a healthy, stable, sane relationship because they're too similar so. she finds house-lite instead and marries him and. essentially moves on with her life! and is successful in this because she's a moderately well-adjusted person!

wilson, in contrast, never manages to escape the inevitable, in spite of his best efforts to find a house-lite of his very own, because he's an absolute fucking freak and ends up glued to house to the bitter. bitter end

[me-beef]

A collection of Fell art I don't think I've ever posted before. This is all art I've made in the last year, those first pics being done in January/February-ish? It's been fun to see how much my art has developed since then :)

So, something I'm sure I've mentioned before, I have RSD- or rejection sensitive dysphoria. For the last decade or so, it's controlled a large portion of my life and has dictated a lot of what I've been able to do. It used to be a lot worse- like, eating-lunch-alone-in-the-bathroom-everyday-at-school-because-I'd-have-a-panic-attack-if-I-tried-to-go-into-the-cafeteria type of bad. Or, having-a-panic-attack-because-a-girl-complimented-my-socks-and-I-was-CERTAIN-she-was-actually-implying-I-was-a-stupid-idiot-loser-baby type of bad. It's made it really hard to make friends and maintain relationships, because a part of my brain truly believes the people around me don't want me there, or that it's better for me to be quiet and out of the way than to risk doing something "wrong" and drawing the ire of everyone around me.

It was something that I was really ashamed of for the longest time. I didn't understand what I was feeling or why I acted the way that I did, I just wanted everyone around me to be happy and I felt like I was doing everything wrong and making everything worse just by being present in any given situation.

So- what ended up working for me? How did I start moving forward?

Years of counseling and therapy? Yeah. Medication? That too.

But do you want to know what really ended up changing my life this year?

I made a character to conceptualize and encapsulate all of my anxieties and traumas, took my condition, and made it her superpower.

Some bits about her character:

In a ⋆˙⟡dramatic⋆˙⟡ and ⋆˙⟡tragic⋆˙⟡ childhood event, Fell's heart was fused with a star.

It sounds like a magical-girl dream- but for Fell, it's only ever been a curse.

Whenever her emotions flare, she has an uncontrollable surge of magic. Sometimes, that wild magic can scare or even hurt the people around her. She's become terrified of her own emotions- and that fear only exacerbate her "curse".

So, she isolates herself- not out of a fear of others, but out of a fear of hurting those around her.

When I was a kid, there weren't really any characters out there that I felt like I could truly identify with. Sure, I've seen social anxiety addressed in media throughout my life, but nothing that I felt really captured the full complexities of what I was experiencing in my day-to-day. Plus, I feel like those characters rarely got to be the heroes of the story.

So, all that to say, Fell is the hero that I wish I had gotten to have as a kid.

Starlight Saga (working title), or Legends of ZahKol, is the story and world that I built around the lessons I've learned in my journey of overcoming my anxiety and RSD. I can't give that to my past self, but my dream is to one day share it with the world- for other people out there like me, to help them and give them hope and let them know how strong they really are for fighting day in and day out. That these parts of yourself don't mean you're broken or damaged or wrong- these are tied to the most resilient, most beautiful parts of who you are.

[witchspeka]

It's always "Shou and Ritsu need to blow stuff up with their minds for mental health reasons" or Ritsu and Teru or even Shou and Teru!

But what about Mob? When does he get to blow stuff up with his mind for funsies? For shits and giggles? He didn't go through all of those meltdowns and character development for nothing, let him go ham on a junkyard car or something smh

I believe in Mob's narrative given right to fuck shit up sometimes

[pansyfemme]

legitimately what am i doing

[vulpixisananimal]

I’ve been thinking about your sifstem au recently, and was wondering what inspired it? I was wondering mainly, because I don’t know much about systems so I’m kinda curious which parts of Siffrin’s character could be interpreted as him being a system.

Hope my question makes sense! Have a nice day!

A: Siffrin constantly talking to themself + heavy trauma + major memory issues. All system stuff, it was a lil idea me and @neoncityrain chatted a lot about and all of a sudden I turned it into a whole fic.

