#about mental illnesses they thought they might have

[glitter-stained]

Hey hii you're incredibly smart and if u want to i would love to hear more psychoanalysis of jason :) just any thoughts you might have, like a free space

Tysm, that's lovely!

I have so much to talk about, might you help me order it?

I'll probably come up with more later (though there's already a lot of material in there) so glad i get to be normal about my interests on the being normal about your interests website

[fragilefirstchance]

I actually have thoughts about this! I think Ford is a specific type of character.

First of all: Let's talk about fanon!

Something I think that a lot of us forget when we're doing fan analysis is just how caricaturized all blorbos are in canon. This is true of any work of media: the characters aren't real people, they're figments who only exist as we see them on-screen.

Fanon is kind of like those AI image sharpeners that take a blurred photo and make it look like a person's face: yeah, technically that is an accurate way you can interpret the blur, but there are hundreds of faces that would be just as accurate, and not only are they all very different from each other, they don't even agree on the most basic and obvious traits. The same blurry headshot could be a scowling white woman with a square jaw or a smiling black man with sharp features. In a similar way, when we see a character become stressed because they just saw a mouse in a cage, we could say they're scared of mice, or morally opposed to pets, or that they have cage-based trauma - any option that works is plausible.

I think that there are characters who are good characters, characters who are uniquely good subjects for fanon, and a ven diagram between the two. For example, a lot of kids' shows from the nineties are bad, but they managed to produce a really fun and rich fandom. Meanwhile, some really beautiful and culturally important stories don't leave a lot of room for fan works because they've already said what they need to say. I think the absolute best works for fandom are the ones that are objectively good stories, but have really simplified characters: Undertale might be the best example of this, because every single character suggests a rich and beautiful personality while only being on screen for a relatively short time.

So that leads me to part two: Ford!

I think Ford fills a particular fandom niche that was empty for a lot of us.

He's extremely traumatized, and the more we learn about him, the more traumatized he is. He's kind of pushing the limits of what's acceptable from a kids' show, to be honest.

He canonically has a lot of difficulty making friends; this is partly because he's quirky and seemingly neurodivergent, but partly because he has poor social skills. He's not a cartoony, Eeyore-style "has trouble making friends but we love him anyway" character, either; there are tangible, in-story examples of him failing to make friends.

He behaves badly sometimes. This is actually my favorite trait of his - anyone who reads my fanfiction knows how much I love giving people with real flaws a chance to find love and be treated with respect. Most characters have a flaw to overcome, but in his worst moments, Ford actually lashes out and hurts others in a tangible way and not just a child-friendly way. Showrunners don't always like to show that sort of thing.

It is very, very easy to read some severe mental health symptoms into his behavior. Bill is a literal character, but he's also a pretty good metaphor: you can use him to explain hallucinations, dissociative fugues, sudden mood swings, manic episodes, severe depression, paranoia - the list goes on and on.

(That last one is really important. There's a pretty damn big difference between a good metaphor for mental illness and a thoughtful portrayal of that mental illness in a story. It's kind of like how many of us were so starved for queer representation growing up that we read queer metaphors into everything. Well, there still isn't good mental illness representation in most media, so we'll take the metaphors we can get. Ford is a really good metaphor even as he's presented, and there are a lot of holes in his narrative where personality disorder symptoms, manic episodes, delusions, etc. can slot in easily.)

None of those traits make a good Disney character. They only really work because he spends so little time on-screen; the books were only possible because of Gravity Falls's massive commercial success. So, he's a very rare example of a character who's from a light-hearted, positive, optimistic show aimed at children, but who has all of the template features necessary for us to read him as deeply broken in some ways that aren't sanitized or socially acceptable.

So, there are dozens and dozens of Ford AUs in which we project very specific experiences, traumas, and symptom sets into this one man.

