#i don't know if i should call it mental health struggles when all the paranoia and hallucinations come from somewhere else

[angeart]

... I would like to know about your OCs... pretty please?

-🎀

ribbon anon my dearest!! you wanna hear about them? 🥺🥰

the drawn characters are rei hayden and raven hayden, and they're meant to be twins. "meant to be" because... well, let's backtrack a little.

the story on raven's side starts on one fated new years eve. he's spending it alone, unhappy, contemplating his life. he makes an unwise and impulsive wish, yearning for something different.

this wish yoinks him and transports him to a very scary place <3 but dw! there's a guide person! and he recognises raven (which is odd :3c) and keeps saying this is a place for lost souls.

but he also says raven isn't lost.

the place kind of turns into a nightmare, the world shifting and reshaping around raven, and– there's a maze, and rising water, and lots of mirrors, except every single of his reflections looks different and acts on their own. (and not in a good way. they look kind of desperate.)

i'm trying to be concise here, so let me just say he gets out of this mid-world (by drowning while staring at one of his reflections that looks so so sad <3) and wakes up... in a bed. in an unfamiliar apartment. with a person with his face telling him to hurry up and get ready for school.

so! huh. that's weird.

raven's never had a brother, least of all a twin, but here rei is, flesh and blood, looking at raven in a way only an annoyed family member can.

here's some fun bits about the story:

raven is considered to have an irregular amnesia where he occasionally forgets everything about his life. this alludes to this not being the first time something odd has happened to some raven in this world. it's also not medically accurate, because, spoiler alert, it's not amnesia. and our raven remembers his life, and this wasn't it, thank you very much.

rei is the irresponsible brother. the troublemaker. the lone wolf. he also gets into fights and has enemies. he tries to reaaaally sell that he doesn't care.

raven kind of sees through that lie, gradually at first, then more steeply.

raven has a digital watch that stopped working the moment he was spirited away. which is 8 seconds before midnight on new years eve. it's his only possession that's carried over.

the new years eve hasn't happened here yet. it's before christmas.

you'd think this world is Nice and Safe and Normal, besides all that, but wrong! raven still sometimes catches his mirror reflection moving of its own accord, and he hears voices behind his back, and feels phantom touches that sometimes feel a bit too real. let's not forget about the nightmares.

he's exhausted and confused and scared and it's getting worse.

basically, he doesn't belong in this reality. these are the ways in which this reality is rejecting him, absolutely messing with his perception <3

there's a lot more going on here, about why he's here, and what happened before, and what the voices are actually telling him, etc.

there are other characters too! (but i tend to draw mostly just raven kjxbnk) the other characters include:

evia, a bullied girl with a horrible home life who just wants to escape it all, and gets tangled in with rei thinking he might be her ticket out (seeking out protection, even for the price of being used)

nick, a gang leader who doesn't shy away from violence, thinking rei needs to pay for some things he did in the past and learn his lesson (his methods are questionable; he's ready to hurt and destroy anything in rei's vicinity to prove his point and bring rei down to his knees)

and kye, nick's friend, who's genuinely only trying to do a good thing, but agrees with nick that rei needs to be stopped. he tries to take people away from rei safely, in order to protect them from the blast zone of this mess, convinced rei doesn't really care about them anyway.

here's a 2022 art of raven as a bonus <3

[skys-archive]

TW TALK ABOUT PSYCHOSIS AND PARANOIA

Guys I can tell this is gonna be bad

I'm out of my antipsychotics and people are testing me so hard. This is the worst time I'm going to go psychotic.

My boyfriend of a year and a half is at basic training right now for the army. I haven't talked to him in about a month because of this. We weren't able to see each other for a while beforehand for reasons that don't matter related to this post, but a few days before he left he showed up at my house with a few of my things and basically was just there to reassure me that he was safe and okay and would be leaving that Monday for basic.