B:Below image. I will not elaborate

[the-togepi-man]

Putting it here, so I can turn my words in to actions -

Learned a little lesson.

It's very important to continue to stay true to who you are when you become flustered. It's very important to find a medium between what you *think* is right vs what you *feel* is right. Guess what I am trying to say here, is that sometimes when I care about someone, I overcorrect who I am. I think I'm making it easier for them. But the reality is that assuming their feelings will ultimately make the thing you were trying to avoid, happen. I'm going to try and be more authentic from now on, in this situation, and in others. I never want to stop growing and becoming better

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

helping

[coriander-candlesticks]

I'm sick so I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, but I've been thinking about the nature of myths recently as I've been exploring hellenic polytheism.

For context: I'm ex-Mormon. I was raised in the church and, because of that, was taught biblical literalism but in, like, a more subtle way than most? I was raised believing that Adam & Eve and Noah's Ark, etc., were literally true, but that the story of Job specifically was not; I also always knew evolution and the Big Bang to be correct, despite there being a verse in the Doctrine & Covenants (a Mormon-specific religious book) where God apparently told Joseph Smith that the world is 6,000 years old- a passage I didn't know existed until my senior year of high school. I didn't realize I had believed in biblical literalism until I'd left the church, actually.

Now that I'm aware of it, it's a mindset I'm actively trying to combat while I explore Hellenic polytheism. It's definitely been a task to separate the nature of the Gods from their myths, as brutal as they often are. And it's something I've noticed within the community, too, which I think is interesting. It makes sense: Christianity, at least, has had a chokehold on much of the world for a long time, and so many of us have experienced literalism as our first interaction with any sort of holy text (though, of course, Greek myths as a whole aren't that) alongside our first experience with divinity as a wrathful God whose flaws are waved away, or ignored, or twisted into positive attributes. This also means that I'm trying to re-approach several deities with an open mind (Zeus, Hera, and Ares in particular, but many of them to some extent) while also trying to un-condition myself. I was already in the process of doing this, of course, but trying to figure out how to interact with a completely different pantheon has made that especially clear.

It extends to things like prayer and offerings, too. Prayers were very formulaic growing up, even though most of the time there wasn't a strict script to follow. There was always something you ask as part of the prayer, even if it's just 'please help me do better tomorrow' (alongside giving thanks, of course), so trying to craft a prayer without adding *everything* I'm used to including in makes it feel incomplete and, therefore, disrespectful. And daily prayer is something I'm resistant to because of prior experiences with it. I don't want to offend any of the gods by asking for something or asking for too much, especially so early on, and there's always a promised offering the few times I *have* asked. Add worries about exact obedience on top of that and it's proving to be a difficult thing to untangle. And I know that the gods are difficult to offend, figuring out how to do this takes trial & error and that's okay, it'll get better the more I do it, etc., etc.; this is more an issue with my own overthinking than anything else (hooray for ✨ mental health issues ✨). I'm not really asking for advice here, necessarily, just thinking out loud because I'm not comfortable talking to people in meat space about it yet.

[artemistorm]

For a long time, I’ve thought of myself as four parts of a whole Stormy—like LU canon Four (not in a DID way). The four parts are:

Green -- Neutral/ordinary adult Stormy

Vio -- Logic Stormy

Red -- Emotions Stormy

Olive -- Gremlin/goblin Stormy

But over the last 6-12 months I’ve identified another part of me I’m calling Void (after the Hollow Knight entity). Void is angry and combative and wants to rage about all the injustices in the world and fight anyone and everyone. Void is also intrusive thoughts, weird thoughts, low-self esteem. Unfortunately, Void is slowly becoming more present in my brain over time. Not sure why. I think it could be a symptom of some mental illness but I don’t know which one.

Right now, Void is generally manageable; I try very hard to keep the Void part of me away from people I love and off of social media but it doesn’t always happen, so if I say or do something weird, keep in mind it might actually be Void talking and that it isn’t something that the real Stormy actually agrees with or would ever say or do.