How many Ford AUs out there are reflections of our own insecurities, traumas, and just general unresolved issues? Is that, like, his whole purpose in the wider multiverse of alternate Gravity Falls characters? 'Cause I KNOW it isn't just me

[violentviolette]

"telling someone incorrect information about a media franchise will never have the same potential for harm the way telling someone incorrect information about their mental health or illness or their loved ones murder will and i think its important to keep that perspective in these discussions. especially because i think the blurred line between media and real world topics, and people consuming real world topics the same way they do media, and treating them like they're essentially the same and approach researching them in the same way is a big part of this problem." I've been saying this for ages you are so real for this. It's genuinely a big issue that people have grown the tendency to compare every form of media that they consume to real life issues, which then desensitizes them to said real life issues. It's a big issue that people compare content relating to fictional characters who do not exist and are not sentient as on the same level as real, living and breathing people. Is it annoying when people mix fanon with canon to the point that the entire message behind a media has lost itself ? Yes, it very much is. But does that loss harm anyone on a physical, mental, emotional or psychological level ? Nowhere close. This technological age makes me so uneasy because of the ever increasing comparison of media to real life events, and the continuous belief that "fiction affects reality" + "fiction = reality." If fiction *does* genuinely affect reality, then that would mean violent video games inherently make someone violent and horror movies inherently make someone a murderer. I say that: if you already struggle with anger issues, exposing yourself to more violent forms of media without critical consumption will obviously worsen the symptoms, along with horror movies giving you ideas on how to kill that one relative you've fantasized killing for the past half decade—the only thing that affects reality are idiots who lack critical thinking. A comparison I can think of that people bring up to debate that "fiction affects reality" are the trends of fictional cats and rabbits consuming milk and carrots respectively. It's so silly because if you're planning to become a parent to an animal, it is your JOB to do research into that animal's diet, livelihood, habitat, body language etcetera. Why are you trusting the livelihood of a talking cartoon character ? Sorry for the long ask, but what you said is so important and I hope people adopt that mindset more, especially with this growing technological social media age.

no apologies neccessary anon u are absolutely correct and u should say it

media should not be where people are getting actual real life applicaple information. *no one* should look at a work of fiction in any form and just assume that whats being said or done is accurate information that they can just apply to their real life. and the same goes the other way around. when u want to research mental health topics or world history or a science, no one should be approaching it the same way as digging through their favorite shows wiki.

but there's been this huge kind of like. fandomification of social justice and social science and other topics like this where instead of understanding the critical nuance of these things and approaching them with a research minded perspective and an understanding of the nuance needed because so many things in real life are contradictory and complex and have eons of context, people approach them like tv shows. they think if they just read enough information and consume enough of the "content" surrounding it then they'll be able to fully understand and grasp them and then be able to educate others about them as some kind of authority and it just makes me want to scream from the rooftops that *thats not how any of this works*

the desensitization thing is also so real. u genuinely cannot have a single conversation about a real world topic without someone bringing up media and i dont know how else to nicely tell people that that is in no way relevent and actually actively harmful. trying to relate everything in life back to media and not being able to talk about a topic without including media will genuinely rot ur brain because it completely desensitizes u to the issue of harm. being wrong about media will never ever have the same impact that being wrong about mental health or physical health or animal welfare or public wellbeing will

[inkskinned]

they want to talk about mental illness and acceptance and how everyone is a little ocd it's cute and quirky and their "intrusive thoughts" are about cutting their hair off and you say yours are about taking a razorblade to your eye and they say ew can you not and everyone is a little adhd sometimes! except if you're late it's a personality flaw and it's because you are careless and cruel (and someone else with adhd mentions they can be on time, so why can't you?) and it's not an eating disorder if it's girl dinner! it's not mania if it's girl math! what do you mean you blew all of your savings on nonrefundable plane tickets for a plane you didn't even end up taking. what do you mean that you are afraid of eating. get over it. they roll their little lips up into a sneer. can you not, like, trauma dump?

they love it on them they like to wear pieces of your suffering like jewels so that it hangs off their tongue in rapiers. they are allowed to arm-chair diagnose and cherrypick their poisons but you can't ever miss too many showers because that's, like, "fuckken gross?" so anyone mean is a narcissist. so anyone with visual tics is clearly faking it and is so cringe. but they get to scream and hit customer service employees because well, i got overwhelmed.

you keep seeing these posts about how people pleasers are "inherently manipulative" and how it's totally unfair behavior. but you are a people pleaser, you have an ingrained fawn response. in the comments, you have typed and deleted the words just because it is technically true does not make it an empathetic or kind reading of the reaction about one million times. it is technically accurate, after all. you think of catholic guilt, how sometimes you feel bad when doing a good deed because the sense of pride you get from acting kind - that pride is a sin. the word "manipulation" is not without bias or stigma attached to it. many people with the fawn response are direct victims of someone who was malignantly manipulative. calling the victims manipulative too is an unfair and unkind reading of the situation. it would be better and more empathetic to say it is safety-seeking or connection-seeking behavior. yes, it can be toxic. no, in general it is not intended to be toxic. there is no reason to make mentally ill people feel worse for what we undergo.