Today my best friend called me and asked me if he was engaged. I said no, she asked if I was sure. She sent me a TikTok. It was one of those "you may have dated him but I get his last name" posts with a picture of my boyfriend(??) and her together and her hand with a ring. Part of the thing is, this was posted in May. When we were still very much seeing each other very often.

I'm very, very confused. He's not the kind of person to not tell me things, we've been together and serious for a long time and I genuinely love him more than I've ever loved anyone before. It somehow feels so so fake. Hes never dated her as far as i know i didnt think he even really liked her. If it is fake, a thought I have is that, his parents are very very homophobic. They've constantly pressured him into being straight and marrying a woman. I feel in my heart that there's some explanation that makes sense. But I don't know if that's real instinct or if that's my delusions getting the best of me.

If it's a thing for his parents, why would he never tell me? If he didn’t love me, why would he keep seeing me? It's not like it was for sex, I'm asexual.

I feel like there's an explanation. But I can't get one right now. He's at basic, I can't talk to him, i wasn't able to see him much prior so I never found out the address of where he is so I can't send him a letter. I have to wait several weeks.

And on top of this, I'm finding out that other people knew. Other people knew this and didn't tell me. It's starting to make me think people are out against me. It's making me think people are trying to hurt me as much as possible.

I've struggled with paranoia and psychosis for years. With my boyfriend, I've always had the issue of other people. I will admit, before I knew him he really wasn't a great person. He did a lot of things he shouldn't have. Before I met him he started to get better. He is truly a great man now, and I'm really proud of how far he's come and how much he's grown. But anyway, a lot of people knew him before. A lot of people don't like him. The whole time I've dated him, I've had people telling me he'll be bad for me. That he's grooming me, he only wants me for sex, he's bad for my mental health, etc when all I've ever seen is the complete opposite. He never pressured me into anything sexual, I've been happier with him than any other time in my life. And quite frankly about the grooming just, no??? He's not???

But im psychotic. I have paranoia. I have delusions. On multiple occasions all of these things people say to me have gotten to my head. I've gotten thrown into episodes convinced he's playing this long sadistic game to hurt me as much as he possibly can. Nearly every time there's a misunderstanding, it starts to make me panic. I start worrying that people are right. And that if they are right they'll never have sympathy because "i should have seen the signs". Every time, he and my best friend have helped me pull out of it. To recognize that I know it's not true, I have proof it's not true. They're patient and loving and caring and do everything to help me be okay when I have psychotic episodes.

But right now I don't have that. I can't talk to him. I can't talk through what I'm feeling and thinking and what's scaring me. I can't have him help me explain everything. And I can't with my best friend either. Because we don't fully know. We don't know what's going on we don't know if it's true we don't know why thus happened. So she can't sit there with her logic as she always does. She can't say that she's seen me be happier and watch how great he is for me because all of this is so out of the blue that we don't know. We don't know what's going on.

And to top it all off im not on my risperidone right now because I had an issue with refilling my medication and US pharmaceutical industry is shit. So I have all of these things eating away inside my head and I don't know what to believe and I'm not even on the medication that helps me deal with it.

I don't know who to believe I don't know what to believe. How can I believe my instincts that there's more to this than I'm seeing if my brain is full of delusions that make me believe myself against all facts. I'm once again convinced that this was a game. That he decided to play the long game for two years and being fake and do everything to love me and treat me wonderfully and just be perfect only to rip it all away from me when it would hurt the most. And I know logically this can't be true can it this can't be real. He's never like this. Who plays the long game just for their own sadistic tendencies BUT PEOPLE DO IT. People are sadistic people like to see others hurt.

I don't know. I don't know what to do. I have several weeks until I can figure out the truth. Several agonizing weeks of letting delusions and paranoia flood my head until I'm back in that awful spot I was all over again.

I'm so scared. I can't fix it this time. I can't pull myself out of the psychosis. I don't want to go back.

