#depression has been here the whole time but making itself Known atm

[dailypokemoncrochet]

There's just something so ?¿? about how I'm only able to actively work on this project when I'm at objectively the lowest points of my life (deepest depression, lonely, unemployed, no income, lot of time) and only because I have family that I can be wholly financially dependent on. All of the work I've done is cool and an accomplishment but also nearly the entire time spent on it I've felt like a failure because I can't do anything else.

But when I'm working full time and even when I love my job and coworkers, I am so tired I can't do any art or anything after work, and then I seemingly out of nowhere have a meltdown and quit. Idk. Something here about needing art to live but not being able to live off making art and the disparate ways art is tied to survival

[ageless-soul-au]

I think you've mentioned in a few places that Legend has bipolar disorder. What all does that mean for him? /gq

(Sorry if you've already received asks about it, the search function of Tumblr is not very good. Also, sorry if that's an outdated or incorrect term for it, I don't know a whole lot about it in general ^^;)

ur okay, dw!! I (Kio) will put the answer under a cut for anyone who doesn't wanna read about it (but maybe you'll understand some of legend's issues a little more if you do)

cw for personal experiences, medication mention, manic/depressive symptoms, etc

honestly i'm just trying to base legend's bipolar on my having bipolar depression once upon a time. see, bipolar is caused by chemical imbalances, so in modern day you'd take mood stabilizers for it like lithium. legend doesn't have that (or if there's some way to treat it in the zelda universe he doesn't know what it is) so he's just gotta Suffer.

bipolar is characterized by a cycle of manic and depressive episodes. one leads into the other and unmedicated there's basically no escaping it unless your body decides to un-fuck itself magically. which... kinda happened to me so it's not impossible but i never had bipolar disorder straight up i don't think.

everyone presents symptoms differently with different degrees of severity but here's a little thing i pulled off of google that i keep in mind while writing because it's helpful to have something on hand so you don't forget.

so what i experienced had a slow buildup of mania over the course of a week, and it really wasn't that bad, more like i'd talk really fast and was hyper and bubbly. then there was a depressive crash that lasted about a day. this cycle happened pretty consistently.

here are the notes I have on legend tho, since his is more severe and worsened/triggered by trauma and stress:

manic: shaky, struggling to focus, voices/hallucinations, agitated/hostile, racing thoughts, impulsive, can't sleep, talking faster/more than usual, wants to stim more than usual (not always good stimming)

depressive: quiet, tired, low social battery, withdrawn/distant, intrusive thoughts, likely to find a quiet place to cry by himself if he can't ask for help/comfort (he really needs a hug)

so these episodes will happen every so often and ravio is used to dealing with them and helping legend through them, trying to make life easy for him during the week or so that it lasts. but this isn't something that he's wanted to "burden" the chain with so he's been suppressing it and trying to deal with it on his own where he can hide it, and wars has just now realized that this has been a thing legend's been experiencing, and several times he's seen it and not known exactly what it was, just that legend was going through it atm

that's basically it! it's just something he lives with and has to go through. honestly i hope i'm writing it correctly because, like i said, i had a very different experience. but based on what i've read and a few other people i've talked to that have bipolar disorder and adjacent things, this is what i pieced together for legend bc it felt like it fit him.

thank you for reading all this! i encourage you to read up on it online if you wanna know more. everyone experiences it differently!

-Kio