#Mental Health discussion

[thejournaluser]

i ended up talking out of my own ass here but i didn't want to delete all of this so please note that all facts here are all stock knowledge and personal experience. do your own research, folks. do not use this for self-diagnosing purposes.

If ya ask me, episode 4 of The Amazing Digital Circus makes quite an accurate (but not perfect) demonstration of what Bipolar Disorder looks like. It's not the matter of "can't choose" or "too moody all the time". It's more than that. Just watch the episode and see for yourself.

The character's name who suffered this unfortunate disorder is Gangle, who is portrayed as a female humanoid ribbon who wears a fragile comedy mask in the beginning of the show that breaks before or during their usual adventures, and the gag is that she always ends up being sad because her mask keeps breaking.

But episode 4 was different. Her comedy mask broke too early, and Zooble instead gave her a substitute happy mask that won't break and might help giving her some form of happiness. Once she puts it on though, she says she feels "normal." Which usually signals the start of a manic episode.

Cue the adventure where they work a minimum wage, and a dead end job. Gangle is the shift manager and she is having a big manic episode. She moves left and right- a bright smile on her face that she can't seem to remove. I mean, why would she remove it right? She's happy. And everyone should be happy.

But then... pressure. Jax told her that he liked her better when sad. Ragatha, in an inebriated state, even told her that she liked Gangle better without the happy mask. It hurts her to know that people don't like her when she is feeling great. So she shuts down immediately, feeling discouraged with her manager work and hiding her face from everyone when she gets the chance.

That was, until, she faces Pomni, the main character of the show. Pomni tries to talk it out with someone, or maybe her herself. But Gangle takes none of it. She believes that no one in the circus likes her and even if they do try to act nice... their smile don't always feel genuine.

And thus, ending her manic episode completely. Try re-reading my previous paragraphs and identify which part of the story she starts having a depressive episode. Because at this point, Gangle locks herself in her office. A frown glued to her happy mask despite the name it has. And right when she walks down that kitchen, her world starts to blur as if one single conclusion starts to form inside her mind- and then Pomni intervenes.

She offers to take the closing shift and advises Gangle to go home early. Hesitant, Gangle still takes it. And with the extra time she has... Gangle takes off her mask... and throws it away.

I advise you to watch the episode and go to timestamp 19:35 - 20:30. It's a wonderful sequence.

So... post-adventure. Gangle isolates herself and blames everything that went wrong all on herself. Zooble tries to comfort her, of which she succeeds- But let's take a sec to hear what Gangle tells her first: "I messed everything up. The mask didn't work. And now, I don't think anybody wants to talk to me anymore."

Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder where an individual enters a "manic state" and they undergo erratic behavior partaking in impulsive thought or risky activities. And when an individual leaves this state... well, kind of imagine it as feeling an entire ocean dropped on you. Or feeling like you're in front of a live audience with no script.

You cringe at yourself, further delving more into a sea of self-loathing and regret. Realizing all of your wrongs and mistakes and how much it hurts the people around you. Take a moment to think about it. You hurt people that you're close with. How dare you.

Those are what you would think of if you have Bipolar Disorder. But, please take note that it is indeed a disorder which means it can be interpreted as something else and you also could be misdiagnosing yourself if you're using this essay as means to self-diagnose so please talk to a professional for that. This essay only uses one example of a manic episode and to see it holistically, make your own research.

And... uh... yeah. This is the end of the essay. I'm not really great in conclusions but... just remember that Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder than causes manic episodes. What happens after that is a series of guilt that causes self-loathing and anguish that results in a person needing to self-isolate and become the scapegoat of their own making.

[ebonysplendor]

Screen Shrink (#1?): Milo Change

**This was written for funsies, strictly for funsies, and only for funsies. This is not meant to be taken seriously or as fact**

Okay, so...changing gears a little bit here from my typical game schpiels, but it's like, we've been hanging out together for a few months now, yeah? Yeah, so it only makes sense that I can share some of these little weird quips of mine.

