#but as a bipolar having to see My illness used as an insult sucks and thats Less widespread than 'narc' as an insult so i cant even imagine

[pretty-little-martyr]

i feel like shit owuld be so much better if people swapped "narcissist"/"narcissistic" as insults to "self-absorbed." cause usually when theyre referring to things like 'narcissistic abuse' or 'a narcissist' they're just referring to a self-absorbed asshole, not someone with NPD. just a teeny tiny shift of language would really do wonders for people Not misunderstanding an already-stigmatized disorder.

[acidicpenumbra]

Hello describers of things can we stop using medical terminology as descriptors please PLEASE

Sorry grievances time because I don’t like it there are alternatives and I will literally fucking list them for you. (Alternatives are given as alternative words to HOW PEOPLE WRONGLY USE the disorders in question, NOT AS ACCURATE DESCRIPTIONS of the disorders/symptoms. Thanx. A handful of the “alternatives” can still be used as derogatory but for fucks sake what the fuck ever stop using medical terms as insults)

(Edit: Here to clarify that my intention of the words below is not to say I see other mentally ill or disabled people like this, it’s specifically what I myself most commonly see people use the diagnostic words to mean. I believe it is also important to say that all terms below can be used in a derogatory/negative sense, and while I do see the issues potentially present with someone having terms just to be an asshole, I also want to say that it’s easier to phase out legitimate medical terminology from people’s vocabularies if you offer alternatives instead of just telling them not to say things. This was originally a rant post about my own frustrations regarding misuses of diagnostic terminology & misusing those terms as a means to insult/demean people, as it is offensive and conveys that their problems make them nothing more than an insult to you.)

Bipolar/Manic (alternative words/phrases that don’t refer to/demonize bipolar disorder: inconsistent, erratic, unpredictable, flighty, fickle, irregular, volatile, temperamental)

Delusional/Psychotic (alternative words/phrases that don’t refer specifically to/demonize psychosis: deranged, unstable, frantic, unhinged, frenzied)

Narcissist (alternative words/phrases that don’t refer to/demonize NPD: egotistical, entitled, full of oneself, vain, selfish, haughty, prideful, arrogant)

Psychopath/Sociopath (alternative words/phrases that don’t refer to/demonize ASPD: cold, uncaring, calculated, withdrawn)

Braindead (alternative words/phrases that don’t ridicule/make a spectacle out of actual brain death: absentminded, unwise, foolish, stupid, oblivious)

Antisocial (alternative words/phrases that don’t refer to ASPD: not social, asocial, introverted)

Obsessive Compulsive (alternative words/phrases that don’t devalue or otherwise stigmatize OCD: perfectionist, organized, tidy, neat, structured) 

Intrusive Thoughts (alternative words/phrases that don’t devalue or otherwise stigmatize legitimate intrusive thoughts: impulsive-, reckless-, spontaneous-, rash-, all ending in “thought/thoughts”)

This isn’t like a masterlist or anything it’s just a list I have on hand but like for real stop calling people sociopaths and psychos and shit this sucks balls Thanks

[aita-polls]

AITA for ghosting my lifelong friend? Part 1. (so sorry for sending multiple asks, tumblr can't process the length! it's a convoluted story. TL:DR; will be at the end.)

I (25, he/him) have/had a friend (25, they/them/he) who I grew up with, and I've always considered us to be close. Upon further inspection, I think I just have never had enough friends to know what actually counts as "close". We've gone whole years without speaking to or seeing each other and even toward the end of our childhood we were never each other's best friends or first choices. We also had a bit of unpleasantness between us when I first came out as trans but we were pretty young then, so it isn't something I still hold against them, though it did impact my desire to be friends with them at the time. My point is that I think we just happen to be each other's oldest friends. They've always been a bit dishonest but in recent years they have gained some notoriety as an artist and it has gone to their head. For the past year or so they have been faking schizophrenia. It's pretty clear that they're faking it because they are pretty ignorant about the disorder, so they often confuse/conflate symptoms of other disorders like bipolar and CPTSD. I never knew how to bring this up without being harsh, because sometimes there actually is some kind of mental illness going on anyway when someone lies this much about their life, and I didn't want to just shit on them for being mentally ill. Recently it has escalated, though, to the point that they are faking multiple other conditions, disabilities, and even traumas, in a way that is incredibly disrespectful and insulting. One particularly bad example of this that got me really rethinking our friendship was when they were escorted out of a nightclub by the forearm by a security guard for berating staff members (they were asked to leave as the club is a women's-only space). They described this event on social media as a r*pe, and named the bar and the owner publicly to their thousands of followers. A few of our mutual friends reached out with questions (they have a history of pretending to be a trans woman in certain situations, so it's worth asking), but they publicly called out and insulted those people as well, calling them manipulators, classists, ableists, abusers, etc.

**Alt img descriptions were used but parts two + three are posted under the cut in plain text in case this format is more helpful for anybody

ghosted my lifelong friend Part 2-

About 3 months ago they started to drop hints that they believed they may have DID and they are already faking full conversations with 8 - 10 supposedly co-conscious alters. They make Spotify playlists, outfit plans, drink recipes, etc. for these "alters" (all of which suit their personal tastes and rarely vary- if you know much about DID you likely know that it's a big red flag when someone's alleged alters are extremely similar to each other and to the host). They have also recently been pretending to have gone deaf and blind (not hard of hearing and visually impaired, but deaf and blind), over the span of the last 2 months or so. It is possible to go totally deaf and blind fairly quickly, but they claim to have learned sign language fluently and retaught themself visual art and ballet without sight or hearing in that same timeframe. I know that schizophrenic people can experience somatic hallucinations that cause them to believe that they are permanently losing their olfactory senses, but these people actually can't process sounds or visuals normally while they're having these hallucinations, and so it doesn't really involve any level of intentional dishonesty on their part. It's one thing to experience temporary, hallucinatory deafness, and a totally separate thing to film, edit, and post multiple videos of yourself blatantly pretending to speak sign language on social media. I mean this is such a low-effort fake that it's not hard to debunk at all; for instance the sign for multiple words is apparently just the letter R. (Again, I have noticed this so easily because I personally speak sign language, so l am aware that some uncommon words and proper nouns are spelled out and not represented by a single sign, but as an example, the phrase "I'm on the train right now" doesn't have 5 Rs in it regardless). The final straw was when earlier this week they claimed that someone attempted to break in to their vacation home. For even more background they have also recently started to claim that they have a stalker, a specific woman who they know personally who they are supposedly currently travelling cross-country to avoid. (The real story is that they are fleeing relationship drama, but l digress). Over the previous few days they had made several posts intentionally leaving behind details about their location- mentioning the name of the neighbourhood they were visiting, dropping bits and pieces of their travel schedule, posting photos and videos near the front of the home they were staying at, etc. It was all vague enough that you'd have to work very hard to decipher their actual (remote, rural) location from it, but specific enough that it could be plausible that an extreme stalker might be willing to. This is extremely strange behaviour from someone who is supposedly fleeing an obsessive stalker, but whatever.

lifelong friend story Part 3 (final part, I hope.)

Their story about the break-in was originally that their alleged stalker had flown thousands of miles to try and break in, but when no one was buying that they started to claim that they "weren't sure" who it was because they "can't see". When this made even more people see through the lie, they changed their story again, claiming that they were "pretty sure that someone tried to break in" but didn't know for sure, and that they also believed the person in question "might" have touched them inappropriately if they had been there and had broken in. This, to me, was obviously them both trying to avoid making a statement that was too simple to debunk and to make people feel uncomfortable asking more questions by including an element of assault. There are more instances of specific lies, and some of these and other lies are suspiciously similar to my own life story, if I might avoid specifying to keep my anonymity relatively intact. Everyone else who has tried to call them on this has had a hate mob sent their way, and I didn't want to give them the chance to shit on me for noticing their dishonesty, especially when they're stealing half the stories from me directly, so I just gave up in the end and blocked them everywhere. I figured the total lack of respect from their end justified me preserving my mental health as much as I could. The fact that they are so blatantly, regularly and severely lying about subjects that they are aware I'm personally knowledgeable on is insulting, yes. But it's also dangerous for someone who is totally ignorant to the disorders they claim to have to be positioning themselves as an expert to people who may not know any better. They've lost a lot of friends and followers over this behaviour, yes, but they still have a following of a few thousand people and if they haven't seen through it by now I wonder if they ever will. They need desperately to get off social media so they can stop acting out for attention and just spend some time on figuring out why they feel such an overwhelming need to lie all the time. Also, if it helps understand the why a bit better, this person is rather wealthy and grew up that way as well, and I believe that they have always felt inadequate and "uncool" in comparison to people with harder lives. Since becoming an artist they have started to lie more and more to fit in with a crowd they see as more worldly and experienced. Having grown up poor and in an extremely neglectful home enviroment is another thing they frequently lie about. To reiterate this behaviour has been escalating rapidly for the past two or three months, this has mostly all happened between September 28 and now and it's only a portion of the full scale of the stories. Maybe if I hadn't consistently gotten so much less effort back than I put in during our relationship, I might have tried harder, but I can't keep dealing with this for my own health, and I don't want to have a hate mob on my ass either. I also frankly don't want to be publicly associated with this person. My best bet, I feel, is to just disappear and be impossible to find again. AlTA?

TL:DR; I believe that my “microcelebrity" friend has been faking deafness, blindness, DID, schizophrenia, and other serious issues for personal and professional gain for months, and publicly attacking anyone who questions them on it. I got fed up and ghosted completely in the hopes of avoiding a similar fate.

[bandofchimeras]

hey dude, sorry not trying to be an ass w this but I saw u had a post where in the tags you used delusional and narcissist as pretty derogatory insults towards the govt. Bashing the government is good and great but using terms that we (at least currently) need to describe mental illness (and definitely associate with it!)... in ways like that... its ableist and dehumanizing and leads to more abuse, even if it feels innocent, because if everyone who's a narc or who's delusional is dangerous....that's everyone w/ npd, or a schizospec disorder, or any other things.

Sorry this is long, and again, not trying to be rude! Just wanted to inform you and ask that you maybe be a little more careful with word choice in the future :)

hey anon, yeah thanks for your concern. I do understand the movement to change language usage around mental illness and destigmatize. And it is well intentioned.

Unfortunately, narcissistic and delusional are still pretty generally derogatory words. A person with NPD may not cause harm simply by virtue of having the diagnosis but we all agree narcissism itself isn't a fun cool trait to have. Delusions are obscurations of reality.

We still say manic, depressed, obsessive, etc in both outright negative ways and descriptive but not morally loaded ways. to me it's just part of language, and the ethics of most derogatory language does depend on who's using it.

I'm absolutely behind not calling everyone who sucks a narcissist. and would like people to stop saying "I'm being OCD" or "that's so bipolar," "he's a schizo" and so on. The "delulu" trend online is weird and fetishizes mentally ill people.

For context: I am a person with a narcissistic tendency, due to my childhood. My life has been a long train of psych symptoms... delusions of grandeur, maladaptive daydreaming, hallucinations, psychosis, derealization, depersonalization, dissociative identity states. psychology is one of my longest hyperfixations simply because I needed to understand my experience. it's been helpful and unhelpful in different ways. Pathologization is a phenomen that can't be understood separately from language, culture, history, and violence.

And yet I don't really have a problem with calling things crazy, insane, or batshit. in fact I find power in redefining and playing with these terms. I've been called crazy in a demeaning, invalidating way. And yeah, I'm a lil crizazy, a bit unhinged one might say. But if a motherfucker calls me crazy to invaldiate my argument, I instantly know they've lost. They're being weak, and abusive. It will also piss me the fuck off. I may want to show them what "crazy" looks like. The better angels of my nature will whisper "keep your head."

With the movement to neutralize mental health terms, what's always confused me is the understanding of language itself. I experience words autistically - they have multiple overlapping meanings all the time. Words are like composite images composed of billions of instances of use, fluttering and evolving as they are spoken and written. Vernacular is messy, sputtering and ever changing. Therefore words carry a multitude of connotations. When different people say them in different contexts you can see and hear different implications.

So, I really don't care if a dude at work says "that's fuckin insane bro" ...to a gnarly kickflip. Or a devastating news article. Insane delineates the magnitude of his emotion. It's out of bounds. Something normies and straights would try to contain, institutionalize, label. Christ, that's juicy. It's why I adore skater boy lingo and teen slang. It's careless and crunchy.

English itself, especially corporate and institutional English, can be a strict, bland, and often abusive language. My fellow autistic homies tend to enjoy a rousing jaunt down into the annals of historical parlance for our everyday linguistic transactions because it's fucking boring, the clinical way we are expected to speak here and now.

So therefore: thanks for your message calling attention to my words and their impact.

There are deeper better more poetic words to call the government and frankly I believe the best ones might be found in other languages.

All in all, you're right that "narcissistic" and "delusional" are not the most accurate, potent words to describe the US government. How to convey the twisted, detached from reality, spirit of that entity best in language, though, I need to expand the lexicon. Maybe using these words is cheap. Maybe it covers over the intentionality and corruption at play.

So I'm going to open this up to some language play - and ask you, anon, and anyone else what words can we find to convey the negative meaning of delusional (detached from truth) and narcissistic (inverted and self concerned to the point of dysfunction), in English? or in another language?

I hope you can take this in good faith not as a deflection but really engaging with your ask.

Being language corrected can trigger my harshest defenses. I can feel in my body all the times someone has punished, invalidated, dismissed something I've said because of using "uncivil" or foul or imperfect language. In general, trying to conform to correct ideological forms of language is like, major wretched, dude.

Hell my dorky ass disingenuous nerd of a brother yesterday called a message I sent the family group chat about Palestine "blasphemous" because I said " my god" and used it as an excuse to delete every impassioned exchange we had so the "children wouldn't see," - him be racist, cough. can't make this shit up.

But that's my background. Catholicism is a mental illness. (Sorry in advance to all mental illness havers for associating you with Catholics)

[literallyexploding]

(long ass) vent post

you really can't win with a lot of people fr bc they're gonna say you're faking mental illness if you act like you're ok but if you act any other type of way you're annoying and off-putting

also like idk I'm not TRYING to be miserable and things suck a lot less if you at least act like you're enjoying them but that doesn't mean Im doing well if I say I'm not

and these fuckers are gonna literally cancel me if I ever mention anything I'm thinking beyond the most vague allusions to a depressive aura. like people be like asking me questions about this shit and then getting mad at the answer like don't ask people about their trauma/bipolar/ocd/anything if you're not in a place to hear about it

"what are intrusive thoughts?"

oh they're whatever is the most evil and frightening to you and you kinda just get pop up ads for that shit all day

"ok well what ones do you have?"

and I start with light ones and they ask what other ones I have bc they don't sound that bad but then they get mad and don't wanna talk to you when you tell them the worse ones because no one listens to the part about it being the WORST THING YOUR BRAIN CAN CONJURE UP like bro I don't WANT to think about and see that shit all day it's INTRUSIVE and a DISORDER and I'm upset by it I'm not like wow! I really enjoy this live footage of my auto-disembowelment 20 times a day! this is my sexual fantasy! I didn't want to go to sleep tonight anyway I just wanted to think about this!

so few people actually understand me on any level and it sucks honestly it really feels as if no one really gets it sometimes and it's so isolating to be weird even to the weird people it's like I'm the wrong type of weird. like y'all like to joke about being weird off-putting delulu schizo autistic whatever the fuck i don't think some of you get that it sucks and it hurts to experience those things

it hurts every time someone asks if I'm a school shooter or gonna go off the rails or a sociopath or whatever else. everyone is scared of me no matter what I do to my appearance and how I try to act and it makes it so hard to meet people when you have to do all the approaching and leg work because no one wants to try to get to know you. Contrary to popular belief I do have feelings and empathy and sympathy it's just really hard for me to show it in a neurotypical emotional way I tend to just say how I feel rather than show it.