I don't know what to do.

[spoiledleaff]

Why did you disappear for so long?? I feel like you abandoned your blog and friends and stuff for a bit lol Are you okay??

sure. let's talk about this :) i've had a lot of asks lately asking if i was okay during my hiatus//if i'm okay now that i'm trying to make an effort to come back, and, the short answer is no. i'm not.

i was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (bpd).

cw :: massive vent + personal, medical talk regarding my mental health and thought process. honestly just a lot of oversharing, because i don't have an outlet for this irl, haha! for all intents + purposes, everything below this line is a trauma-dump. please take care of yourself.

for unnecessary context, haha! i went on a hiatus for about half a year, abandoned this blog, destroyed many old wips and interactions i had with the ghost fandom + distanced myself from the friends i've made on this site through ao3 and/or tumblr with no context or goodbyes. my mental health was, and continues to be, in shambles.

i had a homelessness scare + a series of bad physical health scares that almost led me to a brain cancer diagnosis, so... that was fun, haha. but this is probably the main thing.

borderline personality disorder (bpd) is a mental health condition that mainly affects people through extreme mood swings, unstable relationships, trouble controlling their emotions, + often times self-destructive behavior. one of the main symptoms that most people with bpd suffer is fear/perception of abandonment + a constant feeling of emptiness. in addition to this, i have a deeply ingrained socially anxious mindset + i am neurodivergent.

it runs in my family. and, apparently, its running its course through me as well, haha.

i am exhausted. i find myself stuck in an endless cycle, especially on this site, where i am so incredibly excited to interact with the people i've been fortunately enough to find on this site through my work but i distance myself almost immediately when i worry that i start to get too close to someone.

i am so afraid of being abandoned/left behind, that i would rather abandon someone else and disappear.

as a side effect of my bpd, i mainly struggle with paranoia, disassociation, a short temper, feelings of emptiness + an unreliable self-image.

this, unfortunately, affects my relationships here a lot.

i hate my work. i hate myself. sometimes i even hate my friends and then that always spirals into hating their friends, even if it's people who i know are lovely or i have never even fucking met before. i hate this site + ao3, i hate my fandoms, i hate this blog, and i sometimes find myself hating everyone and everything i've ever known and seen. it's a constant cycle of hatred followed by an emptiness that my work will never be good enough, my friendships will never be good enough, my stories will never be good enough, and i will never be good enough. i rarely find joy in these things anymore.

i find myself so desperate + anxious for a little bit of positive social interaction that i overthink every possible scenario, panic, and then vaguely cut ties before i think the other person will.

i cannot begin to describe to you the constant debate i have with myself about whether or not i should delete this blog, permanently remove everything and anything i've ever written on ao3, before inevitably trying to start anew with maybe another penname, another account.

but i've always liked routine. calling myself some variation of 'leaff' on the internet is a part of that. i don't know what else to call myself—people would know it's me.

i'd really like that. i'd fucking hate it too.

so, i've distanced myself from the fandoms + from the people who interact with my content. i do the bare minimum with friends, and sometimes not even that. i ghost people always, worry about what to say next to the point that i've genuinely convinced myself that i've responded, i do the bare minimum, wash, rinse, repeat.

i post my shit, giggle about this and debate about that, disappear for a bit, before inevitably coming back.

i do enjoy the work that i do, sometimes i'm even proud of it. but it's such an inconsistent whirlwind in my mind that i find myself hating it all just as a default.

if you're someone who has had the misfortune of interacting with me, and you wonder if i hate you. i don't.

i promise. not like that, at least.

i'm not going to therapy for this; i can't afford it. i'm trying to find a way to possibly be medicated for this, but i don't have the greatest insurance. i'm trying to train myself into a nicer, more positive mindset; it's hard.

