#i don’t really have social anxiety disorder anymore but people ignoring my writing over and over again it

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

Hi Anon. You also get an "essay style" response from yours truly. (The other one is sitting in the inbox somewhere, along with other things).

if you don't write for readers or socialization through interests.

I feel like it has been made abundantly clear that is actually why Nisha/Sunny writes and shares fics. Those two things are in fact intertwined too. The point is to talk and have conversations. Except people don't comment so that's very limited.

do not expect notoriety and admiration for this anymore

What? Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what being asked for. At all. In fact, I believe Nisha doesn't like notoriety at all. Fics getting popular are anxiety inducing for her. She's asking for camaraderie, not notoriety.

if you can’t complete something you’ve committed to already to a multitude of people, don’t do it? don’t say you will with schedules and promises just to fall short?

I don't know if you know this but a lot of things happen. Especially when you have chronic illnesses/disorders. Even without that lots of things happen and writers don't update or write for various reasons.

you cannot demand every reader and follower to comment on your eloquent authoring, reblogging every thing you write when it’s your interest, and interacting with you.

Yeah. But the ratio from likes to reblogs, even blank reblogs is astounding, and it's not just on this blog. And reminder, every time Nisha brings this up it's about all writers because she's noticed it happen to others too. So yeah, not everyone has to, but more people should.

not when you don’t respect the people who have given you a platform and the opportunity to spout ignorance.

I also feel like it's been made abundantly clear that Nisha does respect and love the people who interact with her. Do I agree with every single thing she says ever? No. And that's great. I don't need to be in an echo chamber. And for the record I don't really think any of it is ignorance.

don’t expect more than what you give.

I don't even think you realize what is being given. I'm a writer. I'm a slow writer. Because it's so hard. Nisha writes long, beautiful fics. And even the ones that aren't that long have so much in them. There's so much work into saying what's needs to be said through the chosen way.

maybe ask for critique and commentary AFTER you COMPLETE something and not with a bunch of unfinished work and not fall short on promises. AFTER you have respectful conversations. we’re done lol.

Commentary can happen during something. It's called a reaction. And some things are completed. Is the entire fic finished? No. But that chapter is. Critique and commentate on that chapter. That's actually how you get more sometimes! Also I don't get why you need to be respectful after something is done? That should usually be the default. And not being respectful about this, in these settings, won't really get you a conversation. That'll just be an argument, which isn't really the thing that should be happening.

-Rotten Anon

waking up to what that anon said literally turned my brain into (mentally ill) mush for the day, so you have responded to this really well.

like - one of the biggest reasons I write primarily oneshots instead of having active multichapter series is because people love to act as if I am unreliable and flaking out on a promise when I don't finish a series. people act like I'm villainous and doing it on purpose to hold their favourite story hostage? when there is so much more going on in my life that means I don't have the time or energy to write that story

and that person was talking about me not responding to asks or comments - over the past few days, I haven't been responding to asks or comments about Careful, because I am so emotionally exhausted when it comes to that fic, and I don't want to come off as rude when responding to people who are very enthusiastic about the fic when I am not feeling enthusiastic about it right now. I am upset about it - I am worn out and frustrated. so I would rather leave those comments unanswered instead of making rude, short comments just to say something to people

I responded to that anon in a sarcastic way, but they managed to summarize all of my insecurities about my writing in one post, and tbh, now that I have posted the last chapter of Careful, I may take a hiatus. because I can't stand it anymore

(I am probably never gonna write for CM ever again because the fandom reception is like this.)

anyway - thank you Rotten Anon. you are eloquent and smart as always

[saharamae21]

Enough (Kie Imagine - Part One)

Author: sguymon21

Summary: i was wondering if you could write an imagine where since Kie moved to the kook academy she's gotten anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder and she's just really insecure and at first the pogues don't notice anything is wrong but then her mood changes and she's not as happy anymore and she makes self-deprecating comments all the time until they notice and ask and she tells them how shes feeling

This is part one! 

Sorry that I’ve been MIA the past day, but my parents were visiting me!!!

------------------------------------------------------------

Growing up, I was always someone who was comfortable in my own skin. I never had any issues with the way I looked or talked, but as high school started things began to change. It was my first year at the Kook Academy and it was obvious that I stood out like a sore thumb.

I remember the first day of classes my ninth grade year. I walked in my army loose, green pants and a white crop top. My wavy brown hair was pushed back in a headband and I was nervous to say the least. This was a new breed of humans, ones that cared about social status more than they cared about surfing. I took one step into my first class and everyone’s eyes fell on me. I watched as the girls huddled with their friends and whispered about me. I felt the guys look me up and down, rating me as I passed by. None of them spoke to me though. They just stared like I was a rare animal in an exhibit at a zoo. I slowly took a seat at a desk in the middle of the room and tried to block out their stares.

The days of being ignored turned into weeks. Groups would disperse when I tried to approach them. To them, I was a fraud. I walked past a group of girls who usually hung out with Sarah Cameron, the kook princess, and listened to them snicker about me.

“If she’s going to pretend to be one of us, couldn’t she at least dress the part?” one said with a giggle. I looked down at my clothes. They were nothing special, but I didn’t think they were bad.

“I think she’s worried that if she wears clothes like ours she’ll notice how masculine she looks,” another one said, causing them to laugh hysterically. “Look at her features!”

Those words really stuck with me. I went home that afternoon and looked in the mirror. I stared at my face, body, and everything in between. A few things stood out like a sore thumb to me. My nose was bigger than everyone else's. My brow bone ridged out more than most. My eyebrows were bushier and less shaped. I instantly grabbed a pair of tweezers and began working on my eyebrows. This was just the beginning though. Once I changed one thing about myself, more imperfections began to demand change.

I walked through school after a weekend at home. I didn’t go see my friends on the south side and I didn’t go to work at The Wreck. I stayed at home and worked on changing more things about me. My eyebrows were now shaped and my outfits were like the other girls. I avoided the baggier, boho-style clothing and switched to preppy and colorful. I wanted them to like me. I wanted to fit in with them even if my entire upbringing was different.

After a couple days, I was beginning to give up. Maybe I should just transfer back to my old school. I could hang out with John B and JJ and Pope. Would they even want me anymore after ignoring them for the past few weeks? Just when everything seemed dim was when Sarah Cameron decided to take a chance on me. We became best friends. Everyone seemed to like me and things began to change. I was the happiest I had ever been for those few months. Then like all beautiful dreams, it came to an end. I woke up and the world around me was no longer beautiful.

I was alone. Sarah invited everyone, but me to her birthday party. They were all having the time of their lives while I sat at home doing nothing. In a rash decision, I called the party into the cops and then when I came back to school the next week, everyone was whispering about me. How I was a snake. How I was jealous. How I wasn’t one of them. The rumors swirled and the person I thought was my best friend didn’t say anything. She let them believe I was this horrible person. Everyone had their perceptions about me. They believed everything people said to the point that I even started believing them. Maybe I was destructive. Maybe I looked to masculine. Maybe I wasn’t beautiful enough or skinny enough or smart enough. Maybe I just wasn’t enough at all?

Weeks passed and I began to embrace my old life. My old friends seemed happy to see me and for a while that was enough. It took my mind off of all the people who didn’t like me and all of the things I didn’t like about myself. It was short lived though. Every time I looked in the mirror I saw more things I hated. My face was too fat. I was skinny, but not as skinny as the other girls. I was muscular, but I also looked so weak.

My endless thoughts began to affect my everyday life. I sat in The Wreck with John B, JJ, and Pope and watched as they ate. I was hungry, but if I ate now it would ruin my diet plan. I wanted to lose weight. I knew I was skinny already. I was in shape. Yet, I hated my body.

“Aren’t you gonna eat Kie?” John asked, filling his mouth with food. I wrinkled my nose at the sight of him speaking with his mouth full.

“Close your mouth when you eat,” I said slightly judgmentally. “I ate earlier, so I’m not hungry.”

I felt Pope look at me with a slightly suspicious look, but he said nothing. He had been delivering groceries to us earlier from his father, so if anyone would know what I did today, it would be him. When he arrived, I was arguing with my father over how little I had eaten for lunch, so he had every right to be suspicious.

“So, how's school going? I don’t know how you put up with those Kooks all day,” JJ said. If there was one thing JJ hated in the world, it was Kooks. They stood for everything he didn’t and he was less forgiving about me coming back to the Pogues. In the end, he always loved me, but I always felt guilty about it. My guilt often consumed me and made my anxiety run rampant. I just didn’t want to disappoint anyone anymore.

“It’s less than ideal, but I manage,” I said trying to end the conversation fast.

After my friends had left, my dad sat down next to me. For a while he just sat there, but then he gathered his courage to say what was on his mind. “What's going on with you Kie?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, playing dumb. I stood up and started clearing away the dirty dishes. I felt my dad grab my wrist to stop me. I looked at him and the worry in his eyes. I felt guilt and pain eating me from the inside out.

“You aren’t eating. You don’t hang out with that Cameron girl anymore. You’re curt with your friends,” he said. “I’m worried about you Kiara.”

“I’m fine dad,” I said with a smile. I didn’t want him to worry. I looked down at his hand on my wrist and he let go.

“Just promise me that if something is bothering you, you’ll talk to someone about it. Your friends, your mom or I, anyone, but don’t just bottle it up inside,” he said.

“I’m really fine,” I lied.

[binkysteebnpewter]

All of them 😤

Ehehe 😂💗

1. What’s your middle name, and do you like it?

Grace is actually my middle name, and somewhat. I just don’t like it when my family calls me by first and middle together.

2. are you artistic?

Somewhat?

3. Have you had your first kiss?

Yes

4. What is your life goal?

It’s cheesy and a little cliche, but I want to find Home.

5. Do you have any experiences with a famous person?

Nope

6. Do you play any sports?

Not anymore but I used to play football and I was on the wrestling team in HS

7. What’s your worst fear?

I have two that are sort of equal with another but I’m afraid of losing the people I care about and people seeing me the way I see myself.

8. Who’s your biggest inspiration?

My late Nana, Gloria.

9. Do you have any cool talents?

Answered in previous ask

10. are you a morning person?

Not at all

11. How do you feel about pet names?

I love them

12. Do you like to read?

Absolutely

13. Name a list of shows that have changed your life.

NCIS, Criminal Minds, and any marvel movie

14. Do you care about your follower count?

Not really, I’ll celebrate milestones but that’s just to show everyone I appreciate them following my trash pile. I didn’t start writing to have a high following, I started writing to better my skill and also make people happy.

15. What’s the best dream you’ve had?

I don’t remember most of my happy dreams

16. Have you ever kissed someone of your same gender?

Yep!

17. Do you have any pets?

I have three dogs 🥺💗

18. Are you religious?

No. They only thing I actually believe in is ghosts.

19. Are you a people person?

Not really

20. Are you considered popular?

Nope, and I don’t care to be

21. What is one of your bad habits?

Overthinking

22. What’s something that makes you feel vulnerable?

Opening up my emotions to other people

23. What would you name your children?

No clue

24. Who’s your celebrity crush?

There’s a bunch ig

25. What’s your best subject?

Science and history

26. Dogs or cats?

Dogs, I love cats but I’m super allergic

27. most used social media besides tumblr?

I don’t use a lot of social media tbh, so tumblr is probably my most used unless you count youtube

28. best friends name

Duke

29. who does your main family consist of

My friends and my brother. Family isn’t just blood

30. Chocolate or sugar

Both

31. have you ever been on a date?

Yep

32. Do you like rollercosters?

Absolutely love them

33. Can you swim?

Yes 💗

34. What would you do in the event of an apocolypse?

Clearly, I’d do what everyone else does. Panic and try to survive.

35. Have you struggled with any kind of mental disorder?

Yes, I struggle with anxiety and depression

36. Are your parents together?

Nope.

37. What’s your favourite colour?

Dark green and Dark Blue

38. What country are you from/do you live in?

Unfortunately, the U.S

39. Favourite singer?

Uh... there’s too many to list? But my favorite people to listen to is The Oh Hellos

40. Do you see yourself being famous some day?

Nope, I run from being the center of attention.

41. Do you like dresses?

Not really

42. Favourite song right now?

Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra

43. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?

Sort of.

44. How old were you when you first got your period?

No clue, I don’t remember

45. Have you ever shot a gun?

Yep

46. Have you ever done yoga?

No

47. Are you a horror girl?

YES 😈

48. Are you good at giving advice?

I suppose I am?

49. Tell us a story about your childhood.

I don’t have a lot of happy memories but one that sticks out is: I used to go to a private Christian academy and I was in first grade when this boy in eighth grade (the entire school was k-12) came over to me during my lunch. I was super scared and shy as a kid so my schedule was tailored so I was able to eat lunch with my brother whose nine years older than me. Our mom forgot to pack our lunches so we were gonna just get some stuff from the vending machine, well my brother gave me my money to get something and this boy came over to me before I could put it in the vending machine. He hit me and took my money, buying himself something with it. My brother seen it and got into a fight with him.

