#literally me every single day after my diagnosis

[mara-xx217]

Fucking mood omg

you ever have it that the food in your fridge just doesn’t register as food? I have a problem where I’ll eat peanut butter sandwiches repeatedly while having a stuffed fridge bc I look in there and am like “hmmm….but that’s not actual food. cant eat that.”

[thelittlewarrior98]

Hello!

So I know that this is an absolute long shot, but I wanted to share this here anyway in the hopes that someone in the Phandom could maybe help me coz I literally just don't know what else to do at this point 🥺🙏

My name is Holly-Jayne but most people call me Daisy, I'm 26 years old and I've been a part of the Phandom for over a decade now like D+P have pretty much always been my most favourite YouTubers and humans in the whole entire universe 💜

I've unfortunately never been able to see them live during any of their tours though as I've just sadly never been able to afford it!

It's always been one of my biggest ever dreams to finally go to one of their shows and maybe even meet them so I can finally thank them personally for everything they've ever done for me 💜

But then late last year I suddenly got very very sick to the point where I became bed bound and wheelchair bound and could no longer eat or drink anything without throwing up and I ended up losing way too much weight to the point where I genuinely looked like a living corpse and I was soooo so tired and in so much pain all the time and I even started struggling to breathe, but then after going through all of this for about 4 months as well as countless doctor appointments, miss-diagnosis including being told it's just anxiety and is all just in my head and also have to stay in hospital got about a week or so, I was very sadly diagnosed with Stage 4 (Terminal) Serous Carcinoma Ovarian Cancer that has spread to multiple areas of my body and I have now also completely lost my fertility because of it 😔💔

I also apparently had over 2 litres worth of fluid on my lungs which is why I was struggling to breathe and could barely even walk up the stairs without my legs just completely giving way.

So I've had to endure 6 very difficult and grueling rounds of Chemo which I actually finished around 2 months ago and I'm now on a targeted treatment that I have to have every 3 weeks for about a year and I also have to take blood thinners every single day for up to 2 years due to a rather big blood clot that they also found on my lung during my 1st round of Chemo!

I also almost died again during my 2md round of Chemo as I had a very bad reaction to it and stopped breathing for a couple of minutes......

We've had quite a few scares which I guess is just my new normal now, but i now as back to normal as I can be with Cancer and I'm very slowly but surely getting my life back together and just trying to live my life as much as I can for as long as I can as even though I'm terminal, I'd like to believe that I'll still be around for many many years to come and D+P have especially helped with his as watching their videos through all of the dark and scary times have always just completely cheered me up and put a smile on my face and they still give me the motivation and determination to fight and stay as strong and healthy as I possibly can be 💜

So yeah, it's probably been the most hardest and most painful year of my life, plus my grandad very sadly and suddenly passed away last October just before all of this happened and then we also very sadly lost my aunt in May of this year after a 16 year long battle with Cancer and my nan was also unfortunately diagnosed with Leukemia around the same time as my own diagnosis, so 2024 just hasn't been kind to us at all!

Soooo so much grief, pain and trauma that we're all still trying to deal with 😔💔

So yeah, when D+P announced the TIT I was absolutely BEYOND happy and excited like yessssss another chance for me to finally go and see them and potentionally meet them if I can get an M&G ticket and finally just something for me to look forward to after this very crappy year!!

But alas, time and luck once again just weren't on our sides as when the tickets were released for both dates we just so happened to be at the hospital for appointments and treatment and they all sold out before I even had a chance to try and buy them 😭💔

So I tried to use one of my wishes to see and meet them instead, but we've unfortunately just found out that the company no longer have any money and can't fulfill people's wishes anymore!!

But the thing is, we submitted the wish absolutely months ago like back when the tickets had just sold out and we never heard back from them at all until now when our macmillan nurse got in touch with them a few days ago, so they never even bothered to tell us which is really annoying and inconvenient because we could have maybe sorted something else out by now, but now we've only got a couple of weeks left and we're just at a complete loss as to what to do as this could literally be my last ever chance!!

Really starting to lose hope over ever getting to see or meet them now and I'm absolutely devastated as we just don't know when or if they'll ever go on tour again and even if they do, who knows if I'll still be here by then or how my health will be!!

I mean I'm always staying as optimistic and hopeful as possible, but we still just never really know......

So yeah, I just wanted to share this in the hopes that someone in the Phandom could maybe help in any way at all??

Idk how or what could be done or anything, but I thought it was worth a shot anyway as I've pretty much got nothing to lose at this point!

I was hoping for Manchester on the 29th btw as that's the only date that I'm able to do.

Thankyou soooo so much for reading all of this if you've actually made it this far, I appreciate it more than you'll ever know!

I'm in this Phandom business for life haha 🤣💜 @danielhowell @amazingphil @danandphilupdates @danandphilhq @danandphilnews @danandphilsaltsquad

[systlin]

People that are absolutely convinced anyone can be vegan/vegetarian baffle me. I eat meat fairly regularly and I am already courting a B12 deficiency (for anyone who doesn't know the easiest source of B12 that the human body likes to absorb is red meat, you can get it from other sources primarily leafy greens I believe but your not getting as much because it's not as easy for your body to absorb) my levels aren't low enough to be considered clinically deficient but it's a near thing so my doctor has told me to take 2 B12 vitamins every day. I'm hoping this fixes my levels because if it doesn't that's a sign of a much more serious problem where my digestive system is biologically struggling to absorb B12

Gods, I feel you

When I got my Chron's diagnosis, the gastroenterologist and I talked about diet. High fiber is my enemy. I'm mostly OK now thanks to maintenance medication, but even now I can't have more than a single handful of nuts or popcorn without Suffering after. Raw vegetables are iffy; I can eat a couple of radishes or carrot sticks, but celery sets it off and raw broccoli or cauliflower is misery. I can have ONE small bowl of salad a day, which sucks because I LOVE salad. I have to be careful to limit servings of raw fruit, which also sucks because I adore cherries and pears and peaches.

Cooked vegetables are mostly fine, though I still have to keep the broccoli and brussels sprouts servings small. Cooked fruit is fine too. Beans are iffy. I can have some, but not a lot, which sucks because I love beans. Tofu is OK, but during my flare it gave me worse gas.

During a flare, my safe foods were cheese, meat, eggs, milk, fruit juice, vegetable juice, white bread, and cream of wheat. It was a fucking nightmare to try and get all the nutrients into me that I need. You will note that most of these are in fact animal products. I was under literal medical orders to keep the hell away from non-juiced fruits and vegetables.

