#cw depressing

[aspd-culture]

Is it aspd culture to feel absolutely nothing after achieving conventionally significant goals? Just finished a huge university project and successfully completed the year, but i feel nothing. No relief, no sense of accomplishment, nothing.It was the same when I got a job and started earning good money. It’s just… nothing. It’s the same for every important milestone, it’s like I’m not accessing that part of the brain. It’s not a sad emptiness or anything like that, it’s just… ok, done, moving on.

It can be, yes. The reward system in ASPD is usually skewed away from things that are classically important to society such as jobs, graduations, etc. To many prosocials, much of the reward comes from people being proud of them and them feeling as though they have done something good for both themselves and their loved ones, as well as feeling closer to stability and happiness.

Firstly, pwASPD are less likely to have people they value the opinion of congratulating us for these things and we may even feel condescended against if they do - almost as though the congratulations means they thought we couldn't do it. Therefore, a major part of the reward is not there for us.

Secondly, we often don't believe in stability and happiness, therefore the largest parts of why this kind of achievement matters (the ability to support yourself and not have to worry and be able to be stable and happy because of that) is fake in our minds. We weren't exposed to any amount of stability and true happiness, so why would we expect anything is going to change that?

Thirdly, even if we believe things like schooling getting us a good job, pwASPD may be more likely to be disinterested in that idea at all - instead viewing the idea of a good job as a lie capitalism tells us to get us to follow the designated life path that was made up. We are sometimes much more sensitive to how much of the world is simply made up rules no different than a toddler making up a pretend game, except that you can't stop playing. That feeling can make achievements harder to feel good about as well.

[ihopeitgetsokaysoon]

Ma'am?

I don't want my body

I hate her for being small

Not little, just unthreatening

God forbid

She takes up space

God forbid she complains

I hate she's a her

I hate that I tried

I tried to be a boy

I still wish I were

But I gave up

I'm all of it

I'm none of it

I'm girls

I'm not

I'm boys

I'm not

I'm nothing

I wish

I don't really hate her

I wanted to love her

But she hates herself

She didn't know it would be hard

She didn't transition back

She never got the chance to start

Only people who understand me

Get to call me like that

I'm still dynamic and fluid

But it hurts

I'm stuck like this

I'm stuck like this

And it breaks her heart

I'll never be a boy

I could try harder

There's options

I can't afford them though

I don't care

I don't care

It doesn't hurt if I don't think about it

Just like everything else

[underestimated-heroine]

I don't believe you when you say things can get better if I just keep trying. And I have a lifetime of evidence to back up that belief. It's like I crossed an entire desert, learned there was no water, and was then culturally gaslit, half by people trying to convince me the oasis did exist & I just wasn't grinding my drinking muscles hard enough, half by people calling me a spoiled brat for thinking I'm entitled to water in the first place. Now you're offended that I'm angry you just expect me to walk right back across the desert.

From the bottom of my heart, concavenator under your bed. And you're on fire.

[bigbutchgothgirl]

Are you really a "stone top" or are you so damn sexually traumatised you force yourself into that role despite being kinda unfit for it because you're so uncomfortable in your own skin you can't even begin to entertain the thought of subbing and/or bottoming even tho deep down you know you'd be a lot more comfortable with it?

[kid-az]

I need help

I’m relapsing horribly… feeling like there’s no hope in anything getting better, and that life will just get worse and worse and worse, and that anything is a better alternative to this.

Do you people have any advice to get rid of or at least mitigate these feelings… because I don’t want to live this miserably and stressed out…… please.

I just wish I could keep this stuff to myself… and not be so self destructive.

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[shouldvedestroyedyoulongago]

I wish everyone would forget me so I could just kms without causing anyone to feel pain or guilt

[java-altddiction]

I'm tired. I don't want to keep going.

I graduate in four days.

I didn't think I'd make it this far.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I miss feeling okay.