50. How are you doing today?

Eh

51. Were you a cute kid?

I looked like Shirley Temple when I was a kid

52. Can you dance?

I can swing dance and slow dance, but that’s it.

53. Is there anything you do that you can’t remember ever not doing?

I always look for exits and bathrooms when I go somewhere, I’ve always done it 🤷🏻‍♀️

54. Have you ever dyed your hair?

No because I’m a ginger. I can’t just dye it back if I end up not liking the color I dyed it to.

55. What colour are your eyes?

Brown

56. What’s your favourite animal?

Answered in previous ask

57. Have you ever made a huge fool of yourself?

Multiple times

58. Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

My relationship with my dad is rocky but my relationship with my mother went up in flames a few yeaes ago 🤷🏻‍♀️

59. Do you have good friends?

I have some amazing friends🥺💗

60. Are you close with anyone of the lgbtq+ group?

Yep!

61. What’s your favourite class?

My favorite class was Psychology

62. List all the tv shows you are watching.

I’m rewatching Criminal Minds right now.

63. Are you organized?

Somewhat?

64. What was the last movie you saw? Opinion?

I don’t know if it counts as a movie but I just finished a Ted Bundy Tapes Documentary. I think Bundy was a little bit of an idiot.

67. Which tv character do you relate to most?

Spencer Reid

68. What are some things that stand between you and complete happiness?

Anxiety, Depression, overthinking

69. If you received enough money to never need to work again, what would you spend your time doing?

I would probably still work, I’m not a fan of sitting around and doing nothing for large amounts of time.

70. What would you change about your life if you knew you would never die?

Find a way to die, I don’t want to live forever. That’s just torture 👀

71. What would you do differently if you knew that no one was judging you?

Nothing. I’ll act the same as I always have because I am who I am, there’s no reason to change yourself from when someone is watching and when someone isn’t.

72. If you could start over, what would you do differently?

A lot 😂

73. Would you break the law to save a loved one?

Yep

74. When was the last time you travelled somewhere new?

I went to Disney with my Chorus Class in Junior Year of HS, it was my first time to Disney.

75. When you think of your home, what immediately comes to mind?

Nothing, I’m looking for Home. Home will be someone I feel safe with, someone I can be completely myself with— someone I love wholly.

76. What have you done to pursue your dreams lately? How about today?

I— idk?

77. What did you want to be when you were a kid?

I wanted to be a nurse 🤦🏻‍♀️

78. If you dropped everything to pursue your dreams, what would you be risking?

Im not sure

79. When did you not speak up, when you know you really should have?

Ooh... uh, something happened to me all through 7th, 8th, and 9th grade that I should’ve spoken up about but was too scared.

80. Describe the next five years of your life, and your plans, in a single sentence.

I will work hard to love myself and pursue my dream job.

81. What would happen if you never wasted another minute of your life, what would that look like?

No clue tbh

82. If you could live forever, how would you spend eternity?

I don’t want to live forever but I guess I’d find a way to take away my immortality or find someone else who is immortal to love

83. How would you spend a billion dollars?

Id put a lot into important causes and then save some with interest.

84. If you could time travel, would you go to the past or the future?

I’m not sure, I think I wouldn’t go anywhere because I want to live in the moment. Except 2020, fuck 2020.

85. What motivates you to succeed?

Failure motivates me to succeed.

86. What dream that you’ve had has resonated with you the most?

I don’t remember most of my happy dream, I usually can only remember the nightmares 🤷🏻‍♀️

87. Would you rather live in the city or the woods? Why?

Woods, its peaceful.

88. Do you believe in life after death?

I don’t really believe in anything 🤷🏻‍♀️

89. What teacher inspired you the most? How did they?

I had a teacher named Ms Eagan and she inspired me to always be myself.

90. What’s your fondest childhood memory?

Meeting Lily

91. If you could have dinner with any one person, living or dead, who would they be and why?

Lily, because I really miss her.

92. What would you have to see to cry tears of joy?

Anyone being nice to me makes me cry—

93. What is the hardest lesson you had to learn in life?

Sometimes the people you call family don’t truly love you.

94. What do you think happens after we die?

Idk and idrc either tbh

95. What would you do if you would be invisible?

I’d probably scare some people

96. What’s something you can’t do no matter how hard you try?

Speak in public or ask for something at restaurants

97. Would you want to choose the sex and appearance of your offspring?

Eh

98. How did your first crush develop?

They were nice to me when no one else was

99. Is there a feeling you are trying to ignore? What is it?

Yes, I’m trying to ignore how upset some people can really make me.

100. Do you live or do you just exist?

I think I’m somewhere in between, where sometimes I’m just existing and sometimes I’m living.

[melancholyandphilosophy-blog]

A little bit about Me

It’s 1:21am on a Monday morning and I can’t sleep. That’s nothing new. Sleep is one of many things I’ve fought with over my lifetime, along with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, sexual assault, losing and finding myself over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, we all have our battles. I don’t think I have it any worse or any better than anybody else, but I do think I may have analyzed and understood its depths a little better. All my life I’ve asked “why?”, and just when I think I’ve solved one problem, another one arises. I never stop questioning. It’s a blessing and a curse.

To be honest, I think it’s mostly a curse. Trying to understand in a world that is under no obligation to be understood. Trying to make sense of chaos. I am grateful, though, that I see things the way that I do. You’ll begin to understand why.

I think I’m fairly special. I think we should all think that of ourselves; if we don’t, who will? I’m learning the true meaning of speaking things into existence and along with that, the value of patience. We underestimate the power of our minds. We’re raised to ignore a lot of the signs and signals our bodies and the universe give us. We’re smarter than we think we are. I hope times change and we relearn the importance of communicating with our inner self, and working from the inside outward. Filling our cup before we try to pour water for someone else, and replenishing our own supply when we’ve run dry.

A little bit about Me.

I want to tell you the good things as well as the bad but I have to be honest, I don’t have very many happy memories from about age 12 to 19. I had a wonderful childhood with my two older sisters, my younger brother, and my best friend who lived next door. All of the laughs and love we shared have lumped into one heartwarming, longing memory of mine.

Most of my memories are sad. I read something once a long time ago that explained how humans retain the strongest memories when they felt the most emotion (hence, why I still vividly remember walking out of the school bathroom on the first day of grade nine with toilet paper stuck to my shoe because I was SO embarrassed, I haven’t let myself live it down). I have felt a lot of intense sadness, confusion, apathy, and anger in my lifetime. I’m not so depressed anymore because I’ve come to know myself very well through all of the ups and downs, but we’ll get there.

The first time I cut myself was in grade five. I took my mom’s sewing scissors to my wrist. I knew they were sharp enough because one of my sisters had accidentally cut herself with them years before. I don’t recall feeling particularly sad until after I drew blood; I think initially I was just curious.

My curiosity (and borderline fascination) with pain and death stuck with me from a very young age. When I would hear of deaths in the news I would wait until my parents had gone to bed to get online and read about it. I watched horrors and thrillers and crime shows. I wondered what would come after life and I concluded that it must be eternal blackness. I didn’t believe in God or an afterlife because life was too painful and cruel to think that there was some greater good purpose behind it all.

The night before my grade eight graduation I got my first period. Everything went downhill quickly after that. I’m specifically mentioning the beginning of puberty because I think it’s connected to my fall into depression, and it’s something I’ll probably blog about later. Scientists neglected to research women’s health until recent years with our progression towards equality. I think puberty effects young women’s emotional health much more than we give credit for. Even still, at 21 years of age, I tussle with suicidal thoughts for one week out of every month. Without proper sex education and open discussion about mental illness, our daughters are in danger. The dawn of puberty was a very dark time for me.

I remember the very first time my laugh felt hollow. I was in class with my best friend, we were joking around the way we always did and we laughed until tears but something didn’t feel right inside of me. I didn’t feel happy, I didn’t experience any joy. I felt empty. I started relating to dark music and depression blogs on Tumblr where I’d find posts that seemed to describe the way I felt better than I could. Posts such as someone taking off a smiling mask to reveal their “true self”, a face of agonizing despair. I began to draw as an outlet for my overwhelming emotions. That and basketball were the only things keeping me sane.

When I was in grade nine, articles surfaced about someone my age from another province who took her own life. It stuck with me ever since. I read every article there was to read, and following that I researched the most effective ways to kill oneself. Shortly thereafter, I tried to drown myself.

When suicide didn’t work, I tried to take control over something easier to grasp. I stopped eating. I consciously ate a granola bar every third day. I collapsed on the basketball court due to malnutrition and was taken to a dietician. I saw her a few times and convinced everyone that I was cured. Now, I was eating to feed my families concerns, just to run away and spit/puke up much of my food.

I hated myself. I hated what I saw in the mirror. I sat up until 4 and 5 in the morning every night staring at the wall, inaudibly sobbing, cutting my inner thighs just to feel something. Eventually, I stopped crying at all. I stopped feeling altogether. I was perpetually numb, I was angry and confused and waiting for it all to end. One thought ran through my brain all day, every. single. day. “I'd rather be dead.”

I got caught up in a dead-end relationship throughout high school. My friends and family would ask me what I was doing and I would dismiss their concern because I really thought I was in love. Looking back now, I don’t recognize the girl I was in that relationship and at that time in my life. I endured a series of unfortunate events that all convinced me that I was worthless, nothing more than a piece of meat for a man’s pleasure. I was used, abused, manipulated.

I’ve always been afraid to write or talk about these things in fear of hurting the people who hurt me. That’s really fucked up, actually, that after all the pain they’ve caused me I will still worry about their wellbeing more than my own. With that said, my suffering doesn’t dissipate the love I had for these people. I have a soft and forgiving heart, but it is beaten and bruised and it’s ready to be free. Sexual abuse has haunted me for 8 years now. It has affected me in many ways that, when I find the bravery, I will discuss later in order to shed light on just how harmful it is to its victims. It’s not always a drunken encounter; in fact, quite often sexual assault occurs within relationships. Looking the first person you ever loved in the eyes and choking out the words “you’re raping me” for them to carry on until you black out will inevitably change a person.

I didn’t allow myself time to think about what had happened to me. I didn’t process my pain, I refused to accept what had happened. Instead, I fell in love again, this time intensely. This was a love I’d never known; one of respect, admiration, passion, lust, and everything else wonderful. When this was abruptly stripped from me, I mourned the loss of both of my relationships at once. I felt so small and so alone. I stopped eating, attending school, sleeping, socializing. I hooked up with strangers to feel like for a moment, someone wanted me. I was lost, and that was nobody’s fault but my own because I constantly relied on other people to provide me happiness that I couldn’t find within. I tried to kill myself twice more.

I am lucky to be alive. Lucky and so thankful. I don’t want to detail my suicide attempts because the people who are likely to resonate the most with this post are the people who, similarly to my past self, will make a mental note of those details for future reference. I am absolutely not here to tell you how to hurt yourself; I’m here for the exact opposite. I’m here to tell you why I thank God everyday that it never worked for me. I’m here to tell you that you are not alone, and to help you interpret feelings you might not understand yet. I’m here to tell you how everything hurts until one day it doesn’t anymore, and suddenly you realize you’ve been living a more fulfilling life than you’ve ever known without even recognizing your own strength. I proudly remind myself of how strong I am. I’ve survived years of fighting with myself mentally and physically. I’ve made it to 21 years old when I didn’t think I’d even see 16, and moreover, i’ve learned to count my blessings and appreciate the sick, twisted, strikingly beautiful life I’ve been given.

So that’s a little bit about me. That’s the short story of why I’ve become who I’ve become -- a hopeful young lady with endless potential, a deep understanding of pain and a burning desire to help others feel less alone. Throughout everything I’ve been through I looked for answers to wherein lies some fleeting desire to keep living, and I’ve finally found it. Maybe i’m just venting out all the things I’ve been afraid to say aloud. Maybe this is just free therapy for me. Hopefully at least one person will relate and find comfort in knowing they are not alone in their struggles.

My posts won’t be this dark in the future. Besides, looking back gets you nowhere. We’re looking forward with optimism. This is my story of love and loss, disconsolation and vitality, confusion and clarity. This is my story of recovery.

[biohazardousvoidwithfangs]

oh 100%. As a teen I had crippling social anxiety. I desperately wanted friends but was very much ignored and invisible in school and I remember the intense pain it caused. I was too weird too quiet too different (too autistic? idk neurodivergent at least). Any (rare) opportunity I had, I turned it down because I was so scared it would go wrong and be worse than being alone. No one talked to me- I sometimes went the entire school day only saying a word or two in response to a teacher’s question. Like that was traumatizing for me. I daydreamed all the time about finally getting to college and pushing myself to make friends.

I remember learning about personality disorders for a psych class my junior year and relating SO MUCH to avoidant personality disorder behaviors and thought patterns. I also recognized myself in a lot of the schizoid stuff. But ultimately I was like, I’m too young to say whether I have a personality disorder or not, this is a problem for future me.