but i'm trying. i'm still very uneducated about this. i'm still coming to terms with the fact that i might be aroace. i think it's why my writing is getting worse, or, at least, why i've been so distraught and unhappy with it. i think this might tie into why i'm so afraid to post anything other than porn; i think it might also be why i'm starting to hate writing it.

i think i'm still coming to terms with the fact that i'm simply unhappy with life, haha.

i didn't mean for this to become such a huge ramble — i think that's why i'm answering this at such an unpopular//late time, haha! — but i've had a surprising amount of asks in my inbox asking about me.

it's weird. i'm not really used to that. i think that's part of the reason why it took me so long.

regardless, this is why i disappeared. this is why i've been distant, this is why i ghosted you, and this is what will probably happen again in the near future. at least it's consistent, i guess.

thank you for your concern. if you made it this far, damn. i wish i had your attention span sometimes, haha. also i'm sorry for never answering your messages or for never reaching out in the first place. it's very easy to convince myself that you don't want me to, that i might be a trophy friend, that what we had was never real.

i'm sorry that after all this time this is how you might be hearing about it.

thank you for being patient with me.

i'm sorry you have to be so patient to begin with.

i think that's all i have to say :) it's a new road for me, and it's one that i don't want to travel. but i have to. i think it might help me in the long run if i do this all now.

so... yeah! :) haha, a bit of leafy lore, if you will. just, maybe not the fun kind, haha!

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Tw for possible emotional abuse, as well as relationship insecurity. More tws for heavy self harm mentions, possible manipulation, paranoia, and suicide mentions/suicide threats

I am going to call one of my partners V and the other J

Hello! I am having issues with my partners (I am polyamorous, and have two partners).. My parental units, therapist, the school we go to and a couple other people have said that they are abusive. I don‘t know how to feel about any of this, if I’m being honest.

On one hand, it’s just like any other chore you have to do, I guess. I just have to get up, sit through first period, go to second period, clean V’s cuts for him or check to make sure he hasn’t cut, try to talk to J and get ignored or they get angry, go to third period, let J’s friend call me annoying for feeling things/being worried/caring about my friends/caring about my partners/my nuerodivergency/my physical disability, can’t stand up for myself or J will get mad, go to fourth period, go to lunch, go back to forth period (lunch is in the middle of class), go to fifth period, J gets onto me for not dressing right/seeming upset/being nuerodivergent/being physically disabled/dissociating/”not doing my work” even though I am a straight A student and he has Ds and Cs/my English teacher recommending me for AP English, can’t defend myself or he’ll kill himself, go to sixth period, go to seventh period, say my goodbyes and catch my bus to go home.

Then, after school, if I don’t sit on calls for the rest of the day with my partners, they’ll kill themselves (they’ve tried to simply due to me not contacting them for a day, and once when I didn’t call them for two days V and J literally said I wasn’t allowed to have a life outside of them)

I’m so tired, and I want to still be with them but it’s so hard and when it’s good it’s so good but it’s mostly not..

Hey anon,

I'm so sorry you're going through all of that. It's a lot!

Based on what you've said, it is clear to me that you're in an abusive situation. Both of your partners are using emotional manipulation in order to control you. They are essentially holding you hostage by threatening to harm themselves.

You are not responsible for anyone but yourself. If your partners self harm, it's not because of you. They are trying to convince you that if you leave them and don't do what they want, you will be responsible for their self harm and/or suicide. That is abusive.

A relationship should not feel like a chore. In a healthy relationship, your voice is heard, you're allowed to have a life outside of the relationship, you're able to express your thoughts and opinions without being silenced, you're not told what to do, wear, eat, or who you can hang out with, you're not responsible for treating your partners' mental illness, you're able to defend yourself, you're not coerced into remaining in the relationship by threats of self harm and suicide.

While all relationships have their ups and downs and sometimes you do need to be there for your partners, you're never, ever responsible for what they choose to do in the end. I'm sure they are struggling, but you still have rights and you are not a bad person for taking care of yourself and your health. Again, you are absolutely not responsible if your partners self harm.

