#like. idk. it is mental health awareness month. I'm not in a position to actually DO anything to (for lack of a better word) Celebrate it

[musical-chick-13]

Oh, we are in DANGER territory, my dudes.

[cornistasiathecoblinking]

Dealing with some rejection dysphoria lately.

I started taking an antidepressant last month (after years of barely managing) and it's been helping me cope. I mean, I still feel like I have a black hole in my chest that just consumes everything positive around me. But, I mean, I have been coping better, at least. So that's a positive! My brain doesn't feel like it's full of static as much as it used to.

But it's... still very, very hard.

I try to keep a tight grasp on my feelings. I try to not project them onto others because I know exactly how that feels and the curse must end with me. No one else is responsible for me.

I have 30 years of unlearning to do. Two emotionally immature, unstable people with untreated PSTD who always projected the responsibility and management of their mental health onto me, their child.

And here I am, at 34, and just... still feeling like I'm always tiptoeing around buried landmines. Waiting for one misstep, letting my mask slip slightly, allowing myself to be distracted just enough once and say the wrong thing, or not reacting the right way and thus triggering an explosion of how I did "this" or "that" wrong. How I'm just terrible and ungrateful and how I'm rejecting them and their attempts at being "good people."

And I just freeze and can't breathe. I want desperately to tell them, "If you are so good then why are you treating me like this?!"

It's just... the lack of self-awareness and accountability that kills me. To see the correlation between how you treat people and how they eventually pull away because, hey, guess what Asshole! People actually don't want to hear about how much they suck day in and day out over every perceived slight!

Or maybe they are self-aware and just... don't care? Idk. All I ever heard was, "I can treat you this way because I earned it!" as if fighting in a war, gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Newsflash! It does not! Your Trauma doesn't give you free rein to treat everyone around you like garbage!

It's taken me years of untying these knots from my brain and I feel that I am "better" in a way, but I still have a specific trigger when the other party just... refuses to engage in any meaningful way. To let the conversation die. To ignore, talk over or change the subject on me in midsentence without any form of consideration for me or my time or my interest, or my feelings.

And I know that for the most part, it's not intentional! But... when I tell you "This specific thing you do hurts me" and you just... *breathes*

Believe me when I say that I am... painfully aware when I am not liked. I can see it in their faces when I look at them. I can hear it in their tone when they talk at me. I can see it in their writing when I am trying to make conversation and their body language tells me that they would rather be anywhere else but around me.

And then to blow me off like it's my problem (which, essentially, it is) only to act wounded when I eventually stop wanting to talk to you, to hang out with you, to allow myself to be subjected to that sort of open disregard of me.

...

I think my dad has gotten better at talking to me. He still has a LOT to work on, but he actually does try to communicate with me and have a conversation and not just let.... it die right there on the vine. But it's still hard.

I want to take my dad by the shoulders and tell him,

"Thank you for changing. Thank you for trying to be better. And I am trying, but I still can't find it in my heart to forgive you after the way you and Mom treated me; like I'm just used furniture that you don't know what to do with but can't throw out because one day you might find a use for it. Like I don't matter and never will matter. Like I've never been worth knowing."

I think that is essentially what my problem comes down to: I don't believe I am worth knowing.

Telling my spouse all of this was hard. "All my life I believed, to my very core, that I am difficult and unlovable. When you spend your life feeling this way it's so hard to unlearn it. I am trying though. Somedays are so much harder than others."

It still is hard. But it's a work in progress, right?

[sysmedsaresexist]

Maybe its bad on my part but im native, trans, bi, afab and disabled... Ill never get an actual diagnosis just because of one of those but all 5? No way and tbh... I dont think it'll do me any good other than give me another hurdle when it comes to getting gender affirming care or adopting or even getting treated like an adult. Me and my system are ok and i dont experience distress from my system enough to think i need psychological help.

Idk if i can handle some white ass cishet abled doctor walking up and saying i dont have it and gaslighting me.

I hope this dosent conceded cause thats not my intention but even though im anti-endo, i get their distrust in the medical system and why diagnosis is something many wont persue. 1 because many of them know the doctor will diagnosis them correctly(as having trauma or having something different) and 2 because american doctors are not a safe place like... Ever. If your not a cishet abled white man.