Of course, a bunch of people came out of the woodwork to tell me that I could heal myself by cutting out all dairy and wheat and going vegan/raw vegan. People still do this regularly. I've deleted ten out of my inbox since yesterday.

If I tried to go vegan, it would be very, very rough on my traitor-ass large intestine and would probably send me into a flare. If I tried to go RAW vegan, it would probably mean surgery and might kill me.

[auschizm]

I was put on a pretty high dose of anti psychotics as a young teen (high enough to make anyone who takes it who hasn't developed some sort of tolerance to literally pass out within an hour and sleep for like, the next 12-24 hours), I wasnt diagnosed w any schizospec disorder (they just "suspected" schizophrenia on my file) because the clinic I was institutionalized in basically passed out anti psychotics like candy. At times like 70% of the ward was on them, but usually just 1 or 2 kids with an actual schizospec diagnosis. They just loved sedating us tbh.

Over the next like 8 years I kept going on and off anti psychotics, mostly the same one but mixing it up towards the end as well. What I found the worst (sort of, with some hyperbole. if you dont consider lasting neurological issues and some other wild dogshit it caused in my life over those years) is how uneducated every single psych I had was about the anti psychotics that they were Actively Prescribing People.

They didnt know common side effects including tardive dyskenesia, which I have to this day. I had to argue with them so theyd look up literature on it so they'd even believe my experience. They always were suspicious of me wanting to change my dose. They would make me switch meds without tapering the old one (?!), most of them never ordered the tests necessary to monitor your physical health while on anti psychotics (I forgot the names of the tests right now, oops)... often refusing to monitor me as i taper off of them because they didnt "agree" with it, finally one time my GP said he would monitor it. etcetc.

I dont really like... have a point to this. I just wanted to get this out for now.

I'm not even saying they dont help during phases of acute delusion (tho they never actually touch my 'long term' ones lol).. it's just that. At least here no psych seems to know what the fuck they're prescribing people anyways, so how the fuck am I supposed to trust them or work with them at all? I just gave up and have been unmedicated for a year now after tapering them myself as usual. I honestly dont miss it much at all.

I'm really angry you had to experience this. That the doctors who were supposed to help you did this instead. I can relate, and I'm sending my love and solidarity ❤️

[silenthillmutual]

i just wanted to thank you for talking about how underdiagnosed ocd is because the worlds perception of ocd had be convinced there was no way i could have it but after looking into it ive realized it is exactly what i have and exactly what has made my life hell for . well my entire life. its so frequently waved off as "just anxiety", even when i was having panic attacks so bad i couldnt function id get told other people have it worse and im just overdramatic. its been legitimately life saving to know that i have ocd. some of my intrusive thoughts put me in a really really horribly dark place before i knew they didnt reflect who i actually am.

that's exactly why i talk about it as often as i do. i don't think it's anyone on here's particular fault for not knowing they have ocd, but i do think it's something not a lot of people would ever consider because any anxiety they have gets handwaved. and bc so many people on the internet aren't aware they have it, they sometimes do and say things that are very much symptoms of ocd, and it hurts to see that. it took me a long time to get medicated + treated for it that i was, like, physically shaking when i finally got the damn diagnosis. it was literally ruining my life between the bipolar and the constant intrusive thoughts. i was taking 8+ classes a semester and blowing up all of my relationships and self-harming and not sleeping and spending every single hour of the day either with someone or with the tv on bc i could not stand to be alone with my thoughts, while basically being gaslit by my mom abt it (for reference she's a therapist so she knew damn well it wasn't 'just anxiety'). and i think a lot of people w ocd

the post was inspired by seeing this meme edit blow up on twitter btw.

[respondedinkind]

Quick (long) update.

|| I know I haven't been around in a hot minute, thought I'd give a quick update.

Sorry for vanishing like this, life has been a little wild recently; I started therapy a few weeks ago, next to me finding joy in a new game where I slipped into the fandom (rather hard lol) and realized that I am, right now, much happier with doing art and creating fics rather than RPing.

This might sound a little odd to some - but the thing is, my brain simply doesnt hold enough energy to do *all* the creative things I want to do. For example: RPing is incredibly fun but also *incredibly exhausting*, and whenever I put a lot of time into RPing, I am literally unable to do art or write fics. It's taking so much of my creative-energy-meter that it's empty quick, leaving me with being frustrated as I don't really get to create anymore.

So I decided to pursue creating art as well as writing fics for now, which means I basically vanished from RP tumblr in return. I know this might be frustrating to some - especially my writing partners - and I want to apologize for that, for said frustration I might have caused.

But it is what it is, and I am not going to change much about it anytime soon. I am actually feeling rather happy about being able to do art, write fics, and *not* worry about writing replies and possibly making partners wait. It's a sort-of-pressure that I've taken off of my own shoulders...

Which is needed right now as I, as mentioned, also started therapy. It's going to be a journey, and I was just diagnosed with general anxiety as well as depression (which could actually be a 'double-depression' on top of it, means it is a chronic depression as well as an 'episodic depression'). It feels... incredibly relieving, in a way, to finally have an official diagnosis and to know that yes, something IS going on with me, I am not just crazy in my head and/or lazy. However, the whole therapy-thing is only going to get harder from here on and I am already working on things that have been talked about, think about them in my head, work with what I have realized about myself and try to handle it.

I do have a whole diagnose-session going on in August for ADHD / Autism as well, which will *also* require a good chunk of my energy. So yeah, things are happening.

Long story short: I decided to put my priorities elsewhere for now, for my own mental health's sake, and my happiness. Reducing stress was *needed*, especially since I am only going to be more stressed while working on me, on my diagnosis, and on all the problems I finally want to be able to figure out and address, possibly solve. ---Something also happened in my private life a couple of months ago that basically, let's call it 'triggered', my sudden energy to finally ask for help after trying to handle everything for literal decades. So yeah. It's been a yeah so far lol.

I want to thank each and every single one of you for having been with me, RPed great stories, formed companionships over weeks and months; I won't delete this blog nor do I plan to 'archive it'. I'll just leave it like this and maybe, who knows, I will return to it (and my other blogs) at some point. I just don't want to put stress on me as in 'I will come back in x day / months', I'll just see where life takes me and when I find the energy to be here again, I will.

I love Khan, love Stephen, love Bones. I haven't lost my love for them, my attention is just elsewhere. (Including that cute game I have been playing, falling in love with some characters...)

