#any other personality disorders out there

[confusedlamp]

Sitting here with fond memories of pumpkin carving with my parents and my dad taking us trick or treating like ?????? My childhood wasn't perfect by any stretch, but my family is integral to why I love the holiday.

I am convinced most of these "[Benign trait] means you're screwed up" is one person's introspection leading them to believe that their negative experiences/ anxieties/ fears have contributed to having that trait, and then they conclude that everyone with that trait has the same negative expereinces/ anxieties/ fears. In this case, one person maybe doesn't have a great relationship with their family, so doesn't like family oriented holidays like Christmas, but enjoys Halloween, which, especially as a young adult, is oriented more around friends ( plus safe scares and freedom in presentation, which may also appeal to them). But then ignored that maybe their shitty childhood experiences wasn't the whole (or even main) reason they prefer halloween and that plenty of people have a variety of reasons to liking it. (I have also seen this occur on tumblr plenty- don't think tiktok is alone here).

That said, I try and keep in mind: it is their first time being human. It is also my first time being human, as it is anyone's. None of us have another life we've lived to compare to.

How many of us do have traits we thought were the norm and it turned out were unusual? A classic example is someone who's late diagnosed with adhd learning that most people don't have that much of a struggle staying organized or starting simple tasks. Or, for a non "disorder" example, a trans person realizing that most people don't constantly wish to be another gender.

Idk if there is a perfect solution to combatting this other than trying to look at reputable sources (which can be difficult to evaluate for everyone and aren't always accessible), talking to an actual therapist (who are fallible and not an option for everyone), and asking other people you personally know (which does necessitate vulnerability and who may not be representative).

I am calling for a total and complete ban on tiktok pop psychology until we can figure out what the hell is going on

[balkanradfem]

Just watched The Substance and I honest to god can't believe this is considered a 'feminist' movie. Read your analysis and completely agrree. My male co-workers were actually gushing over this movie, they couldnt believe how many times they got to see the main actresses naked and posing sexually for them. If you made a movie for men to masturbate too you've absolutely failed in having a 'feminist' message.

And Sue literally being how incel men picture Hot Girls - getting everything she wants without doing anything, rich and vain, having sex whenever, posing sexually every morning and staring at herself constantly, while having no real personality. Its how a porn-addicted man wishes he could live, not any womens reality. She barely even has any lines in the movie.

Not to mention having Demi Moore be the 'old women' despite having obvious work done and looking nothing like a regular older women. Its like the movie itself was too afraid to actually show a realistically aged women, and when she does start getting gray hair and looking older suddenly shes acting cartoonishly bitter and slobbish. Im so sick of movies having women make disgusting looking food and a huge mess and it all being shown as gross and depressing. Portraying food and eating as disgusting and pigging out when women make it (for themselves, if theyre cooking for a man or kids suddenly its different) is just feeding into misogynistic beliefs, not subverting them.

And the classic, portraying sexist men as very goofy and dumb so they don't offend the male viewers by having an actual relatable man that acts just like them being criticised by the movie for his sexism. Also the whole point where the movie basically acts like if she'd just been able to go on that date with the random guy from school, she wouldve been fine. bc having a boyfriend and a man that says youre the most beautiful is all that a woman needs i guess.

Anyway I absolutely hated this movie. From a horror perspective it did some things very well, but the message was just foul to me. Not to mention the fact that men are now trying to give Margaret Qualley the Sydney Sweeney treatment, bc they got to see her naked, hyper-sexualized, and acting like a little girl infront of powerful men. This movie was the antithesis of what everyone is saying it is imo.

Yes, I remember feeling similar to this when I first watched it. So much of it was catering to the male gaze, so much of it I had to skip because it was pornographic material, the outrage at the woman who looked so young and socially attractive to be presented as 'too-old-looking', I didn't even consider how different she looked to the reality of female aging, I didn't know that much about her. I did think she looked young though!

And you described perfectly my own thoughts about the food! It was presented to us as if it was disgusting, it made me feel insane, it was food! I've never seen any food presented in such a way. I understood later that this part was meant to resonate with women who did see food in this way because of an eating disorder, and to them this looked very normal to how they feel about food, even though this seems terrifying to me, I can't even think about it that way.

