#mental health

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[anxietyproblem]

[the-transgenda-agenda]

Every so often on tumblr, I see the argument that trans men somehow don't face sexualization or aren't treated like sexual predators or whatever.

It just makes me think about how a few years ago, I was at a mental hospital, and I was isolated and treated like a sexual predator purely because I was taking testosterone. I was given additional supervision for fear that I would "do something" to another patient.

This wasn't a treatment given to the cis male patients. I was initially told that I was going to have a roommate. Not only did I not have a roommate, but I was forced to be in the tiniest room in the whole place. The one that had a window so that the staff could look in. There were normal single bedroom rooms there.

I was placed in the special observation room meant for particularity suicidal patients because I was on HRT. Not because I needed to be in there, but because there was an assumption that I was there to harm someone.

There was no reason at all for me to be in there, a room with only a chair and a bed (the normal rooms had dressers for your clothes, a desk, and I think some other furniture). I had to put my clothing on the floor.

I was in this place to get help. Not only did they not help me, they treated me like I was there to harm others for taking a medication that does nothing to harm anyone.

[draggomon]

This is also a direct manipulation tactic used by abusers.

One of my previous partners was very manipulative. I was with him for a decade. One of his things was anytime he perceived it as him having messed up and hurt me, he would spiral hard.

This trained me to constantly present myself in a way that was more than willing to do whatever he asked. And if he ever did hurt or displease me, then I would hardly ever bring it up since the pain of the spiral would far more than that minor hurt or discomfort.

When I would bring stuff up, I would always downplay it very hard core. And even then it usually ended with him going into a crying fit about how bad his abusive mom was and how far he has come as a person but mental health is still so hard.

You don't have to be a bad person to be abusive, and abuse doesn't have to be intentional. But no one has to take your abuse and you do have an obligation to handle your shit if you're going to exist in community with others.

If you accidentally hurt someone or cross their boundaries and they make you aware of this, literally all you have to do is apologize and stop. You don't have to beat yourself up internally for months. You don't have to hate yourself for fucking up. You don't have to feel like a horrible person. No one benefits from any of that - and at worst, such an extreme reaction will make the person in question less likely to speak up around you in the future, cause even if your negative reaction is directed at yourself and not at them, it's still unpleasant for everyone involved.

[anxietyproblem]

[nightmare-from-heaven]

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.

[nedcaratacus]

[catchymemes]

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[shamebats]

If T makes you gain weight and E and antidepressants do it too, and so does enjoying good food and not being hungry all the time, then perhaps maybe sometimes joy & weight gain come hand in hand and that's good

[plusninesuns]

Also sometimes you dont get to choose what takes up one or more of your spots, and accepting that is also hard but rewarding in the long run.

my example (from my mostly champagne problemed life): once I realized one of my top three *has* to be prioritizing stress management, life with my anxiety disorder became breathable. took years of toddler level tantrums of "but I don't want to" (and those feelings are definitely still there some days) but taking power over deliberately choosing to address the needs of my particle brain makeup has been a gamechanger.

One thing that has made me a much more well-adjusted person is a clip I once saw of Hank Green saying that anyone can be in amazing shape as long as being in amazing shape is one of their top three priorities.

(This is obviously a generalization that isn't true for everyone. But it is true for most people and I'm proceeding from there.)

This "top three priorities" framing has genuinely reduced my tendency toward jealousy and self-comparison a lot. Now when I feel envious of someone’s spotless, aesthetic home, I think to myself, “Having a spotless, aesthetic home is probably one of their top three priorities. It’s definitely not one of mine, so I shouldn’t expect my home to look like that.”

Or when I see an influencer with a body that takes a ton of work to maintain: “Maintaining that body is obviously one of her top three priorities, because it’s her livelihood. My livelihood is my brain, so I’m never going to prioritize my body like that.”

It also helps me to identify areas that I actually DO want to prioritize more. I realized in recent years that my envy for my friends who prioritized writing more than I did was NOT going away, so I started to prioritize writing more. (Not top three, but higher priority than it has been in the past.)

[gentleaffirmations]

Even if you were a difficult child, you didn't deserve to be hurt.

[anxietyproblem]

[moth-the-osha-violaton]

frequently get into situations where you are being hunted for sport so it learns that a forgotten email is not a cause for a cortisol and adrenaline rush?

[ur-daily-inspiration]