#mental illness symptoms as me

[rowlfthedog]

Watching Muppets From Space I will NOT apologize for the person I am about to become for the next hour

[vixensofdeath]

I destroy myself to make me feel better but in the end I always feel worse.

[furiousgoldfish]

me internally: I keep acting like everything is okay in front of others, and hiding my true feelings and state of mind. It's chafing on me and making me feel alone and frustrated at the lack of understanding. Maybe I should speak up and express myself more.

me: Hey, I know I act normal but in reality I am anxious and worried most of the time, and also in pain and re-living past memories and scared there won't be a future for me. I wasn't trying to hide it but I feel compulsed to act like everything is normal.

other people: stop thinking and feeling like that and be normal already. nobody wants to hear this

me: oh.

[autopsyfreak]

if i see one more ‘delulu’ im going to hurt someone

[saturncoyote]

We love a good ol' growth arc

[angelpuns]

Calling out of work will never not feel terrible terrible bad terrible but I have to remind myself that I work for a corporate company so :/

[pjharvey-moved]

the idea of a neurotypical person as someone with zero functioning issues who’s 100% equipped for existing in a late capitalist society is fabricated yeah but also some people are objectively mentally healthier and pretending otherwise is offensive to us actual crazy bitches imo

[cluster-b-culture-is]

BPD culture is feeling bad when people say your blaming your behavior on BPD when you're putting in every ounce of your being to change and act differently while explaining how your BPD makes your symptoms appear and why you act that way because of it.

.

[murderenjoyer]

I'm about to take a silly haha meme too god damn seriously

People who try to "fix" Shane, marry him, and then divorce him because his area is messy and he still likes alcohol and spends full days in bed are ableist. No hyperbole.

"What the fuck do you mean love didn't cure your mental illness? You're in therapy now why aren't you neurotypical yet? You decided to work on your alcoholism why do you not loathe beer completely? What a waste of my time. There's no way I'm sticking with a loser like you, fuck off, get out of my house."

LOVE DOES NOT CURE MENTAL ILLNESS. NO AMOUNT OF LOVE WILL REMOVE CLINICAL DEPRESSION. If it did, people in loving relationships wouldn't kill themselves. People with spouses and children wouldn't kill themselves. People with very close and supportive friends wouldn't kill themselves.

PEOPLE WHO LOVE AND ARE LOVED KILL THEMSELVES ALL THE TIME. LOVE DOES NOT REWIRE THE BRAIN. LOVE DOES NOT FIX CHEMICAL IMBALANCES. CLINICAL DEPRESSION IS A LIFE-LONG ILLNESS IT IS NOT CURED BY SEX OR KISSES OR CUDDLES OR A WEDDING OR BECOMING A PARENT.

You do not have the special magical pussy/cock that will totally rewrite the way a mentally ill person's mind works sorry to break the news to you.

Therapy is not a magical building you walk into crazy and walk out of sane. Therapy cannot totally remove mental illness. The purpose of therapy is not to shoot the patient with a Normalcy Beam and make them sane. That. Is. Not. How. Therapy. Works.

Addiction is a life-long affliction. Once an addict, always an addict. Shane will always be an alcoholic. Forever. For the rest of his life. Working toward sobriety is not the same for everyone. Some people quit cold turkey. Some people traper off. Some people never actually stop using alcohol completely, they just lower their usage to a healthier, manageable level. Just because Shane is working on his addiction, that does not mean the addiction has vanished. He will always have periods of cravings. He will always hold positive memories of his time using, but he chooses every day to not go back to that place because it was harmful to him and the people around him.

If his spouse comes home and hands him a beer, of course he's going to like it. The structure of his brain has been altered by his addiction to make him very much like alcohol. Of course if his spouse gives him a beer, suggesting they're okay with him drinking, suggesting they want him to enjoy something he is addicted to and as such obviously craves, OF COURSE HE IS GOING TO LOVE THE GIFT.

Getting into a relationship with a mentally ill person with the goal of "fixing" them is absolutely vile. You chose him as a project, not as a person. You chose him to stroke your own ego about how awesome and perfect dating you is, not because you cared about him. You chose him because you liked a fictional idealized fantasy of him, not because you saw him as he truly is. You chose him put of pity, not love. Trying to make yourself out to be the magical protagonist who is so special so perfect that you can fuck him sane is so fucking fetishizing and infantalizing.