So, a lot to cover here.

I'm white, afab, trans, bi, with multiple partners. I was diagnosed at about 21, and I've been in and out of therapy ever since. I'm also Canadian. Getting diagnosed was the best thing to ever happen for me, and I have several friends with the same experience.

And several who had bad experiences.

My experience will not be everyone's.

I am not pushing for anyone to get diagnosed. Doing so is a personal choice, and a decision that should be made by you, and your therapist if you have one. There are many reasons someone might get diagnosed (access to resources and specific care, financial support, etc) and just as many reasons someone might not want to get diagnosed. You also don't need a diagnosis to get the help you need.

What I DO want to people to hear is: whatever decision you make, do it with the REAL facts.

If you're going to choose not to get diagnosed, don't do it based on bullshit you see or hear on the internet. I made a post several months ago about someone going around saying that a diagnosis will stop you from getting housing, a job, and being able to buy alcohol, of all things, as if you have to present your mental papers to the cashier.

None of those are true. Gender affirming care also can be still be given and received, with an added step of a psychiatric evaluation (which is mandatory in Canada anyways for everyone, regardless of mental health, so if you think about it, you're not really losing anything). You can still adopt and have a family. You can own a home and have a job.

If you take anything away from my blog, it should be this:

Know your rights, and know how to exercise them

There are assholes everywhere, I'm not denying that. There are people who will bend rules and laws and who will use personal information (like diagnoses) against you. I'm not blaming anyone who has had this happen to them, either, as if they should have preemptively known better. No, that's not it at all.

Being aware that it happens, though, know that you have rights-- you're protected by employment, privacy, and human rights laws (yes, even in America, I debunk more American myths than Canadian). You do not need to disclose for work, except for positions in the military, certain healthcare positions, and when working with vulnerable sectors, and even in those cases, not always, and it can't affect their decision to hire you. You don't need to disclose for housing. You don't need to tell anyone anything, and you shouldn't, unless you need reasonable accommodations, and once they have that information, it can't be used against you. Don't let them. Easier said than done, I know, I've let things slide myself that, looking back, I wish I hadn't. Sometimes it's just easier, even if it's not right.

Point is, when in doubt, question everything. Do your own research, find your own answers, look for sources, question facts you see that aren't cited.

When you make decisions for yourself, be certain you're making it for the right reasons, and with the right information.

[itsclydebitches]

Here's a quandary I've suddenly found myself in: where do you stand on writers deleting their own works, fanfiction or otherwise? I've had this happen to me on more than one occasion - I go to look for an old favorite and find it's since been deleted from whatever site I read it on.

On the one hand, I'm inclined to think that, "Sure. The author wrote it, it's their call. I don't own the work - I certainly didn't pay for it. It's their decision, even if it's disappointing."

But at the same time I can't help but consider the alternative - if I believe in death of the author (and I do), that an author's work fundamentally isn't solely theirs once it's been published, posted, etc., then it also seems wrong to have a work deleted. Stories aren't the sole property of their creator, after all.

But then I circle back. D'you think there are different obligations between authors and readers and the works being made in fandom space? I know if I had bought a book and the author decided they wanted it back, I would feel pretty comfortable telling them no, given I'd paid for it and whatnot. But that's a different world from fanfic and fandom space generally.

So. You're insightful Clyde, I'm curious as to what you'll have to say here (and to all y'all thinking about it, don't flame me. I haven't decided where I stand here yet - haven't heard a good nail-in-the-coffin argument for or against yet).

Val are you a mind reader now? I’ve been thinking about this exact conundrum the last few days!

(And yeah, as a general disclaimer: no flaming. Not allowed. Any asks of the sort will be deleted on sight and with great satisfaction.)