I wish you all the best, sending you lots of vibes, happy thoughts, my eternal gratitude and some strength for whatever you need to deal with in your life. Remember that you are loved, that your thoughts are valid, that you are worth it. ♥

-waves-

PS: I do miss you, the people I formed friendships with. I miss you, our RPs, our conversations. In case we have been interacting much on here, but not actually exchanged other ways of staying connected besides tumblr - discord, for example - you are absolutely allowed to hit me up and I'll give you my discord. ♥

[jadetheblueartist]

hey :) how did you know and/or find out you were autistic?

Thanks for the question, anon!

Now, some of this stuff may not be relevant, but I’ll just take you through it anyway (in case we are the exact same person or something hahaha).

The very first time I ever really heard of autism was several years ago when I was talking to my mom about something that happened in my brain. I was like, “Yeah, so when I think of the number seven, I see green.” And she was like “Oh, really?” and then went on little thing about how she was pretty sure this was a symptom of something that geniuses had (I now know she was literally referencing synesthesia [“when your brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience more than one sense simultaneously” -Cleveland Clinic] and Sheldon Cooper hahaha). While I believe there is a correlation with synesthesia and autism, synesthesia is not part of the diagnostic material and would not be used as “evidence.”

The next thing was about a year ago. I was on Pinterest taking random quizzes, as you do, and I stumbled upon an autism quiz. So I, not really knowing what autism was, was like ooh yay another quiz. So I took it and it said I had moderate autistic traits. So I was like oh interesting and told my therapist this. Therapist was like, “ummmm okay maybe… but that is a single random quiz from Pinterest. It’s probably just social anxiety.” So I was like oh yeah okay and then moved on.

A few months after that, I was on Pinterest again and scrolling through some My Hero Academia stuff when I saw this list of reasons why they headcanonned Midoriya as autistic. So I was like, “Um. That’s what autism is? That just kinda sounds like me…” so I saved it because it was cool and scrolled down to related pins. Then I found a list as to why that person headcannoned Aoyama as autistic. So again, I read through and was like “… guys this is just me.” That is what sprung the deep dive. For the next several days I did literally nothing but watch all of the videos I could find of autistic people explaining their experiences, traits of autism, autistic masking, video essays of why rottmnt donnie is great autism representation, etc. I simultaneously wrote down every single thing I related to on a massive list. Then I got to my next therapy session. I spent the whole hour presenting as much of the information I could, and by the end, Therapist was like “hmmm, well I don’t really do diagnoses so I’m not super familiar with this. But we can go over the DSM-5 breakdown next week if you want.” So I was like, yes of course, and began prepping more.

In that week, I did some reflecting on my childhood and asking my family about my childhood (since I don’t have too many memories). Then I made a list of all of the childhood things that could be autistic traits (example: I spent all of my weekends researching ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen, lining up all of my brothers action figures for hours, I couldn’t stand the feeling of a super soft blanket on my hands or feet, etc). (Also at this time, I told my best friend about it and she was like “hahaha what do you mean? You’re too smart for that” so you can be autistic and have good grades? You can also be autistic and have bad grades bc they are not mutually exclusive :D anyway back to the main chunk) Icame back to therapy prepared and ready to go and we went through the criteria. At the end, therapist was like, “I can’t diagnose you, however, you do fit all of the diagnostic criteria” and I was like “ahhhh sick I knew it.”

So then I was like “Hey, Mom and Dad, I’m almost 100% percent sure I am autistic but I would like to get an official diagnosis. What do you think about that?” I wanted a diagnosis mainly to combat the gosh darn imposter syndrome (it kind of helps but the imposter syndrome is still there!! Ahhhhhh /lh) And since neither of them had any actual clue about autism, they were confused and not sure about it. I got them to agree by appealing to their practical side and said an official diagnosis could help me get job accommodations if I needed it. Plus it’s a lot easier to do it before you become an adult, so I should figure it out soon. Eventually they agreed and we got the ball rolling.

I was super excited bc everything said that the whole diagnosis process generally takes up to two years, but our doctor got us an appointment in a few weeks. Come to find out, he was just making sure we had any sort of valid reason so he could refer us somewhere to get the diagnosis. That was a bit of a bummer but it was still chill. We eventually got an appointment with this one place that actually diagnosed and again I was excited.

We went in for the initial appointment to figure out scheduling bc I had to do a few different appointments in total. The lady that would be administering the testing was about to leave that practice in a few months though (this was in November and she was leaving at the end of December). But she said she wanted to get it done herself so she just got us in quickly. We also somehow managed to finish what should’ve been a few hours long testing in an hour so I guess I’m just really good at autism hahaha (it’s probably bc we did the paperwork tests outside of the appointment).

Then in early January (she had already left by then but gave the report to someone else) we got the results, and I got my official autism diagnosis. It was a good day ^^

So yeah that’s basically my whole story. If you wanted me to go more into detail with anything like a DSM-5 criteria breakdown or something I would be more than happy to :))))) autism is a special interest of mine, after all.

This was really fun, Anon! Thanks so much for the ask and feel free to ask anything else you are curious about ^^

[differentalpacafestival]

My AuDHD rant;

I realised something recently.

So I got diagnosed AuDHD (autistic and ADHD for anyone who might not understand) in 2023. Since my autism diagnosis, I've read up on what autism actually is and how it's impacting my life.

I bought a book from Amazon by Devon Price, Unmasking Autism, and I've only made it to like page 50 in a year, but I've still learned a lot that should've been obvious from the beginning. For instance, that people are different. Like, yeah, no shit, no one is the same through and through, but to me, the biggest difference between people were certain opinions like views on racism, homosexuality, human rights etc. Mostly things that matter to someone else, and not one self. However, from Devon's book, I realised that autism *is* a spectrum, I *am* a person, and just because I have *this* autistic experience, doesn't mean my AuDHD friend has the same, or Devon, or my family members. Like an opinion, autism is not black and white; it varies vastly from person to person and I am one of them. I look at black and brown people as people, whereas my brother sees them as objects; something owned, replacable. I look at non binary as a valid gender identity (also might be bias because I am non binary), whereas my mother thinks of it as confusion, lack of masuline or feminine figures from early life stages.