I have pretty thick skin and generally think it's funny to get insulted and DC whatever secretly enjoy it even but the one thing that really still hurts is knowing that people genuinely think I would ever hurt or kill someone on purpose. all I've heard from people my whole life is "I used to be so scared of you but you're actually nice!" which is usually meant well but idk it feels so backhanded after you've heard that you're "actually nice" 30 times because it's a huge shock. and the school shooter shit is just ridiculous honestly like what is your evidence here? that I dress in black and I'm not your sexy goth mommy I'm a little bit awkward and have unconventional interests? bc none of that makes you evil like at all

my friends being my friends ofc say I'm not super awkward and cold but the reality of it is that's how I come across to a large amount of people that I interact with especially with strangers and large settings and it doesn't help to look emo or whatever but one thing I'm not compromising on anymore is my appearance. people didnt treat me much better when I was somewhat within the guidelines of Christian womanhood like sure they called me pretty and hot but it's not like I had any more friends or a better life or more respect. I still scared most people bc nothing about me actually changed. like at least now I wear clothes I feel more confident in. imma look like this and those homophobic hating ass mfrs standing on the street yelling can eat my ass about it

the end (here's an Easter egg for reading this far)

[monstrouslyobsessed]

—asks on beastfolks pt. 2

aaaa, my inbox…still fun tho. so uhh, feel free to keep them coming because i’m addicted to worldbuilding and you guys are my enablers.

tw / tags: postpartum depression, mental illnesses, cheating, pregnancy, long post

Oho would you be introducing us to another beastfolk chara of yours of is lady Hyena the only one? —anonymous

I answered this one here! i also recently posted one on papa bull :3 vvvv tempted to start writing a chaptered fic on him tbh…

how would beastfolks deal with their mate with postpartum depression? because you typed "well…i never did say that beastfolks are that well-versed in understanding humans’ mental health, did i?" —anonymous

nice catch! it really depends on the individual and their culture, but remember how i said that their morals differed from humans/our morals??? to the beastfolks, mental illnesses such as depression and bipolar disorders kinda…doesn’t really exist to them. or, rather, its not something they really understand??? even though they have human doctors explaining such things to them.

to most, they live with this view that, well, you gonna pull up your bootstraps and get going, suck it up buttercup, and all that.

now i’m not saying that beastfolks does not suffer from illnesses (of all kinds) because they do! their biology setups differs from ours so they experience things, particularly mental illnesses, a bit differently than we do so that also has a lot to do with their skewed views on mental illnesses. its also why most vets typically doesn’t like claiming that our pets irl have mental illnesses because again, they’re different from us (and that they cannot communicate but i digress). their brains are different, their hormone balances are different, etc. hell, they might have their own illnesses that we typically don’t have (cats’ fiv comes to mind).

now, how they would deal with their mates having postpartum depression, would depend on the individual. more empathetic ones, such as lady hyena, the lioness, and papa bull, would’ve taken their mates to the doctor and follow their instructions to the tee—though this typically happens if their mates are harming themselves in some ways, like losing appetite, unwilling to deal with their newborns, etc. more…assholery ones on the other hands, probably wouldn’t taken them to the doctor until very last minute 😬 if they have enough brain cells to see through their own pride and rush their mate to the nearest hospital, that is.

and supposed the beastfolk(s) are part of tribal / in the wild with no access to doctors…that depends, unfortunately. :\ beastfolks still have a looong way to go before they fully understand and be accepting of their humans’ needs and morals.

Would Beastfolks cheat on their humans mates? If yes , would have consequences? and what if for revenge their human mate cheat on them too ? would have consequences? —anonymous

uhhh, if a beastfolk cheated on their mate? they’re getting a version of scarlet letter on their back, basically. most of the beastfolks’ cultures condemns cheating to the point that the courts would probably favor the one who got cheated on for a change and the cheater would’ve gotten stunned from the society and even from their own families (blood related, found, mixed species family, doesn’t matter, most would disown them on the spot). so it’d be rare but it does happen.

not to say no member of every species never cheated but this also depends on the species as well for consistency sake. most canine-based species are mate-for-life and “mate sharers”, as would most bird species, but most ferocious serial cheaters would have to be rodent/lagomorphs-based (like rats and rabbits), and ape/monkey-based species though to the point that they would be used as an insult toward the cheater lol

if a human ever cheated on their beastfolk mate/owner…rip. they’d be locked away in the beastfolk’s home and be badly punished tbf. doesn’t matter if they got cheated on. it’s just better for the human to oust their cheating beastfolk spouse instead. lets the society do the humiliating.

cheating, like i said, is taken as a serious offense in most of their world.

now…if its a human cheating on their human spouse…er, beastfolks would shake their heads and call them a shitshow. it might actually give an interested beastfolk a legal leeway to swoop in and take the victim for themselves, since the human who married another human (need a term for this one) typically have legal protections—mainly for sake of keeping human population up. no beastfolks can touch them, not without facing legal consequences anyway.

What human food Beastfolks likes most? And what human food they really hate? —anonymous

depends on the species actually! 

canine-species beastfolks cannot tolerate chocolate and garlic, for example! they gets real sick from eating those. beastfolks’ diets typically parallels their irl counterparts, so like…cats irl cannot have our coffee or eat any citrus fruits, cat-based beastfolks cannot have them either.

now, they DO have their own alternatives though (the lioness have to have her coffees lol, but they needed to be made with cat-friendly version of our caffeine), some of it that humans cannot tolerate either lol.

likes/favorite foods depends on the individuals though. like, i do imagine lady hyena being a huge fan of her mate’s carrot cake recipe, but straight up hate the storebrought’s ones. both she and the lioness are nuts over burgers and chinese takeouts, but the lioness doesn’t like pizzas because cheesy textures bothers her. lady hyena doesn’t mind pizzas and sometimes like having some pineapples on them. neither can have garlic and onions on them though.

soooo all depends on the individual!

I want to ask if the human give more attention to the children than to their Yandere Beastfolks would they become jealous and territorial even with their own children😅? 🖤 —anonymous

depends on the individual! I highly doubt characters like the lioness, lady hyena, and papa bull would be too upset by their human mates’ overattentions on their children. they pretty much expected it and…what’s to say they couldn’t pull their mates away and make them to give them their attentions as well?

but, im sure there are quite an amount of beastfolks that do get upset by it. i want to say its more common with those who never grew up with other children or even raised them (my forementioned characters had all grew up in a pack filled with children and papa bull raised five of his on his own after his wife passed). those are the ones who doesn’t know what to expect with being a (first time) parent and might be over their heads.

and i’m sure that sadly there are also beastfolks who never wanted children in the first place but their instincts compelled them to take responsibilities. those would probably be the most harshest ones to for their human mates to deal with, when it comes to balancing acts between attentions on their child/ren and attention on their mate.

What would the Beastfolks do if their human mate wants to break up? Like just wanna be friends with they and nothing more . 🧐 —anonymous

that’d…probably be fairly rare, to have a successful break-up and staying friends afterward, but i’m sure there are quite a few civil resolutions. break-ups happens more commonly with those still in high/middle schools though, because most beastfolks are still understanding their own wants, needs, and their instincts. college-aged and older? beastfolks already know what and who to look for. they follow their instincts and unless their desired human is already taken by another beastfolk* or married to another human, the human is most likely out of luck.

*they can still complete with their rival beastfolk, if the relationship with human isn’t documented as either married or pet and the beastfolk’s scent doesn’t run that deep in the human (more on that in a bit).

This is very silly but I want to ask what would be the reactions of Beastfolks with a human mate that is a messy eater. 👉👈 —anonymous

…had you ever seen how wild animals eat irl? i highly doubt a good amount of them even care, lol, at least not in their private homes. might be something else if in a formal setting or something tho.

Beastfolks live more than humans? If their kid said like” I hate mom ! She’s gonna leave me” to their human mate. What would be their feelings about this ? They would become paranoid? would reprimand their child for that?it's pretty tragic if you think about it 🥲 —anonymous

nope! they share the same lifespan, more or less!! so…rip humans, you’re stuck with your beastfolk mates forever.

What happened with the mother and father of lady hyena ? 🧐 —anonymous

who knows. i don’t think lady hyena really know who her father is tbh and her mom might still be around, actually. probably retired from the hyena clan’s political matters and is out there living her life and partying it up with older folks her age. she might be lady hyena and her mate’s kids’ babysitter every so often too.

again, who knows. family background isn’t usually something i really think about that much.

Would the Beastfolks let their human mate uses birth control ? I know it’s a pretty random question  🤷‍♀️ —anonymous

its actually encouraged by the doctors after their human mates gave birth, for at least several month! that way, they can recover and heal for next pregnancy should they want another one soon. there are also birth controls for both amab beastfolks and humans available if they really don’t want to have kids but still have breeding kinks.

so, yes! depends on the characters (since there are baby trapping beastfolks too😬), ofc, but its not a forbidden subject at all.

Why most beastfolks doesn’t like touching humans that had already been claimed before anyway? —anonymous

well, good question, it’s not so much with them being disgusted by it but it’s instinctive for them not to cross the one who claimed the human before. most beastfolks can smell scents, so if the former owner’s scent still lingers (which can last for a long time after their passing / disappearance), they…keep their distances basically and their instincts dampened the idea of taking the human for themselves.

now that i think about it, i do wonder if it wouldn’t be too farfetched in some parts of the world to quarantine the human so that scent can fade and the human would’ve been up for rehoming.

Idk if that’d be that common though because that’s taxpayers money tunneling into what people may perceive as a waste since the quarantine may take a good long time and human would have to have their needs covered and be provided for. it’d been quicker to just card the human as independent and let them be on their way. let nature to take its course, so to speak, and see what’d happen afterward.

i’d have to think more about this one, for sure.

Would Beastfolks to use humans like service dogs?

hi i asked the other question about whether beastfolks would use humans as service dog. however I would like to expand the question. would Beastfolks use humans as Service, Therapy & Emotional Support pets? P.S:because you typed "brutal mistreatments in some of the zoos (mostly those that were horribly ran and private owned), only a good amount of survivors never did forgive humans for that.""some of them did (sorta) change their tunes if / when they claimed a human though” —anonymous

i don’t see why not! they do have animals there (which may be awkward for some to think about, so you can imagine them as some kind of alien-looking animals instead if you want), but humans are pretty versatile! so i don’t doubt that there’d be many beastfolks who would love having their service, therapy, and / or emotional support humans doubling as their lovers lol

but when i made that remark, i was referring to them deciding to adopt a pet. i once knew an individual who made progresses in their childhood traumas with dog bites by…adopting a dog. admittedly, i thought that was odd at first, but that sort of thing was agreed on between the individual and their therapist. they actually looked pretty happy finally overcoming their lifelong fear of dogs last i saw them.

so i sorta borrowed that idea for the traumatized beastfolks. i doubt it’d work for everyone and some of them might actually just stuck with exposure therapies and never moved past that and leave humans be. still, as more and more commonplace human pets becomes, i’m sure a good amount of the zoo victims (those who were in very shitty zoos that is) would’ve considered trying to adopt after seeing other beastfolks being pretty happy with theirs. had all of them gone through it? no, but thinking about it is still progress for them.

I was scrolling down and I was NOT prepared to see that drawing of papa bull :O omg —anonymous

LOL, sorry!?? maybe i should’ve put that under readmore. whoops. 

How many children the bull dilf wants with his human pet? 👀 PS: 🪦 darling. —anonymous

…LOL uhhh…3+?💦 papa bull really do love being a dad tbh and watching his kids to grow up and be strong and happy adults. you know that iconic Dad Pride everyone wanted in their life? because thats him. hes the ideal dad everyone wants and be loved and supported by without judgment but with 100% love and pride for his kids. he doesnt gaf if his kids are lbgt+, what style or music they’re into, differing political opinions—he will respect and love all of his kids no matter what.

getting his mate pregnant is just a vvvv nice bonus for him tho.

[liighty]

Guzma x Bipolar Reader because I am very sad rn

When he first finds out about the diagnosis, he's REALLY chill about it. He asks questions so he understands it, but if you aren't comfortable with them, he spends time combing through different sources online to get a better grasp on what he has to deal with. Poor guy hates feeling out of the loop so he'll do whatever he can to understand what's going on

When you're depressive, he is 100% down to just stop whatever he's doing for cuddles. He'll let you rest your head on his chest and just whisper encouragements to you as best as he can. If physical contact isn't your thing, he'll just sit on the same couch as you or something so you know he's there. He only leaves you alone when he needs to use the bathroom, since he's REALLY scared of something happening while he's not there.

Manic episodes are a little hard for him to get used to, seeing as he has the self restraint of a fucking toddler. Happy highs require him to really slow down and make sure you don't do anything stupid. When you get the more irritated episodes, he typically gives you space until it dies down, seeing as his temper tends to act up as well. He finds he's better at comforting the depressive episodes since it's just cuddles and hugs, but with manic episodes he's gotta use his noggin which kinda sucks lmao

In terms of hyperfixations, he'll do whatever he can to also get in that shit as well. Anything to make you feel like he's listening, even if it's something he absolutely fucking despises. I have a feeling he's not the biggest fan of those drama TV shows or whatever but would definitely watch them and get invested if you asked him to. (Or if you didn't and just talked about it, either way) Might become a weeb through intense conditioning.

He's not really all that sure how medications work and all, but he tries his best to understand the names and side effects, as well as how much you have to take at a given time. He's VERY insistent you eat, hydrate, and take your meds, since he knows how important they are. At times it might feel like he's babying you, which might cause some conflict, but he's just really worried about you and your mental health.

I feel like he's the kinda person to get really protective over this kinda shit. So if somebody uses the term 'bipolar' in the wrong connotation or as an insult, he loses his shit. He won't bring you up personally, but he becomes a huge advocate for normalization and understanding of the mental illness.

Will 100% attend all your psychiatrist appointments and prioritize going to therapy. He'll ask you how therapy was if you're comfortable sharing, and is always suggesting new coping mechanisms he found on the fucking internet. He tries SO HARD man like 😭😭😭😭

In my own experiences, sometimes depressive episodes results in trauma being resurfaced, and honestly I feel like Guzma would just sit there and let you vent until you were finished. He might not understand all that's going on, but he's putting all his effort into trying to help you out. If you just need to word vomit, he's there to listen. If you want actual help or feedback, he's there to try his best to provide that. Will also 100% tell jokes to try to make you feel better.

Sometimes it seems like he's pretty overbearing but he's just trying his best to make sure you feel safe. TLDR: Guzma please i kinda need you rn :')

[wiltedeyesandtwistedlies]

What are the inattentive symptoms of ADHD?

Before I answer, it’s important to acknowledge that not everyone experiences ADHD the same way. I came up with this list through hours of extensive research, but I still explained each one based on how I experience them personally, because I wanted it to be an honest and accurate resource.

Now, I experience every inattentive symptom of ADHD severely. As well as most hyperactive type symptoms, but not nearly as severely. Hence why my explanations are on the severe side. So if you don’t experience every one of these, or you don’t experience them exactly like this, that doesn’t mean you don’t have ADHD.

Most Commonly Known Symptoms:

Inattentive ADHD is pretty much the same thing as hyperactive ADHD but with less hyperactive tendencies. So technically these symptoms apply to both, but ADHD has a few more that won’t be listed here.

• Inability to focus on disinteresting or unengaging tasks even if you need or even want to – As if your brain physically won’t let you. Because that’s exactly what’s happening. There is no, “Just do it because you have to.”

For real. Imagine a video came where you’ve reached the end of the map and there’s that invisible barrier to keep you from going any farther. But all the other players are passing it just fine. They look at you like you’re crazy and can’t believe that you can’t get through. But it’s literally IMPOSSIBLE.

Now apply that to easy individual movements or tasks like plugging in your charger right next to you or washing a few bowls.