Honestly, I’m not sure there is a “nail-in-the-coffin argument” for this, just because—as you lay out—there are really good points for keeping works around and really good points for allowing authors to have control over their work, especially when fanworks have no payment/legal obligations attached. In mainstream entertainment, your stories reflect a collaborative effort (publisher, editor, cover artists, etc.) so even if it were possible to delete the physical books out of everyone’s home and library (and we're ignoring the censorship angle for the moment), that’s no longer solely the author’s call, even if they have done the lion’s share of the creative work. Though fanworks can also, obviously, be collaborative, they’re usually not collaborative in the same way (more “This fic idea came about from discord conversations, a couple tumblr posts, and that one headcanon on reddit”) and they certainly don’t have the same monetary, legal, and professional strings attached. I wrote this fic as a hobby in my free time. Don’t I have the right to delete it like I also have the right to tear apart the blankets I knit?

Well yes… but also no? I personally view fanworks as akin to gifts—the academic term for our communities is literally “gift economy”—so if we view it like that, suddenly that discomfort with getting rid of works is more pronounced. If I not only knit a blanket, but then gift it to a friend, it would indeed feel outside of my rights to randomly knock on their door one day and go, “I actually decided I hate that? Please give it back so I can tear it to shreds, thanks :)” That’s so rude! And any real friend would try to talk me out of it, explaining both why they love the blanket and, even if it’s not technically the best in terms of craftsmanship, it holds significant emotional value to them. Save it for that reason alone, at least. Fanworks carry that same meaning—“I don’t care if it’s full of typos, super cliché, and using some outdated, uncomfortable tropes. This story meant so much to me as a teenager and I’ll always love it”—but the difference in medium and relationships means it’s easier to ignore all that. I’m not going up to someone’s house and asking face-to-face to destroy something I gave them (which is awkward as hell. That alone deters us), I’m just pressing a button on my computer. I’m not asking this of a personal friend that is involved in my IRL experiences, I’m (mostly) doing this to online peers I know little, if anything, about. It’s easy to distance ourselves from both the impact of our creative work and the act of getting rid of it while online. On the flip-side though, it’s also easier to demean that work and forget that the author is a real person who put a lot of effort into this creation. If someone didn’t like my knitted blanket I gave them as a gift, they’re unlikely to tell me that. They recognize that it’s impolite and that the act of creating something for them is more important than the construction’s craftsmanship. For fanworks though, with everyone spread around the world and using made up identities, people have fewer filters, happily tearing authors to shreds in the comments, sending anon hate, and the like. The fact that we’re both prefacing this conversation with, “Please don’t flame” emphasizes that. So if I wrote a fic with some iffy tropes, “cringy” dialogue, numerous typos, whatever and enough people decided to drag me for it… I don’t know whether I’d resist the urge to just delete the fic, hopefully ending those interactions. There’s a reason why we’re constantly reminding others to express when they enjoy someone else’s work: the ratio of praise to criticism in fandom (or simply praise to seeming indifference because there was no public reaction at all), is horribly skewed.

So I personally can’t blame anyone for deleting. I’d like to hope that more people realize the importance of keeping fanworks around, that everything you put out there is loved by someone… but I’m well aware that the reality is far more complicated. It’s hard to keep that in mind. It’s hard to keep something around that you personally no longer like. Harder still to keep up a work you might be harassed over, that someone IRL discovered, that you’re disgusted with because you didn’t know better back then… there are lots of reasons why people delete and I ultimately can’t fault them for that. I think the reasons why people delete stem more from problems in fandom culture at large—trolling, legal issues, lack of positive feedback, cancel culture, etc.—than anything the author has or has not personally done, and since such work is meant to be a part of an enjoyable hobby… I can’t rightly tell anyone to shoulder those problems, problems they can’t solve themselves, just for the sake of mine or others’ enjoyment. The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is because I was discussing Attack on Titan and how much I dislike the source material now, resulting in a very uncomfortable relationship with the fics I wrote a few years back. I’ve personally decided to keep them up and that’s largely because some have received fantastic feedback and I’m aware of how it will hurt those still in the fandom if I take them down. So if a positive experience is the cornerstone of me keeping fics up, I can only assume that negative experiences would likewise been the cornerstone of taking them down. And if getting rid of that fic helps your mental health, or solves a bullying problem, or just makes you happier… that, to me, is always more important than the fic itself.