So, fun fact, I am a mental health therapist~! So that means that I make money by listening to people vent to me about their problems, concerns, traumas, and all of that and helping them work through it. Another thing that I do for money is diagnose them. Kinda cool, huh?

Now, the reason why I shared that with you is because, I involuntarily start diagnosing characters when I watch TV and movies, or read a story or news article, or play video games...or visual novels lol. Anyways, the sole reason of this post being created was because I've been plagued with these thoughts for a while, and no one I know IRL either play or will admit that they play visual novels, so I have no one to share these specific thoughts with.

I may or may not make this a thing on my blog but meh. I just have to get this one in particular out. All of that being said...tell me that (OG) Milo Change doesn't meet the criteria for Adjustment Disorder with Mixed Anxiety and Depressed Mood.

Please let me explain, because this has been burning me for months.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Okay, so listen... Actually, let me preface this first.

People are very unique and very odd, and because of that, people don't always fit cleanly into a diagnosis. Why did I mention that? Because, sometimes, based on what a client is describing, it can fit the criteria of a certain condition but not meet the exact requirements. It's like when doctors diagnose an illness; you don't have the exact 3 symptoms for the flu, but you have 2 of them, so they diagnose and treat it like the flu until proven otherwise, hence why they say "flu-like" symptoms versus just "the flu".

Okay, so anyways, I said that, because some of you are probably like "Nah, Milo definitely has anxiety", and you wouldn't be wrong! Milo absolutely fits the criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but remember that thing I mentioned about the "flu-like" symptoms? Therapists do the same thing. We either give a broad/general diagnosis (because we've gotta bill them under something, even if it's just very mild depression, so we can keep seeing them) or we give an extremely specific one; Milo's is -- or appears to be, because again, people are unique and odd, and what I see another therapist may not -- an extremely specific one, which is Adjustment Disorder with Anxiety and Depressed Mood.

In order to meet the criteria of Adjustment Disorder, you pretty much would have had to undergo a big change within the last 3 months, like a divorce, getting out of jail, having people move in, or something of the sort. Now, the "mixed anxiety and depressed mood" are what are known to be "specifiers" and those are pretty much exactly what they sound like -- they make the diagnosis more specific or explain it a bit more.

All that being said, it appears that Milo meets the criteria for Adjustment Disorder with Anxiety and Depressed Mood because:

- He had a major change in scenery from a small town to a bustling, city-based campus (adjustment) - Technically, we could include that he's getting used to being this psycho's someone's significant other...yeah, let's add that as an extra layer (adjustment) - He also has very low self-esteem and self-worth, so that very likely means he struggles with feelings of worthlessness (depression) - He be a touch starved boy (depression) - He has a pretty shitty set of "friends" that frequently mistreat him (depression), and this poor kid is probably trying to do everything in his power not to piss them off, but it's a constant guessing game (anxiety) - But he also opts to have them versus no one at all because it's hard enough putting yourself out there to meet new people to start with. Still though, it's like...damn, to be mistreated or to be lonely (depression and anxiety) - He's pretty jumpy when you speak to him, stutters a lot, (it looks like) he fidgets with his clothing, he's a nail biter, and frequently avoids eye contact (anxiety) - Not to mention that this poor baby has a general mistrust of new people being nice to him since he immediately thinks that they want something from him or playing a joke on him (anxiety)

Like, come on. You cannot TELL ME that that isn't -- likely -- adjustment disorder with anxiety and depressed mood. The man is 100% an anxious wreck, but like, shit, I would be, too, if I left my familiar shitty environment to a totally new shitty environment; I knew what to expect at home, not so much here, ya get me?

Now, would I change this diagnosis down the line? Absolutely, because, if he's still an anxious wreck 6 months down the line, clearly it wasn't the change in environment that had him on edge like that, or rather that's not the thing that's continued to have him on edge like that. Initial visit, though? This is 100% what I would've given him if I did his assessment.