Out of college I did try my best. But I think having my partner (at the time) die at their own hand really cemented my personality. It reinforced the idea that I’ll “never be enough” for anyone and that no one truly ever loves me, I am only tolerated. I feel like this and what happened with the people I tried to date after that (kinda the same story of they just got tired of me being so distant), really reinforced all of the trauma I had received as a teen and pushed me over into schizoid territory whereas I was probably sub-clinical before (or autistic? or both??). I did try my best to still be social because I was expected to be. I don’t know if I actually craved it at that point anymore. I knew I was never going to fit in, never actually be wanted.

And then the pandemic hit and suddenly I didn’t have to mask all the time and it felt…… great? I didn’t have to shove deep down how awful socializing made me feel. I finally started to realize that I was dissociating anytime I had to be social. And now I can’t push all those things back into the closet. So I’m…. stuck like this. I can’t motivate myself to be social. I know it’s good for me on some level, I know that my sense of self and of reality start to degrade when I’m alone for too long. But I don’t get a reward for socializing, like the brain chemicals. They’re simply not there. Socializing feels exactly like when I was in school and had to write a five to ten page research paper on a subject that was dreadfully boring. I knew I had to, but there was nothing I could do to make myself get it done. (yes I have adhd). So I would stare at a blank page until I started crying from frustration. Same deal. I’ve had a lot of time for self reflection and I see now a lot of the problems I had originated from being neurodivergent and mostly from being schizoid. I noticed that I do actually split, between the “I feel isolated” and “I feel engulfed”. I noticed that I have a very fractured sense of self. all the things. I can’t get myself to be social anymore, I can’t put the mask back on and pretend I’m normal. Any time someone tries to reach out to me to start a conversation it feels intrusive and unwanted. It feels like the pandemic broke me or broke the pretend shield I had up for so long.

I’m sorry this got so long I hope some of it made sense :S basically, yeah mood

Does any other person living with schizoid pd have this impression that they were avoidant before developing into schizoid?

I remember the pain of wanting friends when I was younger but I was too afraid, too weird, too... different to keep them. I could only connect with a handful of people, and with how dynamic and changing the nature of growing up is, I couldn't stay in touch even with them in the end. I remember being sad about it.

Until... I don't know, something happened? If I were to guess I would say it was the pandemic. But something shifted inside me. Now I can't relate to my previous experiences at all. I don't want to keep relationships, I'm much more dissociated and apathetic.

Does anyone share this experience?

[fartonexit]

A letter for my mother to find.

I'm not spending time writing this out like I thought I would. I'm not walking you through every little step, checking paths are clear to be read, because they aren't, and I'm not taking every precaution to hide myself anymore because honestly if I keep doing that I really am going to kill myself.

I came out as trans last year after many many years of it burning and smoldering for any form of attention. I ignored it, in fact I even have a place in my brain that I visualized physically throwing myself into to keep myself quiet. Anything, everything to just not be found out, not be seen or heard, everyone go away I'm going to go hate myself.

You want to point to developmental cycles. Ok. Why do you think I stopped eating in a group at dinner? Did you know I would talk to myself in the barn at night to keep all the anxiety down and just blow off steam for an hour and a half straight? And you never questioned why it looked like I has half paying attention in some areas and trying hard in others....

In middle school I was already thinking about this. In fact, it has been on my mind for so long, I'm not sure it's never not been there. There was no cause, no big explosion of coom and suddenly I wanted to be a sex object or something. Double up, middle school was hell and I can't remember any of it except doing math at home and breaking my DS. That's basically all I remember of those 3 years. 'cept one thing.

I got asked by a chick in 6th grade to go out with her, well maybe 7th actually, and I froze and turned them down. Not because of the ASD shit, mind you, but because I'd been staring at Tyler Roth's bulge for 2 hours squirming in my chair. If a girl asks me out and I'm doing that right beforehand, and in fact get up to use the bathroom to clean up, you think I'm gunna say yes to the girl?

That's fucking stupid. No.

At least at the time to me it was.

Now I am more open about myself. I care more for personality than body, so sex doesn't matter unless it's a group effort (haha). I am definitely pansexual, there's no doubts there. Poly even, but I'm not sharing any of that with you. That's all the info you get.

If you can't tell from the title, I'm kinda trans kinda not. Non-Binary is the correct term, and I'm a little jazzed that I'm over my bullshit about it. I never said anything or made it obvious because of bad reactions from you and dad about me being gay, or other gay ppl, so like honestly why would I ever have said anything when I don't trust you?

This is also the origin of my trust issues.

In college, actually no, in high school I heard the term for the first time, in college, learning more and more about what trans ppl go through and nb people go thru, I locked myself in my room for 2 weeks and only came out for dinner. I almost committed suicide off of AB after that period because I couldn't handle it and it hadn't matched anything that I had known before. It's something I've actually wanted to talk to you about for years, and when I try to bring it up you scream at me and run away like I've ruined your whole life in some 80's teenager movie. You won't even hear my side of it.

There's obviously a lot for us to talk about, and I'll let you come up with your own questions. I'll make a lil' faq

1: Are you male or female?

A:. I'm always going to acknowledge my birth. I'm never going to not acknowledge what I went thru, the good or the bad, or that I ever had a penis.

Male in origin, but in-between. Genderfluid is the correct term. Maybe intersex as well, as that's how I see myself. I notice when I eat more estrogen enriching foods, my mood balances out. I've been eating more E rich foods lately (seeds, dry fruit, oat bran in the morning) and I've honestly never felt more.... Normal.

2: If it's fluid, what the hell do I call you?

A: Well it's not like you'll make me explode at you if you straight up call me he and I'm in a dress, more I'll be watching the ppl around you staring at you calling me a he.

My pronouns are hi / shi / him / hir / they / them, and honestly my rule is call what you see. The I is there for... Well, intersex. Male or female presenting.

So again, call what you see. I do get mad though, especially if I worked really hard to make a banger of an outfit. Honestly, so glad you don't know my style either... If I'm obviously trying, respect that. I don't always though, only on special occasions.

3: What about your name then? It's effeminate.

A: I'm effeminate, what's your point. Hell if you want a bullshit term to look into look up genderfaun. Within genderfluidity there can be limits, which ppl of course have denoted how people will denote it. Genderfaun basically means cboy. A male embodied person never quite unclasping on full effeminacy.

4: How have I never heard of this?

A: Same reason women's issues are more vocalized to men's issues. Same reason why I'm expected to be the one running the construction site and my partner is supposed to be my loving little wife. Cboy's, intersex ppl in general rly, don't really have a need to be found out. And quite rare, actually. Honestly, Nonbinary is what can go on a paper and what is legally applicable, so that's the 'umbrella' term, if you need one.

5: So what makes you a cboy then?

A: years of undeserved anguish, hating my body, not wanting breasts, wanting to give birth, my dick feeling out of place or straight up like a tumor on my life, relationships being hard to start and even harder to keep literally because of sex, crying after being made the top for sex, having to top at all, expectations beset by other's that I don't get a voice in, not getting a voice in general and not being in any spot of authority or passed by the same or opposite sex in both education and normal social life, oh and also every time I see a picture of a cboy I'm happy, not horny.

6: Why that term? Rather harsh

A: I agree. If there was a better term that was as equally descriptive I'd go for it. I don't think intersex male is quite applicable tho, nor does genderfluid work on a job app., Tho neither does cb. It started as a term in porn but people have taken it as their own, me included.

Again describe it in one word that isn't confusing (transfeminine for example, genderfaun for another) and get back to me when you figure it out.

7: Possibility A - you're crazy

A: That'd be cool if I was crazy actually, then I'd actually fucking feel normal. Like I had a normal problem. Like I was being treated like I should be in society. Sadly enough I've talked to multiple shrinks, other trans and nb people, other cboys, and pretty much everyone agrees my living situation was really fucked up, as we're the expectations beset upon me. Not always, and I'm not just spraying buckshot over my whole life, but there's some stuff we REALLY need to talk about.

I've actually made it my life mission for the last 10 plus years to find someone like me being interviewed. I have had the hardest time too because I beat myself up about it so often, unless I tripped over a podcast episode (like I actually did) I'd never find anything and just think I was schizophrenic or something. Hell for a while you had convinced me I was because of stuff you were doing and talking about, and like bloody usual, not letting go of or shutting up about for months.

Literally half the reason I moved in to where I am was to checksum myself. I am definitely not schizophrenic and absolutely have a panic and anxiety disorder.

Possibility B - ok I'll bite, who else is there?

A: here's the podcast that made me feel safe. We're not 100% similar, but a lot of what he is saying I get. And while he lives in cali, stuff your biases. He moved here from japan when he was 12 or something.

https://www.furwhatitsworth.com/?episode=s9-episode-3-nb-nb-nb

This is not the only podcast I've listened to, but it's the best perspective I've heard. And I can say for solid, to this day, I get exactly everything he is talking about. Every single thing.

8: Ok, so what about your name (should you be on board)

A: Thats hard for me. I know I came with Ari and then tried Faun, but Faun is more a nickname for me from somebody and I liked the sound. I still like the name a lot too. But my name is Aremis, it's been Aremis, I'm going to move on and stop thinking about that one so hard.

9: Why not keep your old name? I'm offended you don't have my father's name anymore.

A: ok good for you for inscribing your bullshit onto someone before they can even he a say, as usual.

My dead name literally hurts. I've tried to explain to you, you ignored me.

That's all you get. Deal with it.

10: I'm not sure I'm ok with this.

A: Neither am I but I'd be dead right now from jumping under a semi in traffic a few months back if I hadn't. This isn't a mistake, or anything you did to me. It's just how I am. Now I know why you want the new DSM so bad.

By the way, dsm backs me up. So if god is gunna have to say something because of your convictions, I'll walk.

Peace. I'm done pooping now, time to get off the toilet.

[sapphicscholar]

your fics are helping me get through the shittiest breakup right now, so thank you. I know you probably have a million prompts but would you be interested in writing a story where maggie is having a really dark day and feeling really depressed/worthless within herself (either because of internalised homophobia, past trauma etc) and alex takes care of her? maybe even some soft tearful smut later?

Hey, I hope you’re doing alright! I’m sorry it’s taken me a little while to get to this prompt (I didn’t want to do a shitty job when my focus was so divided with work and applications). Sending all the best thoughts your way! It’s now posted to AO3.

Author notes:

CW on homophobia, abusive families, anxiety/depression, etc.

A/N: Now that we’re in the thick of the holiday season, I’ve gotten a few asks for chosen family and hurt/comfort. I know it can be really hard dealing with family (or making the perfectly legitimate choice not to but seeing posts on social media that make it seem like everyone else has a loving, supportive biological family). No matter what choice you make (and I know sometimes there really isn’t a choice, depending on the situation), I’m sending you all the best thoughts. I hope you’re able to make time for yourself, even if it just means finding a quiet room to be alone for a little bit, maybe some wifi to catch up on gay af fanfic or cute puppy gifs, which I’ll try to post in spades over the break when I have time to be on my phone or computer. There are links to resources here as well.

A/N 2: Regarding a few lines in this fic: Obviously not all religion is inherently homophobic, nor do I think anyone smart and scientific (e.g. Alex) must necessarily be an atheist. But I think for so many of us who were raised Catholic (fun foreshadowing here for the nerd notes at the end today), religion was something that shaped our upbringing in an often profound way and was then thrown back in our faces when we came out. Are there Catholics who don’t follow the Church on its teachings about LGBTQ issues? Of course. But, for instance, the fact that my family happened to be supportive of LGBTQ rights in a general way didn’t mean that I wasn’t terrified of coming out to them; it didn’t exempt me from years of internalized shame after hearing priests and religion teachers teaching that homosexuality was an intrinsic disorder of the soul; and it certainly didn’t save me from the humiliation of having to write that gay sexuality was a sin on a test to get an A, of knowing that I put the jobs of my family members who worked for the Church at risk just by being out, of being forced back into the closet to serve as a teacher at a Catholic high school. And even with all of that, I had it easy (and I certainly had it much easier than my fiancée), which I say not to guilt anyone who is still religious, but to explain the perspective from which I’m writing in advance.

Resources:National Domestic Abuse Hotline (online and phone options): http://www.thehotline.org/

US and International Hotlines for a variety of causes: https://sapphicscholarwrites.tumblr.com/post/167199297270/dont-ever-hesitate-reblog-this-tumblr-rule

Self-Harm Resources:http://myresourcemasterlist.tumblr.com/selfharmhttp://self-care-club.tumblr.com/post/139740925552/giant-self-help-masterposthttp://chooserecovery.tumblr.com/post/64162912692/ultimate-self-injury-recovery-masterpost

Suicide-specific resources:https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/https://themighty.com/suicide-prevention-resources/(For ones that link outside of the US):https://sapphicscholarwrites.tumblr.com/post/164643935260/selfharm-surviver-holybadbitch98https://sapphicscholarwrites.tumblr.com/post/164329606770/uie-fuwaprince-us-helplines-depression

Chapter Text:

“Are you and Maggie doing anything for Christmas?” Kara asked, popping another handful of popcorn into her mouth as she nudged Alex, who had started to nod off during the last episode of The Walking Dead.