But, of course, it’s still devastating for everyone who loses the work, which is why my compromise-y answer is to embrace options like AO3’s phenomenal orphaning policy. That’s a fantastic middle ground between saving fanworks and allowing authors to distances themselves from them. I’ve also gotten a lot more proactive about saving the works I want to have around in the future. Regardless of whether we agree with deleting works or not, the reality is we do live in a world where it happens, so best to take action on our own to save what we want to keep around. Though I respect an author’s right to delete, I also respect the reader’s right to maintain access to the work, once published, in whatever way they can. That's probably my real answer here: authors have their rights, but readers have their rights too, so if you decide to publish in the first place, be aware that these rights might, at some point, clash. I download all my favorite fics to Calibre and, when I’m earning more money (lol) I hope to print and bind many for my personal library. I’m also willing to re-share fic if others are looking for them, in order to celebrate the author’s work even if they no longer want anything to do with it. Not fanfiction in this case, but one of my fondest memories was being really into Phantom of the Opera as a kid and wanting, oh so desperately, to read Susan Kay’s Phantom. Problem was, it was out of print at the time, not available at my library, and this was before the age of popping online and finding a used copy. For all intents and purposes, based on my personal situation, this was a case of a book just disappearing from the world. So when an old fandom mom on the message boards I frequented offered to type her copy up chapter by chapter and share it with me, you can only imagine how overjoyed I was. Idk what her own situation was that something like scanning wouldn’t work, but the point is she spent months helping a fandom kid she barely knew simply because a story had resonated with her and she wanted to share it. That shit is powerful!

So if someone wants to delete—if that’s something they need right now—I believe that is, ultimately, their decision… but please try your hardest to remember that the art you put out into the world is having an impact and people will absolutely miss it when it’s gone. Often to the point of doing everything they can to put it back out into the world even if you decide to take it out. Hold onto that feeling. The love you have for your favorite fic, fanart, meta, whatever it is? Someone else has that for your work too. I guarantee it.

So take things down as needed, but for the love of everything keep copies for yourself. You may very well want to give it back to the world someday.

[enchantology]

I saw on Twitter that you take Lexapro. I have been on antidepressants (Zoloft) for a few months now and want to get off them. What has been your experience with antidepressants? Is it worth staying on? I know it's different for everybody but idk. I'm just blegh about it. (Saw you said you were open to questions so hope you don't mind💚)

Hiya!

I’ve been on Lexapro for almost a year at this point. I’ve needed to be on an antidepressant for several years so the sheer fact that I was able to be put on something was huge for me. I’ve found that Lexapro does significantly more for my generalized anxiety than my depression, however. I still need to work up the courage to talk to my doctor about depression again to see if I can get put on a second medication to try to make the actual depression more manageable.

Being on Lexapro honestly made me realize how mentally unhealthy I was in ways I wasn’t expecting. I do have a lot of struggles that I’m very self-aware about, but I didn’t realize how much generalized anxiety I had until the Lexapro made it weaker. For that reason (and others), I can’t see myself trying to get off it anytime soon. It might not have been the improvement I was expecting, but it was something and that something has really improved my life. Sometimes my anxiety gets to a point where I can’t seem to tolerate eating much of anything without trouble, so not having to deal with that as much is AMAZING. Last December I was literally living off of rice cakes and Corn Pops because everything else was fucking me over. NOT THE BEST MONTH. The Lexapro helped me chill out enough to get my body to stop rejecting everything. 

The main thing that I struggle with on Lexapro is brain fog. It’s really annoying and my memory is not what it used to be, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay for the relief I get from taking the meds. I think this is something that you unfortunately have to think about when you’re on a prescribed medication. What positive changes have you noticed from taking it? What negative side effects come with that? Does one outweigh the other? What is more important to you? 

I think if you’re finding that Zoloft isn’t doing much for you, and you’d still like something to help with your mental health, I’d talk to your doctor about trying a different antidepressant. There’s obviously many different kinds and many of them may not be right for you. I can’t assume what is making you want to get off of them, but if you’ve only been on them for a few months I imagine you’re dissatisfied with them. There might be something better out there for you and you deserve the help. ♥

Feel free to reach out again if you want more specifics. It’s such a big topic and it’s hard to know what to address.