You are so right that it's never portrayed like this when a woman is cooking for a family! I didn't even think of that. If she's making meals for others, then it's portrayed as extremely positive, if she's cooking for herself, horrible.

I actually didn't even see the missed date thing as her 'opportunity to be fixed', but you're right! They did depict that male as her last chance to make a human connection and to feel like a human again, as if a single male could resolve this insane amount of struggle she was in.

My conclusion is exactly the same as yours, it is not doing anything it's claiming to do, extremely disappointing as a feminist movie, so much catering to male gaze and awful and horrifying depiction of what women's lives are like.

[psychotic-tbh]

Hey cynical and disabled folks, how can I support my fellow community members without shoving positivity in your face?

I want to support you without pushing my beliefs and my worldview onto you.

I know that what helps me may not help others, so I want to ask: how can I better support my fellow disabled folk?

[sarasa-cat]

YES! Gattaca tops the list! *fist pump*

I'll explain that one:

Gattaca takes place in a near-future version of our world in which genomic analysis of sperm and eggs is regularly used for eugenic selection when people plan a pregnancy. No one --- or, at least, no one respectable --- has children "the natural way" any more. A person's genetic code determines all major aspects of their life and discrimination based on genetic flaws is baked into every aspect of society.

Your genes are your destiny, regardless of probabilities and environmental interactions. In this dystopian society, any such risk must be avoided. Thus, if you possess genes that indicate a likelihood of certain diseases or conditions, your opportunities are limited. Corporations engage in genetic testing as a condition of employment. Single people in the dating scene secretly test potential partner's code to make sure they are getting involved with someone who has excellent genes. Thus, genetic code enforces economic class structure.

The movie's story centers around the fate of two men: The main character is Vincent Freeman (played by Ethan Hawke) who was naturally conceived and has a genetic profile that rates him as having a high probability of severe health disorders and an exceedingly short lifespan. Growing up as a victim of low expectations, Vincent is stuck in working as a janitor at an areospace corporation -- a field that Vincent is deeply interested in.

The other central character is Jerome Eugene Morrow (played by Jude Law) who is deemed genetically perfect but fate left him with a severe handicap and a hell of a lot of cynicism and depression.

Jerome's genetic code is worth a lot of money on the black market, which is how Vincent and Jerome meet.

.

Gattaca came out in 1997, which is also key. At that time the Human Genome Project was seven years into its way of mapping and sequencing every gene in human beings. (The Genome Project completed in 2003).

Also, at that time, the field of bioethics was loudly raising the alarm on what would happen when companies, governments, or both, have unprecedented access to every person's genetic code.

This film was so accurate in portraying our potential future that many molecular biologists praised the film or, at least, highly recommended the film to their molbio colleagues such that other geneticists could "understand the perception of our trade held by so many of the public-at-large" (quote from Lee Silver, MolBio at Princeton, who at least then, was exceedingly pro-designer baby. Silver now runs a genetic screening company).

In addition to being nominated for and winning a number of film awards, the movie is visually beautiful and the performances by Jude Law & Ethan Hawke are stellar. The tension is palpable.

Also, since this is tumblr, I should also mention that the fanfic potential in this film is *chefs kiss*.

Highly recommended.

[prince-liest]

cooking anon! I really like your takes. I haven't thought about how Alastor might value hard work from his one bit in Dad Beat Dad (wonder if this is something he values in friends *early era Vox ?cough*) But! I am intrigued! Do you have any headcanons/ideas for the scenario where Al can only derive nutrition via cannibalism?

Aw, thank you! I felt a little bad that I took it in a tonally totally different direction from what you intended, haha, so I'm glad you enjoyed nonetheless!

I totally think that this is one of those things that fits in with Alastor's general vibe of prioritizing traditional values - which I mean not in the religious sense but in the "hard work and good manners" sense. I think a lot of his dislike of Lucifer stems from the fact that not only is Lucifer swanning in to threaten Alastor's position as hotelier....he's doing it by snapping his fingers and using his powers as royalty to offer to bougie the place up just like that while being super judgmental of the things that they've put together. Alastor also snaps his fingers and summons shadows to do construction work, but Alastor is occasionally a fucking hypocrite. Also his shadows don't provide champagne and caviar while implying people are 'the help.'