“Hmm?”

“Christmas—what are you doing?”

“Oh,” Alex sighed, pulling herself up and rubbing at her eyes. “I don’t know. I mean…I know Maggie used to celebrate it with her family, but obviously that hasn’t been the case in years.”

“Right, right.”

“And it’s not like she goes to church at all these days.”

“I mean…you’re not exactly religious, but we still do Hanukkah with Eliza.”

Alex shook her head. “It’s different, I think. I was never religious; it was always more about…I don’t know, being with family and having something in common. I thought mom might be disappointed in me for being gay, but I never thought her reasoning would be that God said it was bad or anything like that.”

“Right,” Kara conceded. “But it might still be nice to celebrate together—you know, build new traditions.”

“I kinda fucked up with that whole thing on Valentine’s Day,” Alex sighed. Sure, they’d talked eventually and found a way to celebrate, to reclaim memories that had hurt Maggie for so many years. But Alex didn’t want to try to surprise Maggie this time and risk dredging up buried trauma once more. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to her.”

Closing her eyes, Maggie blinked back hot tears that threatened to fall. She focused on her breathing: Breathe in—1, 2, 3, 4, 5—hold—1, 2, 3—exhale—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. She fumbled to take off her watch, finding her pulse and focusing on its too fast beat, waiting for it to slow in time with her deep breathing. She ignored the clock, ignored the reminders of how soon Alex would be home, how weak she would look sitting at the kitchen counter and crying over a piece of paper—a stupid Hallmark greeting card with some trite bullshit scrawled across it in fake cursive.

Of course, the card itself hadn’t set her off. It was the hand-written note inside. The sight of the same handwriting that had adorned the rare note in her lunchbox in kindergarten was what had left her eyes stinging, not the vague platitudes about having a very merry Christmas and an even happier New Year. As she read, she was overcome with surges of anger and sorrow and a guilt that she had never quite been able to shake, no matter how much “pride” she claimed.

She tried to seize on the anger—the rage and frustration that she’d used as motivation to succeed: to do well enough in school to get herself out of that small Nebraska town; to do well enough in college to keep her scholarship; to do well enough in the academy to guarantee her a job, even as a non-straight, non-white woman. And there was plenty of it. Anger at her father’s suggestion that her family had always been there for her, as though they hadn’t left her alone at her aunt’s house with barely enough clothing for the week. Rage at this idea that she had been the one to wrong the family simply by living her life honestly and authentically, that she had ruined something otherwise perfect by being herself. Frustration at the phrase, “your friend,” as though her father hadn’t stormed out of their bridal shower precisely because Alex was so much more than just a friend, as though he hadn’t forced her out of her home and family as a mere child because her feelings for Eliza exceeded the bounds of friendship.

But then there was the photo of all of the cousins and nieces and nephews she’d never met. There were sentences about just how much older everyone had gotten, the sickness and bad times they’d been through without her there, the deaths she’d never known about, let alone mourned. Because she’d already done that—mourning the loss of a family that still existed—but not for her. Not with her.

It still got to her, still struck her with a guilt that felt like it could wrench her open, could undo everything she’d worked for, could tear down every inch of progress and confidence and sense of self she’d fought to build for herself.

Maybe he was right. Maybe they were all right. Maybe she was selfish—selfish for putting herself and her desires above her family, the people who had raised her, who had sacrificed their lives to try to make hers better.

And there was another voice—much quieter, harder to hear, harder to believe—that seemed to call back, to tell her that she was worth it, that her life wasn’t worth sacrificing on the altar of bigoted beliefs, no matter who else worshiped there. She thought the voice sounded an awful lot like Alex’s, and its echoes, the voices of her new family: M’gann and J’onn and James and Kara and Eliza and Winn and everyone else who had come together to prove to her that she had people in her corner even when she felt most alone and least worthy of love.

But they were just that: voices. And in the face of the letter, its words right there, her fingers able to trace over them, feel the indents where her father had pressed down just a little harder, those marks and proof of a family that existed in reality—a family she could barely even think of as family anymore—those voices advocating for her faded to the background, drowned out in a chorus of self-loathing so overpowering she could barely manage to stagger toward the bed, her deep breathing long forgotten.

—

Alex found her there nearly an hour later. Her body was rigid, trembling every so often but otherwise catatonic. She looked as pale as Alex had ever seen her, and there were tear tracks streaked across her cheeks, her eyes puffy and rubbed raw from the harsh swipe of her shirt sleeves. Her fingers were clenched into fists, and her short nails were leaving deep moon-shaped imprints in her palms.

“Maggie!” Alex called out, rushing forward. She’d seen her like this once before—just once—and it had terrified her as much then as it did now. Remembering her DEO training, she forced herself to stay calm, to detach herself from the situation and let her medical instincts take over.

“Hey, Maggie, it’s me, Alex,” she said, her voice low and even as she knelt down on the ground next to her, pulling out the bottle of water she carried with her in her bag and putting it beside Maggie on the bedside table. “You okay if I sit here?”

Maggie managed to get herself to nod.

“Great. And if that changes, I can move, okay? I’m going to stay with you, but I can be a little farther away, or I can get closer if you want.” She paused to let Maggie process. “Do you think you can breathe with me?”

“It’s not helping,” Maggie forced out, her teeth chattering shut.

“Maybe if we do it together, it’ll help a little, okay?” Alex murmured. “Can I put a blanket on you?” Seeing the nod of assent, Alex pulled out the fluffiest blanket they had—the one with no tags, no rough patches or odd seams, the one that Maggie had wrapped around her after everything with her dad and Cadmus—and carefully draped it over Maggie, taking care not to tuck it under her, lest she feel trapped. Feeling how cold Maggie was to the touch, she slipped over to the edge of the room and turned up the thermostat before making her way back over to the bed.

She knelt next to Maggie, helping her to slow her breathing, holding her hand once she told her it was okay to touch, checking her pulse and smiling broadly as it came down to close to normal levels, telling Maggie just how proud she was when she was able to unclench her muscles and relax slightly into the mattress. Once the worst of it seemed to be over, she got Maggie to drink water and stretch out her stiff muscles.

“What do you say to a hot bath together? It’ll warm you up, and we can light the nice candles.”

“Even the cookie one?”

“Definitely the cookie one,” Alex agreed, smiling at the signs of Maggie returning. A few moments later, she came back into the bedroom, having lit the candles and begun filling the bath. “You good to walk?”

“Yeah,” Maggie nodded, standing up and rolling her neck to work out the cricks that had developed in it. She still let Alex take her by the hand and walk her to the bathroom, cracked a joke or two when Alex asked to help take off her clothes, grinned when Alex pulled out the extra fluffy towels they had picked up a few weekends ago and set them on the radiator to warm while they were in the bath.

For a while they relaxed in silence, Maggie sitting between Alex’s legs, her head resting on Alex’s shoulders while Alex ran her fingers through Maggie’s hair.

“My dad wrote,” Maggie said, her voice quiet.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you think I’m a bad person?”

“What? No, Maggie, never. You’re—god, you’re one of the best people I know.”

“That’s not true. You know Supergirl.”

“Yeah, well Supergirl never gives me the last slice of pizza, and you always offer to share.”

Maggie snorted, shaking her head against Alex’s shoulder. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean? Because honestly, Maggie, you are one of the most caring people I know. I—you’ve made me better. And not just by helping me to come out,” she clarified, anticipating Maggie’s objection that anyone could’ve done that with enough perseverance or bluntness. “You’ve made me rethink some of those things I assumed I knew. You helped me to see aliens who weren’t just like my sister as people who needed protection, not just prosecution or imprisonment. You showed me possibilities for a life I never thought I’d have.”

“But you didn’t say anything about my family. People have died, Alex—people I loved, people who loved me. They died, and I didn’t know.”

“There’s a difference between choosing not to know and never having been told.”

“Is there? Phones exist. Hell, mail exists. I never tried reaching out.”

“You did nothing wrong!” Alex tried to bite back her anger, knowing that wasn’t what Maggie needed. “Look, I get where you’re coming from. But self-preservation, knowing to take care of yourself—that matters too. You had no way of knowing how they would react if you tried to reach out. They had already hurt you, Maggie.”

“Still. They’re family.”

“And so am I, but if I hurt you—god, Maggie, if I hurt you that way, I wouldn’t want you to feel like you owed me anything. You don’t owe anyone your forgiveness.” Trying to find words, Alex let out a sigh of frustration. “You did try, Maggie. Think about it that way. You tried—you invited your dad to our bridal shower, in part because I wasn’t thinking quite clearly. I thought…I could only think in terms of my own relationship with my mother. And we went through some rough, rough periods, but it was different. I didn’t see that clearly then. But you gave him a chance he didn’t deserve—a chance you were good and pure and kind enough to give him—and he threw it away.”

“He came.”

“Yes, and he left.”

“I know,” Maggie huffed. “And I thought that would be it! And if it was…well, maybe this would all be easier, you know? God, I just—he said no! He doesn’t want me the way I am. So why won’t he stop acting like it’s my fault?”

“I don’t know,” Alex admitted, her voice barely a whisper as she wrapped her arms around Maggie. “I really don’t. And I don’t—I don’t have the perfect advice to offer. I’m happy to call him and yell at him, or get a restraining order, or burn the letter, or ignore it entirely and hold you, or kiss you until you can’t think about anything else. I mean, whatever you want, you know? I’m here for you, and I’ll support you no matter what you choose.”

“Even if I choose vegan ice cream and a whole night of Rizzoli and Isles?” Maggie teased, opting to ignore the tears prickling the corners of her eyes.

“Even both of those terrible choices.”

“You love Rizzles just as much as I do.”

“You’re a cop! How do you deal with all the procedural violations?”

“I watch for the hot ladies with delightful romantic chemistry on my screen and put up with the rest.”

“Yeah, yeah. They don’t even get to make out, though.”

“Neither do half of the actual gay couples on television!”

“Fine,” Alex whined, though she kissed Maggie’s cheek anyway, which led Maggie to turn around, finding Alex’s lips with her own and letting herself be held, letting herself be cared for.

Eventually they got out of the tub, the water having grown lukewarm. Wrapped up in a fuzzy towel, Maggie nudged Alex with her shoulder. “You think it’s okay that I don’t try to reach out to him for Christmas?”

“I think that’s your decision, and you are allowed to celebrate however you want.”

“I mean…I want to celebrate by going sledding and destroying you in a snowball fight.”

“Whatever you want within reason,” Alex clarified, laughing at Maggie’s pout. “And maybe, just maybe, we can think about traveling somewhere cold for a vacation. Don’t see why we’d want to, though,” she added, winking at her fiancée.

“So cheesy movies and as much junk food as Kara can bring over? And maybe when she leaves you and I can find our own way to celebrate…”

“I think that sounds perfect.”

[peachie-alpaca]

very long post about my experience with therapy and how it affected me, and moving forward from the negative experience

i’ve been going to therapy for almost two years now but i’ve decided to quit it. not quitting therapy in general, but quitting my (now ex) therapist.

because honestly? this therapist didnt have my best interest in mind and it took me a while to realize this.

this is hard for me to talk about but I need to write it out. I wanted to talk about it sooner but I waited until after I actually quit her to since it was so stressful for me to think about. i kept getting anxiety attacks and insecurity about my decision.

but anyway, I really liked this therapist. I really did. she really made me feel understood and I easily got attached to her. even when I would notice little red flags, I ignored them, I kept giving her the benefit of the doubt.

I didn’t quit her because she pushed me to go out of my comfort zone, I certainly did accomplish uncomfortable things and she acknowledged this. 

no, what made me quit her was getting to actually know her ideals that conflict with mine, her making me feel unheard. and, at worst, her hypocrisy. i’ll get to that later.