And then, when you realize your hero complex didn't play out the way you wanted it to, when you realize that being with someone who is mentally sick takes actual work and patience, you abandon him like trash. You call him a disgusting slob who isn't worth your time.

After he trusted you. He opened up to you about feelings that are so personal, so painful, so vulnerable. He truly believes you love and accept him.

And you throw him out on his ass. You tell all your friends he's a slovenly loser. You treat him like trash. The symptoms of his illness become a running joke amongst your friends. You callously reject a person you never respected, never saw as a true and whole person, someone you considered a diy project that you could tackle at your leisure and toss aside when the end result wasn't exactly what you wanted.

I am tired of abandoning Shane for his illness, an illness he's working on but will always suffer, being thrown around as a meme.

It's funny that you took advantage of a mentally ill man? It's funny that he's still suffering? It's funny that the person he truly believed loved and accepted him despite his flaws sneered at him, called him a slob, called him a loser, called him too broken to love, and ejected them from their life without a care in the world?

Thats funny haha hilarious?

I am sick of the aggressive ableism in this fandom around Shane. I am so fucking tired of this fandom pointing and laughing at him as a worthless piece of shit whose very real attempts to improve being pathetic and never enough.

What message do you think you're giving to mentally ill people in the fandom? Telling them that no level of effort is enough to make them worthy of love unless they are immediately perfect and cured and sane in every single way. Telling addicts that if they don't rewire their brain to make themselves loathe their substance, if they have a relapse, they're lying about their journey to sobriety. Telling sick people that their only worth lies in how well they can feed into someone's white knight savior fantasy.

It isn't funny, it isn't cute. It's cruel. It's fetishizing. It's cut and dry ableism.

Stop doing this shit. Stop supporting shit like this. Stop commenting with 800 laughing emojis when someone calls Shane a lost cause.

[jfkonfucius]

[CLONE HIGH: BURNT BEACH AU]

Burnt Beach is a JFKonfucius-centric Clone High AU fanfiction that takes place directly after the ending of S3. The story follows a burn-scarred and traumatized Confucius who unexplainably survived the tragedy. To be his main source of comfort and support is not the person he thought it would be... Some aspects of this fic, such as the chapter titles, are vaguely inspired by The First Glass Beach Album. More info in tags. Click below to start reading!

CLICK HERE

[kindnessoverperfection]

Lately, when I talk about someone I strongly disagree with, I think about my friends.

When I interact with someone who regularly rants about people, and tends to take things in the worst ways (without any attempts at self-reflection or grace), I feel more on-edge. I'm nervous to voice opinions. I'm always over-thinking everything I send them, worried about how they'll receive it.

On the other hand, I feel much safer during conversations where someone is speaking neutrally about those they feel at conflict with. When they feel upset about a situation, but without talking aggressively about the other person. Because I know that if we're ever in a disagreement, or have some sort of conflict or misunderstanding, they won't hurt me or suddenly hate me*.

I used to speak much more aggressively about people. My personality disorders, combined with online toxic environments, were big factors in that. I was stressed and angry constantly, and I felt justified, and I felt afraid and ashamed to respond with anything but anger. But to make a long story short, I had several big painful interpersonal experiences where I realized how my attitude was impacting my friends.

I remember the nervousness in my friends' eyes. I remember the people I've met who are much older and never grew out of that reactive communication style, and I don't want to be that person. I want my loved ones to feel safe around me.

So nowadays, I do my best to speak compassionately (or at least neutrally). Because I want to signal to my friends that I'm not going to be cruel to them, or to automatically believe the worst of them, during a conflict or misunderstanding. I try to vent about situations and my fears instead of people.

I wish I'd realized this before.

*(I discuss splitting in the tags)

[sleepy-crypt1d]

One of my favorite parts of COF that I find is commonly overlooked is the fact that it doesn't sanitized itself for a broader audience, it comes in with a message, with a story to tell that's hard to swallow with characters that are realistic and heartbreaking, and it doesn't apologize for this once.

Something interesting that occurred to me was how people who have never experienced severe mental health struggles view COF- the specific instance I'm thinking of is when I was explaining the plot to my mom, and had explained the different endings to her and how to get those endings, and what each one seemed to imply both for Simon and his relationship with those in his life, and her takeaway from the conversation was- "I don't like that the mentally ill main character becomes a killer. I don't like that he's the bad guy"

And this was interesting to me because, that's kind of the whole reason why I started to love Simon in the first place.