And I totally think that this is something he valued in Vox before Vox went off the deep end of perpetual self-improvement in a way that threw the baby out with the bathwater. I feel like Alastor is one of those people who thinks you should warm leftovers up using the stove or oven instead of the microwave, and meanwhile Vox is out here inventing Voylent Blue because eating normal food takes too long or something.

As for the cannibalism thing: I don't know if this is meta canon or word of god or just popular fanon, but I've seen the idea floating around that all sinners come to hell with a curse designed to punish them. I really enjoy the idea that Alastor's is that he is an obligate cannibal. I am in general perpetually fascinated with various forms of disordered eating in fiction, and I like to write Alastor as too skinny under all his layers, perpetually hungry, and really only able to eat people. He gives me the vibes of a rangy, starving predator hidden underneath all of his pizzazz.

[angelnumber27]

violently forcing myself to have better days

[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.

[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

[naivety]

okay i need feedback from the autism mentall illness website um. this is going to read like an AITA post. brother vs half-sister (who are currently my dependents do to their own individual disabilities + ptsd/depression) spat i will skim the details on but i'm worried my sister will discount my take since i'm not autistic myself so. am i crazy to call it ableist to look at an autistic person (23) who is clearly going through it dealing w long term depression, a world that doesn't give a shit abt him, unemployment, very self-isolated and burnt out barely leaving his room because the world is an ableist dumpster fire with zero opportunities for him, and then bring up childhood abuse he's suffered and his diagnosis as reasonable factors on top of this to worry he'll [checks notes] abuse my cat just to hurt me or even worse have a breakdown and kill me and his other sibling in a violent episode, a train of thought i probably wouldn't even be having were he not [checks notes] mad at me for the first time in my life?

like i don't have any other read on this kind of fear-based characterization other than ableism. like those are very real things in his life but she never points out any current violent behavior, of which there are none, only the one (1) instance of him lashing out when he was like 14 and Officially Diagnosed Low Empathy she thinks is a concern and Hateful Looks toward her since he stopped getting along with her, that's it. i tried explaining to her why i, someone who's lived w him his entire life, can vouch for how unlikely he is to do anything like that, especially when it's again not based on anything he's actually currently doing except for isolating in a way that is much more indicative of him potentially being a danger to himself than anyone else, and being cold towards her specifically, and i thought she had let it go, but when i brought it up off-hand in a conversation tangentially related, she continued to defend and justify her Concern about the potential directions his behavior could lead to because [checks notes] other people in similar situations have lashed out and killed their entire families according to. true crime books or videos she's watched on youtube as far as i'm aware. ignoring the fact that her and i have had the same or Worse childhood abuse and have acted similarly isolated in the past, or for her literally just as currently as him, and she's not expressed any worry past or present about either of us doing anything like that, in my opinion obviously because i haven't cut her off due to our differences like he decided to. like am i big sibling biased because this is pissing me off so bad.

[szampers]

I feel why szpd is less well documented (and widely known) is because it's one of the most harmless personality disorders. It brings the least harm to the people around you. Any harm would come in a subtle way, and it isn't something someone would be madly concerned over, including the schizoid individual themself. What bothers the most is the frustration of being the way you are, the lack of understanding and acceptance from others.

I think most of the harm szpd can cause to other people is through passivity - the lack of interest in interaction. In our presence, they would only feel uncomfort, annoyance, confusion or self-doubt by our lack of engagement, all of which can be solved by simply distancing yourself from the schizoid individual, who aren't known to chase after people either. Simply ignore them like how we ignored them in the first place. The amount of input has to be equal, nothing receiving nothing. Szpd doesn't actively bring harm through interaction, it passively does it through disengagement. And can it harm any relationships if bridges were never built in the first place? But those who were misled by the act of masking would be hurt the most out of all. Lacking a will to maintain relationships, you wouldn't start any of them either unless it's unavoidable. This way whatever harm that might come is minimalized, but this act itself is arguably what brings the most harm, disengagement.

[thousandyearphantombunker]

"just give them an aac device!"