• Focusing WAY too much on this single thing whether you like it or not. It’s called “hyperfixating” and it’s both the most exhilarating experience in the world and the most soul crushing. You can watch/do nothing else, consume nothing else, think of nothing else. It’s exciting and invigorating. But as soon as there is no more material/info about it to devour, existence is gray and meaningless. The adrenaline rush and laser focus are like nothing else, but the crash is just as intense.

• Inability to divert attention to something different when you're already focused on something else. (More of a product of the two above, really)

• Inability to organize or maintain a neat system. It’s not that we don’t have a system (because we do, and if it’s altered in the most miniscule way we will know and we will be furious) but that our systems tend to be more about ease of access. It looks messy, but everything is just easily reachable instead of tucked away in drawers or hidden in organizer bins.

“Out of sight, out of mind.” As soon as we can’t see it, or we get used to it and it becomes a background visual (like background noise but for your eyes), it no longer exists. Until we see it again we have never seen it before either.

• Emotions are forceful and kinda scary. Lacking the ability to regulate emotions means violently strong feelings. They can sweep you away and leave you stranded in an uncomfortable predicament. Major highs and lows as well as strong grudges and emotionally based actions.

• Distractability: There’s this stereotype that all people with ADHD are hyper airheads who cut off mid sentence to shout random shit like “SQUIRREL!” whenever they see something remotely interesting. They’re super excited about it and HAVE to let everyone know, no matter what they were doing before. It’s kind of the “cutesie” version that the media portrays a lot. Most ADHDers don’t actually fit this stereotype.

However, stereotypes are often based on true characteristics, even if they have been twisted into a sick joke or a cruel portrayal.

NOTE: There is nothing wrong with this form of ADHD. It just sucks that if you don’t match this stereotype, no one really believes you have ADHD. Also that so many people use it to insult and bully people with ADHD, even if that isn’t how they display their symptoms.

Lesser Known Symptoms:

Basically if these are #relateable, you probably have ADHD.

• Unable to conceptualize time in any way. Will this take two minutes? Three hours? No one knows! You thought this would take a half hour at most and it’s taken three! How?? This was a five-minute task and you’ve just realized you zoned out. It felt like two seconds but it was two hours!

• There is only Now and Not Now. Again, it’s a time thing. The future always seems so far away that it's almost like it doesn't exist. "Time is a construct" is something I often say because I have no sense of time passing, having past, or will pass. People describe me as "living in the present.” But that’s only because I forget that there is a future or that time is moving. I just don't think about it at all and when I try to it's impossible to understand and it feels made up.

• Sensitive to any form of rejection, actual or perceived. A friend texts you back, but they don’t sound nearly as enthusiastic as usual. You immediately tear your message apart to try to find what upset them and how you can make it up to them. Because surely that’s what that nontypical period means? You want to curl up in a hole and never come out, never face the horrible thing you’ve done to a treasured friend. Intense fear and sorrow mingle into all consuming guilt. The kind that makes you wish you’d never met them, just so they wouldn’t have to be hurt by you now. All because they added a period.

Everyone with some form of an anxiety disorder will recognize this. But it’s also a very common ADHD experience. This is in part because anxiety is SUPER likely to be comorbid with ADHD. But we also have Rejection Sensative Dysphoria. Which basically means we’re ridiculously sensitive to the slightest possibility of the barest chance that we maybe might receive a sliver of perceived ambiguous rejection. To the point where we cut off good relationships for seemingly no reason because we’re too afraid to even speak to them again, much less explain our emotions that we know are irrational but can’t help. The guilt and regret are too agonizing, the fear to face them too much.

• Reading is AWFUL. We’ve already established that attention is not your friend. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to read blocks of boring text. The information could be good, it could be fun even. But if the format is too uniform and plain, it’s impossible to get past the first few sentences. You just keep rereading the same line over and over, realizing every time that you zoned out halfway across. It’s infuriating and very sad. It also makes studying an absolute nightmare.

Many people actually don’t have this experience. They hyperfocus on their reading or their schoolwork so it isn’t a problem. I was the same way until college and now I can’t even read a little recipe card without zoning out. But it’s a very common experience nevertheless so I listed it anyway.

• Ringing ears, hearing electricity. This is one I just heard about. I haven’t been able to actually research this one, but it’s interesting and every ADHDer I know has confirmed it so I’m adding it. ‘Cause I’ve had constant ringing since I was old enough to talk. And I’ve always been able to hear power lines, household appliances, wires inside the walls, all those varying vibrating hums and crackling pops. It’s one of the weird quirks that “run in the family.” Just like Tinnitus and all ADHD symptoms. Apparently, MANY people with ADHD have similar experiences.

• Negative stimming. Things that negatively stimulate your senses. After encountering a certain stim, you feel it physically. It causes a sensation that hurts, in a way. It shouldn’t, logically. But your body’s reaction is to pain. This includes foods you can’t eat because the texture is wrong. Clothing you can’t wear because you can easily breath but no you really can’t because the collar sits wrong against your throat. Sounds that make your spine stiffen or skin crawl. Bright lights or colors that don’t affect anyone else but make your head ache.

Stims and sensitivity can affect any and all senses. A certain smell, agitating fabrics, an unbelievably smooth stone, specific tastes and food textures, certain color combinations, particular sounds/pitches/volumes, et cetera.

• Positive stimming. The other side of the sensory coin. Things that are exceptionally pleasant to your senses/stimulate you positively. For example, the way light shines through a transparent bright blue gem. Watching the light catch and twist so fluidly when you move it takes your breath away. There’s a euphoric feeling to it, and you can’t look away. It’s too pleasing. It’s like a deep satisfaction you can physically feel throughout your whole body, emanating from deep within your chest. You never want to stop that feeling.

Personally, it feels like my chest is somehow much deeper than it actually is. And at the farthest, deepest part is where that satisfaction settles. Nothing else can ever reach that hidden, impossibly deep cavity. It’s so amazing, I never want it to stop. It can feel like that endless pit is starved, and the stim is the first sustenance it’s ever had so it never what’s to let it go.

• Forgetting supposedly unforgettable things. Like where the fuck I parked my car. Also what my car looks like. It’s blue right? It has a hatch. I accidently memorized the license plate (complicated story) but I can’t tell you what model it is?? Is it even in this parking lot? I’ve never parked anywhere else but my memory is obviously garbage so now I need to check every parking lot just in case.

End Note:

It’s important to know that ADHD has many symptoms that overlap with other nuerodivergencies such as autism or ASD. Executive dysfunction can be caused by a number of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Emotional regulation problems can look just like Bipolar disorder and vice versus.

My point is, every symptom could actually be something else. It’s really easy to be misdiagnosed because they all have such similar symptoms. I know someone who thought they had ADHD for years, but it was actually a mix of severe depression and anxiety that fucked with their working memory (as both depression and anxiety do). Someone else I know was diagnosed with manic depression and thought they might be bipolar, but it was undiagnosed ADD the whole time.

[spooky-scary-virgil]

vent/rant hhh sorry

ok so ik that today and yesterday i’ve been posting some not so fun stuff and sorry for that. but basically i’m at my dad’s place this weekend and to put it simply; he can be a mentally abusive asshole at times. and this weekend was one of those times. he yelled at me saying he didn’t wanna see me anymore, so i had multiple panic and anxiety attacks and multiple relapses. i tried to get out of the house but he wouldn’t let me. he said i searched for confrontation because he said i ‘like to hurt others’. and then he started playing the victim card despite having yelled at me ever since i was 11 that he wished i was never born that i never did anything right. he insulted my friends, including you guys, saying that i ‘maybe should step away from those people, because you’re acting insane’ according to my dad. and he knows i don’t have any friends irl. he knows how anxious i am about people not liking me. he knows how paranoid i am with stuff like that. then he yelled at me that autism wasn’t the only thing wrong with me (i haven’t even been tested for autism....) but that i also had bipolar (again, never diagnosed) he just used a mental illness to hurt me. and yeah it just fucking sucks you know? but he called my mom over to, once again, play the victim card and ‘make clear’ i did everything wrong. but thank god my mom isn’t an idiot and could see through his lies and believed me. i had to stay at his place though, and i still am at the moment, but after tonight i won’t have to see him for a while. months probably. so he finally gets what he wants and i don’t have to worry about him losing his temper and taking everything out on me, because i’m the oldest out of all my siblings. so yeah. i may have overreacted a bit about the whole thing, i even cried which i don’t think was necessary in hindsight and i shouldn’t have relapsed so badly compared to other shit he has done. but yeah. just gotta get through tonight :)

[willowlark369]

Competition Drama 02

Judge: ADD and ADHD are also not a mental illness, they are a Learning Difficulties. There is a difference. I understand that to those that don't work in that area, or deal with those with Learning Difficulties, it seems like the same thing, however, it isn't. People with Learning Difficulties have fought to be seen for who they are, and not to be treated like something to be fixed. Children with Autism, ADHD, Downs Syndrome, they were all born that way, it's who they are. When sites or people claim some of these are mental illnesses it's due to being part of the medical model of disbaility, which is out dated and doesn't consider the individuals. I'm going to stop myself from preaching, I have worked in this area all my working life, so it's something I feel very strongly about. If you want to understand the difference you can look at the MENCAP website.

Me: People are also born with bipolar disorder, OCD, and schizophrenia. When you preach that some neurodivergences aren't mental illnesses, you ignore the difficulties that they present for individuals with them. There's a significant difference between autism and Downs Syndrome. One is a mental illness and the other is a chromosomal disorder that affects the whole body. The fact that you lump them in together and claim to be a professional is very worrisome to me. I wouldn't want someone who would do that to work with either my kid or me.

------------------ Taken into PMs ---------------------

Judge: I didn't want to continue this on the forum. I don't want you to think that I am having a go, because I am not. What is being talked about it actually quite contravercial in the area caring for those with learning disabilities and Autism. You seem fairly bothered by what I am saying, so I won't continue and try to 'make you see things my way'. I will say that what I have been taught is based on what people with those sorts of disorders and conditions believe about themselves and wish other to see them as. It is also not medically correct to say that it is a mental illness and this group of people dislike that assumption.

I can tell that you care, and I hope you can tell that I care too. I think that is enough for us to get along?

Me: I'm sorry, but if you want to believe that a mental illness is not a mental illness when medical professionals and individuals with the condition understand that it is, I cannot believe that you are not "having a go" or that you care. This is not a topic where "agreeing to disagree" will work. You (and by extension, the Competition) are telling me and other autistics that we do not have a real mental illness and are just incapable of growing past a certain point. You are infantizing us. The fact that you feel that you cannot say this in public also says that you know that there's something wrong with it. I've had this discussing with the Admin as well: There should be no hidden discussions. If you want to make a ruling that is contrary to reality, fine, but own what you are doing and be consistent. If you cannot accept one mental illness as what it is, then you shouldn't accept any of them. If your reasoning is that a person is born with autism and that's why it doesn't count, then none of the conditions that people are born with (ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia) should count. But don't make a claim that is not true and frankly, insulting, and then get upset when people call you on it.

Judge: I am really sorry that I have upset you. I can assure you, I mean no disrespect at all, and I speak from my experiance as person that works in the united kingdom with a whole range of children with various difficulties. I have worked with those with Autism too, though I do not consider it to be a learning difficulty, though I can see where it looks as though I have 'lumped' them together. I just happen to be a care worker that works with children with a range of conditions.

I am wondering if actually this is more to do with the countries that we live in? I don't know where your from, but in Britain, it's seen as politically incorrect. Based on neurological conditions and psychiatric conditions. Mental illness is seen as psychiartirc condition whereas as far as I have been taught in my own professional capacity, that Autism is Neurologial. In britain it is most definately something I would actually get in trouble for stating in the work place - as children with autism do not have psychiatric condition. If you are still unhappy with my explanation of myself and my words I can only apologise and research this myself further, I would not want to offend or hurt anyone - it's really not in my nature. I can honestly say that I am very upset that I seem to have caused offense or hurt through what I have said. Having heard your point of view, I take it seriously, and I mean no offense - seriously. I can tell that I have upset you, and for that I am sincerly sorry.

As for you thinking I am 'having a go' I assure you that I am not. I have spoken to you politely and respectfully, even if views differ. I can understand now that this is a senstive topic for you too, and I hope that you understanding where I am coming from with the term 'mental illness' and what it means where I am from, you can see that I don't mean to disrespect or belittle anyone. I only took the conversation of Forum as I thought it was senstive and I wanted to be respectful. That is my intention

Me: It might be a terminology issue. In the US, a mental illness is any condition which originates in the brain; affects the perceptions; and interferes with the ability to perform everyday activities (especially necessary social, work, or family activities). One would not assign a neurologist to the treatment team of an autistic, even though a neurologist may be brought in to rule out other potential causes of the symptoms. A psychiatrist would be, however, given that autism is often comorbid with other conditions which require medication and the autism often creates unique challenges in the individual being treated. A psychiatrist would also be the person giving the diagnosis of autism, which makes it a psychiatric condition, even if there aren't any other conditions diagnosed at the time of the initial diagnosis. A neurological condition would something like epilepsy or migraines. Basically, something which affects the way that nerves (including the ones in the brain) communicate with each other.

I apologize if I came across as too aggressive, but literally everything in my life has taught me that I cannot let things like this slide without speaking up. In order to get any kind of accommodation, one must be prepared to push against people dismissing the need for them, often by using the same language that you did. Years of advocacy work has also shown that a lot of people have misconceptions about what the real dangers surrounding individuals with various neurodivergences are. There is a negative connotation given to the term "mental illness", due to decades of villainization of psychiatric conditions. For that reason, a lot of people have pushed for use of the term "neurodivergence", "neurologically divergent", or "atypical neurology".

I really feel if you (and the competition as a whole) wanted to show sensitivity on the topic, then you would not have included it in the first place. There is a lot of discourse going on concerning how to respectfully handle representation in writing and there are entire blogs dedicated to how to handle that. I would love to see more encouragement to include accurate representation in writing, but what I do not wish to see is exclusion of smaller groups within a larger group on the basis that they aren't "really" a part of the larger group. That kind of gatekeeping is not helpful to anyone in need of that representation.

Judge: You should never apologise for taking these things and speaking up! I think it's great, and I have learnt something here, something I am greatful to have learnt. I would say you were defensive - in a good way! I would hate to make anyone feel like that they needed to defend themselves, or a group. Part of my job is pushing for things on the behalf of children, so I understand. I work specifially with children in the care system who don't have parents to fight for them. If you hadn't pushed, I wouldn't have learnt something that will change how I relate to people.

I can concour that the term 'mental illness' has negative conotations for people in the UK - in fact a lot of medical terms are deemed inappropriate. I think this is because culturally, people in this country have used many medical terms as insults and thus the meaning becomes intirely different. This isn't just in relation to Autism, many areas. I guess this could answer to why I was a little defensive also.

I do think that The Competition wanted to show sensitivity. I was not on board as Admin when the rounds were thought up, but as far as I am aware one of the Mods has experiance of this, and I can only assume that they would have wanted this to be used in a senstive and positive way. As I gather it's a subject of great importance to them too, from another angle.

If you have any ideas that you think would be beneficial for future rounds, something you think would be both positive and respectful, by all means mail them across. I am sorry if you feel that the competition didn't wish to be respectful. I cannot speak for everyone, but as for me, I respect you a lot, it takes courage to speak out in a public forum like that.

----------------------- Later ------------------------

Judges: [proceeds to extract revenge against the team as a whole for protesting]

Me: Yeah. "Courage" is needed alright.

Team: [proceeds to write submissions centered around their complaints with the judges] Suck on these lemons!

[katting-blog1]

Mental Illness F*cking Sucks

Mental illness fucking sucks. Addiction fucking sucks. It sucks for the person struggling with it, and it sucks for the people that love them that get hurt by it when they don’t handle it or realize it themselves. I would know because while I’ve never dealt with addiction, but the love of my life deals with it, I can tell, whether he tells me or not; and he also has to deal with bipolar disorder. And in turn, I have to deal with it because I want to be there for him as much as I can. 