“wait, didn’t you just say she made you feel understood?” 

at first, yes. after all, she was my first therapist. practically anyone who would simply listen to my deepest fears and thoughts was great in my book, and I had been dreaming about going to a therapist for years. I knew I needed it.

so when I could finally get into an insurance plan that pays for therapy, I wore rose-tinted glasses towards her.

i didn’t care at first that she... hardly took notes.

at most, during some sessions, i would see her quickly scribble something down at the end. well....

whenever I brought up really important things about myself, she wouldn’t delve into them more or ask questions. she would listen, nod, and get the conversation back to the topic of “what goals do you want to accomplish?”

again, this didn’t bother me at the time, “yeah! sorry to bring up irrelevant things, haha!”

it’s one thing to make progress, it’s another to dismiss big things about myself that are very important to me. 

i sort of had a mini epiphany moment when meeting with my psychiatrist for the first time. he asked about my upbringing and i explained it was abusive, then he asked, “are you talking about this with your therapist?” 

i whispered “no”....

it’s not that I haven’t told her, i told her almost first session about my family life. but it didn’t lead to anything more than her saying “okay I see, so that was hard for you” then moving on.

i brought this up with her next session, but that didn’t go anywhere, either... said it’s “off topic for the goals we had”

i had also told her that i came from a religious pentecostal borderline culty home, and that i wanted nothing to do with it now and i’m 1000% atheist. i don’t believe in the god of the bible or any gods for that matter. and i made this very clear to her that it is a trauma of mine. this was a whole process i went through in the past years and came to a head in the beginning of 2019, when i finally accepted myself as bisexual and atheist.

so for her to say to me, when i was sad and anxious about my grandma’s declining health, “I know you said you aren’t a christian anymore, but you’re still a spiritual person and i want to know how that is helping you in coping with your grandmother possibly passing away?”

what?

i felt so shocked that she described me that way, i wanted to cry. “spiritual”? i am hardly the type, even when I was christian. this completely took me aback, and i corrected her shortly afterwards. she apologized and reworded herself but i just... i couldn’t get over it. 

had she not listened to me one bit? I even told her about how i joined a discord server last year specifically for ex-religious people to come together for support.

but i was insecure... i didn’t want to think i had a “bad therapist”

"i guess no therapist has super memory right? who cares if she got a few things wrong...."

i was never afraid to be open and honest when she hurt my feelings. i did feel safe enough to tell her my real thoughts, which i appreciate from her. on multiple occasions when i took things she said the wrong way, i would tell her.

 for example, when she said she was upset when i wasn’t honest with her about a choice (which i later told the truth anyway so...), or when i felt she didn’t take my menstrual pain serious, or when she made me feel like i was making excuses with my depression. 

those conflicts cleared up and i understood she didn’t mean harm, but they stayed at the back of my mind. there are a lot more instances like that where certain things she said lowkey made me skeptical of her, but i’m not trying to write a novel. I wrote them down in my phone notes tho, haha.

it wasn’t all negative, she did help me with skills of thinking outside the box. i could feel that my time with her, i had developed skills that help me not think so negative about the smallest things, relating to my social anxiety. she helped me on how to feel grounded and get some wider perspective of interactions outside myself.

this is why it took me so long to realize she wasn’t good for me, because she wasn’t the cliché obviously terrible therapist. she wasn’t blatantly awful. i question her practices but maybe someone else can benefit from it, idk.

what finally made me quit her for good and realize that she is actually doing more harm than good, was when she wanted to diagnose me with a personality disorder, despite her saying she cannot diagnose me with a personality disorder because i have depression.

when earlier in the year i said i was very concerned that i had a different personality disorder, she just insisted that while yes i have traits, no i didn’t have it, that i’m depressed so she cannot diagnose me with it.

(i’m not going to say which personality disorders since that’s a bit too personal for me to get into, so they’re just 1 and 2.)

i find this extremely unethical and hypocritical.

i questioned her on this and brought it up myself.

“you said you couldn’t diagnose me with 1, even though you yourself admitted i have traits of it, and i identify with it way more than 2, so why can you diagnose me with 2 and not 1? I thought you couldn’t diagnose personality disorders because i have depression?”

she nervously said, “yes, technically i cannot do that, but i strongly feel you have 2 instead of 1. I know this, I know you.”

i did not say anything, and just looked away from her. the air in that room was so unnerving and.... i can’t describe more how i felt.

after that session, to tell you the truth, i avoided her for weeks. i made excuses and told her i needed to reschedule a day or two before each session. i was procrastinating quitting her, also because I needed some paperwork from her before I quit.

but i finally did it, this week. i knew i couldn’t just disappear. besides me not wanting to be billed for missing appointments, i’m not the type that doesn’t give closure. it’s understandable if people do if their therapist did something extremely offensive or illegal, but for some reason i just felt it had to be done in a conclusive way. idk. maybe i didn’t need to do that.

it was short and uncomfortable, i cried. a part of me was a little girl, wanting things to be fixed and that “this is a bad ending! lets just make up and try again! we did that before, why can’t we now?” 

i hushed her in my mind, and said, as a mature adult, “this is for our own good. this has to be done.”

i didn’t get into my huge problem with her about the personality diagnosis, which i regret. I just wanted the session to end as quickly as possible. i mainly told her i felt extremely disrespected and that we just aren’t a good fit for each other. that’s what all the articles about therapy say, right? that you have to be a good fit with your therapist?

i felt so empty afterwards, and this experience honestly leaves me anxious for my next therapist. i feel scared to open up only for them to be something i thought they weren’t...

i want to find a good therapist, i’m just kind of doubtful of it... it was hard enough to find an english speaking therapist. as you might know, i live in germany. even though i’m learning german, i feel more comfortable speaking my native language, which makes sense right?

i’ll keep trying, i won’t lose hope...

[vulnerable-yovth]

My story for you my friend

Hey friend,

Sharing my story with you is scary and gives me a lot of hesitations, but you deserve to know. So I’m just gonna start from the beginning if that’s alright with you.

I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was about 13 or 14 years old. I am now 19 and continue to struggle with it. I started my medication when I was 14 I believe. It has changed so much since then though. I’ve been on at least 3 different depression medicines since I started. The first one didn’t work with my body and the second one made me gain a ton of weight, so I wanted to get off that as soon as possible since I’m pretty self conscious of my appearance nowadays. The medicine I’m on now seems to be working perfectly, so thumbs up to that.

I’ve always been a really happy and outgoing kind of kid with loads of confidence. But somewhere in my early teens I noticed a lower self of steam and less love I once had for myself.

I had a really hard time in high school with my depression. I went into freshman year as I told you before, confident and HAPPY. I had so many friends and was so well liked by many. I made the varsity cheer team and had a boyfriend and didn’t have many insecurities at all.

Sophomore year came and I fell behind in school and got dumped by my boyfriend. I was crushed. My ex was a super well liked type of guy who played on the football and basketball team. (I was super into popularity and labels back then, so I needed to add that in). Because of this breakup I shut down and isolated myself from everyone. I lost all my friends and I never understood what I was doing so terribly wrong in my life. Some kids from my high school would call me and/or leave nasty text messages on my phone.

I went to the doctor to get myself checked out because I knew I was depressed. They ended up diagnosing me with a learning disorder, called Executive Function Disorder, as well as some OCD, Anxiety, and Depression. I felt so defeated because I knew that there was something wrong with me, but NO ONE would listen to me. I started to doubt myself and see my struggles as "not real" or "just in my head". I started believing people when they’d tell me I’m being a baby or I’m too sensitive or I’m overreacting. Girls that I thought were friends would tell me I’m being rude or starting drama for sticking up for myself when someone would deliberately try and hurt me.

Through sophomore and junior year I struggled with rumors and horrible, petty girls and even guys that made it their mission to hurt me. I got made fun of for things that were spread about me having to do with a boyfriend I had freshman year. It is no secret that I made some mistakes with guys in the past, but I was the only one taking the heat for it.

I tended to my pain through cheerleading. I stuck with it because it was truly my passion and I loved with everything in me. To this day(even though my body can't physically bend/move like that anymore) I have cheerleading and new groups of girls every year to thank for being a huge support system for me.

Junior year was the hardest, most lonesome year I’ve seen in my whole life. I remember the rumors were at its peak during this year. I remember one particularly really harsh rumor about me going around my whole school that I had Herpes because I was out of school for a week. I was actually in the hospital for depression and almost taking my life. This was especially hard for me because the ENTIRE school believed it. One of the teachers told her class "Be careful because I heard one of the Jr. girls has herpes." A girl from my team had this teacher for her class and told me that she announced it in class. From that day forward I walked around Saint Viator with no self confidence and a frown on my face.

I’ve got one more rumor to tell you before I move past this horrible subject. But hey, you needed to hear it’s much as I needed to tell you.

There was one Jr./ Senior party that I had no desire to go to nor got invited to over winter break of my junior year. I was in Canada on vacation I think...I can’t remember where I was, but it was out of the state at least. The next week I get back to school and a lot of people I would smile to in the hallway would ignore me. I started noticing those same people were unfollowing me on social media and subtweeting me. Basically their party got busted and the first person they thought to blame was me for reasons I’m unaware of. This one really pisses me off because all I can think of is someone telling one person it was me and it becoming a “thing” that I busted their party. Well for those arrogant children that thought of me in my absence, thanks???

Thinking about everything its really hard to write this out for you because I don't think the emotion of the situation and what I felt is really getting through, but Im trying to summarize this the best I can, so bare with me, friend.

I had no girl friends junior year other than my team. I was alone and at my worst. I so desperately wanted to transfer. But I didn't. But, my troubles were only the beginning.

My parents have been married for 28 years, a week ago, my dad was an alcoholic and my mom is a self centered, reputation freak. My dad went to rehab in 2004 when I was 5 years old and my brother was 4. He was gone for months. He didn't tell me any of this until I got to highschool because it is obviously a heavy subject.

My parents have fought for as long as I can remember and it haunts me to this day. I always used to put their relationship on my back and felt like I needed to protect my dad from my moms abuse. I have nightmares and flashbacks of my mom physically and verbally abusing my dad. (There is a lot more to this story that I don’t have the time to write about at the moment, but if you are wondering I’ll do a desperate story on that)

One night over the summer I vividly remember my mom sending me a text that was meant to be sent to my dad while I was out with my two best friends. The text was basically ripping my dad and I apart. She said that I'm a loser just like my dad and I will never amount to anything. It hurt to hear those words coming from my own mother and I lost it. I called my mom’s parents and her siblings and basically told them how she's been treating my dad and I. I went into panic mode and cut myself and overdosed on drugs and basically did everything to numb the pain of my moms hateful words. But none of that worked because I started believing it to be true myself. (This would be whole other story if my dad was actually a loser, but he is the most selfless person I have ever met and I'm not just saying that because he's my dad, but I really mean it when I say he works so hard everyday for his family and deserves the best. He is unhappy, but he wakes up every morning at 5 am to workout for an hour and half and then goes to work until 7 every night and comes home to no food or hello from his wife. He is the most incredible guy and he needs recognition for it.)

Senior year I decided to stop talking to my mom and stop chasing after the girls who were so cruel and horrible to me. I decided to make friends outside of my school and hold my head high while I was still at Viator.

I started seeing a therapist sophomore year and really kicked it up a notch once I was a senior because I knew I had to get better before I went off to college. My medication was stable and my health was great and I was doing ok. I still sat in the bathroom at lunch, but I was getting by. Ever since then I’ve been somewhat stable. Ive had boughts of sadness don't get me wrong, in fact the past few days have been a low for me and thats why I’m talking to you right now, but for me college is what saved my life and I'm extremely thankful my dad was able to send me to such a great school.

With my mom and I, we are working towards a relationship, but taking it slow. Living away from home has been just what I needed to be able to deal with this relationship healthily. So I guess we will see what happens for my mom and I. For my parents, I'm not really sure where they stand. All I know is that I've learned through years of therapy that I can't take on all the pressure from a relationship that isn't even mine. So I've stopped worrying about them for now and have decided to focus on myself.

As for me, I’m alright. Mostly numb to all this by now, but it’s definitely still part of me and my past and I’ll have to lug it with me the rest of my life. And that’s what it is.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I guess.

Thats basically me and my luggage I take with with me through life. I wanted to finally talk to you about this and let you know who I am and why I am the way I am. I feel like I've left it in the dark for too long and I’m done hiding it.

[texanpeanut]

Not Normal

I’m thinking about the Peace Corps a lot these days. I’m thinking about my experience, the organization, volunteers, and my experience with life in my village and returning to my life in the United States. It’s taken me a while to process everything, and it’s mostly come in bursts. But since I haven’t been working due to the stay-home order, I’ve been reflecting in full force. I finally don’t have anything left to distract me from confronting the past and my present reality.

When I came home in September, I wanted everything to be normal. I wanted to wear cute clothes. I wanted to be fit. I wanted to have a car, a job, and a romantic partner. I wanted to forget all the messiness and cringe-worthy moments of the previous two years. And in doing so, also tried to ignore my messy and non-normal career and academic plans. Even though I applied and got into my top graduate program, which I had been eyeing since 2017 and involves living a year each in Wales and Vancouver, I kept denying that it was my reality because moving abroad once again for this program would disrupt the charade of normalcy I was desperately trying to keep up. However, so many things are not normal now that I can’t pretend anymore. To be fair I do have some cute clothes, I am fit, and I still have my car. But I don’t have my job for the moment, and I am accepting that I will probably not have a romantic partner for a long time. However, I’ve found that choosing to simply accept all of this has been liberating. I don’t care about trying to be normal anymore. My Peace Corps experience was messy as hell. My career and school plans are messy as hell. Everything is messy! But that’s the entire point of living. Liveliness is change and messiness and unpredictability. When we first arrived in Senegal, the staff members and older volunteers told us to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I’m finally starting to do just that.

In this post, I’m going to attempt to reconcile the good times and the bad times of my Peace Corps experience, explain my reasoning for going home a couple months early, and reflect on the past 7 months I’ve been home. There’s a lot to unpack and it will get personal, so buckle up.