Here is info on types of abuse and some more resources. And some more.

It is difficult to stand up for yourself, to uphold boundaries, and to have heavy conversations, but these are all tenants of a healthy relationship. You deserve to treat yourself with the same respect and care that you would treat a friend. You need to take care of yourself which means putting your safety first, setting and maintaining boundaries, and maybe letting unhealthy bonds go.

Don't be afraid to reach out for help. No matter what, your safety and health are the most important thing.

Your worth doesn't depend on them. You're an amazing person all on your own. You're not a bad person for leaving them and you are not a bad person for recognizing that they're abusing you.

- Mod Misa

[immopengu]

a review of my writing last year

I'm just looking at stuff I attempted to write last year when I wasn't feeling all that good.

Honestly looking through last year's work, I was surprised at all the mistakes I made, grammatically and just logically. Things were all over the place. I was in a horrible head space and I'm still trying to come back from it. I remember how much of a struggle it was to write. I just wanted to sleep and I would dread the start of every workday.

So what I'm saying is that your mental health is really important and I know getting that paycheque is important cuz we gotta eat to live. But if you're stuck with really fucking toxic people, you gotta get the fuck out ASAP. You find a chance? Get the fuck out. It pays less? Go. Just go, because that extra cash isn't worth dealing with that psychological hit. It really really isn't.

Like I'm still trying to get out of that writing rut, and I'm writing a bit again but I'm looking at all these dead chapters and stories I have sitting there and I'm so angry that I had to fight this fucking MONSTER of a supervisor for so long, that it consumed all my energy that I couldn't even write and give people stories anymore. The workplace was toxic as fuck and having a high turnover rate in that one role, or any role where they had to support this one supervisor didn't seem to clue in the big boss that there was a huge fucking problem with this department.

The crying employees in the staircase, the paranoia, the distrust of everybody within the department, the lack of friendship between employees, the lack of trust, the lack of any HAPPINESS in the workplace should've clued in the people at the top that there were horrible problems within the department.

I gave a year of my fucking life to this shitty place because I was stubborn and wanted to fucking just DO MY JOB. And I did. And should I be proud of that? I dunno. I wish I had gotten out sooner. I'm in a much much MUCH better place now. But that kinda mental toll on you is really not worth it.

If anybody out there is in an abusive work environment, just get out. I know you're thinking "It'll get better", "this is giving up", "I'm a failure" or "I'm not gonna be forced out" or any other excuse to stay. Just go. That's time you can't get back and it's all this time they used to beat you down. Like yes you can go to war, but war takes a toll on you.

I know I'm strong. I know I can do it. I was happy to fucking push back because I wasn't going to let this monster think nobody would call her out on her shit. But it didn't mean that the fight didn't take a lot out of me.

And I recognize some people just can't go. I know. Money. We need it to survive. But do it first chance you get. Don't stick it out like me to prove something. Don't give people that don't deserve your time, that time.

[bpdsafespace]

Hi so I've spent a long time researching and looking up things about bpd, and I'm now positive I have it(though I'm the quiet type). The thing is I feel like I really need a diagnosis to be sure, and frankly, I need help. However anytime I've suggested to my parents that I might have some kind of mental illness they've brushed it off completely. My mum would always say how don't I know other people feel that too. I know they don't though. A list of bpd symptom is a perfect description of me. 1/?