Please just bear with me and keep in mind that I will return to regular Stormy programming soon, usually within hours or a few days. I am very sorry anyone has to deal with this tomfoolery but alas these kinds of troublesome thoughts that influence behavior are a common ailment and part of being human.

[clandestinegardenias]

My PMDD is kicking my fucking ass, but teaching today and getting to connect with my students settled me back into my body a little

Thanks to everyone here for all the love, too. It matters even more than you know

[anakinthetrashking]

Having thoughts, TLDR; explaining that Practicing Gratitude is just about learning to notice good things and retraining your brains focus area would be more helpful than simply saying "be grateful!"

I think a lot of the issue people have with being told to try like, gratitude journaling is that when people suggest it they never seem to give a good explanation?? Added to the fact that "self-care" and therapy terminology have been monetized, social media focuses on people's sanitized life highlight reels, and hashtag blessed out-of-touch influencers, and the frankly irritating Pinterest Perfect quotes and journals. I mean. There's just a ton to sort through there.

And like I've tried the gratitude thing!! And I know it's backed up by research!! But when you're in the depths and someone says something about being grateful, it is SO hard not to hear all the echos of "be grateful it's not worse", and the past shame of being cast in the light of "so ungrateful" when you're just having feelings and being upset about something, ya know?

But it finally clicked for me when I stopped using gratefulness language?? Because I also feel like that can be limiting, at least for me. The POINT of the whole exercise is to train your brain to notice good things around you, because obvs ur gonna be in a bad mood if all you notice is the bad!

Obvs it's taken a lot of work in a lot of areas to be at the point where I am, that life feels worth living more than not! But like, the more little good things you notice, the more it feels worth living. But like the gratitude language like I said just doesn't work for me lol

Especially like, the other day driving through the neighborhood I saw a woman going for a run, and she looked like she was struggling but also so determined!! And that was something that made me feel !!!!!! Like life is worth living and trying for!!

She's someone I've never met and may never see again, but seeing her living her life and trying made me want to keep trying too!

So for me trying to put that into a sentence for gratitude, it just takes the joy out I guess haha. "I'm grateful random neighbor was jogging"?? "I'm grateful I saw my neighbor jogging"???? It doesn't quite translate for me. But I could see it and focus on that feeling of fondness for a stranger, and inspiration to keep trying and that not everything is terrible all the time. Consciously focusing on something like that and letting it take up a big part of your day the way something bad might usually can feel really weird at first, but it's so nice once you lean into it??

[whoblewboobear]

Foaming at the mouth and going feral waiting for Fig to open up more to her parents and friends 🤧 I rmr all through middle school and high school holding everything in and being unsure about myself and putting on a tough mask with walls so high because I wanted to hide and not exist and just.. 🤧 having friends that were patient and loving and understanding even if they didn’t know my whole deal was life changing. I just wanna wrap Fig up in a big hug and tell her that she doesn’t need to have it all figured out, but that she’s still wanted and appreciated for all the qualities and facets that she exudes regardless of if she can lay all those things out and understand them. Despite it all, who she is and who she will become: She is loved. She is wanted. She should exist.

[ghostlyfeelings]

i need to delete social media and only allow myself access to tumblr for a solid 6 months i think

[necroticghost]

I wonder if people notice. If doctors, restaurant servers, pharmacists, uber drivers, delivery guys, receptionists, and other strangers I interact with notice how awkward I am. How childish, how shy, how scared, how anxious, like I'm barely a human being. When doctors see my age, and then they proceed to have a conversation with me for like 30 minutes, do they see how something's wrong with me? How I'm on the verge of having a breakdown from simply having to exist in society? I must look so pathetic in their eyes. I must seem like a child in an adult's body. It feels like I'm cosplaying someone of my age, and it's embarrassing. I try to hard to act normal, but the raw, unfiltered side of me... it shows.

[sad-leon]

I know one of my AUs is in two seperate competitions but wouldnt it be so silly if I started focusing on an entirely different one

haha... jk.........