I just had to get this off my chest. I've kept this to myself for MONTHS now, and I just couldn't anymore man! But what do you think? You think another diagnosis would've fit him better? Meh, probably.

Anyways, thanks for letting me share that. I have a lot more characters I have diagnosis for that I'd love to share one day. That honestly may be sooner rather than later since I've broken the seal lol.

Welp, I've met my yap quota for the day...at about 2 in the morning (as of writing this) lmao. Big preesh for getting this far. Remember to drink water, don't be dumb, and hope to see you around~!

**This was written for funsies, strictly for funsies, and only for funsies. This is not meant to be taken seriously or as fact**

[the-bar-sinister]

If you are a person who:

Has violent, abusive, harmful, or destructive thoughts

Enjoys having violent, abusive, harmful, or destructive thoughts

Enjoys fiction with violent, abusive, harmful, or destructive characters

Creates fiction with violent, abusive, harmful, or destructive characters

And you do not actually do any violent, abusive, harmful or destructive actions

You are not a bad person.

You are a good person.

Thoughts and fiction do not define morality.

Actions define morality.

Having or enjoying bad thoughts or bad fiction doesn’t mean you will act on those feelings.

Liking negative themes in fiction or having daydreams about harmful actions will not cause you to do harm.

Thoughts and fiction aren’t harmful.

[apricotbuncakes]

Before we start, here is my GoFundMe to help me afford Top Surgery. I have several posts on the subject on my blog but if need be you can ask questions in my ask box.

CW: Discussion of Suicidality. No explicit actions thoughts or ideas depicting the act of suicide are written, but suicidality is discussed.

It's very difficult to explain that "I can't afford my gender affirming care" = passive suicidality.

Cuz like, I'm not gonna do anything. I've learned to not make plans at this point. (<- A joke you may laugh at). But seriously, how do I tell people "I am suicidal because I cannot get top surgery" and then ask them to donate to my GoFundMe?

I don't want to be manipulative, or even potentially be accused of it. I don't want people to pity me or say "things will get better". I know they will. I know that it's just a matter of time. I know I'm not alone. I'm not clueless. At the same time, posting the same "here's my GoFundMe so you can help me reach my goal!!! 😁😁🫰❤️❤️❤️" when my reality and thoughts are much darker is killing me. I feel fake. I feel dishonest. It's not just a casual thing to ask for money, especially $10,000 but it's what I need.

That's the key word. Need.

Top Surgery isn't something I decided on a whim. It's not something I can live without. My dysphoria is so bad. I need top surgery more than I can possibly explain. Even in this post I'm making sure to keep several things to myself because even this admission is very difficult for me. But it's safer to scream into the Tumblr void and hope my echos bounce to people who can help me than to just keep everything bottled up.

Because I cannot afford to tell my therapist and risk getting out in a hospital. Literally cannot afford it. I need to put whatever is left of each paycheck towards top surgery in order to inch closer to my top surgery goal. Sitting in a hospital won't help me in this case.

So once again here's my GoFundMe in case you can spare something.

[eatyourdamnpears]

I’m in a really bad place right now. I have been for some time. it doesn’t really come out on social media that much, just vague complaining, but I’ve just been so… angry and violent and jealous and a lot of not very good traits. I’m trying my hardest to get back into therapy, but it’s hard when the one person who’s supposed to help you with that has been slacking and no therapists have been returning your calls, it doesn’t amount to much. I don’t know. all this to say, I don’t really like who I am right now. and I don’t want to take it out on anybody, but I feel like I am and that’s not okay. I’m just… so tired of everything. I just want this to end

[sweaters-and-vertigo]

so i’ve seen a lot of people talk about the symbolism of omega leaving lula behind but i haven’t seen anyone talk about what tech’s goggles mean.