If I told you the shit he did when he was having a manic episode, or when he was drinking or doing stupid shit; I’m sure most of you would be asking me, “girl, why the fuck are you with him?”, I often ask myself the same thing. Believe me, I do. 

For the record, he’s never done anything physically abusive to me, and I have no reason to believe he ever would. He has never said anything to straight up degrade or insult me. But When he gets upset, like many people with any sort of mental illness he stops talking to me, and in his case, he’ll also do some very reckless things that get him into trouble almost every time. He will completely push away the people that actually love and care about him as if they mean nothing to him. 

So why do I love him still and choose to stand by him, especially when I don’t have to? Well... that’s because... when he is actually doing good, he is one of the sweetest, silliest and kindest people I know. The type of person who tries to help others but himself... Seriously, this guy will listen to me talk or rant about anything from my anxiety and depression, and serious issues... to a tweet I read that I thought was dumb. This is a guy who will take care of his friends, even if they use him. This is a man who loves his family and would die for them if he felt he had to. This is a man who.. when he’s himself, I can swear loves me by the way he talks. He’s the kind of guy anyone would want in their life when he’s feeling himself. 

But when he’s not okay.... he holds it all of that pain in, and will swear he’s okay, and end up having an episode like this, because it went unchecked for too long. And the thing is... I’ll get the vibe from him right before this happens, and I’mm ask him if he’s okay, and he’ll swear he is... and all I want it to believe that. Who wants to think someone they love is in pain?! But the thing is... they still are, and it can manifest into something far worse. 

If you ever have a hunch that someone you love isn’t okay, please, please, PLEASE tell them “I know you’re not”. No matter how much they swear they are... because that’s what they need. Even if it’s hard for them to talk about... just convince them to at least tell someone they can trust to help them. 

That being said, prayers for my best friend Chase, are much appreciated right now. I’m pissed at him for how he’s handling this, but I still love the person underneath all of that and don’t want to see him hurt, or get into trouble again. 

[benaprilleslie-blog]

My Winnie the Pooh Themed Mood Swings

So let’s talk about mood swings. First, I hate them. It’s like one moment you feel fine, whatever. And then once you’ve been feeling that way for, oh I don’t know, like 15 minutes, your brain flips out. There are basically 3 ways this goes for me personally. The first path, the one I like to call the eeyore path, is totes not cool. When I take this path, I have different reactions depending on whether I am with people or not. If I am with people, outward signs include growing quiet, attaching myself to the person I feel closest to, or just sitting in a corner watching the action. If asked about my behavior, I am most likely to reply with the over used, “I’m just tired.” Which is true in a way. Because what is really going on is that I have briefly allowed the lies to defeat me. When my brain sends me down this path, it does so by feeding me lies. Lies that everyone wishes I would just shut the fuck up. That I would leave them alone. That everyone is going to talk about how annoying I am as soon as I leave. These lies can get incredibly tiring. I fight them, but then my energy goes into fighting instead of being social, but sometimes I get tired of fighting them and I just let them take over. That is when I am truly on the eeyore path. The other alternative to this path, the one where I am by myself, often looks like rehashing every real or imagined failure, insult, or slight from the course of my life. It often finds me counting the reasons to live, or more often, the reasons to die. It is when I become self destructive and filled with self loathing. It is the path that has taken me to my deepest darkest depths.

The second path, the Rabbit path, is when I am just an anxious, jittery, controlling bitch. I get anxiety, like a lot. It is really annoying. The therapist and doctor like to say I have racing thoughts. But on this path they are not racing towards bunnies and kittens and rainbows, they are rushing towards thoughts of everyway in which my life could go wrong.When all you have running through your head is that your life is a hopeless and unknown abyss, but you are not quite in the “I just want life to be over because its too difficult to handle” stage, you feel like you just have to do something. The problem becomes: what? What can you possibly do to know and ensure what your future will be? God knows and has control of it and we just have to trust. However, that takes a lot of faith when your mind never stops feeding you fears. Pardon me while I go on a bunny trail here but I want to say that it is 100% okay to doubt. There is not a single person on earth that doesn’t doubt sometimes. There is no person that is a “good enough” Christian. We all suck at doing what God tells us to do and trusting Him. So when Christians try to shame people with anxiety, any anxiety, for their mental illness and try to tell them they just need to be better Christians and it will go away, it is wrong. Yes, trusting God more will make our lives simpler, but it is a very difficult thing to do and there should not be judgement for those who fail due to a mental illness. Okay, bunny trail over. Basically, the Rabbit trail leaves you anxious. Like the eeyore path, you stop fighting the lies in your mind and listen to the fears. It is difficult to stop and I find this one of  the most frustrating stages. I believe I struggle with it the most because it is the time I actually care about life. In fact I care about everything, too much, and there is too much in my head and I get frustrated trying to handle it all so I lash out. And because I actually care in this stage, the lashing out creates guilt and more anxiety and more to deal with so consequently more lashing out. It is just a vicious cycle. 

But now the third path. The path most know as manic, or as I like to call it, the Tigger path. The Tigger path is fun. Oh so fun. However, the Tigger path can also be dangerous to me. It is dangerous to myself while I am in it but it is also dangerous to me as I exit it. You see, the Tigger path, for me, seems to be a path connecting the Eeyore and Rabbit path. I start on the Rabbit path and deal with the aggression and anxiety until one day all of the energy I have been pouring into my worries, suddenly channels into loving life. But then my tiny vial of love for life is used up and I am dumped at the very farthest, darkest, end of the Eeyore path. So while I love the feeling of being on the Tigger path, I cannot truly enjoy it because I always know what is coming next. But even while I am on the path, it can be dangerous. I, thankfully, have never experienced the Tigger path to too dangerous of a degree, but there have been times where I have done things extraordinarily out of character that could impact my life drastically. Like throwing a bouncy ball through the bike racks at Walmart at a middle aged child I did not know and then running out of Walmart to avoid getting in trouble. You all do not know me, but my friends would never believe I actually did that unless they have experienced me on my Tigger path.

So there you have it. Those are my mood swings and what they mean to me. Not everyone with bipolar experiences the same swings that I do. Some may relate to everything I am saying and others may only relate to parts or even not relate at all. But that is okay. I hope someone can relate even in a small bit and know that they are not alone. Know that you can make friends and live a normal life. My life is still a major mess but it has improved so much in the past few months. Right now, my life is better than I ever believed it could be with my mental illness. And you know when things changed? When I stopped hiding from and hating myself for my feelings. When I finally accepted that I had a chemical problem in my brain that made me waste my energy on constantly fighting lies instead of just living, I felt free. I could stop believing the lies that I was weaker than everyone, that I was pathetic. I finally felt a glimmer of what it might be like to not hate yourself 24-7. I’m still working on that, but we’ll get to that eventually. Peace out homies.

[skamfairy]

An Even Season WOULD NOT be a repeat of season 3 and heres why

Okay so I don’t know, some of you guys who have been following my blog for a while now, might have picked up that I’m just ??? not an angry person. I like naming every single fly I see and leaving messages like “be happy” and “What’s a pigs favourite pizza? MUDLOVERS!” on the fogged up mirror after having a shower... but like recently my sister told me something that made me 

MAD 

I was telling her for the millionth time how much I love Even and I couldn’t deal with how much I wanted and needed an Even season and get this, 

THIS is what she said to me: (note: please read the following in a very high pitched annoying voice that you would give someone you dislike when retelling stories)  “ew omg noooo i would hate that! omg that would suck so much and make me so annoyed.” 

Me, getting super confused and just feeling so attacked: “um what? why? what?” 

Little smelly sister: “Because omg we’ve already had evaks story! That would be so silly to do it again! it will just be season 3 all over again. Would be SO BORING”

Okay I know, I was so angry I just....couldn’t think straight and then it made me think: Did other people feel this way? Do people actually think an Even season would be an “evak” season and not a god damn Even season???? 

Because listen, that is bullshit and heres why:

1. Last season was not about Evak. 

Sure it was part of the storyline, Isak falling in love with a boy that made him see the world differently and face all of the insecurities and issues he has been repressing since season 1.

- Religion, 

- Mental illness, 

- Knowing that it’s okay to ask for help, 

- Being true to yourself, 

- Learning to accept yourself and 

- To not let fear of an uncertain future stop you from truly living life. 

Those were all of the things season 3 was about and I think it is an insult to Julie and Isak, to say that his story was just about his relationship? No. Season 3 was so much more and it was about Isak

2. Even is more than a love interest. 

oh my gosh, Even, Even, Even. This character proved to be so much more than I initially thought, the first time I laid eyes on him. This boy is amazing. He is 19 years old yet he has been through so much more than we can even imagine. He is kind, charismatic, creative, he draws silly pictures, makes movies that no one but Even himself could think of. He loves so much and smiles so bright, yet at the same time he is dealing with a serious illness that could easily control his entire life, yet ??? he is at school, trying to take charge and give himself a fulfilling happy life despite the illness that hangs over his head and tells him that he doesn’t deserve that, that he isn’t worth it. There is so much essence and potential to his character that, I just cannot see him as being just a love interest. he truly deserves to have his story told but it’s more than that...

3. His story NEEDS to be told. 

Most of my life I have spent so much time feeling things that i don’t understand and that i’m even ashamed of for feeling. How many times have you thought to yourself “no one understands me” “I am alone” How many times have you felt like no one in the entire world could possibly feel or make sense of the things you feel? 

The thing is we all have “the brain is alone” feelings but the worse part is feeling too ashamed to talk about it and believing that you are alone in how you feel. Having an Even season not only means that we have someone to represent everything that we feel and can’t put into words, someone who we can relate to and show us that if they can live a life with an illness and not let it take control, then, maybe we can too...

But it also gives a chance for people who don’t quite understand mental illness, to literally be put into the mind of someone who does and live the life of a person with bipolar. 

I can’t even fathom how brilliant that would be. Not just for people who need someone to show them they aren’t alone and how they too can fight back and be worthy of a happy life despite the illness that tells them they aren’t, but also for the people who are confused about mental illness and would like to learn more. Even can both educate, and relate to us all. 

and oh my gosh can you just imagine how brilliant that would be? Not only will we all be brought together but for once, we can talk about the things we feel and go through, without feeling ashamed and silly for feeling it. 

Because if Even Bech Næsheim, the most beautiful, sweet and charismatic guy on earth feels like this, then what is there to be ashamed of? What is there to hide? Maybe Even’s season can finally make us feel safe enough to talk about it, safe enough to not be alone. 

[psychotherapyconsultants]

PODCAST: Why People With Mental Illness Should Remove Toxic People From Their Life



Living with mental illness means accepting that some things are out of our control. It also means tolerating annoyances like pillboxes, regular doctor visits, and the symptoms we just can’t quite get under control.

But, does living with mental illness mean we have to keep toxic people around us? Do we, as people who are managing a severe and persistent illness, just have to take the abuse that people heap on us because at least we aren’t alone?

In this episode, Gabe & Michelle explore tolerating toxic people and whether or not it’s a good idea. Listen now!

  SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

“My number one job is taking care of my mental health.” – Michelle Hammer

  Highlights From ‘Toxic People and Mental Illness’ Episode

[1:00] Michelle and Gabe talk about toxic people. [3:30] Michelle shares how her mental illness improved after removing a toxic person from her life.

[14:30] Gabe tells a story of removing a toxic person from his life to improve his mental illness outcomes.

[25:00] A touching story from someone who loves this podcast.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Toxic People and Mental Illness’ Show

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

  Narrator: [00:00:07] For reasons that utterly escape everyone involved, you’re listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. Here are your hosts, Gabe Howard and Michelle Hammer.

Gabe Howard: [00:00:18] Hey everybody!  You are listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. I’m the bipolar one. My name is Gabe.

Michelle Hammer: [00:00:24] Hi, I’m Michelle. I’m schizophrenic.

Gabe: [00:00:27] Michelle, we are talking about people who are toxic for our mental health on this episode. Isn’t that kind of weird?  “People who are toxic for our mental health.” Another way to say that is, like, “jerks.”

Michelle: [00:00:37] Jerks.

Gabe: [00:00:37] Like how to cut assholes out of our life.

[00:00:40] I mean, yeah, some people, they suck.

[00:00:41] They do.

Michelle: [00:00:43] They suck, and they just need to go. Like sometimes you just gotta be like chop chop chopped up, bye.

Gabe: [00:00:47] Chop chop chop chop bye?

Michelle: [00:00:49] Chop chop bye.

Gabe: [00:00:50] Chop chop bye.

Michelle: [00:00:51] Chopped up, bye-bye.

Gabe: [00:00:52] Like slap chop.

Michelle: [00:00:52] Slap chop.

Gabe: [00:00:53] Remember that guy?

Michelle: [00:00:54] Oh yeah. The Slap Chop.

Gabe: [00:00:56] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:00:56] I don’t have one.

Gabe: [00:01:00] I think your painting just fell over, Michelle.

Michelle: [00:01:03] You did not hang it nicely.

Gabe: [00:01:05] Hey, you’re lucky I have one at all. Michelle, everybody has toxic people in their lives. It’s interesting that we’re discussing this from the vantage point of people living with mental illness. Because all of us, I mean it doesn’t matter if you have mental illness or not, toxic people exist in everybody’s lives.

Michelle: [00:01:22] Everybody does have toxic people in their lives. Some people can handle that. But, why? Why would you want to, why? Why do you have to keep toxic people around? I guess if you’re related, right?

Gabe: [00:01:33] You’re related?

Michelle: [00:01:33] The only reason to keep somebody toxic around.  Like, if you have to see them at family events and stuff like that. But, I mean, other than that, bye-bye.

Gabe: [00:01:45] Do you think our parents are at home, like, “We have to keep Gabe and Michelle around because they’re in our lives, even though they’re messed up?”

Michelle: [00:01:54] Maybe at some point in my life.

Gabe: [00:01:56] Let’s talk about, straight up, the people that we need to get rid of because they are bad for our mental health. And managing our mental health is kind of a full time job.

Michelle: [00:02:05] I would have to agree. It’s my number one job.  Managing my mental health.

Gabe: [00:02:10] Yeah, okay.

Michelle: [00:02:10] Number two job is taking a shower.

Gabe: [00:02:13] The number two job is taking a shower?

Michelle: [00:02:14] No, I…

Gabe: [00:02:14] Where is podcasting on that list? The answer is you don’t consider that a job, right? Like, this isn’t work.

Michelle: [00:02:20] You know.  You know – find a job that you love! You’ll never work a day in your life.

Gabe: [00:02:25] I hate that saying. I don’t believe that making your hobby your job makes you love your job. I believe that it makes you hate your hobby.

Michelle: [00:02:33] I actually would have to agree with that. Actually, yes.  Agreed.  A great big yes.

Gabe: [00:02:38] You also shouldn’t podcast with your friends because it makes you hate your friends.

Michelle: [00:02:42] That can happen too, yes.

Gabe: [00:02:43] I hate you.

Michelle: [00:02:43] I hate Vin.

Gabe: [00:02:45] Whoa!

Michelle: [00:02:47] Don’t tell him.

Gabe: [00:02:48] You don’t podcast with Vin.

Michelle: [00:02:48] I know, I’m just kidding.

Gabe: [00:02:49] I think it’s funny that you’re, like, “don’t tell him!” When you said it live on a show.  You’re really banking on the fact that he doesn’t listen.

Michelle: [00:02:54] This is how we’ll know if Vin listens.

Gabe: [00:02:57] That’s true! We should also plant things in there, like, “Mom, I hate you!” Now I’ll know if she listens because she’ll be like, “That was mean, why’d you say that on your show?”

Michelle: [00:03:05] Right! What if I said how old my mother was?  Right now?

Gabe: [00:03:08] Sixty-two.

Michelle: [00:03:08] Nope.

Gabe: [00:03:09] Seventy.