you type why is everyone so quick to turn on someone showing clear signs of trauma but you already know the fucking answer, so what's the point of bothering. you kind of hate those this is what anxiety looks like! infographics because at this point you're so good at white-knuckling through a severe panic attack that people just think you're stoic. even people who know the situation sometimes comment you just don't seem depressed. and you're not a 9 year old white kid so there's no way you're on the spectrum, you're not obsessed with trains and you were never a good mathematician. okay then.

mental illness is trending. in 2012 tumblr said don't romanticize our symptoms but to be fair tiktok didn't exist yet. there's these series of videos where someone pretends to be "the most boring person on earth" and is just being a normal fucking person, which makes your skin crawl, because that probably means you are boring. your friend reads aloud a profile from tinder - no depressed bitches i fucking hate that mental illness crap. your father says that medication never actually works.

you still haven't told your grandmother that you're in therapy. despite everything (and the fact it's helping): you just don't want her to see you differently.

[jeiyuuen]

Honestly, how am I supposed to live normally with the knowledge that Luffy's flower is sunflower while Law's is Queen of the Night?

[simcardiac-arrested]

IM SURE YOUVE ALREADY EXPLAINED IT SOMEWHERE but.. may i ask about the story in bitter choco decoration. I like those guys :)

you’d be surprised but i apparently have never talked about these particular ocs’ story in detail on this particular tumblr blog. so i shall do just that…. i tried to summarize but it got kind of long oops, as it always does when i talk about my mentally ill ass ocs

so! as u might already know the guys in the video are rikki and william, and the animatic happens from rikki’s pov. rikki is basically the golden child of the family—smart, well-behaved, always keeping her parents satisfied, etc etc. generally she is put under a lot of pressure a lot of the time. and then her family decides to get an insurance child so to speak—just in case rikki fails in life—but they don’t want to go through the trouble of raising another one, so they decide to adopt.

that’s where william comes in, baby! now he is decidedly Not the golden child. he is the problem child. parents thought they could reform him—well, not much to show for that. but him and rikki surprisingly get along, even though they’re opposites. william actually gets someone who cares about him for once and wants him to be okay, and rikki gets someone who wants her to be more bold, stand up to others and consider what she herself wants instead of people-pleasing. he even gets her to make snide jokes and cut her hair. they’re best friends, it’s nice. for a while.

but, none of it is perfect. you know how rikki always seems to be smiling even though she’s clearly not having a good time? and you know all those red eyes that appear pretty much everytime william’s on screen? rikki has so many layers of masks that william never really feels like he actually knows her. and william, even though he mostly wants rikki to do her own thing, can still kind of be selfish and controlling (because he’s a teenager, and traumatized, and scared of losing his best friend, but it doesn’t change the fact that rikki feels the same pressure from him as she feels from their parents).

so this all culminates when they’re in high school and rikki buries herself in work—she wants to secure a good education and a good job so that she can actually get them both out of this shitty abusive household. for the first time in her whole life, she has a Goal that she personally has chosen. she now has someone to work hard for. but she also ends up spending a lot less time with that someone because of her studying, and it eats at william and eats and eats until—it turns out rikki’s hard work has actually paid off. she’s gotten a scholarship, and she can leave for a good university and she’s finally achieved something that she herself has wanted to do and not anyone else. for both of them. for her brother.

except her brother doesn’t react with support, like usual. he’s not cheering her on now that she’s fulfilled her dream and beyond. he just looks betrayed. because they’re best friends. they promised to be there for each other, to get out of this hellhole house together. how could she leave him behind? how is he supposed to make it without her, who is he going to have on his side? william loves her and wants her to be happy but he doesn’t want her to leave.

so in turn—because rikki is a) an avoidant little bitch who would rather masterfully evade conflict than try to have an opinion and b) doesn’t want her brother to hate her forever and not speak to her ever again—in turn, rikki, as always, as second nature, lies. i mean, it’s her dream, it’s something she’s been working towards for years, but she’ll stay. she’ll leave it behind. it makes perfect logical sense to her—best of both worlds: she doesn’t spend the last summer at home with her brother resenting her, and she still gets to actually go to university. it is basically flawless.