I also finally started to understand that I, as a person, have an innate right to be me. I have a right to stim when stressed, I have a right to decide myself what helps me regulate and when I need it, and I have a right to voice my discomfort with people, situations, feelings. I have a right to be angry, upset, sensitive, sad, offended, excited, nervous. I have a right to be me. After understanding what masking means, and that I have been taught to highly mask who I am, I realised that I'm not just being sensitive, or childish, or rude even. I have been traumatised from masking, pushing myself too far. I'm burnt out from having to consider everyone else's comfort above my own; to shield my mother from stress caused by me; to respect my brother's privacy and toys and not get angry whenever he didn't towards me; to stop complaining about my bullies at school; to stop being 'boring'; to not get upset if someone overstepped boundaries; to not get so angry if my fork or spoon was dirty and I had to use something else. Sure, some of these have actually been reasonable in some cases, but for the most part, I have only been me.

The fact that I had to start this journey by myself, against literally everyone's opinion, is so stressful to think about. When I first figured out I was depressed, my mother said I was overreacting. When I realised I had social anxiety, I was told to not self diagnose. When I first suspected ADHD when I was 15, I was told, again, to stop self diagnosing online, and that the fact that I scored like 80% on multiple self tests over a prolonged period didn't matter because the internet lies and all of these things are normal. Then in 2021 I started to get spammed with autistic experiences across all platforms, I decided to ignore it all because I'm only self diagnosing and overreacting again. It didn't matter that I related to every single thing I heard, it's normal. Everybody feels this way at one point or another. ADHD is climbing walls, autism is being retarded and throwing tantrums, anxiety is isolating one self at all times, depression is just being sad. In 2018 my therapist literally said, and I quote, "Depression and anxiety are just symptoms. They're nothing to worry about, it's not dangerous," and then proceeded to advance on me. He wanted me to go, alone, to the mall at the most busy day of the week to "expose myself". This was our first session. Needless to say, by the time he wanted this to happen, I was no longer his patient. We had three sessions total.

Before getting diagnosed, I had six psychologists, two social workers, nearly twenty school nurses (yes, nurses; not visits), a handful of friends (four, to be exact) who disappeared and got replaced, one parent, a long history of physical, verbal and emotional abuse both at home and at school, from my age and adults, extremely isolated, chronically online from the ripe age of 8 (around 2010), extraordinary IQ for my age to quote my first ever nurse, nearly 50% absence each year which worsened year by year, dangerously high empathy to the point I literally attempted suicide from someone else's feelings, great grades despite no homework and constant daydreaming, abnormal sense for languages and music, not once a normal or healthy eating habit, and much more. No one ever even suspected autism. I was never the stereotypical hyper kid, so I don't necessarily blame anyone for missing ADHD.

I can understand my mom not catching on considering her level of stress, and pure lack of information, but from the insane amount of healthworkers I've been in contact with? For twenty years no one ever took me seriously. I had to have an unhealthy long list of reasons I thought I had autism, traits I related to, every psychologist I'd ever been to, why I started going to them, what we did and talked about, why we stopped, how helpful I found our sessions, and even proof of why I wasn't just traumatized. I tried to see an ADHD specialist in 2021, to which, by the way, my doctor advised me against because I can't tell anyone I suspect ADHD since no one will take me seriously. I was denied even an interview because they deducted I, literally quoting, had daddy issues. When I wrote a letter complaining about their lack of professionalism and why I meant they should at least get me an interview, they replied saying I hadn't asked for this to go to their superiors so my case was officially closed. I never tried again because I was so sick of not being taken seriously. In 2022, my doctor figured I needed more professional help. He referred me to another psychologist. They never got back to me, so the national backup plan reached out and set an interview with me where I told them about my mental health situation, my history in the field, why I was referred and what I expected from them. I was then forgotten for half a year until my school nurse at the time helped me call them back and sort things out. The next week I had my first session with a private psychiatrist. Within a month, I was diagnosed with autism, the next 7 months were mapping out my traits and symptoms as well as regularly filling out a form of ADHD based statements to see if it was just a mood or a consistant topic, in November I was diagnosed with ADHD and for the next three months we experimented with medicine. I wound up hallucinating from all of them, and by March 1st this year (2024) we were done. One year with her lead me to two long expected diagnoses, one new medication and a new outlook and perspective on my life and health. With these, I've now started the process of being permanently unemployed with benefits.

If one person, at any point in my life, didn't view me as a victim and rather a whole person, I could've avoided so much stress and unnecassary burn out. I could've already been in a much better place, but instead I'm still trying to piece together the puzzle of myself and how I can best get the help I need and proceed with my life as disabled. I have five unfinished years of upper secondary (college for y'all Americans). I could've only gone through one and been better off, but to be able to get to where I am today, I *had* to go through the dehumanizing struggles and depressive episodes. I had to be completely torn to shreds to the point I almost got diagnosed with psychosis from the permanently damaging stress from school. I had to fail five years and drop out from exhaustion and reaking of failure to have my primary doctor take me seriously. I had to have a social worker with me for him to see that all the trauma I've been through, has, in fact, settled in my body, so he could finally give me reassurance through the Fibromyalgia diagnosis in May 2022. I had to be seen as batshit crazy. I had to prove to tenfolds of professional health workers that I do think there's something not working the way society wants me to work. I had to be persistent all my life for anyone to think that maybe I do have a point. And you know the most heartbreaking fact about all of this? I'm not the oldest going through this. There are people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 80s finally being taken seriously and looked upon as human. There are well grown adults, even elders, finally understanding why they have been ostracized, dehumanized, exhausted, stressed, in pain all their lives. My mother, who turns 60 next year, only found out through me being diagnosed, that maybe she too has ADHD. This would explain so much of her struggles, both from herself and from society. The expectations put are inhumane and nearly impossible to hold up, and they keep getting worse.

To be a genZ and see older generations belittle us for speaking up and saying enough is enough is so enraging. Being called sensitive for not tolerating racist jokes, sexist remarks, priveleged behaviours, or inhumane political opinions just goes to show that humanity has failed as a species, and we *need* to change that.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talks. As a final statement, I'd like to speak on behalf of all autistics across the world with this; do not comment "is (he/she/they/it) accoustic?" if you, yourself, are not on the autism spectrum. It is so incredibly rude and disrespectful, and if you get angry whenever someone tells you so, you are the problem. Also, Asperger's is offensive. It's autism. Thank you, Goodnight.