Michelle: [00:03:09] Younger.

Gabe: [00:03:11] Fifty one.

Michelle: [00:03:12] Older.

Gabe: [00:03:12] Thirty two.

Michelle: [00:03:13] Older.

Gabe: [00:03:14] Seven.

Michelle: [00:03:14] Older.

Gabe: [00:03:15] Ninety five.

Michelle: [00:03:16] Younger.

Gabe: [00:03:16] Ten.

Michelle: [00:03:17] Older.

Gabe: [00:03:17] Bat symbol.

Michelle: [00:03:19] Robin.

Gabe: [00:03:22] Michelle, tell us about the person that you had to cut out of your life because they were toxic.

Michelle: [00:03:28] Oh…children, children, children, children… Everybody knows those girls in high school. Those girls in high school, they just think they’re better than other girls, for no reason. Even though, they just are worthless pieces of shit. They love to pretend they’re better than you. They like to insult you. Even when you’re ridiculously thin, they call you fat.  And when you have muscles from playing sports, they say, “Stop playing sports! You’re getting muscular, and boys don’t like muscular girls.”  And, when you say you think that guy is hot, and you want to make out with him, they’ll say to you, “The question is, does he want to make out with you?”

Gabe: [00:04:10] Do you say it in this tone?  I don’t know what kind of high school you went to, but…

Michelle: [00:04:14] No, I’m just – I’m pretending I’m on masterpiece theater right now.

Gabe: [00:04:18] Oh yeah! Yeah, yeah. Yeah,’cause that’s what we’re doing right now, Masterpiece Theater.

Michelle: [00:04:23] Masterpiece Theater.  I’m telling the story.

Gabe: [00:04:24] I’m sorry, continue. Continue with-

Michelle: [00:04:26] So…

Gabe: [00:04:27] -with this.

Michelle: [00:04:28] After one night of just nonsense, there was a fight. And after years of knowing this person since kindergarten, and defending and defending and always just being a friend, even though she’s horribly mean to me.  She didn’t take my side in a fight. So I decided, at that moment, I was never going to talk to her again. Senior year of high school, right at the very end. I don’t have to see her again, ever. So I decided, I just cut her out of my life – completely. I only ever had to see her at a shiva and a graduation party.  But about a year ago I get an e-mail.

Gabe: [00:05:06] Nah, nah, you’re –

Michelle: [00:05:08] What?

Gabe: [00:05:08] You’re glossing over some stuff here.

Michelle: [00:05:09] Well, what?

Gabe: [00:05:09] You just – you’re just, like, “Oh, I knew her since kindergarten”  Like that was nothing. I mean you just, kind of like in one sentence, skipped over, what? Ten years of friendship? You knew this person for a long time.

Michelle: [00:05:22] Right? We went to Hebrew school together. We went to elementary school, middle school, high school. We went to each other’s bat mitzvahs. We knew each other for a long time. But throughout all this whole time-

Gabe: [00:05:33] You got boobs together!

Michelle: [00:05:34] She was-

Gabe: [00:05:35] I mean-

Michelle: [00:05:35] Well, I mean, she would constantly, tell us how her boobs were, you know, better than ours.  That she looked like a model and we did not.  And just insult us, and just insult us, and insult us.  But, we would always go back and be her friend because, usually that was just a thing.

Gabe: [00:05:52] You just kind of grow out of it right?  Like, you just kind of figured that stasis would be reached?

Michelle: [00:05:54] But it just came to a head where after years of defending her to everybody, being, like, she’s not that bad.  Just whatever.  It’s, it’s OK.  She didn’t take my side in a fight. So .

Gabe: [00:06:06] So, you felt like she was disloyal.

Michelle: [00:06:08] So, she, after how many years of loyalty, she didn’t take my side.  But on top of that-

Gabe: [00:06:14] and she bullied you.

Michelle: [00:06:14] She bullied me.

Gabe: [00:06:15] For many years.

Michelle: [00:06:16] Many years.  Telling us, telling me, that I was very short. I needed to lose weight. I should stop playing lacrosse because it made me too muscular.  Because boys don’t like that, she said. But, I also had to lose weight more and more and more.  Because, you know, it’s fatness that’s really ugly. Even though I was way thinner than she was. But then she would tell me that my boobs weren’t big enough because they’re not really good. And also telling me how much I should just like, I look like a man, because I don’t put any makeup on and I wear my hair up. But if I put some on, and I wear my hair down, and I put makeup on I could kind of be pretty.

Gabe: [00:06:50] What year did this fight happen?

Michelle: [00:06:52] 2006.

Gabe: [00:06:52] OK, so you got in to a fight in 2006.  And then 10 years later, in 2016…

Michelle: [00:06:56] Yes. In 2016, I get a Facebook message.

Gabe: [00:07:00] All right, and the Facebook message says…?

Michelle: [00:07:01] “Hey, Michelle! I wanted to share with you that I’m so proud of your transformation and what you’ve done with the mental health issues. It’s a huge issue in America, not just New York City, and something I’ve dealt with my entire life. I realize your bullying of me when we were kids might have been less personal for me and more about you taking out your anger and dealing with what you were going through. But I have had anxiety since I was 10 and found solace in therapy and medicine. It’s been a hard battle to convince people of what goes on in my mind, because they can’t see it. I had a boyfriend years ago who didn’t understand why I take medication. He kept saying, “You’re fine.” Little did he know that medication is what was keeping me fine. Had I had diabetes or something more visible, he blah, blah, blah”  You get my point?

Gabe: [00:07:50] I think the thing that we can agree on is that mental illness is not taken seriously in America. It is a big problem everywhere including outside of New York City.

Michelle: [00:07:57] Okay, yes.  Yes.

Gabe: [00:07:57] So, I’m kind of guessing that this is not the part that is upsetting you.

Michelle: [00:08:01] Yes.

Gabe: [00:08:01] It’s the part where she says you bullied her.

Michelle: [00:08:06] Yes.

Gabe: [00:08:06] And she didn’t acknowledge that she bullied you.

Michelle: [00:08:12] Yes.

Gabe: [00:08:12] Is it possible that she’s being sincere or do you think she’s dense?

Michelle: [00:08:15] She’s insane. She is absolutely insane, psychotic. OK.

Gabe: [00:08:24] She’s not.  She’s not insane or psychotic, Michelle.

Michelle: [00:08:27] Again, I have a mental illness.  I guess she has anxiety.  But she has something else if she thinks that was the situation.

Gabe: [00:08:35] You’re saying you think she’s schizophrenic?

Michelle: [00:08:36] Beyond.  Something even more beyond. I don’t even know.  She’s on Mars.  Because if she believes that’s what the situation was, she lives on planet Mars or something further away in the galaxy.

Gabe: [00:08:52] Because, you never bullied her?

Michelle: [00:08:54] Maybe.  In retorts too, “you would be pretty if you put some makeup on!” I would say, “Shut the fuck up!”

Gabe: [00:09:00] Is it possible that she was trying to help you?  And I know telling somebody to put on makeup is not helpful.  But is there a world …

Michelle: [00:09:08] No.

Gabe: [00:09:09] Because you were kids.

Michelle: [00:09:09] No, no, no.  No.  Because it was like, “Well if you put makeup on, you know you would look less like a lesbian.  Because, you know, if you dress different and you put makeup on, you look less like a lesbian.  Like, you do look like a lesbian. Yeah, you should really, like, not look like that.  Like, yeah. Like you know my mom, she’s a doctor, and she said you’re a lesbian.” Even though her mother wasn’t a doctor.  She was a physician’s assistant.  Which I understand is a good profession, but still, not a doctor.

Gabe: [00:09:30] I think it’s interesting that in your rant you took time to acknowledge that anything in the medical field is good. I can’t help but think that-

Michelle: [00:09:36] Because I know it’s a really hard job, too. And I have to acknowledge that.  And I know that I could not be a P.A., because I’m not intelligent or driven enough, but-

Gabe: [00:09:43] It’s the driven. You are definitively intelligent enough.

Michelle: [00:09:45] She was still lying.  You’re still lying about the profession.  If it was as good, or if it was the same as a doctor, you wouldn’t be lying about the position. Would you?  Would you also lie and say you live in a different area code to make yourself look more rich?  Yes.  She did that too, case in point. I cut her out of my life and I’ve never been happier.

Gabe: [00:10:10] Really? At 18 years old, when you cut her out of your life, you didn’t go to a psychiatric facility?

Michelle: [00:10:16] Shut up.

Gabe: [00:10:17] Several times?  You didn’t get almost kicked off the lacrosse team? You didn’t think that your mother was trying to kill you and then thought that your roommate was trying to kill you?  So really, the core component, and crux, of all your problems, was this woman?

Michelle: [00:10:31] Shut the fuck up.

Gabe: [00:10:33] Do you think, maybe, you’re seeing this incorrectly?

Michelle: [00:10:37] I’m just saying…

Gabe: [00:10:38] I’m not saying this woman is not a problem.  I’m not saying that she wasn’t rude.  But you’ve really built this up in your head.  Your life would be perfect, if this one person, when you were a child, didn’t piss you off.

Michelle: [00:10:50] It just gives me such pleasure to not be friends with her.  To not have attended her wedding.  To not be there when she gets divorced.

Gabe: [00:11:00] So you’re already wishing a divorce on her?

Michelle: [00:11:02] I don’t wish a divorce on her. I’m just saying, you know, saying the [unclear]

Gabe: [00:11:04] The inevitable?

Michelle: [00:11:04] You know what I’m trying to say.  That word.

Gabe: [00:11:08] That word?

Michelle: [00:11:09] That – inevitable.

Gabe: [00:11:10] I like how I make fun of you for [unclear]. All right you win this round, Michelle. But, listen you needed to let it go.  And it sounds like…be honest.

Michelle: [00:11:25] Well, I’ll tell you, I did not even respond to that.  No response.

Gabe: [00:11:28] But you’re still mad about it. When are you going to let her stop living rent free in your head?

Michelle: [00:11:33] Well, sometimes, ugh!  I’ll see her on my Instagram feed.

Gabe: [00:11:36] What? You can control that.

Michelle: [00:11:38] No.  It’s like other people from my high school. Well, one person from high school.  One person from high school will put her in an Instagram feed. Ugh!

Gabe: [00:11:48] OK, real talk.

Michelle: [00:11:50] Ugh.  What?

Gabe: [00:11:50] You’re a 30 year-old woman. Why are you still pissed off at the chick from high school?  I mean come on. Yeah fine, she was insufferable.  She was horrible.  She called you names.  And it sounds like, a couple of years ago, her way of reaching out, just proves that she hasn’t changed much.  She hasn’t grown. But why are you still mad at her?

Michelle: [00:12:08] I feel like she made me hate myself.

Gabe: [00:12:10] All right.  So you don’t like the way you felt about yourself. And she reminds you of how you felt about yourself.

Michelle: [00:12:16] Yeah.  Everybody in high school is really self-conscious, you know?  And you don’t need to have another person reaffirming those beliefs all the time. Or just making fun of you all the time.  Making you hate yourself, making you shame yourself. Just everything you do. Her opinion was always the most important opinion or everybody else was wrong.

Gabe: [00:12:38] But-

Michelle: [00:12:39] Like the dictator.

Gabe: [00:12:39] Did you kind of feel like her opinion was the most important one?

Michelle: [00:12:42] No.  That’s why I told her to shut up all the time. Just stop.

Gabe: [00:12:47] When you finally cut her out of your life, was there a dramatic moment? Or did you just ghost her?

Michelle: [00:12:51] Ghost.  Just ghost.

Gabe: [00:12:52] Just straight up ghost?  You just ghost? You didn’t just say, “Don’t call me anymore?” There was no yelling, there’s no screaming? Just you thought, “Today. Enough is enough?”.

Michelle: [00:13:00] Yeah, today enough is enough.  And then sometimes I would get a phone call saying, “Oh, me and her are going to the city. Do you want to come?”  No. Or, “Me and her are together.  She says, ‘hi.'”  OK, never said hi back. Never anything. I had to see her two separate times. I was nice. I didn’t like it. Actually, after I graduated college, I think she was asking, “Oh, you know, did you get any internships?” I said, “Yeah, I got two internships this summer.” And her first question after that was not, “Where?”  or, “What were they?”  It was, “Are you getting paid.”.

Gabe: [00:13:36] Were you?

Michelle: [00:13:36] Not answering that question.  Regardless, not, “Oh, where are your internships?”

Gabe: [00:13:42] I want you to know every time-

Michelle: [00:13:43]  “Are you getting paid?”

Gabe: [00:13:45] -you say regardless, I’m taking a drink of Diet Coke.

Michelle: [00:13:46] Suck my dick.

Gabe: [00:13:50] All right, it’s my turn to lay on the couch and it’s your turn to be therapist. Got it?

Michelle: [00:13:53] Hang on, Gabe, we’ve got to pay the bills. Here’s our sponsor.

Narrator 2: [00:13:57] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. All counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face-to-face session.  Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral, and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Michelle: [00:14:28] We are back talking about toxic people and protecting our mental health.

Gabe: [00:14:32] All right, you ready?

Michelle: [00:14:33] Yes.

Gabe: [00:14:33] OK, because we’re not going to solve your problem from high school when my problem from high school is still lingering.

Michelle: [00:14:39] Fine.

Gabe: [00:14:39] You’re gonna find this hard to believe so don’t make fun of me.

Michelle: [00:14:41] Mm hmm.

Gabe: [00:14:42] I was bullied a lot in high school.

Michelle: [00:14:44] Really?

Gabe: [00:14:45] Yeah. Now don’t be mean to me, or you’re just that lady from the other story except in my story. I didn’t do well. I didn’t do well in high school. And you know, I did have untreated bipolar disorder. I didn’t get along with my family. You know, they tried to punish bipolar disorder out of me. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I was fat. I had horrible acne and I did not play sports. I was a classic underachiever. And my favorite hobby was computers. I loved computers in the 80s and 90s. So-

Michelle: [00:15:19] That’s awesome.

Gabe: [00:15:21] Yeah, it was awesome when it came time to get a job.  But it was not awesome when it came time to get a date.

Michelle: [00:15:27] Oh, yeah.  Gotcha.

Gabe: [00:15:27] I was a fat, zit faced kid with no game who wore clothes that didn’t fit, and my hobby was playing with computers.

Michelle: [00:15:36] Wow.

Gabe: [00:15:37] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:15:37] Wow, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:15:37] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:15:38] You paint a really sexy picture right there.

Gabe: [00:15:41] Yeah, it was stunning.  Stunningly awful. But I did have a friend.  Like a really good friend. And we were friends through a lot. We met in middle school, and we were friends in middle school.  And we were friends in high school.  And we were friends when I graduated high school.  And we’d just been through a lot together.  Like, a lot.  Like things that I am legally not allowed to mention on the podcast.  Because, you know, they’re sealed.  And, we were just there for each other. He went through a lot of stuff too. I mean, with his family he went through a lot of stuff. I went through a lot of stuff with my family. We both have- we found out later, in later years, we both had untreated mental illness. So, we sort of even had that in common. When I was in the psychiatric hospital, he came to visit me. This is not some low end friend.

Michelle: [00:16:38] Yeah. This guy seems like a really good friend of yours.

Gabe: [00:16:40] Yeah. You’re thinking when am I going to meet him?

Michelle: [00:16:41] Right.

Gabe: [00:16:42] Yeah.  You’re not!

Michelle: [00:16:43] Something must have gone very, very wrong here.

Gabe: [00:16:45] Something did go wrong. And I’m honestly, to this day, not sure what it was. At some point he started to get very aggressive.  And he would insult pretty much everything that I did.  And he would make fun of me.

Michelle: [00:16:59] Why?