 I don’t remember my last blog post. Maybe it was something about vacation or future projects planned… I don’t want to read it. Ha! To be completely candid, my second year of the Peace Corps was a bit of a shit show. It was difficult. I think this is something a lot of Peace Corps volunteers don’t share with the world – the struggles we all face during our service. We want to post this amazing, picture perfect story to all social media. An Instagram post with our favorite work partner, a Facebook post about the amazing ceremony we went to, a blog post about our project that’s going fantastically. We’re changing the world! We’re learning so much! This is life changing! Well, it definitely is life changing. And we probably are helping some people. We’ve made at least a few friends in our village. And we’re experiencing so many new cultural traditions. But it’s also far from perfect for a lot of us.

 I started the second year strong. I had just come back from vacation in Europe – a week in Austria with the boy I was completely in love with at the time, and a week in Rome with my family whom I will love forever. To conclude my two weeks abroad, my two best friends from college came to visit me in Senegal and went all the way to Medina Arsas, the village I called home for two years. We spent New Year’s Eve in my hut, playing bonanza, eating rice, and going to bed at 10 pm. I loved having two people I loved so much see my space and meet the village that welcomed me. It was a very special time.

My mom, sister, and me drunk on several carafes of house wine on our last cold night in Italy (dad taking the picture).

Melissa and me hugging in the Kedougou sunrise.

Caro and me on the single road that went in and out of my village.

After so many refreshing fun weeks with people I cared about, I was ready to dive into work and move onto some bigger projects. In my first year I had stayed small, focusing mostly on 1-on-1 trainings with neighbors, showing them how to create tree nurseries and plant trees on their compounds. It was fun and fulfilling, but I felt like I could do more. I wish I had stayed small. Or maybe I’m glad I tried. Either way, in January I had a community meeting to discuss potential projects, and everyone suggested a community garden. I explained that we could do this, but I would need to write a grant and it may take a while for the money to come in. And most importantly that I would need the collaboration and support of everyone in the village for this to work out. That’s the thing about Peace Corps – we don’t come in and do work for other people. And we don’t force people to change their ways. We are invited to come in, and we work with our communities to plan projects and build upon their resources to make them happen.

A realistic depiction of a training - straight up lounging after teaching about cashews and eating some chicken.

However, this is very difficult to translate to your village. Or at least it was for me. I think because of the long history of European, North American, and Asian NGOs coming in to “help,” which really means just building something and then quickly leaving most of the time, that’s what was expected of me. I was essentially expected to come in and wave my magic American wand to fix all the problems in the village and build infrastructure and just make things happen in the blink of an eye. But that’s not how I wanted to work, or even COULD work for that matter. And this ultimately caused problems. I had told my tech team (basically my supervisors) about the plans my village and I came up with, and they were on board and willing to help, but my village didn’t understand how long it would take to get resources from the Peace Corps and weren’t doing the things I asked of them to move the project along. So, things kind of fell apart, and they decided to get immediate help from another NGO. I was devastated. Not so much for the project – I knew my village was getting the well they wanted and I was glad they could connect with an organization that moved faster on things like that. I was mostly worried about my tech team thinking I was an idiot. Two of them were very understanding and supportive, but the head of my tech team, basically my boss, was extremely unsupportive. He said some things to me that were absolutely heartbreaking, and I remember at the time just feeling devastated at his disapproval. What’s funny now is that I can’t even remember what he said. Just goes to show what can simply blow over in a year.

 Anyway, this totally wrecked me. I went into the Peace Corps thinking I was going to use the skills I learned in college, learn new skills, and help a community make the changes they desired. I had tried so hard during pre-service training and worked so hard during my first year to learn the language, make connections, start small, all so I could just do a project. And it didn’t work out. I felt that all my efforts were for nothing. On top of this I had lost my dog to a botched spaying surgery in the previous year’s fall and felt responsible for not preventing it, even though I felt at the time I was trying my best, and then later that spring the boy I was in love with for two years broke my heart by telling me he wasn’t ready for our relationship. It felt like everything was crumbling around me. I had no idea how to deal with it. Part of me was productive in work – I held a few more trainings in neighboring villages where I felt less shameful about the failed project in my own village. But a bigger part of me shut down my emotions and just grew more and more anxious each week. On top of this I started to feel the pressure of “what the hell am I going to do when I get back?”. I began putting pressure on myself to get accepted into a good graduate program, to move out of the house, to find a good job. And I wasted an obscene amount of energy trying to figure out why the hell this guy wasn’t in love with me when I had been so in love with him and trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me? And I kept mostly all of this inside, to myself. I would only talk about it occasionally in explosive, usually drunken, bursts when I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Hardly productive.

 So, I started to binge drink more and I started to have panic attacks. I have had anxiety for a long time, and in college occasionally suffered mild to moderate anxiety-fueled panic attacks. However, these new panic attacks were drastically different and more severe than what I was used to. I began having nightmares in which I thought I was dying. I would wake up with my heart racing convinced I was having a heart attack, but could always blame it on a bad dream. Until I had one while I was awake, and thought that it was the single 1mg tablet of alprazolam I took earlier that morning that was going to kill me. Which is hilarious, considering alprazolam is what’s commonly prescribed to TREAT anxiety and panic disorders. I called one of the Peace Corps Medical Officers and explained that I thought I was dying (I mean wouldn’t you, if you had a racing heart, couldn’t stop shaking uncontrollably, and had sweated so much you were basically swimming in it?), and she explained to me that no, that was just a panic attack, everything’s fine. Well I had never had a panic attack like that during my waking hours and it freaked me out to say the least. All the near-death nightmares started to make sense. I had kept my anxiety in long enough that it started to make its way out into the form of violent shakes and sweats and a frantically beating heart. I realized that if this was going to keep going on, I couldn’t stay in Senegal. I couldn’t live in my village constantly in fear of collapsing. I couldn’t do it anymore.

 So, I went to Dakar and talked to the PCMO I spoke with on the phone. She suggested I stay and told me that volunteers have panic attacks at site all the time. I thought well who the hell are they and why haven’t they gone home yet? Or maybe she didn’t understand the severity of my symptoms, because panic attacks with such severe physical symptoms are the absolute worst. Then I spoke with the counselor the Peace Corps worked with, and she validated my desire to go home. And I felt okay about it. So, I went back to Kedougou, cried a lot, spent one last night with my village and packed my things, cried some more, and spent one last night with my friends. These last few days were the hardest and most emotional. I had really grown to love so many people in my village and so many of my fellow volunteers. So, even though I knew I was making the right decision, it was a very difficult one.

The dungeons girls helping me get two years worth of stuff out of my hut in a single night.

Over the past 7 months that I’ve been home, I’ve found myself in tears on more than one occasion over how much I miss Senegal. This was surprising to me at first, because during the second half of my service I blamed Senegal for a lot of my unhappiness and anxiety. But Senegal had nothing to do with it. Maybe the expectations from my Peace Corps tech team had something to do with it, or the lack of mental health resources offered to us. But when I really think about it, my tech team hardly put any pressure on me. My village didn’t really care that much about the work I did or didn’t do. All the pressure was coming from within myself and I just didn’t know how to stop it. It’s true, a lot of things about Senegal did stress me out – the heat and dust, hectic and unpredictable public transportation, the lack of privacy, corporal punishment, men in general, etc. But the things I miss are so much more powerful. I miss hosting trainings with my friends and neighbors who were interested in growing trees. I miss sitting with my host family around the fire after dinner during cold season. I miss my host siblings laughing at me for not being able to pound corn the right way. I miss sitting with my counterpart in his compound and playing with the chickens. I miss my host sister’s son greeting me every morning. I miss sitting with my neighbors and cracking peanuts. I miss the kindness from strangers. I miss feeling welcomed and part of a community. Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over again without the pressure I had put on myself to be perfect. I may or may not have gotten any more work done, but I have a feeling I may have been able to cherish the small, sweet moments so much more.

My host family and me on my very last morning. Back row from left to right: Binta, me, Khadija/Neene, Neene, Mariama. Front row from left to right: Baaba, Bailo, Diariatou. <3

To end this post I’d like to say I think I’ve come a long way with self-acceptance and compassion since leaving Senegal, but most of this growth has happened over the past few weeks. I’ve recently started to feel a sense of being liberated, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post. And I love it. I’m forgiving myself for all the things I did wrong during my service, I’m accepting the things that didn’t work out the way I wanted them to, celebrating the things that went well, and I’m looking forward to my next few months in Houston and my next couple years abroad. I know there will probably be some hard moments, things may go wrong, and it won’t always be sunshine, but I’m more than okay with that. I’m comfortable being uncomfortable, and ready for a messy, amazing, lively future.

Me just vibing in the backyard smiling the day I finally got my official grad school acceptance. I’m excited for the next big step. Love y’all. xoxo

[askmadampresident]

((This is a mild PSA about some recent drama, If you’re honestly sick of it, trying to avoid it or don’t want to hear it go ahead and skim right by this, otherwise I personally don’t want to just ignore this, but after this post, this ask blog shall move on resume as usual, continuing with the latest M!A with Prez getting slapped for every stupid idea :3))

((for those wanting to read on it’s all under the cut, and all of it is ooc))

I’m going to be honest. I’ve thought about this for awhile and I legitimately do not know how to phrase this no matter how much I think about it so, I’m just going to ramble and share my thoughts and hopefully not offend anyone.

Alright, heeere we go, moment of truth, moment I’ve been dreading for two days

alright for those of you going what the hell lemme give you a breif rundown of the situation: As brief as I can put it, this recent thread sparked quite a bit of controversy in the discord under the accusations (none of which I deny, let me make this clear) of unnecessary angst and lack of proper tagging.

I don’t know why but my brain is going into speech and debate mode so I guess i’m formatting this like an LD round argument now, but essentially I’m going to go over my defense, the counterarguments against my defense, and finally a summary to conclude

welp defense time. In my defense, I’ll address unnecessary angst first and foremost, while I do admit that thread was going overboard the way I RP is I am given a situation, or some sort of stimulus essentially, be that an ask, a thread, an M!A, an IM, etc, and what I do is I react as the character to said stimulus. The argument can also be made that I did not need to reply to said thread, that at the sight of it going overboard I could have stopped, BUT you see, the thing is I honestly can’t not reply. I have 4 prominent mental disorders, one of which being OCD, which I was very recently diagnosed with. Whenever there is a thread or a message or something and it doesn’t feel complete and it’s my turn to respond, I HAVE to respond, otherwise it can sometimes bother me for weeks on end. I don’t mean to use my mental disorder as an excuse, since that is just honestly a dick move and because either way I am still at fault, I still made the choice, even if my mental disorder caused my decision to lean toward one side more so than another. The argument could also be made that I did not have to write out that scenario and that I could have had Prez do something else, but you see, doing that would actually bother me more than not replying. Because it really, really rEALLY bothers me when I don’t play a character as accurately as I can, and it just feels so ooc and I just cannot stand that feeling at all, so I suppose yeah I made my decisions, and yeah, in retrospect they were wrong, but I honestly wouldn’t have done anything different now because it would really bother me, call me selfish, but that is how I feel.

Okay I’m just re reading this and whoops looks like I’m doing the counterarguments on the way oh well, it works

As for lack of tagging… I have no excuse, I completely forgot and that’s all there is to it. I mean I have the classic defense of “You could’ve just not read it” But that’s just dickish and shifting the blame on others which I will NOT do after a lot of people have thrown blame around ann it just… it disgusts me, all are at fault in an argument, it’s not just ever one person and if you disagree with me on that then please do not talk to me. We will never see things eye to eye if that is the case, and I would rather not have all that conflict in my life. Anyway, that defense is really just rude and I do not have any excuse to defend myself with so yeah I just outright forgot and I apologize. In the coming days I’ll be getting to work trying to tag what I can but please if you want me to tag you triggers please tell me what they are so I can tag them, otherwise I honestly won’t know.

On that topic please allow me to at least explain why I space about triggers since I believe everyone at least deserves the chance to see a story from both sides, but if you don’t want to hear it just skip over the next paragraph.

I’ve got two things here to address, my lack of triggers and my accidental habit of spacing about tagging things. As for my unfortunate habit, remember how I said I had 4 prominent mental disorders? One of which is bipolarity. I’m currently having a passive manic episode, and for those who aren’t familiar, having bipolar means having episodes of mania or depression that can last months on end, it’s not just a thing that happens and is gone in a day or two. As for why it’s important that I’m in a manic episode, for me this manifests on inability to focus on one thing at once, I have to be doing 10 things at a time or I can’t focus and get extremely bored extremely quickly and make extremely stupid and impulsive decisions, essentially I cope by doing too much at once, and unfortunately, that translates to me missing small details and sometimes large ones, and in this case that translates to forgetting to tag things, then remembering I forgot later, only to get completely distracted before I can, repeat. Then my lack of triggers… yeah this is ‘fun’, and well my manic episodes also come with minor suppression of empathy, so I at the moment cannot understand people who get triggered easily (in my depressive episodes I understand all too well and it affects me greatly then, but during a manic episode all that empathy boils down into sympathy which is something else and not completely synonymous with empathy, especially when talking in psychological terms) as well as a second factor here which is that a third mental disorder I have is severe anxiety. What does that have to do with it? Well you see I’m extremely strong willed by nature and well over the years I got reprimanded so often that I wound up sealing myself off, I made it so that nothing got to me that way I wouldn’t be anxious anymore, and as such the lack of triggers, or at least that’s the theory my therapist has. Nonetheless there are a few things that still make me breakdown in terrible panic attacks, where I can’t think, I can’t breathe, I can’t anything and I get violent if anyone tries to touch me. Such an attack nearly occurred when this discourse initially started, due to one of those few things being reprimanded by not one but many people I respect. I spent the next two days off of social media and trying to not fall apart, and only just succeeding.