So infrequently are we shown mentally ill characters who do bad things yet still deserve redemption. Who still deserve to be treated as a person, because they are one. In a world that is becoming largely comfortable with the idea "bad person = deserves to die" it was insanely refreshing to see a character like Simon, who we see hurt people, who we see become obsessed and stalkerish and violent, gain redemption through healing. Through therapy and community and the belief from others that he will get better. That he isn't a lost cause.

In ending 2, one of the darker endings of the experience, we learn that Simon is alone. That his friends and family have all left him. That he's been abandoned due to his disability and general mental health struggles, and this was devastating to me. Upsetting to a degree that had me thinking about it for days afterward. Not helped by Simon's plea to Dr. Purnell to not feel bad because "not everyone can be saved". The way Simon views himself is much too similar to my own view of myself as someone who has struggled with similar issues.

As someone who was led down a path of harm due to untreated issues and still struggles with believing I "deserve" redemption.

Because I do, and so does he.

And it's always so upsetting seeing so many people who view victims as one note stories. As people who just cry sometimes and have trouble talking to people or get sad every once in awhile. Mental health is messy and hard to live with and life ruining at times, and this stripping of it's nuance is so frustrating to see happen over and over and over again.

Victims are not your savior story. They are not cookie cutter helpless children that need to be protected. Abuse and severe struggles do not make you stronger, they do not make you better, they do not magically make you more empathetic or loving and I'm fucking tired of that narrative. I'm tired of being talked over by people who've never experienced it or other victims who think they're the "good" ones because, well, they never did that which means anyone who did is horrible. I'm tired of stories of illness being sanitized for other people's comfort.

Victims can become perpetrators, that does not take away from their victim status. That does not change the fact that they still deserve help. That does not take away from their personhood. They are a human being that needs help, not a death sentence. Should they take accountability? Of fucking course. Does their trauma absolve them of wrongdoing? No. But I'm tired of people acting like cycles don't exist, like the second you act out on your trauma you're past saving.

Simon's story is perfect the way it is. A story of redemption and acceptance, of learning to live and grow and learn from past mistakes and find a way to live peacefully. To take responsibility and attempt to rekindle the relationships you lost, the ones you hurt.

Ending 4 and his admittance to the hospital, as well as his continued friendship with Sophie but acceptance of his loss of a romantic one, is heart breakingly bittersweet in a way that is hard for me to describe. Him getting better but living with what he's done, growing from it and learning to live anyways.

Another part of this is that, in his happy ending, in the ending where he does get better; he doesn't do it alone. Largely, the narrative of community is lost in these stories, how helpful a support system can be. Simon gets better because he has people there for him, because he has Purnell and Sophie and his mom looking out for him. He has his doctors and the staff at the hospital and people who know he can get better, that he's still a person deserving and capable of good.

People need people, and this seems an obvious note to me in the story of COF. Simon needs people. He needed people the entire time. Someone, anyone, to listen to him and give him the hand he needed.

And it's so refreshing to see a character like Simon still be loved and cared about and helped even when he was "the bad guy". Let mental ill characters be realistic. I'm begging you.

[vixensofdeath]

It feels like no matter who I mirror, no matter how hard I try to please people, no matter how nice I try to be— no one fucking likes me enough to stay or just return my energy equally. It’s so exhausting but I keep trying and trying to get this love and attention but it’s not sticking.

[mothmothwoth]

WOW. you clearly haven’t been irrevocably changed by a piece of media- and it shows

[clowningaroundmars]

i still cannot get over The Twins like.

imagine.

you have another version of you out there arguably living a life just as difficult as yours, if not more, that you can talk to at literally Any Time! and they're You so you basically already have half a convo down anytime you decide to pop on over via a portal

1610 and 42 stepping out of their respective portals side-by-side just to stroll out of an alleyway like nothin happened just going:

1610: LOUD SIGH

42: rough day too huh?

1610, brushing debris off of his shoulder: yeeep. another run-in with the rhino. again.

42: you didn't lock his dumb ass up like, last month? how'd he get out?

1610: don't know, don't care. so done with this week, i just wanna... i dunno. hibernate til spring 😮‍💨

42: man, what a mood.

1610: what happened to you? you look like you had a rougher day than me!

42, covered in visible bruises and cuts along with his bandages: mannnn... rougher week more like. well... rougher life. but. anyways.

they both nod at each other in Understanding

[impzone]

anyone have recommendations of books that are about coping with mental illness? not even coping just like, works about being ill that make you feel seen. i'll take anything autobio, whether that's a novel, poetry, comic, or someone's personal blog.