"just teach them sign language"

"body language and facial expressions alone are good enough for communicating what you need"

Nonononono f*!k off. Stop acting like nonverbal people have easy solutions to their lack of verbality. Not everyone can use an aac device- some people struggle with spelling or can't spell at all, some people have motor skills issues that makes typing a nightmare that takes a long time, some can't articulate themselves without outside help. Learning sign is hard if you again have motor skills issues or struggle to make facial expressions that convey what your feeling (flat affect applies to more than just a person's voice- some people really struggle to make facial expressions and have stilted or strange body language- you people can understand why autistic people get burnt out from masking all day- you know often having to control their body language and make certain facial expressions etc yet you can't understand why nonverbal autistics can't just learn sign- a language very heavy on facial expressions and expressive body language?) also again spelling and motor skill issues are a pain and also a lot of families with deaf or nonverbal children refuse to learn sign for said children and I'm sorry in day to day life I haven't met many people who speak sign- yeah you can move to a community with a lot of deaf or nonverbal people that use sign but that's not always possible and its very limiting. And do I even have to explain the third one- autistic body language is confusing to neurotypicals and I hate the stereotype that its just so blunt and obvious/better than neurotypical communication- maybe that's what its like for you and your 'smart sheldon cooper/Wednesday Addams' style autism but not every autistic person 'says exactly what they mean' often times autistic people struggle with semantics and articulating sentences that make any sense! and all these misunderstandings surrounding stimming are annoying to!- spinning can be a 'happy' stim but it can also mean your overwhelmed or understimulated, a lot of people with autism have voices that lack inflections, mix that in with being unable to use words and no it does not help communicate their needs- f!*k off with acting like its easy not all autistic people who are nonverbal can spell, not all autistic people w are nonverbal have good motor skills and body language alone is never enough to convey a persons needs. Before anyone comes after me yes Sign is body language but its also actual symbols and can convey full thoughts and ideas and sentences and also body language is hard for a lot of autistic people to convey like stated above.

Not every form autistic communication is being 'logical' and unoffended because 'we're just more logical than those superfluous, shallow neurotypicals that let their feelings control them and are never direct about what they want-we value facts and logic unlike those butthurt neurotypicals' and being overly blunt- no a lot of autistic people find that communication is messy and the ways they can communicate are ineffective and your 'logical, facts dont care about your feelings' style of communication isn't as amazing as you think it is. Stop speaking over nonverbal autistics- their is no real perfect solution to them not being able to speak. And I'm gonna say it- while not all nonverbal people are low functioning or high support needs or whatever the new term is-being nonverbal is a massive disadvantage and having your disability be visible like that is scary in many situations and being unable to communicate your needs can make it impossible to meet your needs-

[power-chords]

She’s also going to try to track down a therapist who specializes in mood disorders, costs less $$$, and can see me sustainably long-term for talk therapy. I told her that I was having trouble processing what happened to me, probably a common sentiment in the aftermath of psychotic mania. She said I was lucky, that she sees a ton of bipolar patients, and that the fallout from mine was “nothing” (which was not to diminish the extremity of my experience, only to emphasize just how destructive the disease can be and often is). I had just enough insight, grit, and craftiness to recognize that my beliefs and perceptions were bizarre and required concealment from loved ones/employers. It was a blessing and a curse — on the one hand, very few people figured out that I was sick. On the other hand, very few people figured out that I was sick! What might have lasted three weeks dragged on for three months because the (reasonable, lmao) threat of involuntary commitment petrified me. I’d done the psychiatric ward once before in 2008 while waiting for a bed at Silver Hill to open up. Those 36 hours in a blank, padded room scarred me worse than anything I had ever done or had done to me under the influence. I was completely unprepared for the terror and humiliation that is the total revocation of one’s autonomy. The nurses were callous, and I felt like an animal. To call it dehumanizing is an understatement. As hostile as the environment in my head was becoming, I was convinced that the ER posed the more immediate danger and had to be avoided at any cost.

Somehow I succeeded. I was listening to a clinician on a podcast the other day, this guy who runs an outpatient facility for people with mood disorders, and he said that manic episodes inevitably end in one of three ways: death, jail, or hospitalization. HA HA! Not for me! Meep meep, bitch! Weaseled my way out of that one!!! (Ironically, it’s a permutation of the old AA/NA refrain I had heard so many times before: "We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death." Dodged two bullets, apparently.) I have to laugh about it so I don't cry.