[llamasgotoheaven]

When people act like the end of a bloodline can only happen because of new generations not having kids as climate change disaster, natural disasters, possibly impending ww3 and the economy being in shambles can’t wipe out blood lines

[weishenbwi]

It started age 3. I guess I was a happy child, not sure. Hard to think back and remember it all, the years that have passed until now. Maybe there were happy moments. I guess every child has at least some. Moments where the sun feels warmer, the sky brighter, bluer, soft like a dream. Momentary lapses in between bad dreams and nightmares.

I guess I was a happy child in a bad dream.

I've blocked out most of my early life, it seems. Hyung asks "Do you remember…?" and I don't. I never do. Motivated forgetting from some form of post traumatic stress disorder probably. I think I've dissociated from bad memories and in the process forgot the good ones too. Is that possible? Some sort of psychological, unconscious act of repression? Maybe. I don't know.

Have you ever noticed the night's glow is both too intense AND overcast when you're down? And it doesn't matter the cycle of the moon or how many stars are visible or the amount of light pollution. Like someone's directing your life and they have to make everything (colors, tones, ambiance, all of it) just right or you'll lose the feeling and be whole again? Sometimes I imagine a demi-god playing with my life and he thinks it's funny when I fall or when my bruises don't heal and it doesn't matter because I'm only human.

I can feel that I'm dissociating and I can't stop it, can't pull it back, can't make myself feel. There's a small pond inside yearning for wholeness, crying for happiness but the ocean rolls with the tide. The ocean is larger. The pond doesn't matter.

Ah age 3. Most kids don't remember specifics of that age and I'm no different. I remember my surgery, my mom crying. My mom being strong and by my side, sneaking me chocolate candies, and feeling spoiled. Relatives coming to visit. A good number of them. My grandparents drove 6 hours and brought with them a stuffed dog I called "Feed Jake" from an old song that played on the radio back then. The lyrics "If I die before I wake, feed Jake." Ironic. Nuns from the orphanage came to visit, brought with them a small stuffed bunny that had pen markings for eyes and was in the shape of a triangle. The kids from the orphanage had made them for those of us in pediatric surgery. I'll never forget it; had both "Feed Jake" and the bunny for the longest time. I thought they were visiting because I was ill and needed surgery. But they were "He might not make it" visits.

Everything else from that time is a blur. Even being wheeled back for surgery. I just remember waking up and stitches itching, wanting desperately to scratch but being aware that it would cause unnecessary pain. My mom's courage and stability. In retrospect, my dad wasn't there. I don't remember seeing him once. Ah, well it goes like that sometimes. I shared a room with another child. He was younger than me and had an older brother. He didn't make it. I think about him sometimes, about his family -how they're doing in their lives all these years later after such a great loss. I guess that's somehow a blessing, if you'll call it that. To realize I might not have been wheeled out of the hospital. My stay could have ended with the sheets being pulled over.

The other day Joonie wrote:

"My friend’s mom asks me what are my hobbies and I never know what to tell her. My hobbies are breathing, feeling the temporarily sustained life force go in and out, wondering in awe at this complex combination that is me. Staring at the sky, whistling, letting silence graze over me and through me; delighting my senses in this silence. Wondering what it would be like if I were ocean, a tree, the earth. This leading to thoughts of how the earth has caretakers and those who abuse her, leading to thoughts of relationships and why people allow the same, to valuing our bodies, minds, our souls; continuing in a march to wondering how to benefit my soul and that of others. Having a desire to make the world a better place, always, wanting to hold everyone and everything with a unified unspoken language of care and undying love. My hobbies are thinking, reading words for this process. Books, quotes, thoughts. Feeling the earth beneath my feet, the hot summer sizzle across my flesh, the wind of volcano breathe down my neck and into my pores. Wondering how I can feel it all and still sometimes feel nothing, emptiness, hollow; the entire spectrum of emotions lit across me in a brilliant array of colors. These are my hobbies. And yet when asked, I say “I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.” Because this isn’t something I share with everyone and not everyone would understand."