AGAIN the fact that I have mental disorders in NOT to me a valid excuse for my actions! I still chose to do it and I accept full responsibility for any pain I’ve unintentionally inflicted, and I hope to do all I can to prevent it next time. If there is a next time, I do hope not.

All in all, I’ve spent two of my evening writing this, part of me being angry and upset about how this went down and because of the respect that I have now lost for some of the people whom were involved, part of me wishing preventative measures had been taken such as alerting us that we were going wrong beforehand or getting on our case about taggs early on, and part of me, the logical part, is jut ready for this to be over, but also knows that if I don’t publicly address it I’m pretty much digging my own grave, and seeming like I do not care or am a coward for not getting to this, of which I am NOT.

I thank those of you whom have read this far and listened to my little unorthodox part apology part summary part rant, because honestly it means a lot that you’re putting the time in to look at something as long as this since I believe that everyone should be allowed to know the full story before continuing on.

Well that and the fact that this is literally the blog of the biggest politician in gloomverse I’m surprised people actually care so much about it.

So thank you once again, get ready for more content momentarily~!

[theworldaccordingtodee]

Ready to Fight (Life Post OQ Fiasco)

Hey y'all! I'm still here, still alive and kicking after everything that's happened. I just wanted to first say thank you guys so so much for how nice you've been to me since this shit started. So I'm day 4 post OQ fallout and... I'm still processing; the feelings come and go like waves on a shore. There are moments when I just wanna throw my hands up and walk away. There are times when I get so angry that I wanna sit back and watch the whole OQ ship burn in flames right with this shit show. But more than anything, I wanna keep fighting. For full disclosure; I'm an emotional train wreck. I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, I have serious bouts of depression and I've had a nasty issue with self harm and suicidal thought since like 8; I don't attempt self harm but those thoughts tend to hit me from time to time. On top of all that I have all the makings of a binge eating disorder. So this crap is really grating on my emotions. It's hard not to give into all of those feelings that say I should just quit social media altogether. I live with a fear that this shit will bleed over into my real life (I'm part of two OUAT groups on Facebook), and I also never want to write again; I got a fanfic review today and while I was nice and supportive, I felt that dread in my stomach that I was going to be attacked again. But still I wanna fight; something just won't let me quit. My mom really wishes I wouldn't engage (sidenote: she's told Jesus on everyone who's hurt me. I'd be careful if I were y'all because when she prays, things happen) in this anymore but I can't not, It's sorta my calling...yeah I'm about to get religious for a second. This shit had drained me emotionally so yesterday I prayed about it and I got this calm feeling come over me and God spoke to me and said "Didn't you say you wanted to have an impact and be a voice for people? You can't do that if you're running scared" I went to church today and there was a whole lesson on breaking barriers. This thing that happened has made people stop and listen. It's made people aware of things they never bothered to pay attention to or notice. Y'all it's called out people's privilege and it scares them. And that's what I want it to do. I want people to live consciously, to be aware of certain privileges that inadvertently cause them to harm and oppress other people. In sociology we learned how things like racism and bigotry become this huge systems of oppression. It starts with one small action that spreads through other micro interactions that magnify and morph into this huge problem. Do I think I have the power to end racism? Hell no, I'm not THAT stupid, but I do have the power to share my experience and make people aware of this thing that's literally destroying our fandom. So that's what I'm gonna do, I'm not gonna talk about this particular thing, but I do wanna keep the conversation going. And I'm not always gonna be kind about it. It's gonna get harsh and I'm gonna say things you don't like, but at the end of the day, I'd rather make you feel bad with my harsh words than to let you walk around in ignorance and let you continue to hurt me and other people. So, I'm digging my heels in the ground and I'm fighting back. I'm gonna put my degree to use and critically examine OUAT and fandom culture. I'm gonna talk about other shit too, things that affect us real world people,but I'm gonna do me. And I'm gonna do it boldly and honestly and if people take it, they take it and if they don't it's their loss. No harm no foul, right? Anywho I gotta head to work. My inbox is open for folks who wanna talk, and learn about shit. My ask box is also open for questions, kind words, whatever is on your heart. I'm just a strong Black Queer Girl who loves Jesus and is passionate about making the world a better place and making sure people don't remain ignorant, ya dig? So if I tell you some shit and ya ass don't listen, it's no longer on me yo! Xx

[kemsing-blog]

I, Myself and Me

All my life I’ve had an eating disorder / taste functionality problem and I’ve been very small for my age. This doesn’t mean I’m different in a bad way, it just means I’m me. On top of this, about two years ago, I was self-diagnosed (then properly by the NHS) as being clinically depressed and having mild - severe anxiety, depending on the situation & circumstances. This [anxiety] came about after being bullied for what was then 2 years but turned out to be four years. I was bullied for my height, my beliefs and my choices, but never for my eating disorder. With my eating disorder, I didn’t have any control over it and, thankfully, the bullies acknowledged that whereas with my beliefs and choices, they wanted me to change them, change from someone I was to someone they were. I didn’t necessarily want to be who I was then, but that was who I was. They used my height as leverage, which I can tell you sucks. To have a physical property of yourself that you cannot change without expensive and complicated surgical programs that cost a lost of money be used as leverage to get underneath your skin to try and change yourself is an absolute joke. In the middle of English school year 6 (age 10-11, for any Americans reading this), I learn how to tie knots and made a noose which I kept hidden under my bed. I wrote in my diary a suicide note and had everything prepared to kill myself but I didn’t have the balls to do it. I threw the noose away but kept the note. I then promptly ‘lost’ the note as I didn’t want to be reminded of how bad I felt. Fast-forward a few years to ENG Y9 (13-14) and you have my second failed suicide attempt. I had just got a detention and hated myself so much. After school, I ran to the bus stop and got the first bus down to the station. At the station, there is a train at 1623 that passes through without stopping. I figured that a pretty quick way to die was to jump in front of a train. This time I actually did jump, just not in front, just smashed my arm against the side as I was a little too slow running down to the platform. As I did all this, I quoted ‘Mr Brightside’ by The Killers to my class and had scheduled an upload for a suicide note at around 5pm. The support I got from my classmates was unreal, with people who normally ignored me suddenly ringing up making sure I was OK. I only answered to two people; one who I had told about all this before as they were in a similar situation and the other who kept calling leaving worried voicemails. I cancelled the suicide note upload and I’m better now. This doesn’t mean I’m over it. Most nights, I still need my mum to come in and tell me everything’s going to be ok, everything’s going to work out. My dad doesn’t even know half of this. I don’t trust anyone except my mum and a few friends. I can’t really engage in social activity, I talk quickly and quietly and people often ask me to repeat myself. I often write or speak in sporadic and irrational word structures or paragraphs, often jumping from one topic to another in a matter of words. This is what it’s like in my mind. I do not like being the centre of attention anymore. I want to be left alone.

I just thought I would mention that I am a boy. A straight, white, 14 y/o boy. This stuff can happen to literally anyone.

[samosasandchutney]

okay, so let me try and give you some information on how lacking the Caribbean is in free-thinking and addressing mental health.  Some background info first, I am a petite Indian-Hindu girl, stereotypically nerdy, antisocial and awkward af around new people, with the glasses, had the braces and am always in a book and always dressing in oversized tees and jeans. So, people generally place me in the stereotyped category of “nerdy, demure, innocent Indian girl”.  With that said, I am an Indian girl who lives in a predominantly black country and the Indian community, as small as it is, is extremely extreeemely like, (woh boy) so socialist, even divided so much so that there’s a group of what we call Sindhis (people that came directly from India in more recent times) and the Guyanese community (descendants of the indentured Indians between the years of, roughly, 1833-1920). Even though I technically fall in the second grouping, I never really belong there because of the ‘nerdy, demure, innocent, indian girl’ stereotype as well as the fact that I’m not “Guyanese” enough.  So being isolated from your own community and then not finding any way to connect with the people around you, it’s tiring.  Facing this and my depression, chronic panic disorder and developing ocd, life gets trying.  So these mental illnesses are kind of crippling, especially since they’re not being treated properly. 

The first person I did go to try and get some sort of help was this priest that was recommended to my mother.  At the time I was thirteen and my mom believed my ‘acting out’ was because my father had died three years prior (I was suffering from panic attacks but she assumed it was ‘attitude’ because my panic attacks included moments of anger, frustration and crying).  On the first visit the priest started to criticize me for being Hindu and told me that my lack of belief in God is what is causing these problems.  Not only that but then he started to guilt trip me about how my mother, a now single mother, cannot afford to have her daughter ‘act out’ and ‘ruin’ any chances of her advancing in her life. which like.  .. what??  The second person I went to was an Indo-Trini Christian. School was a rather stressful time for me at this moment because during my two years in sixth form I was so crippled by my mental illness that it took a terrible toll on my physical health and I was also suffering from a severe case of costochondritis.  I was trying to explain to this lady that at home I was suffering from some situations that was affecting my depression and anxiety.  All she kept focusing on was school. Like she was telling me, “oh you have to get out of bed, you have to go to school, do your best,” Like it was all my personal decision to miss school. (> > really? really?)  Then she started talking about going to school overseas and I immediately was sent into panic, because I had mentioned literally a session prior stating how money is a large source of my anxiety.  I immediately just walked out. 

Third person I went to, was a ‘family friend’, so she had previous information on my family dynamics etc. So when i tried to explain that there were problems at home that I need help with either ignoring or dealing with, she also made me focus on school and I’m like ??? School is like, a secondary source of anxiety - that’s kind of normal, what I’m dealing with at home, is more a concern atm.   She then had me try and write out a list as to what I want in life and I’m just like ???? Did what she told me to and when I went in with my list she immediately started telling me that I am a ‘dreamer’. Apparently, my wanting the basic needs of my own home, to have a stable job and to end up living in Canada was too far stretched and I’m just like :|  Why? Then she started to try and guilt me into ‘understanding’ that I’d be placing a financial pressure on my family and ‘how can I just up and leave my family’. . . like ???  How. IS. THIS. SUPPOSED. TO. HELP??? Fourth person I went to, was some, white woman who adopted Hindu practices into her life ( :| really?)  Her first couple of sessions were that of ‘meditative’ purposes, which, cool okay. Imma hold these rocks and just, breathe. I can somewhat understand that this helps with my panic attacks etc (like, I would have liked to have gone through some sort of descriptive, introductory walkthrough but eh.) When it finally comes to a point where we talk about the situation I am in. I say  “I’m suffering from depression and anxiety and I need help trying to mediate my way through it.”  This woman. She laughs. Like “oh, you poor child” laugh. And asks “why would you think that?”  My brain instantly clicks off and I’m like “Because. . .I don’t want to live anymore? I get panic attacks on a daily basis? I can’t get up and face the day?” Like take your pic, I genuinely have more. She then proceeds to laugh again and tells me I must ‘face reality.’ That I have to ‘wake up and realise life is constantly going on and that I can never change that.’  I’ve never been back to that lady. 

The fifth person wasn’t actually someone I attended professionally.  On the day of a midterm, I got a terrible panic attack and could barely move. My friends had to half-carry me to the on-campus clinic. I waited for about 20 minutes before I was finally ‘allowed’ to see the doctor and was promptly giving a side eye and a stupse (kissing of teeth). Apparently I needed to stop ‘playing around’ and ‘making excuses’ and ‘just go do the exam’.  It gets even worse.  Apparently she’s tired of ‘people always making excuses about missing exams, if you’re stupid you should just not be in uwi’.  And she proceeded to rant and shout at me for about 20 minutes. While. I. Am. In. The. Middle. Of. A. Panic. Attack.  . ..  Like.  In Barbados and the extended Caribbean.  Mental illness is NOT a thing.  It’s always pushed to the back burner. And what happens if you try and gain some sort of help you’re stereotyped.  Given my stories, you can tell that being an Indian -school was a priority over getting help. As the daughter of a single-mother, I needed to care for her needs over mine.  And as a female, I must put ideas of ‘fantasy’ out of my head and ‘face reality’.  And as an Indian stereotype of ‘demure, innocent, nerd’ people feel that they can say whatever they want to me because Indian stereotypes state that I must ‘allow’ them to do whatever.  And this is all ONE person’s story. Imagine this situation, happening to the thousands of children within the Caribbean. Males. Females. All of different races. Faced with pretty much only TWO options:  1.  If the parents and/or the children themselves actually have some understanding of mental illness and are suffering from it. The person then faces the options of either pushing the situation under the rug because it’s socially debilitating or the person is shoved in a mental hospital which leads to them to go into a literally senile state or they’re so drugged up they don’t know how to function like a normal person.  2. the parents don’t know anything about mental illness and therefore cannot give the child the support and help the child needs. The child is then left in this constantly traumatic situation and some cannot even make it out of their family’s care / leave their Caribbean home because A. finances and B. the stigma of leaving the country.  So basically, for a place that always tries to claim that there is a constant advancing within their community.  They are not advancing in which really matters, the people and their health. 