Gabe: [00:16:59] I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I decided several years ago to be a writer.  That’s how I ended up with a podcast. That’s how I met you, and I started writing about –  blogging. I mean, let’s call it blogging, that’s what it was. I started blogging about my journey with mental illness, and when I started doing that he just started making fun of me.  And he was like, “Well blogging is stupid.  Anybody can have a blog.  Blogging is dumb.”  And, you know, I thought-

Michelle: [00:17:21] Well, was he on medicine doing this to him?

Gabe: [00:17:24] No.  No, he..he…he just thought that writing was dumb. I don’t know why.

Michelle: [00:17:30] But, why did he become such a dick?

Gabe: [00:17:31] I don’t know. And I thought, maybe, it was like depression.

Michelle: [00:17:36] Mm hmm.

Gabe: [00:17:36] That it would just pass.  And so I just started the blog.  And he would insult it.  Occasionally he would read it and point out that I had grammar mistakes, which was true. But he never really would comment on anything other than, like, you know, picking it apart. And I just kind of happened and that was fine.  And then eventually a site came along and offered me money!  And I was like, “Hey, I’m getting paid to write!”  He was like, “Well I don’t understand, that’s just bullshit. They can do better. I don’t know why they’re doing this.” And, you know, he wasn’t really proud of me, or happy for me.  Or anything.

Michelle: [00:18:05] Was it jealousy?

Gabe: [00:18:07] See, that’s what a lot of people say. But I have trouble.  Like, who would be jealous of me?  And I know, this is not me fishing for a compliment, I just… I don’t understand why anybody would be jealous of me.  I didn’t have a lot of money.  I was writing about living with a horrible disease. I was still kind of estranged from my family. Not a lot, but more than zero. I mean, why would you be jealous of me?

Michelle: [00:18:32] Well, were you getting better and he was getting worse?

Gabe: [00:18:36] I don’t think so. He has a master’s degree. I never went to college. He had a job that he liked and he’s good at that he’s suited for. I mean, I just….there were many things about his life that I was jealous of.

Michelle: [00:18:49] What?  What was what was going on?  I’m so confused.

Gabe: [00:18:52] I honestly don’t know.  Eventually, I got an offer to write for The Stanford Medical Journal, the online edition.  Which is a real big get for somebody who is not in medicine. And I took it, and it was really hard to write. You know, I’m not a researcher, I’m not a doctor.  And it was about the lived experience, and I want to be clear, it wasn’t for the printed Stanford Medical Journal.  It was for their web site. And I was so proud. I was really proud. Because, as you know, I want to get the patient experience into as many doctors’ brains as possible.  Because I don’t think that they understand what people with mental illness go through. It’s really easy for them to say things like, “Be med compliant!” But I don’t think they understand fully why we’re not. So, I was really proud of this, and I worked really, really hard.  And his entire attitude was, “Whatever, it’s online. Who cares? Nobody cares.” And he just kind of picked it apart. So, I started moving away from just telling him about my accomplishments, because he was never very supportive.  And I tried to focus all of our conversations on, like, Star Wars and Star Trek and stuff like that.  Because I just didn’t get why he wasn’t proud of me, and I wanted him to be proud of me. I know that’s a messed up thing to say, maybe.  But I wanted my friend to be happy for me. That’s all I wanted.  And then bipolar magazine came along.

Michelle: [00:20:12] Oh, and he was pissed?

Gabe: [00:20:12] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:20:15] He was jealous then!  That’s jealousy.  That is jealousy. He was jealous you were getting better, you were getting this success, and he probably just was like, “Blah, I suck at my stupid boring job. Gabe gets to do all this cool stuff. Gabe feels comfortable being bipolar.”  And he’s probably like, “I have a mental illness. I don’t want to tell anyone about it. I’m scared of it”

Gabe: [00:20:34] Sure.  You’re not the first person to posit this as a theory.  But why would you give up your friend over that?  And he was good at his job. He liked his job. I was jealous of him for his job. He was so stable and, again, well educated.  Intelligent.  He just…I’m not describing somebody that lives in his parents basement. He has his own stuff. He drives his own car. He lives in his own place. Like I said, he has a master’s degree and a great job. He’s not- I could, maybe, see him being jealous of me if he was making minimum wage and living in his parents’ basement.  But he wasn’t. He was a success in a multitude of ways.  We weren’t the same type of successful, but he was doing well. I don’t understand. All I know is that I just couldn’t take it. I told him that he hurt my feelings, and that I just wanted him to respect all of the work that I put in and all of the effort and all of the energy. Yeah, I just wanted my friend to be proud of me. I did. That’s what I wanted him to say. I wanted him to say,  “Wow, Gabe, you did it.  You did something that nobody thought you could do, and you did it well.  I am glad to know you.”  And what he said instead is, “That’s stupid, print is dying.” I don’t even remember, because when I told him that he hurt my feelings, he jumped out of my car. We were driving. I was at a stop sign, or a stoplight. He got out of the car, and he walked away. And he never called me again. About a year and a half or so after that, I ran into him at the movies.  And I was actually excited, because I thought, “Oh this is it!” And it was a movie that we loved and that we often would go to together. And I said, “Hey, how are you?” And he said, “Hi,” and I tried to talk to him and…

Michelle: [00:22:32] Wow.

Gabe: [00:22:34] …kind of walked away. And that hurt my feelings all over again.

Michelle: [00:22:38] I don’t think he was okay in his head.

Gabe: [00:22:41] I said the same thing about your friend.  Maybe she wasn’t okay in her head. Maybe she regrets this friendship. Maybe all of these people are messed up in their own right, and they’re the villains in our story.  But maybe they’re the hero in somebody else’s.  I don’t know. All I know, is that I don’t have my friend anymore and I think that sucks.  But it was the right thing to do; not chasing him down and begging him to be my friend.  Because I begged him to be my friend for years. I tolerated him tearing down my efforts, my work, my career, my success, for years. When I told him I wanted to be a public speaker, he openly mocked me, and I just took it. This is a guy that never supported me being a speaker and a writer. And it took years. You know, I know people see me now and they’re like, “You’ve got a podcast, and you’re successful, and you’re a speaker.” Yeah, but for a decade, I wasn’t. For seven years I wasn’t.  For many years I wrote for free on a weebly site.

Michelle: [00:23:43] Ha-ha.

Gabe: [00:23:42] And I was nothing.  I was nobody. And then I’d get little, little successes in drips and drabs.  Like, I’d get success. I get offered something, and I’d be so proud of it! Then nothing would happen for another nine months, and I thought maybe nothing would ever happen. So, I just put up with him tearing my career down for years, and there is a part of me that wonders why he jumped out of the car and ran away from me.

Michelle: [00:24:11] I think that just proves his issues.

Gabe: [00:24:13] Well, sure.  But-

Michelle: [00:24:13] He didn’t want to even do any conflicts at all. He probably knew that it was true. If it wasn’t true, he would have argued that it wasn’t true.  But he knew it was true, so he ran away. He ran away from the truth. Doesn’t that prove it right there?

Gabe: [00:24:26] Yeah, but he also ran away from me. Like, wasn’t I worth it?

Michelle: [00:24:29] He was scared of you.

Gabe: [00:24:31] But, of what?

Michelle: [00:24:32] He was obviously just scared of you.

Gabe: [00:24:34] Listen, the only thing that needs to be scared of me-

Michelle: [00:24:35] He ran away.

Gabe: [00:24:36] -are french fries.  Like, that’s it.

Michelle: [00:24:38] He ran away from you because he was scared of you.

Gabe: [00:24:41] Okay, what did he think I was going to do to him?

Michelle: [00:24:43] I don’t know. But he was scared of you because you were right.

Gabe: [00:24:46] Intellectually, if roles were reversed, this is exactly what I’d be saying to you. But, you know, this is the thing that sucks.  My mental health is better now that he’s not here.  Because he was always a nagging, negative voice in my life. And there’s a lot! Come on, Michelle, you and I do this work. People tell us all the time that we suck. They tell us all the time that we need to get real jobs.  That we need to stop it. That podcasts are for losers; blogging is stupid. We don’t get a lot of positive reinforcement. You know, our families, when we told them that we wanted to do this, they were like, “Oh my God…podcaster. That’s what I wanted.”

Michelle: [00:25:22] I loved it when my roommate’s girlfriend said, “Does anyone actually listen to podcasts?”

Gabe: [00:25:30] Yeah. I remember when somebody said, “So how much money do you lose per episode?” I was like, “No we make money.”  And they’re like, “Whatever.”  They think I’m lying. We have sponsors in place; we work really hard. We have a good audience. I’m not saying that we’re rich off the podcast, but it’s a profitable enterprise. Michelle and I work really, really hard. They think it’s a joke. They really do.  They still mock us.  They have this idea that we’re sitting with our phones under a trailer recording these shows.

Michelle: [00:26:00] Maybe we are.

Gabe: [00:26:01] Maybe we are.

Michelle: [00:26:02] Maybe.  We.  Are.

Gabe: [00:26:05] Michelle, it is always great hanging with you. Do we have any takeaway for our listeners?  You and I both had toxic people in our lives, and we are better off that they’re gone. But it clearly has still hurt us. You’re 30 years-old and you’re still pissed off at something that happened in high school. I’m a grown ass man and I’m still upset that somebody who did nothing but insult me went away. I mean, these are lingering effects, but-

Michelle: [00:26:29] I guess that means we just gotta learn how to let go.

Gabe: [00:26:32] But, how?

Michelle: [00:26:35] I don’t know. I guess somebody might say, “Why don’t you drink some tea?”

Gabe: [00:26:38] Drink some tea?

Michelle: [00:26:39] Drink some tea with honey, sir.  That’ll fix all of your issues.

Gabe: [00:26:43] Who would say that?

Michelle: [00:26:45] Somebody in the comments.

Gabe: [00:26:47] In the comments?  I told you, stop reading the comments! That is not the place to get mental health advice.

Michelle: [00:26:57] We need an exorcism, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:26:58] We need an exorcism?

Michelle: [00:27:00] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:27:00] That is another great thing that has happened to people in our community. Michelle, I do think that our our listeners, like us, are probably struggling with some relationships that are maybe not the best.  And we need to set better boundaries, and some days I wish that our show was, like, real therapy.  Where we could tell people how to set better boundaries and how to not let people get to them. But, you know our our show is not practical advice. Our show is more like, “Hey we’ve been through it, and we survived it.  And if you’re going through it, you can survive too.” But I wish we had that magic cure. I wish that somebody listening right now, that has a friend that’s making them feel bad, would be like, “Tell me what to do!”  And we’d be like, “Do this!” And then they’d do it and their life would suddenly get better, but the world is just way too complicated.

Michelle: [00:27:44] If someone is not bringing joy to your life, they’re only bringing negativity to your life, then – goodbye.

Gabe: [00:27:52] Yeah, that is the sensible thing to do. Why do we hang on to these negative people? I think it’s because we remember when they used to be positive. I do.  I really do. It’s just like my friend.  You’re like, “Why are you sad that he is gone?” And I’m like, “Because I remember when he was good.”  I remember when we were in high school, and he was my only friend. And that’s hard to get over. And it’s times like these that I remember that people can be two things.  He can both be the asshole that I’m no longer friends with, and he can also be the guy that got me through my teen years. He was a good friend. He was a really, really good friend, right up until the time he wasn’t. And it’s hard that he occupies both spaces in my life.  Because we think that people have to be one thing, but people can be two things.  I guess when I was in high school, he was the hero. And when I was an adult, he was the villain.

Michelle: [00:28:39] You can’t move forward when you’re stuck looking backwards.

Gabe: [00:28:43] Here, here! Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. And remember, we need you to do the following things, not necessarily in this order:  1) Give us a five star review on iTunes and leave a nice comment.  2) Whenever you see this posted on Facebook or on Psych Central, leave a comment.  Start a conversation.  3) Go to store.PsychCentral.com and buy the official A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast t-shirt. It is the “Define Normal” t-shirt, and you can find it at store.PsychCentral.com. And, finally, don’t be afraid to drop us a line at show@PsychCentral.com, and we will see everybody next week. Thank you for subscribing, thank you for listening, and tell a friend.

Michelle: [00:29:21] Hey, jealousy!

Narrator: [00:29:21] You’ve been listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. If you love this episodes, don’t keep it to yourself!  Head over to iTunes or your preferred podcast app to subscribe, rate, and review.  To work with Gabe, go to GabeHoward.com. To work with Michelle, go to schizophrenic.NYC.  For free mental health resources, and online support groups, head over to PsychCentral.com. The show’s official web site is Psych Central.com/BSP. You can e-mail us at show@PsychCentral.com.  Thank you for listening, and share widely.

  Meet Your Bipolar and Schizophrenic Hosts

GABE HOWARD was formally diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders after being committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2003. Now in recovery, Gabe is a prominent mental health activist and host of the award-winning Psych Central Show podcast. He is also an award-winning writer and speaker, traveling nationally to share the humorous, yet educational, story of his bipolar life. To work with Gabe, visit gabehoward.com.

  MICHELLE HAMMER was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 22, but incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18. Michelle is an award-winning mental health advocate who has been featured in press all over the world. In May 2015, Michelle founded the company Schizophrenic.NYC, a mental health clothing line, with the mission of reducing stigma by starting conversations about mental health. She is a firm believer that confidence can get you anywhere. To work with Michelle, visit Schizophrenic.NYC.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/podcast-why-people-with-mental-illness-should-remove-toxic-people-from-their-life/

[erraticfairy]

PODCAST: Why People With Mental Illness Should Remove Toxic People From Their Life



Living with mental illness means accepting that some things are out of our control. It also means tolerating annoyances like pillboxes, regular doctor visits, and the symptoms we just can’t quite get under control.

But, does living with mental illness mean we have to keep toxic people around us? Do we, as people who are managing a severe and persistent illness, just have to take the abuse that people heap on us because at least we aren’t alone?

In this episode, Gabe & Michelle explore tolerating toxic people and whether or not it’s a good idea. Listen now!

  SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

“My number one job is taking care of my mental health.” – Michelle Hammer

  Highlights From ‘Toxic People and Mental Illness’ Episode

[1:00] Michelle and Gabe talk about toxic people. [3:30] Michelle shares how her mental illness improved after removing a toxic person from her life.

[14:30] Gabe tells a story of removing a toxic person from his life to improve his mental illness outcomes.

[25:00] A touching story from someone who loves this podcast.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Toxic People and Mental Illness’ Show

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

  Narrator: [00:00:07] For reasons that utterly escape everyone involved, you’re listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. Here are your hosts, Gabe Howard and Michelle Hammer.

Gabe Howard: [00:00:18] Hey everybody!  You are listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. I’m the bipolar one. My name is Gabe.

Michelle Hammer: [00:00:24] Hi, I’m Michelle. I’m schizophrenic.

Gabe: [00:00:27] Michelle, we are talking about people who are toxic for our mental health on this episode. Isn’t that kind of weird?  “People who are toxic for our mental health.” Another way to say that is, like, “jerks.”

Michelle: [00:00:37] Jerks.

Gabe: [00:00:37] Like how to cut assholes out of our life.

[00:00:40] I mean, yeah, some people, they suck.

[00:00:41] They do.

Michelle: [00:00:43] They suck, and they just need to go. Like sometimes you just gotta be like chop chop chopped up, bye.

Gabe: [00:00:47] Chop chop chop chop bye?

Michelle: [00:00:49] Chop chop bye.

Gabe: [00:00:50] Chop chop bye.

Michelle: [00:00:51] Chopped up, bye-bye.

Gabe: [00:00:52] Like slap chop.

Michelle: [00:00:52] Slap chop.

Gabe: [00:00:53] Remember that guy?

Michelle: [00:00:54] Oh yeah. The Slap Chop.

Gabe: [00:00:56] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:00:56] I don’t have one.

Gabe: [00:01:00] I think your painting just fell over, Michelle.

Michelle: [00:01:03] You did not hang it nicely.

Gabe: [00:01:05] Hey, you’re lucky I have one at all. Michelle, everybody has toxic people in their lives. It’s interesting that we’re discussing this from the vantage point of people living with mental illness. Because all of us, I mean it doesn’t matter if you have mental illness or not, toxic people exist in everybody’s lives.