I don't know how he does it. I never shared this with him, but I value the way his mind works, constantly in a multiverse. Deeper than any ocean I've known. He can see the beauty and pain in the world without feeling overwhelmed by either. Or if he does, he keeps it hidden. I wonder… In the past when I felt things more readily, did I feel that way? Was there more to me? Sometimes I'm not part of myself, even my name feels foreign. I'll look at it and think "Is this me? Is that my name?" I should know what my name is and yet it feels distant to me. Like I'm outside of my body looking in.

Age 3. I keep meaning to write about it. I'm tired now.

Tired.

Tired.

“I am so tired of waiting.

Aren’t you,

for the world to become good

and beautiful and kind?

Let us take a knife

and cut the world in two —

and see what worms are eating at the rind.”

― Langston Hughes

Hobi said he only likes the first part and not the part about the knife or cutting the world in two. His brightness makes me soft. When the jagged edges of this world pierce too sharply, his presence acts as a beacon I sometimes forget I need. People say he's sunshine personified. They say we're like night and day, sun and moon. I have no light.

Not sure what he sees in me. Occasionally I'll wonder when he'll leave. It's a matter of when not if. Depending on my mood, I'll either be devastated or indifferent. It's as if my fate was decided and I'm damned because a normal person would feel like the stars had been ripped from the sky at the loss of such brightness, but if I'm dissociating then I won't feel anything. And I love him. He's like my brother, maybe closer. But it's not a switch I can control.

About the quote, I see the point and think two parts aren't enough. I want to sink my hands into the world and find out what went wrong, but I sleep because even if I found out its not like I can change it. Sometimes the only thing we can do is breathe.

― Min Yoongi, somewhere in time

[psychological-musings]

seeing a lot of barbie movie gifsets mocking negative, hurt, or disappointed reviews from men and i just ... don't get it. how everyone seems to find this funny. "fragile masculinity" they say, as if masculinity isn't something very painful to have taken from you. "what did they expect, going to see the Barbie movie" they say, and i hear echoes of the antiqueer sentiments from my childhood. echoes of "you aren't welcome here". echoes telling me that that's just life, stop being a "drama queen", you're not really hurting. "look at these whiny fragile men that can't handle a little pink" they say, and a thousand flashes of "triggered libs can't handle a joke" pass through my mind. why are we doing this? what is this lack of empathy, this mockery of suffering? this isn't even about men in particular— this is about even the most progressive and queer online friends seeming to complicity agree that it's okay to laugh at suffering and withhold compassion if you think the suffering group deserves it. it's.... divisive. to laugh at suffering. to find satisfaction in someone's pain. i don't get it.

[underestimated-heroine]

tbh the only thing worse than being non-functionally depressed is being functionally depressed. Absolutely nothing could be worse than living with that dissonance, the "you're efficacious enough which means nothing's wrong with you, you just need to quit [major symptom of depression] so much, that's what's making you miserable, so just stop doing that and you'll be perfect 🥰." You mean I'd better serve your hallowed value of expediency lol.

When there's a difference between reality and a desired reality, someone carries the weight of that difference. It doesn't just vanish. Not ever. And when the weight-bearer finally does collapse under that weight, they won't even know or remember what life was like without it, so their incentive to heal again will be shot. Getting off the ground is not worth going back to that.

[i-am-confused-always]

what I say: “it is what it is”

what I mean: “I have cried about this for hours and have probably self harmed and contemplated suicide over this.

[stil-lindigo]

scorched earth.

a comic about a princess who died in a fire.

(this is a sequel to bite of winter, a comic about Snow and what became of her after her death.)

--

creative notes:

--

all my other comics

store

[j0celynh0rr0r]

Trying to get away?

[buggachat]

what if i just wrote 10,000 fics of marinette helping adrien heal from depression. what if i did huh. what if they were all nearly identical fics and incredibly redundant. what if i just kept writing them. is anything stopping me from doing this. would anybody stop me. COULD any of you stop me