in the case that tech is CX-2 (which i think we’re all pretty sold on now), i think that leaving his goggles behind means the same thing as leaving lula behind. i think that both omega and tech are past their own “point of no return” and they’re in it together. because the goggles and lula are left behind in the same place while tech brings omega back to tantiss.

i know lot of fans want tech to “bounce back” but considering the likely brain damage from his fall along with the programming in his head, i don’t think we’re going to get him back. speaking from a realistic psychological standpoint, people don’t go through that much psychological trauma and come out the other end the same way. every person has a “point of no return” and i think tech might be past his.

i guess it just depends on how you want the human mind to be represented. personally, i would prefer a realistic representation. i’ve been through a lot of bad stuff and i changed a lot because of it. i nearly went past my own “point of no return” but i didn’t. my father did go past his. my father’s “point of no return” was when he unapologetically put my life in danger repeatedly for two days. do you see any similarities? and for a long time, we all held out hope he would get better but he never did.

if the writers are going to put a character through unimaginable horrors like what tech probably experienced, the true psychological effects should be there. anything else is just fan service at best but unfair at worst. whatever happens with tech/CX-2, i just hope they do it right.

an example of this being done correctly: powder/jinx from arcane. she had a mental illness, went through extreme trauma, then some more trauma, and then went past her “point of no return” at the end of season one. i love her and i relate to her character so so much. because she’s been through a lot of horrible things just like i have except when she reached her “point of no return” she welcomed it with open arms. it was heartbreaking and beautiful. i wouldn’t have changed it for anything.

EDIT: to be fair to the tbb writers, they did an incredible job representing crosshair’s trauma. i have shaky hands too, which people never get tired of telling me or asking about it. so i do have faith in the writers. ALSO SIDENOTE, i think that crosshair met his own “point of no return” that he didn’t go past. i think that it was when his commanding officer allowed mayday to die and crosshair killed the man. if he had simply continued following orders, we would have lost him for good but he came back to us. everyone has a different event or action that they can’t come back from. sometimes it’s a choice they make or sometimes it’s a trauma they experience but it is a real thing and it should be represented accurately.

[mazyb0i]

Someone on Reddit tried to say that Rick only truly loves Beth, and to prove them wrong, so here I am!

tldr:

Character analysis of Rick Sanchez from an autistic fans point of view, understanding his attachment styles.

He'll do anything for BP, if season 6 proves anything, it's that he'll die for BP. He literally admitted to loving him, which I have not heard him tell or say about anyone before in the show. When

he does say stuff like that it is significant. Bird person is the only character on the show he has been openly genuine with.

If season 7 proves anything, Pers is the only one that can sneak up behind him and grab him out of nowhere without getting some snarky comment, mean look, or a left hook. They both care about each other deeply, that is clear. Rick was extremely

upset by the wedding with Tammy. Rick told the bird person how much he respected him more than anyone, even when he contradicted himself by saying nothing matters, he wanted to be with Percy. He wanted to travel with him and spent every moment with him.

--

"Then why did you help me?"

"I respect you, and I wanted you to know that you could respect me too."

" But if nothing matters...?"

"You matter! You matter to me."

"Uhhh- Rick... the relationship we have-"

"I never used that word!" - Rick (denialism)

--

It's funny how after this he calls him a judgmental dork, and not something much harsher.

--

"Why the fuck are you risking your life for that asshole!?" - Memory rick

"Because, you love him."

"You do maybe, but I don't."

"Yeah, yeah, you're real cool. Now, come help me save his life or fuck off, because I don't need you.

(Very much so loves BP.)

--

--

"I'm sorry Rick, but we cannot choose the ones we love" - Pers

"You got that right! Why do you think I'm still fucking down here!?"

--

Birdperson mentions that he would be dead if it wasn't for Rick, this also accounts for multiple times now since he brought BP back to life recently. Rick has stuck his neck out for the man so many times contradicting his "nothing matters" front, because that's what it is, it is a horrible coping mechanism to ignore your problems and pretend they don't exist because 'nothing matters'.