[pretty-chaotic-world]

if my BPD can scream

1. I wish i could have a normal love... but no, my brain wants to worship every little detail of you until it drives me insane

2. sorry i pushed you away i felt abandoned and suicidal 

3. I’m sick of going to bed and knowing things won’t be better tomorrow 

4. I'll ask you thousands times if you really love, please don't get annoyed

5. I'll create "drama" and mishaps only to feel like I'm in home

6. i’m afraid that one day my anger will overshadow the little love i still have left for the world

7. I feel numb. No tears, no anger, nothing. Just going through the same day again and again. I would rather just sleep without waking up.

8. I'm so tired of everytime one small argument or inconvenience breaks out I want to end it and self destruct, it's so draining. 

9. I want to stop feeling anything and when i actually don't it breaks my heart but I can't cry it out.

10. "its all in your head" well duh where tf else is it gonna be??? in my fucking kidneys????

11. I am constantly between wanting people to care about me and wanting them not to so I can hurt myself without feeling guilty 

12. Psychiatrist told me there is no cure for bpd and I've to change myself. Well why cant they just let me die then?

13. Until you live with bpd you'll never know what it's like to be too much and not enough at the same time.

14. i know im constantly too much for everyone but sometimes i just want to be enough for someone

15. if he will leave me, my next diagnosis will be of "sociopath"

16. im so jealous of all the people who see him and touch him and talk to him every single day it should be me me me me 

17. oh I got my hair coloured. why? because I can't hurt myself anymore 

18. "you're so distant" because you can't handle my abandonment issues.

19. My younger self disappoint me a lot. like why were you begging people to stay in your life? ohh no worries I know the answer

20. I wanna throw a plate against the wall, stab a knife through my hand, destroy my laptop with a hammer, smash my door in with an axe and spray graffiti all over the walls of my room 

21. Why shouldn’t I be mad? Why can’t I just be angry and be allowed to feel it? Why can’t I burn everything down?

22. I have to watch my mouth every fucking second to make sure I don't destroy every relation I have coz apparently social life matters!!

23. Isnt it fucked up how he got away with every horrible thing he made me experience and I’m the one who has to live with myself feeling absolutely fucking worthless 

24. I don't deserve food and love. im a horrible person.

25. this is how my eating cycle goes

feeling weak coz i haven't ate anything -> eat -> purge -> feeling guilty after purging -> eat more -> feeling guilty after eating so much -> cry coz you don't know what's happening

26. the diagnosis makes me believe I'm not insane just lil emo ig!! NOOOO YOU'RE INSANE

27. “don’t let it bother u” baby i’m gonna be bothered by this for the next 10 years 

28. if I tell you I love you its equivalent to I can kill someone for you

29. Actually upon further inspection that shit really hurt my feelings 

30. I don't dive into insecurity anymore, i drown in self-loathe

31. i shut up in between group convo coz I know I'll talk invaluable shit and nobody really cares what I say until it's psychology class

32. "if you are fully aware of yourself, why do you keep acting like that?" slapping self awareness on top of bpd only grants the ability to watch yourself self-destruct straight from the vip section thats all it does literally

33. “Where do you see yourself in the future” building a cult for mentally ill people 

34. ofc I've a praise kind i was ignored as a child

35. I'm much better than I was before. you know why coz I don't to air now and don't see monsters walking by side all the time

36. No I don't want to self harm anymore I need to kill that fucking monster

37. Don't mind me, I'm just casually sabotaging all my positive relationships with negative delusions because my life doesn't feel real unless something dramatic and destructive is constantly occurring 

38. i don’t care i don’t care i don’t care (im going to sob my fucking eyes out)

39. “Stop making your disorder your personality” I have a fucking personality disorder for god sake

40. turning my mental illnesses into kinks and calling it the BDSM-5 

41. "destroy something precious while you're in rage" ohh yeaa and then I'll do that again and again 

42. what I hate most about my BPD is the fact that I have started doubting every emotion that I’ve ever felt in my life, whether it’s love, my grief through multiple traumas, or my anger, & it’s so saddening. It has actually led me to start questioning my reality.

43. if I need medication to stay alive, am I really meant to be here?

44. it's either be alone without 75% of my symptoms, or be with someone and display the most horrendous unstable awful version of myself. why do i have to choose between love & happiness or peace & stability?

45. That fucking bpd rage where everyone's voices makes you want to scream and every noise around you makes you want to sh and you're so mad you can almost feel the cuts everywhere 

46. getting worked up to the point of becoming physically ill (throwing up/stomach issues etc) because you felt rejected/abandoned by your favourite person  

47. i wish my trauma made me kind as everyone says but i’m becoming what i fear the most- a monster.

48. imagine getting diagnosed with a personality disorder and the only visible representation of that disorder is an animated horse man, a sociopathic sitcom character from philadelphia, and darth vader

[kimmimaru]

Personal Rant time (ignore if you like, just getting shit off my chest so I can maybe sleep) Sorry it's so long, I would put it under a 'read more' but for some reason the little icon for it isn't showing up anymore and I'm honestly too tired to look for other ways. So, I have serious exective dysfunction which means every day tasks are a horrendous ordeal. I hate it with every fiber of my being, I do NOT enjoy being this way. But trying to explain to people what exective dysfunction is and what its like is impossible, so I'm labelled lazy and shit. That doesn't help.

Anyways, issue I'm having is I have someone who is specifically employed to help me out with the struggles I have as an autistic adult like making phone calls, helping me remember appointments etc. And its been fine up until recently. I've been hit hard by my EFD and i'm having a burn out, so depression, anxiety, the works. I'm forgetting to feed myself and shit, its that bad. But this person who is supposed to be helping me doesn't seem to listen when I try to explain what I'm feeling? I have every day tasks I need to complete, I know exactly what they are but I just physically cannot make myself do them. I just sit there, panicking about it. I have no idea how to get around this, basically as an adult, you're told you're autistic and just sent away again. I never had any help regarding navigating the intricicies of existing as an autistic adult so I've been fumbling in the dark since I got my diagnosis. Now, I've been mostly coping until recently when I hit yet another bad patch, last one I had that was this bad was when I was at uni back in my early 20's. Anyone who follows me for my fanfic has probably noticed a lack of updates and stuff, I haven't even been posting here or really going on tumblr or Ao3 at all. I haven't been reading, gaming or anything. I'm anxious and depressed, and I'm trapped in this stupid fucking cycle and I can't tell anyone about it because literally not a single person in my life understands. I've tried but its useless. So I thought I'd try and explain it to the person who is literally paid to help me with this stuff, but she just doesn't get it. She just ends up piling more on my plate with more lists of shit I should be doing. No discussion about possible ways around my inability to do anything useful. Its just: Oh you need to do this, this and this. If you don't do this it will cause problems. You should be doing this every day....like, yeah? I know I should be doing these things. I think about it constantly. I'm not sleeping because I'm laying in bed obsessing over everything I should be doing. Honestly, I'm lucky I'm even getting out of bed at this point.