Michelle: [00:01:22] Everybody does have toxic people in their lives. Some people can handle that. But, why? Why would you want to, why? Why do you have to keep toxic people around? I guess if you’re related, right?

Gabe: [00:01:33] You’re related?

Michelle: [00:01:33] The only reason to keep somebody toxic around.  Like, if you have to see them at family events and stuff like that. But, I mean, other than that, bye-bye.

Gabe: [00:01:45] Do you think our parents are at home, like, “We have to keep Gabe and Michelle around because they’re in our lives, even though they’re messed up?”

Michelle: [00:01:54] Maybe at some point in my life.

Gabe: [00:01:56] Let’s talk about, straight up, the people that we need to get rid of because they are bad for our mental health. And managing our mental health is kind of a full time job.

Michelle: [00:02:05] I would have to agree. It’s my number one job.  Managing my mental health.

Gabe: [00:02:10] Yeah, okay.

Michelle: [00:02:10] Number two job is taking a shower.

Gabe: [00:02:13] The number two job is taking a shower?

Michelle: [00:02:14] No, I…

Gabe: [00:02:14] Where is podcasting on that list? The answer is you don’t consider that a job, right? Like, this isn’t work.

Michelle: [00:02:20] You know.  You know – find a job that you love! You’ll never work a day in your life.

Gabe: [00:02:25] I hate that saying. I don’t believe that making your hobby your job makes you love your job. I believe that it makes you hate your hobby.

Michelle: [00:02:33] I actually would have to agree with that. Actually, yes.  Agreed.  A great big yes.

Gabe: [00:02:38] You also shouldn’t podcast with your friends because it makes you hate your friends.

Michelle: [00:02:42] That can happen too, yes.

Gabe: [00:02:43] I hate you.

Michelle: [00:02:43] I hate Vin.

Gabe: [00:02:45] Whoa!

Michelle: [00:02:47] Don’t tell him.

Gabe: [00:02:48] You don’t podcast with Vin.

Michelle: [00:02:48] I know, I’m just kidding.

Gabe: [00:02:49] I think it’s funny that you’re, like, “don’t tell him!” When you said it live on a show.  You’re really banking on the fact that he doesn’t listen.

Michelle: [00:02:54] This is how we’ll know if Vin listens.

Gabe: [00:02:57] That’s true! We should also plant things in there, like, “Mom, I hate you!” Now I’ll know if she listens because she’ll be like, “That was mean, why’d you say that on your show?”

Michelle: [00:03:05] Right! What if I said how old my mother was?  Right now?

Gabe: [00:03:08] Sixty-two.

Michelle: [00:03:08] Nope.

Gabe: [00:03:09] Seventy.

Michelle: [00:03:09] Younger.

Gabe: [00:03:11] Fifty one.

Michelle: [00:03:12] Older.

Gabe: [00:03:12] Thirty two.

Michelle: [00:03:13] Older.

Gabe: [00:03:14] Seven.

Michelle: [00:03:14] Older.

Gabe: [00:03:15] Ninety five.

Michelle: [00:03:16] Younger.

Gabe: [00:03:16] Ten.

Michelle: [00:03:17] Older.

Gabe: [00:03:17] Bat symbol.

Michelle: [00:03:19] Robin.

Gabe: [00:03:22] Michelle, tell us about the person that you had to cut out of your life because they were toxic.

Michelle: [00:03:28] Oh…children, children, children, children… Everybody knows those girls in high school. Those girls in high school, they just think they’re better than other girls, for no reason. Even though, they just are worthless pieces of shit. They love to pretend they’re better than you. They like to insult you. Even when you’re ridiculously thin, they call you fat.  And when you have muscles from playing sports, they say, “Stop playing sports! You’re getting muscular, and boys don’t like muscular girls.”  And, when you say you think that guy is hot, and you want to make out with him, they’ll say to you, “The question is, does he want to make out with you?”

Gabe: [00:04:10] Do you say it in this tone?  I don’t know what kind of high school you went to, but…

Michelle: [00:04:14] No, I’m just – I’m pretending I’m on masterpiece theater right now.

Gabe: [00:04:18] Oh yeah! Yeah, yeah. Yeah,’cause that’s what we’re doing right now, Masterpiece Theater.

Michelle: [00:04:23] Masterpiece Theater.  I’m telling the story.

Gabe: [00:04:24] I’m sorry, continue. Continue with-

Michelle: [00:04:26] So…

Gabe: [00:04:27] -with this.

Michelle: [00:04:28] After one night of just nonsense, there was a fight. And after years of knowing this person since kindergarten, and defending and defending and always just being a friend, even though she’s horribly mean to me.  She didn’t take my side in a fight. So I decided, at that moment, I was never going to talk to her again. Senior year of high school, right at the very end. I don’t have to see her again, ever. So I decided, I just cut her out of my life – completely. I only ever had to see her at a shiva and a graduation party.  But about a year ago I get an e-mail.

Gabe: [00:05:06] Nah, nah, you’re –

Michelle: [00:05:08] What?

Gabe: [00:05:08] You’re glossing over some stuff here.

Michelle: [00:05:09] Well, what?

Gabe: [00:05:09] You just – you’re just, like, “Oh, I knew her since kindergarten”  Like that was nothing. I mean you just, kind of like in one sentence, skipped over, what? Ten years of friendship? You knew this person for a long time.

Michelle: [00:05:22] Right? We went to Hebrew school together. We went to elementary school, middle school, high school. We went to each other’s bat mitzvahs. We knew each other for a long time. But throughout all this whole time-

Gabe: [00:05:33] You got boobs together!

Michelle: [00:05:34] She was-

Gabe: [00:05:35] I mean-

Michelle: [00:05:35] Well, I mean, she would constantly, tell us how her boobs were, you know, better than ours.  That she looked like a model and we did not.  And just insult us, and just insult us, and insult us.  But, we would always go back and be her friend because, usually that was just a thing.

Gabe: [00:05:52] You just kind of grow out of it right?  Like, you just kind of figured that stasis would be reached?

Michelle: [00:05:54] But it just came to a head where after years of defending her to everybody, being, like, she’s not that bad.  Just whatever.  It’s, it’s OK.  She didn’t take my side in a fight. So .

Gabe: [00:06:06] So, you felt like she was disloyal.

Michelle: [00:06:08] So, she, after how many years of loyalty, she didn’t take my side.  But on top of that-

Gabe: [00:06:14] and she bullied you.

Michelle: [00:06:14] She bullied me.

Gabe: [00:06:15] For many years.

Michelle: [00:06:16] Many years.  Telling us, telling me, that I was very short. I needed to lose weight. I should stop playing lacrosse because it made me too muscular.  Because boys don’t like that, she said. But, I also had to lose weight more and more and more.  Because, you know, it’s fatness that’s really ugly. Even though I was way thinner than she was. But then she would tell me that my boobs weren’t big enough because they’re not really good. And also telling me how much I should just like, I look like a man, because I don’t put any makeup on and I wear my hair up. But if I put some on, and I wear my hair down, and I put makeup on I could kind of be pretty.

Gabe: [00:06:50] What year did this fight happen?

Michelle: [00:06:52] 2006.

Gabe: [00:06:52] OK, so you got in to a fight in 2006.  And then 10 years later, in 2016…

Michelle: [00:06:56] Yes. In 2016, I get a Facebook message.

Gabe: [00:07:00] All right, and the Facebook message says…?

Michelle: [00:07:01] “Hey, Michelle! I wanted to share with you that I’m so proud of your transformation and what you’ve done with the mental health issues. It’s a huge issue in America, not just New York City, and something I’ve dealt with my entire life. I realize your bullying of me when we were kids might have been less personal for me and more about you taking out your anger and dealing with what you were going through. But I have had anxiety since I was 10 and found solace in therapy and medicine. It’s been a hard battle to convince people of what goes on in my mind, because they can’t see it. I had a boyfriend years ago who didn’t understand why I take medication. He kept saying, “You’re fine.” Little did he know that medication is what was keeping me fine. Had I had diabetes or something more visible, he blah, blah, blah”  You get my point?

Gabe: [00:07:50] I think the thing that we can agree on is that mental illness is not taken seriously in America. It is a big problem everywhere including outside of New York City.

Michelle: [00:07:57] Okay, yes.  Yes.

Gabe: [00:07:57] So, I’m kind of guessing that this is not the part that is upsetting you.

Michelle: [00:08:01] Yes.

Gabe: [00:08:01] It’s the part where she says you bullied her.

Michelle: [00:08:06] Yes.

Gabe: [00:08:06] And she didn’t acknowledge that she bullied you.

Michelle: [00:08:12] Yes.

Gabe: [00:08:12] Is it possible that she’s being sincere or do you think she’s dense?

Michelle: [00:08:15] She’s insane. She is absolutely insane, psychotic. OK.

Gabe: [00:08:24] She’s not.  She’s not insane or psychotic, Michelle.

Michelle: [00:08:27] Again, I have a mental illness.  I guess she has anxiety.  But she has something else if she thinks that was the situation.

Gabe: [00:08:35] You’re saying you think she’s schizophrenic?

Michelle: [00:08:36] Beyond.  Something even more beyond. I don’t even know.  She’s on Mars.  Because if she believes that’s what the situation was, she lives on planet Mars or something further away in the galaxy.

Gabe: [00:08:52] Because, you never bullied her?

Michelle: [00:08:54] Maybe.  In retorts too, “you would be pretty if you put some makeup on!” I would say, “Shut the fuck up!”

Gabe: [00:09:00] Is it possible that she was trying to help you?  And I know telling somebody to put on makeup is not helpful.  But is there a world …

Michelle: [00:09:08] No.

Gabe: [00:09:09] Because you were kids.

Michelle: [00:09:09] No, no, no.  No.  Because it was like, “Well if you put makeup on, you know you would look less like a lesbian.  Because, you know, if you dress different and you put makeup on, you look less like a lesbian.  Like, you do look like a lesbian. Yeah, you should really, like, not look like that.  Like, yeah. Like you know my mom, she’s a doctor, and she said you’re a lesbian.” Even though her mother wasn’t a doctor.  She was a physician’s assistant.  Which I understand is a good profession, but still, not a doctor.

Gabe: [00:09:30] I think it’s interesting that in your rant you took time to acknowledge that anything in the medical field is good. I can’t help but think that-

Michelle: [00:09:36] Because I know it’s a really hard job, too. And I have to acknowledge that.  And I know that I could not be a P.A., because I’m not intelligent or driven enough, but-

Gabe: [00:09:43] It’s the driven. You are definitively intelligent enough.

Michelle: [00:09:45] She was still lying.  You’re still lying about the profession.  If it was as good, or if it was the same as a doctor, you wouldn’t be lying about the position. Would you?  Would you also lie and say you live in a different area code to make yourself look more rich?  Yes.  She did that too, case in point. I cut her out of my life and I’ve never been happier.

Gabe: [00:10:10] Really? At 18 years old, when you cut her out of your life, you didn’t go to a psychiatric facility?

Michelle: [00:10:16] Shut up.

Gabe: [00:10:17] Several times?  You didn’t get almost kicked off the lacrosse team? You didn’t think that your mother was trying to kill you and then thought that your roommate was trying to kill you?  So really, the core component, and crux, of all your problems, was this woman?

Michelle: [00:10:31] Shut the fuck up.

Gabe: [00:10:33] Do you think, maybe, you’re seeing this incorrectly?

Michelle: [00:10:37] I’m just saying…

Gabe: [00:10:38] I’m not saying this woman is not a problem.  I’m not saying that she wasn’t rude.  But you’ve really built this up in your head.  Your life would be perfect, if this one person, when you were a child, didn’t piss you off.

Michelle: [00:10:50] It just gives me such pleasure to not be friends with her.  To not have attended her wedding.  To not be there when she gets divorced.

Gabe: [00:11:00] So you’re already wishing a divorce on her?

Michelle: [00:11:02] I don’t wish a divorce on her. I’m just saying, you know, saying the [unclear]

Gabe: [00:11:04] The inevitable?

Michelle: [00:11:04] You know what I’m trying to say.  That word.

Gabe: [00:11:08] That word?

Michelle: [00:11:09] That – inevitable.

Gabe: [00:11:10] I like how I make fun of you for [unclear]. All right you win this round, Michelle. But, listen you needed to let it go.  And it sounds like…be honest.

Michelle: [00:11:25] Well, I’ll tell you, I did not even respond to that.  No response.

Gabe: [00:11:28] But you’re still mad about it. When are you going to let her stop living rent free in your head?

Michelle: [00:11:33] Well, sometimes, ugh!  I’ll see her on my Instagram feed.

Gabe: [00:11:36] What? You can control that.

Michelle: [00:11:38] No.  It’s like other people from my high school. Well, one person from high school.  One person from high school will put her in an Instagram feed. Ugh!

Gabe: [00:11:48] OK, real talk.

Michelle: [00:11:50] Ugh.  What?

Gabe: [00:11:50] You’re a 30 year-old woman. Why are you still pissed off at the chick from high school?  I mean come on. Yeah fine, she was insufferable.  She was horrible.  She called you names.  And it sounds like, a couple of years ago, her way of reaching out, just proves that she hasn’t changed much.  She hasn’t grown. But why are you still mad at her?

Michelle: [00:12:08] I feel like she made me hate myself.

Gabe: [00:12:10] All right.  So you don’t like the way you felt about yourself. And she reminds you of how you felt about yourself.

Michelle: [00:12:16] Yeah.  Everybody in high school is really self-conscious, you know?  And you don’t need to have another person reaffirming those beliefs all the time. Or just making fun of you all the time.  Making you hate yourself, making you shame yourself. Just everything you do. Her opinion was always the most important opinion or everybody else was wrong.

Gabe: [00:12:38] But-

Michelle: [00:12:39] Like the dictator.

Gabe: [00:12:39] Did you kind of feel like her opinion was the most important one?

Michelle: [00:12:42] No.  That’s why I told her to shut up all the time. Just stop.

Gabe: [00:12:47] When you finally cut her out of your life, was there a dramatic moment? Or did you just ghost her?

Michelle: [00:12:51] Ghost.  Just ghost.

Gabe: [00:12:52] Just straight up ghost?  You just ghost? You didn’t just say, “Don’t call me anymore?” There was no yelling, there’s no screaming? Just you thought, “Today. Enough is enough?”.

Michelle: [00:13:00] Yeah, today enough is enough.  And then sometimes I would get a phone call saying, “Oh, me and her are going to the city. Do you want to come?”  No. Or, “Me and her are together.  She says, ‘hi.'”  OK, never said hi back. Never anything. I had to see her two separate times. I was nice. I didn’t like it. Actually, after I graduated college, I think she was asking, “Oh, you know, did you get any internships?” I said, “Yeah, I got two internships this summer.” And her first question after that was not, “Where?”  or, “What were they?”  It was, “Are you getting paid.”.

Gabe: [00:13:36] Were you?

Michelle: [00:13:36] Not answering that question.  Regardless, not, “Oh, where are your internships?”

Gabe: [00:13:42] I want you to know every time-

Michelle: [00:13:43]  “Are you getting paid?”

Gabe: [00:13:45] -you say regardless, I’m taking a drink of Diet Coke.

Michelle: [00:13:46] Suck my dick.

Gabe: [00:13:50] All right, it’s my turn to lay on the couch and it’s your turn to be therapist. Got it?

Michelle: [00:13:53] Hang on, Gabe, we’ve got to pay the bills. Here’s our sponsor.

Narrator 2: [00:13:57] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. All counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face-to-face session.  Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral, and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Michelle: [00:14:28] We are back talking about toxic people and protecting our mental health.

Gabe: [00:14:32] All right, you ready?

Michelle: [00:14:33] Yes.

Gabe: [00:14:33] OK, because we’re not going to solve your problem from high school when my problem from high school is still lingering.