Its a problem that I have and I'm working through in therapy myself, it's called Denialism. Because 'if you shut yourself out from the world and your problems, then nothing can hurt you, and they don't exist'. You convince yourself you're in control when you're not, you have the least control, and it fucks you up. Rick isn't truly and fully nihilistic, or else literally nothing would matter to him. He makes sure to keep his Morty alive, he constantly brags on about how he can just get a new family, but he has the same Morty that he's had since the beginning and sticks his neck out for him as well.

--

"No, Morty. Because you were too afraid to tell me. What we had was abusive, don't you see? I'm a bad partner, because I never made you a true partner."

--

--

"I was afraid if I jumped in a hole you would just stand there and watch me, you wouldn't even jump in after me!" -Morty

But then Rick in season 1 literally jumped in after Morty when he fell through the garage floor into the Schrodinger's cat void.

"Be good, Morty, be better than me."

--

--

And when Rick starts crying at his memories of Morty in season One, but he refrains from expressing it so that Morty does not become, as he puts it, "cocky" (denialism)

I would also like to point out I feel like in the later seasons he starts calling Morty 'buddy' more?? he's a lot nicer to him than he used to be, and just recently allowed Morty to hug him without pushing him away, actually hugging back. He's also stated that he respects summer very deeply, which if he says that about someone, it really means that he does. He sees his Diane in Summer, and he also implies that summer is like a cat, her affection and respect needs to be earned; unlike Morty's dog like affection that is just given away. But we also hear Rick say that Morty reminds him a lot of himself when he was younger, this implies a lot of parallels.

Memory Rick brought out a lot of Rick that we didn't see previously, a person who wasn't fully tainted by the lack of treating mental Health issues, coping issues, unhealthy attachments, and all the other things that led up to Rick being the way he is. he said his heart broken so many times, he's been backstabbed, he is very hurt person. This doesn't excuse all of his actions but is a very good explanation and reason for why he is the way he is and the way the human psyche copes with it's environment to protect itself. it's like walking up to a caged animal with a taser, these are his defense mechanisms, it makes him look like a dick on the outside but currently it is the only thing that he knows how to do on instinct for protection, and that's why he's in therapy. This is why I believe he's genuinely trying to get better, he can get along with his therapist more than ever, even if he has sly remarks he genuinely listens to Mrs. Wong.

--

"I don't like being told where to go or what to do. I consider it a violation."

--

"There's a lesson here, and I won't be the one to figure it out"

--

"I don't discuss problems, I incinerate them"

--

"It was charmingly analog. For a sec, you kind of made me like myself." - Mem Rick

"You'll grow out of it." - Rick

He resents his younger self for helping him and makes sure to mention that he "grew out" of his ability to like himself, Rick has some extreme self-hatred. it's hard to fully love someone or Express a healthy relationship when you can't even have a healthy relationship with yourself.

--

"You act like you're the one that got stabbed in the back!" -Morty

"Because I AM THE ONE, Morty. You wanna know why I replaced myself in the beginning of that stupid knights of the morning sun thing!? I SAID don't take the fucking sword! And you were like "Whatever", like I'm our neighbor Jean or David Arquette or something!! You called me boring! I've become dog shit to you! That's what happens when you let people in and they stop respecting you! They touch your shit, they screw things up, they KILL your fuckin family! Go ahead and trust them, you're gonna learn the same fuckin thing." -Rick

--

[turtlesystem]

꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱₊˚⊹reminder

This is a bit more of a serious post, but it's worth a read.

We cannot believe we have to say this, but at the same time, we are not entirely surprised given the more argumentative nature of certain parts of this platform and community.

While we try to stay out of syscourse, we cannot control who sees my blog and who doesn't. This is just a message that we're going to put out in general, but if we say something on here that makes us sound like a "fake system" or someone who does not have enough self-awareness to call themselves a system, please DM us before making a post about us that makes false assumptions about our experience/credibility as a system. We are not a "questioning" system, this is something we know for a fact and are lucky enough to be seeking psychiatric treatment for.