But I don’t know how to convince her. I can’t tell her about wanting to die or anything like that I just can’t. I’m too scared. And anyway she thinks self injury is for attention and told me to “get over” my sensory overloads because I’d have to in the real world. She’d just get angry if I told her how I feel. So I have no idea what to do. I’m 18 so I could go to someone myself but I only go out on my own to get to college, and other time they’re with me or have to know where I’m going.And they see all my phone calls etc. One time I got a call from a counselling service that came to my college and recommended me therapy after I did a questionable. They went absolute ballistic and said no way to therapy, even when I lied and said it would just be breathing exercises for stress. She insisted that her if I was too weak to handle college even though she did uni with a kid and on her own then I should just quit and give up like the useless person I am. So I’m stuck. I just don’t know what to do. I need help more than ever. Everything is getting worse.The anxiety, paranoia, the disassociation, the impulses that I can only barely keep myself from acting on due to the anxiety, and most of all the depression. I keep feeling empty. But then I also feel unimaginably sad. I spent 3 hours straight crying yesterday because my boyfriend said that we won’t work out. I know he doesn’t mean it he’s got the worst depression ever and had just been explaining to me. That he has huge trust issues and that’s why he said that. Plus he deal with so much (dying lil brother, Ill gran, horrible older brother, just come out as trans) he just doesn’t want me to be near it. It’s him caring. But my heart still says he hates me . Yet I can’t tell him. I can’t tell anyone, how I feel. It’s tearing me apart all these feelings . I’ve felt like this for as long as I can remember. But now it’s like everything has been amplified.I’m barely copying with college too. My grade have slipped from all distinctions to merits and I got a resubmit for the first time the other day. This should be the best time in my life, everything is so much better than it used to be, but I just feel terrible. And I’m hurting everyone I’m around I know it. I’m chaotic and I’m a disappointment and they would all be better with out me, but I can’t bare to think about having them leave me. Which leaves only suicide, but that’s selfish as well. I just feel like everything is falling apart and I have no ideas what to do. I’ve tried coping techniques from the internet and nothing helps. I need to talk to someone but I can’t bring myself to. I need help but I don’t know how to get it. And I’m constantly doubting I even have bpd because I don’t have a diagnosis and that just makes me feel worse and like I’m doing it for attention. Like anyone would want to feel like this. I spent so much time wanting to destroy myself. I beat and scratch myself because I can’t cut as my parents’d see. But it’s never enough. I just can’t cope. But then again I still have good days and then I feel great! And I doubt myself again. But then someone says one thing and I want to die again. I don’t know what to do I just want to feel better, normal. I don’t even know what I’m expecting you to say to all this, I just needed to tell someone. Someone who’d understand and who I wouldn’t have to talk to again and pretend it’s all okay. I don’t want people to know that I feel like this… but in the other hand I do so much I want them to understand! I’m just so confused about everything. D'you have any kind of advice? About anything I’ve mentioned? It’s okay if you don’t but if you do that’d be great! Sorry I vented so much, that wasn’t the intention at the start, I just wanted help with getting help, but I guess I got carried away… but thank you for listening, just knowing that makes me feel better.

i’m so sorry i took so long to answer this - it was a little overwhelming, to be honest. i wanted to be able to give you the best possible answer because i know how it feels to be struggling as much as you are and i wish i could make it better for you, but i realized that the best answer just doesn’t exist. i wish your parents understood, i really do. but i think that’s somewhat of a problem with the older generations - mental health was just not a priority when they were children and a lot of them weren’t raised to understand mental health issues. i read a really good article here about millennials (and i think it applies to everyone born after the 1990s as well) and though i totally don’t agree with the “we think we’re special” aspect (honestly who came up with that? because everyone i know has low self-esteem), everything else is kinda spot on and it made me really think about why our generation is so depressed compared to other generations and why other generations don’t understand why we’re so depressed when they “went through more than us.” it made me feel a little better about the fact that i’m sad even though i have no reason to be sad and i hope it can comfort you a little bit as well. because i think that can be the worst part sometimes, to be like. wow. i have no reason to be sad. people have it much worse than i do and i’m. still. sad! i’m sure it’s even worse with your mom throwing that stuff in your face. but just because you have no logical reason to be sad doesn’t mean that your feelings are invalid. can you tell your parents you have a study group a certain day of the week so you can see a counselor? i really want you to get the help you deserve.