all up until, you know, the day comes where she actually has to move out and go to university. and william inevitably finds out that she lied to him. and they fight. it’s not good. it’s not happy. they end up separating on really bad terms, and not talking for the next 7 years because william runs away from home pretty much soon after rikki leaves (it’s not shown in the animatic but he does go MIA, rikki visits home once on holiday to find that her brother is just Gone, no one knows where he is, her parents couldnt give less of a shit, not great all around!!!) then rikki ends up graduating and looking for an easy first job, just to kind of set her foot in Job World.

unfortunately, it is also the exact same easy, convenient job that her brother ends up picking. hoo, boy. long time no see.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it

Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.

[kreachvera]

my son he has 73 diseases and turned evil .

pwab au zappa. pwabba if you will

[wickjump]

yeah i can deal with intrusive thoughts. those are fine. ive learned to cope. intrusive DREAMS?? whole nother story. i have VISIONS. VIVID ONES. and that’s so much WORSE. “oh i have violent dreams too” youuu. don’t GET IT. im talking INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS. anyway what the fuck was up with my nap cause that shit suuucked!!!!!

[shalom-iamcominghome]

So, I've been a bit open about my mental health on here since it affects how I experience and interact with judaism, but I'm wondering how you all balance it? I've found that antisemitism does not specifically cause the recent episode/s I have been having, but it makes them worse, and I find that it makes it even harder to engage with judaism, so I'm currently in a Sisyphean spiral. I guess for me, my brain has been so high-alert about this stuff that it completely shuts down, but not engaging with my jewish community is just as detrimental to my health as antisemitism is. Plus, I'm just angry at the thought that something like antisemitism would prevent me from being with my community.

[hikarry]

Okay children, gather around. It's "Spencer Complains and Acts a Little Mad" Time:

I have been raw dogging life for 1 month without my adhd/depression/anxiety/mood stabilizers medication and without a single Therapy appointment

I haven't left my house in 1 month, I haven't spoken to any of my (in person) friends in over 1 month, I haven't seen my family in 1 month, I haven't seen my bloody cat in over 1 month, I've barely left my bloody room in over 1 month, and I've been listening to my bloody voice almost every day for 1 hour so I can finish editing the bloody podcast for over a month

To top it all of: I haven't had a decent night's sleep in about 4 days now (in which I just don't sleep or I have extremely vivid nightmares with my departed mother and/or scenarios where I die over and over and over again but can't speak to ask for help before it happens - fun for all the family, if you ask me) and I might or might not be completely and absolutely going insane, with only Good Omens season 1 (6/6) and season 2 (5/6) and the existence of Crowley/red haired Fire Pokemon David Tennant Edition being my sole producer of any amount of serotonin

How am I alive? Good question. Beautiful genderfluid demonic content can be some very nice very distracting content for individuals that simp for Fire Type David Tennant Pokemon like myself

I am quite sure my only contact with anything mental health related in the past weeks has been my best friend whom is very very annoying and refuses to leave me the heck alone and whom is a nurse and is working extra time to advice my stupid ass the best she can, bless her heart

So, with my personal nurse's permission, I have doubled my sleeping medication for the night and, as Fall Out Boy once wrote for the song "Alone Together" in one of my favorite albums to have ever been created "Save Rock and Roll": I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead

[transhoverfish]

OK OK OK GUYS GUYS EVERYONE AAAAAA I SAW THE TRAILER (THERES A TRAILER!!!!!) IM GONNA MAKE A POST ABOUT IT SOON I PROMISE IM JUST VERY ALL OVER THE PLACE THIS MONTH

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

"yes im so fine"

*researches whether i can get my hands on ipecac*

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Kind of surreal to be pulling in slightly larger checks while not changing my spending habits so now I kind of have no excuse to not get myself a pressure cooker or the. the ultrakill blanket

[zootopiathingz]

I hate depression but I hate it most when I’m so low on energy and it holds me back from going out with my friends. Like I so rarely ever get to go do anything fun anyway so when I actually have that opportunity it hurts so bad to have it ripped away from me simply bc I can’t bring myself to get out of my damn bed

[doodlepede]

i wonder if the blog stalker persists...