We are very receptive toward criticism and would love to learn. We are more than aware that we have a lot to learn about our condition, a part of the reason why we created this blog in the first place - to network with others with shared experiences as us. Please remember that behind everyone's screen are individuals with feelings and often, a genuine desire to learn or connect with others.

We will also not hesitate to apologize if we stumble across a post about us too. We never want to cause any harm nor irritation with our blog. But please, please, please DM us first before coming to conclusions and amplifying whatever mistake we might have made to the public without even giving us a learning opportunity.

That being said, we do acknowledge the vulnerability and lack of safety that comes with publicizing personal details online. From this, we have (re)learned that it's better to not ask questions or for advice in online spaces. We apologize for our situational unawareness, our naivete, and any discomfort/worry we may have caused.

We are bodily a child, but that doesn't matter even if we were an adult. No one deserves to face false assumptions about the validity of their identity. We may ask stupid questions or sometimes turn to the wrong sources for support, but we ask to be guided back to the right path rather than being harassed or badmouthed onto it.

TLDR: PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT US BASED ON ONE POST WE MADE! Especially fakeclaiming...

We also deleted a lot of the posts in question (the ones with more stupid questions or the ones asking for advice/support). This is one good takeaway we learned from this. However, this lesson was definitely not worth the net anxiety caused by being badmouthed.

Thank you,

YJ and Arlo

(I hate that I have to say this. I just want to exist in peace. At least have the decency to fakeclaim me in private.)

[zones-spinterest-corner]

Content/trigger warnings: discussions of anxiety (specifically health anxiety/illness anxiety disorder), talk surrounding life-threatening/life-altering illnesses, and general uncomfortable topics like death not everyone may want to read! Click “read more” at your own caution and take care of yourself!

I’ve been suffering with health anxiety for years on end now, but it had died down a bit until recently. I don’t actually see people talk about it all that much (at least in the circles I’m in), so I want to use my teeny tiny platform to hopefully help at least one other person know they’re not alone.

I won’t go into the event that I believe kickstarted it as it’s a traumatic and sensitive memory, but it got significantly worse during 2020 and the Covid lockdown. As that died down, so did my health anxiety, but as I’ve been experiencing new and unprecedented problems as of recent, it’s come back with a force.

My anxiety mainly focuses on illnesses that can become very dangerous very quickly if not caught early enough, mainly ones like heart attacks, strokes, appendicitis, and the like. Slower onset illnesses can also cause some fear, but not nearly as much as the fast acting ones.

I decided to try and project these fears onto something outside of my own mind, and ended up giving my main oc, Zone, health anxiety as well. I also ended up personifying those feelings into an antagonistic, but not necessarily malicious, character.

Fuan is the embodiment of anxiety, and happened to latch onto Zone, who was already riddled with those feelings and only made them worse.

The broken and dripping heart in their design alludes to health anxiety, as a representation of the fear of dying. Chest pain is a symptom of anxiety and/or panic attacks for some people, me included, which it can also represent. The spiky tail is supposed to look somewhat like a knife, which is more synonymous with Zone’s lore as a character and why he specifically suffers with health anxiety, but can also probably represent some aspects of anxiety.

Fuan doesn’t want to cause pain, in fact they want to prevent it by predicting threats, but over time their perception of reality became more and more warped, to the point they take something small and insignificant and blow it out of proportion because of what it *could* be. Logic doesn’t work very well when dealing with them, as when they feel like they’re being ignored or talked over, they amplify their voice to make sure their warnings are heard. They want people to be safe, but are far too paranoid about non-threats.

This ends up putting Fuan into a “the boy who cried wolf” situation, too, as when they do predict an actual threat, they’re less likely to be listened to as they’ve been warning people of non-threats for too long that it seems like another one of their overblown dramatisations.