I've tried lists, I've tried schedules, I've tried phone reminders, alarms, timed sessions of like an hour of just doing stuff that needs doing etc. I can get it to work for like a week and then it just goes back to being impossible again. I hate it. I hate being this way. I've tried breaking it all down into tiny steps, nothing seems to have worked yet. I'm worried I'm running out of ideas. Obviously my daughter has no idea about any of this. She doesn't need to know it, but kids pick up on even tiny clues don't they? Not to mention that she's just hit puberty and is naturally going through it as well, poor sod. But yeah, that means everything I do is the absolute worst thing any parent can do ever, from asking her to pick up after herself to reminding her to wash her hair regularly...you know, normal things parents ask from their kids. I get it, I do. I went through it too and I don't remember it fondly, it was an awful time. Everything pisses you off or makes you want to cry for no reason, so I do try to be understanding but on top of everything else it does involve a lot more deep, careful breathing than I'd like. As for my family, I love them, I really do. But they don't get it so I don't really feel I can talk to them about it. My dad is...well, he's in a new relationship and is now aparently getting married. So that's a big bag of emotions I do not want to open. On the one hand, I'm a grown ass adult so I should just be ok with it, on the other it's weird and very uncomfortable. My dad divorced my mum years ago, so I got used to that but he cheated on mum with some other woman, never met her, never wanted anything to do with her so it was easy to pretend she didn't exist. This time the woman is a very old childhood friend of dad's and not only that but knew mum, she in fact introduced my dad to my mum. So I have to be all friendly and its exhausting. I really don't know how I'm supposed to feel about it, its like...I'm an adult, I should be happy my dad's happy, right? But its just...so weird. I've only ever known my dad with my mum, so seeing him be close to another woman just creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable. I have to go to their wedding too, which will not be fun. I'm being weird about it and not explaining it properly but even I don't know why I'm so uncomfortale with it, so can't really put it into words. Essentially I am anxious, stressed and depressed and would just like everything to just stop for a bit so I can BREATHE.

[theageofsims]

I'm having a really rough time and I really don't want to say anything, but at the same time I feel like I want to say something and I have like nowhere I can really say it because I feel like I don't know people personally in the community, but I also know I spend most of my time on Tumblr, some of the time, blogging my Sims so I felt like I could post this here rather than my personal blog.

I don't know how much more I can actually take.

I am doing the best I can with my diabetic and high blood pressure diagnosis after losing my dad to stomach cancer. And I get talked to like I'm a fucking idiot by my doctor who I have only had since September, at my physical today.

I am just sitting here at home like crying my fucking eyes out on and off since 11am this morning.

But I'm just fucking tired. I am mentally and emotionally tired after losing my dad in 2022, and dealing with my diagnosis for one year now.

I have had a fear of doctors since I literally came out of my mother's womb. She and my dad had the roughest time with me all through my youth and teenage years about going to the doctor while my older brother put them through NO hell about it.

I don't know where this fear came from, but I don't see it going away any time soon and each visit I have had since my diagnosis has been a terrible experience. And I have to go back every 3 to 4 months to check my sugar levels and my blood pressure and every last fucking thing.

I am tired of pricking my finger every single day. I am tired of taking my medicine. I am tired of the side effects. I am tired of the fucking blood pressure monitor. I am tired of it all.

Now it's off to the fucking eye doctor, then there, then here. I can't stand doctors and now you are forcing me to go to more doctors outside of my PCP office because "diabetes can mess with your eyes" and "check your feet because diabetes could take your limbs" -- I fucking know this. My mother's been a diabetic since I was 3 fucking years old. I've known how to deal with diabetes since I was 15, until at age 37 I now have to deal with it for myself and for the rest of my life.

I am just so fucking bent it's not even funny.

I am the lowest I have ever been in my life and honestly, I've felt pretty low during moments in my life for the amount of shit I've gone through. No matter how much effort I make, nothing is working. I try so fucking hard and nothing even moves in the right direction like I'm fucking cursed or something.

I feel lost and I feel alone and that's NOT the fucking person I am so that kills me inside. I never ask for help, I'm always there helping others.

Like literally everything, I blame myself for everything. It's like it's my fault I'm sick with these things. I know that's stupid and totally not true, but that's what I tell myself.

I am doing the best that I can do, but some days I just don't want to do it. Some days I'm just so slow going about everything.

I eat healthy. Sure I splurge like others, but since I've gotten sick? If I splurge for one meal once every month, it's a lot. I can't even fucking eat a piece of bread with a can of tuna without thinking what the bread might do to my sugar level.

It's like I love food so much and suddenly I'm like developing a fucking eating disorder over what every single piece of food could be doing to me.

I can't eat salt, I can't eat sugar. I can't eat fucking oatmeal. I can't eat cheerios. I can't even eat fucking wheat chex which is full of fiber. I can't eat fucking dairy. I can't eat fucking fruit.

I'm eating green veggies every single day and I can't seem to just be at normal fucking numbers or down to what they want me to be.

I've got side effects from the medication. I have to eat something with the medication. Now my entire system is slowing down so fiber up, but it still does nothing to move things along. Then I have to make sure I'm taking vitamins to supplement for all the shit the meds are depleting.

I'm fucking just tired of it all like JFC. I'm doing the literal best that I feel that I can do and I've got people coming at me like scolding me for shit that's not even my fucking fault and judging me.

Even my dad was a diabetic, but later on in his life. He was the one with the high blood pressure since he was like 29 years old -- and even that didn't kill him, the fucking stomach cancer did. The man ate healthier than anyone I knew once he hit like 55 years old -- and he fucking died of stomach cancer. Go fucking figure.

It's like you walk into the doctor's office and you get diagnosed with 5 things. They literally size you up and add shit to your chart you don't even want on there or you don't even know what they are.

It's like the dumbest shit to even say, but I sometimes feel like I've just been forgotten about. Like I'm being tested to see how much I can take before I just fucking crack and it's like I can't take any more. Maybe I could years ago or maybe I could before my dad died, but I can't take any more right now. I just want space and a fucking break so I can breathe and I feel like I'm being constantly monitored and forced to do shit that I don't want to do.