I'm sure it's annoying that I'm posting about this so much but having my whole life upended again at 36 was not on my bingo card. I had been so stable for so long, I was by all accounts a well-adjusted, normie-passing yuppie, and assumed the psychic turmoil of my youth was ancient history. It is a miracle that I was not seriously injured — for a while I was wandering city streets late at night, believing no harm could come to me — and that my career, finances, and marriage have survived intact. The statistics on bipolar illness are astonishingly grim. It’s like being in possession of a nuke inside your skull that can arm itself without warning and the codes to destroy your own life. You think of yourself as a sane person; you take for granted that the state of "sanity" is a robust and stable one, and that only the most extreme circumstances would push you over the edge. It is, and I do not use this term lightly, traumatizing to spend 12 consecutive weeks unmoored from reality and behaving in ways that are completely at odds with your personality. I am not a paranoid, angry person. I don’t hold grudges or presume the worst of others’ intentions. On the contrary! If anything, I am too trusting, too forgiving. I reflect on this past summer and don’t even recognize myself. The existential reckoning, the guilt and the shame, are overwhelming.

Last week I finished reading An Unquiet Mind and one of the things that struck me is how fortunate this woman was in three respects: the timing of when her manic depression struck (I.E., at intervals that still permitted her to finish college/her post-graduate studies), the uncommonly generous support of her family and colleagues (back when the stigma against mental illness was even worse than it is now), and probably most significant of all, access to superlative medical care (the UCLA psychiatric department) and responsiveness to lithium treatment. I benefit, thank god, from a situation with many of the same resources. She's led a fulfilling, successful, and ultimately long life. It felt good to read about a woman who played a "happy ending" out of the rotten hand she'd been dealt, whose experiences reflected so many of my own, and who seems to have retained her sharpness and verbal acuity well into old age. Cognitive decline is common as the illness progresses, and this is my greatest fear of all.

What's immediately, tragically evident in perusing the r/bipolar subreddit is just how many people find themselves in the exact opposite position. Insanity strikes at the worst possible moment; abandonment ensues from friends and employers, relatives and spouses; therapy and medication are lacking and insufficient, respectively. Financial and social ruin, and the resultant despair, are frequent outcomes. Dependency on SSDI and/or abusive and inescapable housing situations are documented left and right. The scope of the devastation is harrowing, and the guilt and humiliation that follows on its heels is a compounding cruelty. Knowing this, I am opting to feel lucky instead of unlucky. It has not been easy. It will not be easy. But I am as stubborn as they come, and I will figure shit out. "One day at a time," to borrow another 12-Step adage.

Dr. Ferrari referred me to a ketamine clinic and we're shooting for the week after Thanksgiving to commence infusions. She wants to space them out more than is typical, like every four days as opposed to every other day, to minimize the risk of triggering mania. But that's strictly precautionary and she thinks I'm an excellent candidate overall. Fingers crossed...

[transannabeth]

no more!!!! of “speaking [language]” in subtitles of scripted shows!!!!!! write that shit out!!!! transcribe it!!!!!!

[st-peculiar]

I uh. Finished the first chapter draft for Ouroboros. Little sneak peaks below the cut I suppose.

“Deep down, you know that something has changed. You can’t quite put your finger on it yet.

-

That’s what it is. You’re alive.

-

Death does not always mean an end. It is simply a pit stop on a very long highway. You still have many miles to travel.

It is best if you get back in your car and begin to drive again.

-

How long can you take it? The way you have a mouth but no voice to speak through.

Can you take it?

-

You realize you are being rebuilt. It is uncomfortable and itchy knowledge. You feel it in the prickling numbness at the tips of your fingers, the eternal ache in your temples, and most of all, you fear.

Your aches and pains are all fear.

You are no longer human.”

[torchickentacos]

you ever scroll past some sort of discourse that you didn't even know existed, and you have to take a second and realize that, while none of us are superior to others, some of us ARE much better at choosing which dumbass hills to die on? because I think sometimes you deserve to go 'huh. at least I'm not getting involved in all that'.

[dairyfreenugget]

A little funfact

I headcanon PK as an introvert (I mean. Duh. Being a recluse is like one of the few things we know about him) and Flower as extrovert/ambivert with severe anxiety

🤝 socially awkward brothers in arms