[genesischi]

Why Does The World Hate Autism - a response to three news stories from 17th Feb 2017

Soo... when this news first came out a week ago I was too angry and distressed to write much about it.

I wrote a short explanatory rant on over this study on Facebook (partly to reeducate my family since a while ago my cousin Went Blue For Autism and I had to explain why not to do that)

*Okay, I am horrified "a debilitating disorder" is a fearmongering phrase that isn't, or at least, doesn't have to be remotely true. AND THIS STUDY IS SUPPORTED BY AUTISM SPEAKS - DO NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS SH*T!!!!

(For those who don't know, Autism Speaks is the hate organisation that parades as a charity, it seeks to "cure" autism through such methods as forcible drinking of bleach, please never give money to the blue puzzle piece who would rather kill autistic people because we're oh-so-hard to understand, a truly unsolvable puzzle! {hence their logo} which isn't remotely true, yet again)

Rant over.

…

So, now I've had the chance to calm down a little and not cry when I look at the things that I learned about all on the same day.

Okay, as an autistic person I get it, I've seen the way anti-vaccers and various other haters fear their kids being autistic. I've seen those videos of children being forced to drink bleach cos it will “cure” them.

I've reached the point of numbness about it.

So if a study calls my way of thinking “debilitating”, and says that it can now be identified before birth, fine, I know what this means. Call up the pro-choice brigade cos abortion rates are gonna skyrocket.

Now, I'm an avid pro-choicer, I think the right to decide what happens to you based on your own emotions/principles/circumstance/etc rather than preset laws is one of the most important human rights there is. But it's going to be a load of uneducated and fearful people deliberately killing off autism.

Part of me is okay with this, autism can suck, and the way society views it is horrible, so in a way I'm happy with the fact that less people will have to suffer. But the part that screams “they're targeting us” is naturally horrified, because the other way of thinking about it is that people are so afraid of something they don't understand that they're ready to kill it before it even exists.

Trump claims autism is on the rise and blames various things that makes no sense as usual. I'm too tired to care anymore. I left a protest early on Monday because I was bored of the walking around and rallies, the weather was awful and I just really didn't want to be there. But if he's gonna start targeting autistic people, this is gonna get bad fast. Because other groups he's targeting can fight back.

Autism is a spectrum as we all hopefully know, and not everyone on it will be able to defend themselves from whatever the future may hold. I am extremely privileged to be what is still sometimes diagnosed as “high-functioning” though the functioning labels have been decided outdated and ableist as fuck, I know that I am capable of many things that others aren't in terms of what I can do for myself day-to-day. Hell, even the well known issues of social communication are something I'm much better at then most, as much as I complain about it.

But yeah, back to my point. If autism gets the blame for something from the esteemed POTUS, it's gonna get nasty. Not that it already isn't, what with the other thing I saw on the same day that distressed me so much – a sixteen year old was beaten to the ground and her attacker only let up at the comment “I think she's dead.” We all know the cliché of a mother's love that our mum would know us regardless what happened. Her own mother didn't recognise her, and I get why.

I wouldn't want to recognise that it could be anyone I love that that had happened too either.

If I had written this a week ago it would have been angry and deeply emotional. As it is now I can read it myself as being tired and defeated. I don't want to be pessimistic, fatalist or even realist about this, I know that I catastrophise and it's something I'm working on. But in this situation I genuinely don't know what to do. I don't see any way of this getting better

Probably a better vent for my emotion at the time was a parody poem I wrote of Brave New Voices poet Ash's “An Open Letter To Cis People” 

It's still a work in progress but it's an important part of this tired response to hate I suppose:

An Open Letter To Allistics

Neurotypicals and Divergents!

Someone once mentioned a door

A door opening out, extroversion

A door opening in, introversion

A door that open both ways, indecision

Anxiety? It's a revolving door

Door locked and no-one has the key, depression

Suicidal? That door is really a bottomless pit

Autism: Noun, a mental condition from early childhood, renowned for its affect on social interaction

Social interaction: Noun, communication between two or more people, identified by written, spoken, or body language used to convey a message

Social interaction is the task of deciphering all the muscles of the human body's possible symbolism all whilst having to translate someone speaking in your third language

Language: A body of words and systems aiding humans in understanding one another

Understanding: Simply, something you don't try to do.

To you our struggle is a nuisance you don't try to aid, you have no consideration for how hard it is to paint a picture when the subject keeps moving

And you wonder why I cry when you ask questions too quickly that I just say “I don't know” - because maybe I would if you gave me time to figure out what the fuck it is you wanted!

Well I have some news for you allistics,

You aren't the only people who exist!

I know, you just had a heart palpitation, you're fluttering around like you always tell me not to do

But now that you're perfectly still and orderly again you must be wondering how this is possible

Fear not allistics

I'll be your Allying Aspie,

Your Doting Divergent

Your Advocate with Anxiety

Your Depressed Declaimer

Your Stimming Spokesperson

And your Wriggling Representative!

So hear me allistics all

I, your messenger of ACD shall guide you through our troublesome talks

The world isn't black and white and it never was

It was always a rainbow of hues

Give yourself a spectrum like Dulux

A colour chart to include everyone

Regardless of: Gender, race, ability, physicality, weight, beauty, ethnicity, background, nationality, class, mental health, physical health, education, verbal skills, stimming propensity, special interests, hobbies, “productivity in society”, and how many friends you have!

But on that colour chart one shade should be missing

A dark shade of Navy called Puzzle Piece Blue,

Autism Speaks is a network of hate aiming to destroy us

They seek to find us at birth and neutralise

And when they find us grown up it's cures and bleach and drugs

Vaccine's don't cause autism!

And they won't cure it either.

You can't cure a mindset as if by magic

You can only teach and train it

Let us learn away our ignorance

Like anyone else with a prejudice it can be remedied with education

Though for us our ignorance stems not from our own hate but yours

You don't teach us to speak or act like you, just yell until we do

But how can I get back on the horse if you've not taught me how to hold the reins?

Allistics, think of our brains as computers, we're electricity and coding and we're amazing at what we do

You are PC but we are all Macs

We have a specific and finite purpose,

Not for the faint heart or for general use

But those who want us adore us

Treat us with the care we deserve

Adapt to our programming

Instead of changing our core to fit theirs

We all know that without fences and walls we wouldn't need Gates and Windows

But where would we Macs be if it weren't always raining?

[fillingthescrapbook]

On Anxiety, Depression, and Friendships

It’s nearing a year now since I dropped off the face of the earth. Obviously, I’m still alive. And obviously I didn’t completely fall off. I’m still here. On Tumblr. And on Discord. And that’s pretty much the extent of my reach of my social circle.

A little background: I’ve been having anxiety attacks for a few years now. It’s a thing I was never really open about except for a handful of friends. When it got worse, I told a couple of my bosses. Which, of course, meant almost everyone I worked with suddenly knew about it. I tried to seek counsel, but the counselor told me I didn’t have a problem. That I just needed a life coach. And it just so happened his wife was one.

I didn’t go back to that counselor.

I tried to book an appointment with a mental health institution with a friend’s help. She was able to schedule me for an assessment but I was supposed to call a week in advance to confirm that I was going to show up, and that without said confirmation I cannot just walk in. One week before my appointment, I called. No one answered. I tried calling for a few days--until my appointment day arrived and left.

My next option was consulting with a psychiatrist near where I work. On our initial meeting, he told me I was suffering from general anxiety disorder and that I may have depression. I said I already knew I had anxiety, but he had to be wrong about depression. I wasn’t depressed. Ha. But instead of talking me through what I was feeling, the psychiatrist just prescribed me medicine. And that I should come back a month later. I said I didn’t want to take meds immediately. He told me to try changing my lifestyle by making sure I sleep for eight hours a day, by eating healthily, and by doing exercise daily. And then to see him again a month later.

That consultation cost me 3,000 pesos. For a month, I lived my healthiest lifestyle. I went back. I told him that I was feeling less anxious, but I still had feelings of inadequacy, and that I keep feeling guilty about thing I had no control over. He, once again, told me that I should take the meds he prescribed to me a month ago. And that I shouldn’t come back until I do.

The second consultation was 2,500 pesos. It lasted less than 10 minutes.

I didn’t come back.

My next plan of attack was to find an actual therapist that was accessible to me logistically and financially. And wasn’t religion-based. But before I could find one, the pandemic hit. The lockdowns began.

Suffice to say: my anxiety came back worse than ever and I cut off communication with everyone. I mostly stayed in my room and only ventured out for lunches and dinners. I was crying a lot. And I wasn’t able to focus on anything. I tried watching stuff online, but all I could handle were five minute videos--and even those couldn’t hold my attention. I tried to read books, but what used to take me an afternoon was taking me four to six days to finish. One book took me two weeks.

And suddenly it was two months later. And I’ve accomplished nothing. And I haven’t talked to anyone. I haven’t touched my phone. I haven’t opened my two e-mail accounts. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and I didn’t know how to talk.

That’s when I reinstalled discord. I was supporting a few creators on Patreon, and reinstalling discord connected me to a couple of servers where I met new people. By talking to new people, I felt stable enough to reconnect with one friend. And I did.

Unfortunately, talking to her made me feel like a bad person. Like I was taking time away from her. As if my problems were bigger than hers. And although she was trying to help me, it was coming off as her wanting to pass me off to someone else. Because she doesn’t want to deal with my problems anymore.

That was July of 2020. That was one of my lowest points. I spent a week just wanting to disappear. For good.

Instead, I started cleaning my room. Because that’s what I’m good at apparently. Avoiding things by doing something else.

And do you know what I discovered while cleaning my room? Old writings. Old letters. Works I had to submit for school. And then came the realization:

My anxiety didn’t begin a few years ago. It started when I was in grade school. And the phase I dubbed my “emo phase” wasn’t just me being an emotional teenager. Knowing what I know now about mental health: I was pretty fucking depressed. It was just that I was so good at being happy in front of other people, no one noticed that I was not okay.

I didn’t notice I wasn’t okay.

This felt like a breakthrough. It allowed me to reach out again. To realize that my friend wanting me to seek help was because she knew she wasn’t equipped to help me, not because she didn’t want to deal with me anymore.

I met with a second friend face to face afterwards. We talked. Socially-distanced and safe. I started opening messages on my cellphone.

It took me three more months, but I was starting to feel okay enough to reach out to more friends again.

And then January.

One of my major anxiety triggers is social media. Facebook, specifically. Unfortunately, my work required that I do not delete my Facebook because some of my bosses only reach out through Messenger.

My friend helped me turn off my message notifications so I can deal with messages without feeling pressured to answer them immediately. So I could have a semblance of control. But an app update apparently turned it back on. Because I kept getting Messenger notifications again.

On the plus side, it wasn’t showing what the messages were. So I could just swipe them left to delete them from the notifications. I just wasn’t ready to reach out to my co-workers yet. I wasn’t there yet.

But a few friends who I haven’t reached out to yet suddenly decided that they were tired of waiting. They had contact with my younger sister and told her that one of them was coming over. I said I didn’t want them to come.

They came.

And they accused me of being mad at them because I wasn’t reaching out. Because, according to them, I was going online on Facebook but wasn’t responding to their messages. And when I told them that I wasn’t logging on to Facebook or Messenger, they didn’t believe me. Because according to their app, I was online.

No amount of explaining convinced them that I wasn’t lying. And I... I was just tired. And sad all over again. Because I feel like I have never given them a reason to think I would ever lie to them. And yet, here we are.

Then that brought me back to a message another friend sent over text. One I hadn’t had the courage to reply to yet. About how, if I was mad at them, I should tell them and not just ignore their text messages.

And then another message where a different friend said that he thought I was mad at him about something and that’s why I went off the grid. This is after he talked to a co-worker who I have also not reached out to, and another friend who told him I was going through something.

I just... I don’t understand. Am I required to placate everyone and assure them that they’re not the reason why I’m having anxiety attacks and depressive episodes? Because I’m not going to do that. I know it’s my own fault that they don’t know what’s going on with me--but why are they assuming that my problem is about them?

Why do I have to explain myself when I didn’t do anything against them?

Why do I have to defend my integrity when I’m already telling the truth?

And why is it so fucking difficult to find help for anxiety and depression in the Philippines? Why does everything have to be tied to Christianity here? Why do I have to accept their version of God to be “healed?”

Why am I still alive?