Michelle: [00:14:39] Fine.

Gabe: [00:14:39] You’re gonna find this hard to believe so don’t make fun of me.

Michelle: [00:14:41] Mm hmm.

Gabe: [00:14:42] I was bullied a lot in high school.

Michelle: [00:14:44] Really?

Gabe: [00:14:45] Yeah. Now don’t be mean to me, or you’re just that lady from the other story except in my story. I didn’t do well. I didn’t do well in high school. And you know, I did have untreated bipolar disorder. I didn’t get along with my family. You know, they tried to punish bipolar disorder out of me. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I was fat. I had horrible acne and I did not play sports. I was a classic underachiever. And my favorite hobby was computers. I loved computers in the 80s and 90s. So-

Michelle: [00:15:19] That’s awesome.

Gabe: [00:15:21] Yeah, it was awesome when it came time to get a job.  But it was not awesome when it came time to get a date.

Michelle: [00:15:27] Oh, yeah.  Gotcha.

Gabe: [00:15:27] I was a fat, zit faced kid with no game who wore clothes that didn’t fit, and my hobby was playing with computers.

Michelle: [00:15:36] Wow.

Gabe: [00:15:37] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:15:37] Wow, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:15:37] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:15:38] You paint a really sexy picture right there.

Gabe: [00:15:41] Yeah, it was stunning.  Stunningly awful. But I did have a friend.  Like a really good friend. And we were friends through a lot. We met in middle school, and we were friends in middle school.  And we were friends in high school.  And we were friends when I graduated high school.  And we’d just been through a lot together.  Like, a lot.  Like things that I am legally not allowed to mention on the podcast.  Because, you know, they’re sealed.  And, we were just there for each other. He went through a lot of stuff too. I mean, with his family he went through a lot of stuff. I went through a lot of stuff with my family. We both have- we found out later, in later years, we both had untreated mental illness. So, we sort of even had that in common. When I was in the psychiatric hospital, he came to visit me. This is not some low end friend.

Michelle: [00:16:38] Yeah. This guy seems like a really good friend of yours.

Gabe: [00:16:40] Yeah. You’re thinking when am I going to meet him?

Michelle: [00:16:41] Right.

Gabe: [00:16:42] Yeah.  You’re not!

Michelle: [00:16:43] Something must have gone very, very wrong here.

Gabe: [00:16:45] Something did go wrong. And I’m honestly, to this day, not sure what it was. At some point he started to get very aggressive.  And he would insult pretty much everything that I did.  And he would make fun of me.

Michelle: [00:16:59] Why?

Gabe: [00:16:59] I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I decided several years ago to be a writer.  That’s how I ended up with a podcast. That’s how I met you, and I started writing about –  blogging. I mean, let’s call it blogging, that’s what it was. I started blogging about my journey with mental illness, and when I started doing that he just started making fun of me.  And he was like, “Well blogging is stupid.  Anybody can have a blog.  Blogging is dumb.”  And, you know, I thought-

Michelle: [00:17:21] Well, was he on medicine doing this to him?

Gabe: [00:17:24] No.  No, he..he…he just thought that writing was dumb. I don’t know why.

Michelle: [00:17:30] But, why did he become such a dick?

Gabe: [00:17:31] I don’t know. And I thought, maybe, it was like depression.

Michelle: [00:17:36] Mm hmm.

Gabe: [00:17:36] That it would just pass.  And so I just started the blog.  And he would insult it.  Occasionally he would read it and point out that I had grammar mistakes, which was true. But he never really would comment on anything other than, like, you know, picking it apart. And I just kind of happened and that was fine.  And then eventually a site came along and offered me money!  And I was like, “Hey, I’m getting paid to write!”  He was like, “Well I don’t understand, that’s just bullshit. They can do better. I don’t know why they’re doing this.” And, you know, he wasn’t really proud of me, or happy for me.  Or anything.

Michelle: [00:18:05] Was it jealousy?

Gabe: [00:18:07] See, that’s what a lot of people say. But I have trouble.  Like, who would be jealous of me?  And I know, this is not me fishing for a compliment, I just… I don’t understand why anybody would be jealous of me.  I didn’t have a lot of money.  I was writing about living with a horrible disease. I was still kind of estranged from my family. Not a lot, but more than zero. I mean, why would you be jealous of me?

Michelle: [00:18:32] Well, were you getting better and he was getting worse?

Gabe: [00:18:36] I don’t think so. He has a master’s degree. I never went to college. He had a job that he liked and he’s good at that he’s suited for. I mean, I just….there were many things about his life that I was jealous of.

Michelle: [00:18:49] What?  What was what was going on?  I’m so confused.

Gabe: [00:18:52] I honestly don’t know.  Eventually, I got an offer to write for The Stanford Medical Journal, the online edition.  Which is a real big get for somebody who is not in medicine. And I took it, and it was really hard to write. You know, I’m not a researcher, I’m not a doctor.  And it was about the lived experience, and I want to be clear, it wasn’t for the printed Stanford Medical Journal.  It was for their web site. And I was so proud. I was really proud. Because, as you know, I want to get the patient experience into as many doctors’ brains as possible.  Because I don’t think that they understand what people with mental illness go through. It’s really easy for them to say things like, “Be med compliant!” But I don’t think they understand fully why we’re not. So, I was really proud of this, and I worked really, really hard.  And his entire attitude was, “Whatever, it’s online. Who cares? Nobody cares.” And he just kind of picked it apart. So, I started moving away from just telling him about my accomplishments, because he was never very supportive.  And I tried to focus all of our conversations on, like, Star Wars and Star Trek and stuff like that.  Because I just didn’t get why he wasn’t proud of me, and I wanted him to be proud of me. I know that’s a messed up thing to say, maybe.  But I wanted my friend to be happy for me. That’s all I wanted.  And then bipolar magazine came along.

Michelle: [00:20:12] Oh, and he was pissed?

Gabe: [00:20:12] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:20:15] He was jealous then!  That’s jealousy.  That is jealousy. He was jealous you were getting better, you were getting this success, and he probably just was like, “Blah, I suck at my stupid boring job. Gabe gets to do all this cool stuff. Gabe feels comfortable being bipolar.”  And he’s probably like, “I have a mental illness. I don’t want to tell anyone about it. I’m scared of it”

Gabe: [00:20:34] Sure.  You’re not the first person to posit this as a theory.  But why would you give up your friend over that?  And he was good at his job. He liked his job. I was jealous of him for his job. He was so stable and, again, well educated.  Intelligent.  He just…I’m not describing somebody that lives in his parents basement. He has his own stuff. He drives his own car. He lives in his own place. Like I said, he has a master’s degree and a great job. He’s not- I could, maybe, see him being jealous of me if he was making minimum wage and living in his parents’ basement.  But he wasn’t. He was a success in a multitude of ways.  We weren’t the same type of successful, but he was doing well. I don’t understand. All I know is that I just couldn’t take it. I told him that he hurt my feelings, and that I just wanted him to respect all of the work that I put in and all of the effort and all of the energy. Yeah, I just wanted my friend to be proud of me. I did. That’s what I wanted him to say. I wanted him to say,  “Wow, Gabe, you did it.  You did something that nobody thought you could do, and you did it well.  I am glad to know you.”  And what he said instead is, “That’s stupid, print is dying.” I don’t even remember, because when I told him that he hurt my feelings, he jumped out of my car. We were driving. I was at a stop sign, or a stoplight. He got out of the car, and he walked away. And he never called me again. About a year and a half or so after that, I ran into him at the movies.  And I was actually excited, because I thought, “Oh this is it!” And it was a movie that we loved and that we often would go to together. And I said, “Hey, how are you?” And he said, “Hi,” and I tried to talk to him and…

Michelle: [00:22:32] Wow.

Gabe: [00:22:34] …kind of walked away. And that hurt my feelings all over again.

Michelle: [00:22:38] I don’t think he was okay in his head.

Gabe: [00:22:41] I said the same thing about your friend.  Maybe she wasn’t okay in her head. Maybe she regrets this friendship. Maybe all of these people are messed up in their own right, and they’re the villains in our story.  But maybe they’re the hero in somebody else’s.  I don’t know. All I know, is that I don’t have my friend anymore and I think that sucks.  But it was the right thing to do; not chasing him down and begging him to be my friend.  Because I begged him to be my friend for years. I tolerated him tearing down my efforts, my work, my career, my success, for years. When I told him I wanted to be a public speaker, he openly mocked me, and I just took it. This is a guy that never supported me being a speaker and a writer. And it took years. You know, I know people see me now and they’re like, “You’ve got a podcast, and you’re successful, and you’re a speaker.” Yeah, but for a decade, I wasn’t. For seven years I wasn’t.  For many years I wrote for free on a weebly site.

Michelle: [00:23:43] Ha-ha.

Gabe: [00:23:42] And I was nothing.  I was nobody. And then I’d get little, little successes in drips and drabs.  Like, I’d get success. I get offered something, and I’d be so proud of it! Then nothing would happen for another nine months, and I thought maybe nothing would ever happen. So, I just put up with him tearing my career down for years, and there is a part of me that wonders why he jumped out of the car and ran away from me.

Michelle: [00:24:11] I think that just proves his issues.

Gabe: [00:24:13] Well, sure.  But-

Michelle: [00:24:13] He didn’t want to even do any conflicts at all. He probably knew that it was true. If it wasn’t true, he would have argued that it wasn’t true.  But he knew it was true, so he ran away. He ran away from the truth. Doesn’t that prove it right there?

Gabe: [00:24:26] Yeah, but he also ran away from me. Like, wasn’t I worth it?

Michelle: [00:24:29] He was scared of you.

Gabe: [00:24:31] But, of what?

Michelle: [00:24:32] He was obviously just scared of you.

Gabe: [00:24:34] Listen, the only thing that needs to be scared of me-

Michelle: [00:24:35] He ran away.

Gabe: [00:24:36] -are french fries.  Like, that’s it.

Michelle: [00:24:38] He ran away from you because he was scared of you.

Gabe: [00:24:41] Okay, what did he think I was going to do to him?

Michelle: [00:24:43] I don’t know. But he was scared of you because you were right.

Gabe: [00:24:46] Intellectually, if roles were reversed, this is exactly what I’d be saying to you. But, you know, this is the thing that sucks.  My mental health is better now that he’s not here.  Because he was always a nagging, negative voice in my life. And there’s a lot! Come on, Michelle, you and I do this work. People tell us all the time that we suck. They tell us all the time that we need to get real jobs.  That we need to stop it. That podcasts are for losers; blogging is stupid. We don’t get a lot of positive reinforcement. You know, our families, when we told them that we wanted to do this, they were like, “Oh my God…podcaster. That’s what I wanted.”

Michelle: [00:25:22] I loved it when my roommate’s girlfriend said, “Does anyone actually listen to podcasts?”

Gabe: [00:25:30] Yeah. I remember when somebody said, “So how much money do you lose per episode?” I was like, “No we make money.”  And they’re like, “Whatever.”  They think I’m lying. We have sponsors in place; we work really hard. We have a good audience. I’m not saying that we’re rich off the podcast, but it’s a profitable enterprise. Michelle and I work really, really hard. They think it’s a joke. They really do.  They still mock us.  They have this idea that we’re sitting with our phones under a trailer recording these shows.

Michelle: [00:26:00] Maybe we are.

Gabe: [00:26:01] Maybe we are.

Michelle: [00:26:02] Maybe.  We.  Are.

Gabe: [00:26:05] Michelle, it is always great hanging with you. Do we have any takeaway for our listeners?  You and I both had toxic people in our lives, and we are better off that they’re gone. But it clearly has still hurt us. You’re 30 years-old and you’re still pissed off at something that happened in high school. I’m a grown ass man and I’m still upset that somebody who did nothing but insult me went away. I mean, these are lingering effects, but-

Michelle: [00:26:29] I guess that means we just gotta learn how to let go.

Gabe: [00:26:32] But, how?

Michelle: [00:26:35] I don’t know. I guess somebody might say, “Why don’t you drink some tea?”

Gabe: [00:26:38] Drink some tea?

Michelle: [00:26:39] Drink some tea with honey, sir.  That’ll fix all of your issues.

Gabe: [00:26:43] Who would say that?

Michelle: [00:26:45] Somebody in the comments.

Gabe: [00:26:47] In the comments?  I told you, stop reading the comments! That is not the place to get mental health advice.

Michelle: [00:26:57] We need an exorcism, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:26:58] We need an exorcism?

Michelle: [00:27:00] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:27:00] That is another great thing that has happened to people in our community. Michelle, I do think that our our listeners, like us, are probably struggling with some relationships that are maybe not the best.  And we need to set better boundaries, and some days I wish that our show was, like, real therapy.  Where we could tell people how to set better boundaries and how to not let people get to them. But, you know our our show is not practical advice. Our show is more like, “Hey we’ve been through it, and we survived it.  And if you’re going through it, you can survive too.” But I wish we had that magic cure. I wish that somebody listening right now, that has a friend that’s making them feel bad, would be like, “Tell me what to do!”  And we’d be like, “Do this!” And then they’d do it and their life would suddenly get better, but the world is just way too complicated.

Michelle: [00:27:44] If someone is not bringing joy to your life, they’re only bringing negativity to your life, then – goodbye.

Gabe: [00:27:52] Yeah, that is the sensible thing to do. Why do we hang on to these negative people? I think it’s because we remember when they used to be positive. I do.  I really do. It’s just like my friend.  You’re like, “Why are you sad that he is gone?” And I’m like, “Because I remember when he was good.”  I remember when we were in high school, and he was my only friend. And that’s hard to get over. And it’s times like these that I remember that people can be two things.  He can both be the asshole that I’m no longer friends with, and he can also be the guy that got me through my teen years. He was a good friend. He was a really, really good friend, right up until the time he wasn’t. And it’s hard that he occupies both spaces in my life.  Because we think that people have to be one thing, but people can be two things.  I guess when I was in high school, he was the hero. And when I was an adult, he was the villain.

Michelle: [00:28:39] You can’t move forward when you’re stuck looking backwards.

Gabe: [00:28:43] Here, here! Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. And remember, we need you to do the following things, not necessarily in this order:  1) Give us a five star review on iTunes and leave a nice comment.  2) Whenever you see this posted on Facebook or on Psych Central, leave a comment.  Start a conversation.  3) Go to store.PsychCentral.com and buy the official A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast t-shirt. It is the “Define Normal” t-shirt, and you can find it at store.PsychCentral.com. And, finally, don’t be afraid to drop us a line at show@PsychCentral.com, and we will see everybody next week. Thank you for subscribing, thank you for listening, and tell a friend.

Michelle: [00:29:21] Hey, jealousy!

Narrator: [00:29:21] You’ve been listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. If you love this episodes, don’t keep it to yourself!  Head over to iTunes or your preferred podcast app to subscribe, rate, and review.  To work with Gabe, go to GabeHoward.com. To work with Michelle, go to schizophrenic.NYC.  For free mental health resources, and online support groups, head over to PsychCentral.com. The show’s official web site is Psych Central.com/BSP. You can e-mail us at show@PsychCentral.com.  Thank you for listening, and share widely.

  Meet Your Bipolar and Schizophrenic Hosts

GABE HOWARD was formally diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders after being committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2003. Now in recovery, Gabe is a prominent mental health activist and host of the award-winning Psych Central Show podcast. He is also an award-winning writer and speaker, traveling nationally to share the humorous, yet educational, story of his bipolar life. To work with Gabe, visit gabehoward.com.

  MICHELLE HAMMER was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 22, but incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18. Michelle is an award-winning mental health advocate who has been featured in press all over the world. In May 2015, Michelle founded the company Schizophrenic.NYC, a mental health clothing line, with the mission of reducing stigma by starting conversations about mental health. She is a firm believer that confidence can get you anywhere. To work with Michelle, visit Schizophrenic.NYC.

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