Anyone that knows how I blog here knows I'm a pretty silly and upbeat type of person -- and sarcastic as hell some of the time, too, but I'm really having a really tough time these days. I just try to put my best foot forward, but clearly, that isn't working at the moment.

I also hold a lot of stuff inside -- I always have since I was a kid so it's extremely painful for me to admit to how I honestly am feeling, but I'm just really down because I'm trying so fucking hard and it's like life just is like let's just fuck with her a little more and see how she does.

And through it all I can't call up my dad and be like hey Dad, can you believe this crap?! Or hey Dad, what should I do? Or hey Dad, how's the weather? I can't call him for any fucking thing anymore and that's a feeling I never expected to feel early into my life, and so suddenly.

I'm doing my best, but I'm also just fucking tired. Like something's got to give, but fucking when? I'm the most patient person in the world, but fuck -- when is something finally gonna fucking give?

[pjo-obsessed-nerd]

sometimes valentines day really sucks lmfao i was talking to a guy 2 weeks ago, we made plans to go on a coffee date, and see a movie, and then he ghosted me. i had to go to dillons for my dad, running on 2 hours of sleep, already overstimulated, and walked into a crowd of 20 ppl all around the florist stall (which is directly in the way of our pharmacy, my destination), and then a guy came up and stood less than an inch from my back to reach for a flower that was behind my shoulder, so i started panicking. When i tried to leave, more people had come in so i literally could not get to the front doors without touching over 3 ppl at once. I literally ran out of the store crying because i was freaking out and people were staring at me. On top of that, we had no food at home that i can eat without making a fiver person meal, so i went hungry. i made brownies, burned the tops while simultaneously making the bottoms too liquidy to taste any good, let alone be safe to eat. when i went to vent to my mom, instead of being sympathetic and saying it would get better (what i needed/wanted to hear) she told me to stop bitching about it. For dinner, we had tortallini, which is normally amazing, but the tomato sauce literally made my mouth itch (Which is something i only experience when i eat citrusy foods, and im allergic to citrus, but this feeling was 10x worse), and my paycheck dropped just in time for me to get a meal from wendys before going to work on another 2 hours of sleep. The 3rd book of the series im reading (Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant, it's zombies, conspiracy, journalism, tiniest bit of romance but i would die for Shaun and Bekks to kiss just one more time, go check it out if that sounds cool to u) won't be here for another week after i finished the second one on a major cliffhanger, and i haven't written anything in nearly a month. the times tamps of my book says as much. Also, i'm single, all my friends have boyfriends or girlfriends, and every guy or girl i talk to ghosts me after learning i have adhd/am working on a autism diagnosis. that, and my friends are lowkey ignoring me. on valentines day of all days, so the one group of people i'm supposed to be able to talk to when my life gets shitty the same way they talk to me when their lives get shitty have just been ignoring me for like, a week. idk what to do, cus im torn between punching a wall and curling into a ball so tight that i just POP out of existence. Anyway, sorry for the rant. if you read this far, i appreciate and love you <3

[damnedrainbows]

second day in a row for a bad autistic melt down

and I mean I should be grateful really, it’s been so long since I’ve had a really bad melt down. Been a month maybe, which shows significant improvement. You’d never have known it happened yesterday, I was acting the same as always huh? just left for a couple hours

it’d be nice if I knew what caused them but I don’t. which I learned is an autism thing too. when I have them I have to ask myself ‘did I eat, did I drink, sleep, and go to the bathroom’ to at least check that off. I don’t even know when I’m overstimulated until I have the melt down or the headache

I went into my sensory swing to have it, the safest place to be since mine get…physical. best place to thrash and kick, but I hit the wall.

I just…wanted to draw and watch tv. once upon a time I could have the tv on as background noise and I could bear to listen to my computer fan. I miss the days when I didn’t get exhausted trying to listen to a conversation. was it really only two years ago that I managed to do forty commissions in a single summer? I haven’t been able to finish a page of fucking doodles in three days. now? the person I was literally feels like a fantasy. it feels like when I was functional that was a fever dream.

i don’t even feel like the melt down is done. i just feel like I’m suppressing it, as I have all my life. I knew it was coming. my breathing was tighter and I was more irritated and snapping at everyone, but I don’t know where it came from. I just…want to draw and watch tv. I want to play with my new craft kit my best friend got me.

and yet I went downstairs and even wearing my migraine glasses I felt the need to rip my fucjing face off because of the bright nightlight. I don’t know what to do, and my life falling apart isn’t for lack of trying for fucks sake

I had to leave college every year I attempted it. Three years of failure and it is wild to think how I even managed to complete anything when I have to put my head down after fifteen minutes of doing anything now. my only actual job outside art I was fired after a month because i kept freezing and getting disoriented at the cash!

it’s not lack of trying. my family thinks I’m lazy but jesus I try more than anyone! I never asked for this, I don’t know where my life went. and come to find out, it could be years until I get the official diagnosis because of this wait period? my grandmother is almost ninety, what am I supposed to do when…I have nowhere to go? i can!t support myself. i can’t even go in stores now without getting disoriented. my physical health is worsening as well. I can’t stand for long anymore with how deformed my knees have gotten

sometimes i think i’m not going to live much longer and i’m okay with that.

[lion-of-liberation]

I need to expose my thoughts. I talk and express a lot and yet there’s endlessly more under the surface always. It’s never-ending. I doubt there’s a single person that can handle the endlessness of it all. Some of its mundane, some is significant, some is deeply emotional, but they’re all intertwined and I can’t tell if that’s just what is or if I created it myself. I’m not sure if that even matters either because at this point it’s all real enough that I feel the need to purge it from my brain. I’ll start with some straight forward stuff: what I have self-diagnosed myself with and done nothing about.

It’s honestly embarrassing to think about self-diagnosing myself but… I know me best and I see how different I act in front of any human. It’s almost like I’m never there. Sometimes I am and I love it. But I don’t know why it’s hard to be there. And afterward I regret it and begin thinking about non existence. I’ve challenged myself to type out every natural thought as it comes. I’m not a fan but I need this out. I feel pretty qualified to self-diagnose as I work in the mental health field but do to the nature of what I believe I got going on, I haven’t done anything about this to go find out from an outside source.

This also embarrassing because I feel it’s common. But I hear others using stereotypes and basic examples as justification for their self-diagnosis. I’ve spent years on this. It was 5 years before I said anything to a friend out loud. Anyways… I believe I have ADHD. Stemming from that I’ve developed a propensity for anxiety, depression and imposter syndrome.