This is how I perceive anxiety to work. It’s not an evil emotion by any means, it wants to help, but in disordered cases it becomes too paranoid about tiny things that it raises alarm bells when there shouldn’t be any.

It actually helps somewhat to envision anxiety as something that just wants to help, but ends up being far too cautious and only causes more pain in the process. I’m fairly certain Inside Out 2 did this? I haven’t watched the movie so I don’t know for sure, but I know Anxiety isn’t portrayed as a villain, rather an antagonist who’s doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

It’s hard to feel any empathy towards an emotion that only seems to cause pain, but no emotion wants to do that in my opinion. They’re all here for a reason, and while sometimes they get it wrong (in disordered cases more than others), they don’t have any malicious intent.

I hope me sharing some of my experiences and feelings towards this topic helps someone else feel seen, I think respectful discussion about difficult mental health topics is very important as there’s so much misinformation around some, and some people feel so alone because their specific illnesses aren’t spoken about a lot. I know this feeling in both the physical and mental health departments.

If you’ve made it this far, even if you just skimmed, remember you are loved and you are not alone! Think about it this way: if you were the only person in the world to have an illness or disorder, you would’ve probably been asked to name it by now! Sometimes you do have to go looking to find people with similar struggles, but they do exist!

Have a cookie, I have options that cater to specific allergies and intolerances if need be! -> 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪

[walleffect]

depression is a serious medical condition actually

day 7876 of being annoyed that "mental health advocates" made depression and anxiety the "normal" mental illnesses- probably because it's easy to simplify them down to feeling "sad" or "scared".

A lot of the time, mental health advocacy takes the form of teenagers on the internet joking about their experiences or well-meaning people trying to explain conditions they don't have, but I'd honestly rather they didn't at this point.

It took me nearly dying from an overdose to realize that this condition that I'd been diagnosed with isn't a joke.

I have this memory of the night I got discharged from the hospital, staring at my last blood tests results, trying to listen to the ER doctor as he told me that he wanted me to come back here before I try to hurt myself again. I remember telling him that I felt like this whole thing was just me making a big deal out of nothing because I genuinely believed, at the time, that depression wasn't a big deal, that I needed a more debilitating set of symptoms to actually call myself ill.

He told me that he didn't care if it wasn't a big deal to me, but it was his job to make sure that I didn't die. It took a couple of days, but it sunk in.

The problem with most mental health advocacy these days is that it quite frankly trivializes depression. That word has a specific medical meaning, it's not something that should be taken lightly, and I hate that it's suddenly become normal for people to just take these medical words and use them with no regard for the weight they hold.

There's a broader point here about people bringing therapy speak into everyday language and how it erodes and invalidates the seriousness of what said words imply, but I'll let someone else make it.

[beeari]

"omg I let my intrusive thoughts win, I bleached my hair 🤪🤪"

If I ever let my intrusive thoughts win I end up in one of these places

[mistress-plant]

I love Pizzano so much, yall don't even know. Like he's just this portrayal of a man on the spectrum dealing with obvious mental health issues, who is for all intents and purposes washed up. The catharsis of him is delicious; normally most portrayals of mental health struggles leave me indifferent or angry at them. Yet whether through competent writing or sheer luck the Sugary Spire team hit the nail on it's head.

He's also baby girl and I want to cuddle him.

[professorbussywinkle]

I do believe in social progress for mental health and breaking the stigma surrounding it, but then I see hordes of tiktokers obsessively pathologizing strangers behaving in awkward ways, who have atypical or non-normative demeanors/affects, and then attribute things like narcissism and psychosis to them

and all the while believing that they genuinely understand the minutia, complexity, and gravity of these conditions, and how to accurately identify the observable traits that suggest the presence of these conditions with clinical precision, and then telling the people they arbitrarily ascribed these things to...