Currently, imposter syndrome and depression seem to be taking over. Anxiety used to be a bugger issue, leading to panic attacks and very literally running away. I’m in massage therapy school right now so I feel I’ve learned how to manage anxiety better naturally through this experience.

Depression - my motivation to do anything, including eat or shower has been dwindling for months. It gets better and then gets worse. I know that’s the nature of things but I just want be able to eat at least. I don’t know why something so simple is so difficult for me. Everyone seems to see me as an intelligent and thoughtful person and it just feels like they don’t know me at all. That’s the imposter syndrome right there.

I feel like my brain is full of all these things I want to be and do and I do none of it and my self appreciation just goes down every day. The thoughts of falling into a coma or disappearing have been more and more frequent and starting earlier and earlier in the day.

I feel stuck in some void, but it’s surrounded by mirrors so only I can see me and everyone else sees…something else.

I felt called to type all this out today because something significant yet insignificant happed as soon as I woke up. Someone had deleted me as a friend on Snapchat. I’d never known them in real life. We’d been in each others social media for a few years now. I thought of them as strange and cool, and potentially someone who’d be a friend. It seemed like we were on the same wavelength for a lot of things. He’s even said that once as well. I think people say things heartwarming often thoughtlessly and I’m always the person who takes it seriously and cherishes it. It’s why I hate hearing “I love you.” Anyways I was filled with thoughts that this man could be part of my soul family - a friend I’m meant to have in this life because so many of our interests and ways of being overlapped. I responded to his story yesterday… I guess he hated my response. Maybe something about it revealed to him an aspect of myself he found annoying enough to delete me after 3 years.

I didn’t think I’d be so hurt. But I cried really hard and I’m still crying now. Partly I had a small crush as I often do strictly with males very far from me, but honestly I was holding out hope I’d meet him and gain a new kind of friend. Now that fantasy is demolished and I’m devastated. There’s something good out of this I know. The universe might be pushing distractions out of my way. I’m too good at finding them. Maybe he felt how hard I was hoping he’d be my friend in real life. It all sounds pathetic. I feel starved for deep human connection yet when I make friends I’m so….awkward and feel I have to hide how much I like them. I don’t even like people often. I just don’t know what to do with myself. I’d rather disappear.

I think I’ll procrastinate on talking about what I feel is ADHD in behavior. Specifically the imposter syndrome is what I feel the most. I feel like a joke and disappointment and I’m not sure how I’ll ever change or how to fulfill myself.

[neurodivergentbraingoblins]

My diagnosis of my rare genetic disorder may be recent, but my knowledge and understanding of my mental illnesses have always been there. Just like every ND person knows they are different, I always knew I was different.

I came to terms with my mental illnesses back in middle school and again in highschool when I asked for help to get away from my abusive mom and was literally told by adults that I wasn't worthy of help.

I learned to work WITH my mental disorders, not against them. As a result, I have not attempted suicide since I was 17. Today, I am 28. I have survived month after month of violent intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation because I learned so young that if I can just make it through tonight, there will always be another tomorrow.

My PMDD and OCD combined leave me craving death every single month. But one thing that has never failed me is that there will always be another day for me to keep fighting as long as I'm willing to stay alive to see it. ❤️

[elmachetecriollo]

Medical update (long post, don’t read if you’re not interested)

A lot of my followers probably know that I’ve had neck issues for the past couple of years and migraine problems for a long time before that.

Within the past 3-4 months I’ve made significant progress with this issue because I finally got a diagnosis for what was happening from a reputable orthopedic doctor in my area. I have severe neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome, which essentially amounts to an orthopedic issue where a biological irregularity in my first rib traps the nerves in my thoracic outlet behind my clavicle. This happens mostly when my shoulder muscles become too relaxed--For example, it happens when I’m sleeping and I roll over into the wrong position, or when I get extremely drunk or high (which I used to do very often). It is mostly in my left shoulder, but I also have an irregularity in my right shoulder. In addition to this being a biological issue, it was probably exaggerated by my years of violin playing.

The pain from this condition is chronic and excruciating. It causes me to have severe migraines where it feels like there’s an extreme amount of pressure behind my eyes. These migraines also cause me to get vertigo and nausea when they’re bad enough.

I’ve been getting migraines and vertigo since college, but college is also when I started weightlifting, and strengthening the muscles in my shoulders helped to lessen the severity of some of the symptoms--So much so that I thought the problem had gone away even though I didn’t know the cause of the problem.

This turned out not to be true; a whiplash injury (long story) made the pain flare up again, this time to the point where I thought I was having a stroke. This injury happened during the pandemic in 2020, but the pain from the TOS lasted far longer than any of the pain from the whiplash--It was so severe because the injury caused the nerves in my shoulder to move from close to my spine over to almost the edge of my clavicle.

Of course, I had no idea what was happening at first, so it was extremely concerning and it gave me numerous anxiety attacks (literally, my nerves were in very bad shape). I dealt with this pain for almost exactly 760 days, mainly because every single doctor I saw couldn’t figure out what was wrong. But after a lot of physical therapy and the right anti-inflammatories, I finally seem to be making progress with the pain. To give you an idea of what it took, I had to first strengthen the muscles in my shoulder, and then I literally had to dig my thumb into the side of my neck in order to move the bundle of nerves back into the right place. (This hurt a lot, but the migraines hurt worse.) After two years and two months, I’m feeling somewhat normal again, although it’s definitely still a work in progress.

I’m already starting to lift weights again and I’m hoping to be able to start running this spring. Throughout all of this, only meditation (specifically meditation in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition) has provided me with the mental fortitude to deal with the pain. The anti-inflammatories helped too, but those are only a temporary fix. I’ve learned that when it comes to chronic pain of the genetic variety, no supernatural power is going to help you--The only thing that will help you is your own mind, because ultimately you are the only one that has to deal with the pain. I’m also extremely thankful for my parents, because both of them were restless in helping me get the medical care that I needed. Specifically, my mom is the one who found the orthopedic doctor that was able to diagnose the problem. 

At the end of the day, I hope this experience burned some of my negative karma, which is also just the negative karma of sentient beings in general. If you’ve supported me throughout the past couple years, thank you as well, because I quite literally could not have done it without you. My support network has been really essentially through all of this, and I’m so blessed to have some incredible people in my life.