"yeah so...I know what psychosis and narcissism look like on a clinical level because I watch a lot of TikToks of people wearing lab coats sharing sound bytes and factoids about these things, so clearly you must just be some kind of crazy abusive bitch or something"

And I can't help but to wonder if this type of phenomenon is actively making people's perceptions of what mental illness really looks like unequivocally and categorically worse in every way imaginable

[mediamatinees]

“There’s chaos in you”: a Moon Knight discussion

Let this be a lesson for anyone who wants to write about mental health in pop culture. This is how it’s done. Content Warning: Moon Knight contains depictions of violence, child abuse, gaslighting, and body mutilation. United States of Tara contains discussions of child sexual abuse, ableism, and gaslighting. Viewer discretion is advised. Spoilers for Moon Knight ahead. Note: I’m just talking…

[tleeaves]

I feel like we haven’t talked about depersonalisation/derealisation as much as we should. to make it fun here’s a graphic (version 2) I edited as a start point for idk? research? anyway

really messy I know, I feel like it’s the vibe of the topic that’s largely just not talked about in many mental health conversations?? anyway songs and (mostly correct) lyric quotations are from when facing the things we turn away from

Context for others is that I suspect I suffer from either (or both) depersonalisation/derealisation.

The graph does make it sort of fun, though I'll be honest in that I am having trouble reading all the lyrics 😭 It's fascinating though, I've not seen a graph describing different levels before. Quite a lot of these are scary, and that's basically been my experience for many years now. A lot of fear, confusion, and a worry that I might have been losing it mentally before I realised that this problem might even have names. I cried the first night some friends reached out with the start of possible answers when I finally confessed to these episodes. There is so much relief in something as simple as being able to name a problem you're struggling with.

Happy to talk about it, because there's a lot I don't know beyond generally my own experience. My techniques in coping so far have been grounding exercises, like reciting facts about myself (full name, age, siblings, occupations, where I am) or picking something or someone near me and sort of willing myself to "stay" mentally by focusing on the present moment and feelings/sensations, though it doesn't always work. I can usually feel it coming on by sudden breathlessness, a buzz in my head, and then I enter a state of confusion where everything around me looks alien and I forget everything. The period of forgetting varies in time length, and so does the frequency of episodes (from multiple times in a day to one day every six months). I can be a bit unsteady too, and I usually have to lean on something. It feels so strange. I have to "reintroduce" myself to the people around me and the current situation like I'm coming back to a book after months except it's my life. There's been scary moments where I can't even name people or I have feelings of despair when I realise where I am and with who because it's not apparently where I want to be or where I think I should be.

So, it's frightening. And I don't really know exactly how long it's been happening or what caused it. But while the frequency has increased these last few years, I've been trying better to take care of myself and find coping mechanisms that work.

[poisonedrationality1337]

TW// Fakeclaiming and syscourse, skip if you need to//

As someone with OSDD, I will tell you it is NOT. THE SAME. AS D.I.D. So "elm" (btw, shit fucking job at blurring the names. Not very creative of you its almost like you WANT them to get called out. Didn't even bother blocking the pfp, prick.) Was telling you the TRUTH. They DONT have D.I.D. Take your fakeclaiming shit somewhere else.

//Fakeclaiming and syscourse over//

I can now see why the mods of this server banned Elysium. What they call defending themselves has devolved into circle arguments and even admitting to manipulative tendencies, using their BPD as a crutch to blame their issues on instead of picking up their own shit and owning up to it. Context, I have OSDD, BPD, Depression, GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), and I'm Autistic. I do not try to pull a Get Out of Jail Free card every time I split cause someone did something that made me anxious or triggered a bad autistic response out of me-I pick my shit up, figure out a way to move past it and then I do. If its genuinely intentional and you're sick of it-BLOCK THEM. I cant imagine why if this shit cause you oh so much pain you would continue it. "They wouldn't change so why should I"??? You sound like my ab*sive father.

Then you devolve into calling them immature children for making an informed decision that they CLEARLY knew how this conversation would go? Considering your past, present, and now implied future behavior?

The mods did the right thing. Still on their side for this. That whole display was just....gross.