#mind of a mentally ill nd teenager | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

postmoderntongues · 2 months ago

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he was def someting most likely autistic or scnizoaective he was an angel but he didnt have any social media all we had was an AIM account that id see him active at the same time as me (i kept t on to scan for hm) 2 or 3 tmes a year but then aim shut down and i lost him and he never resurfaced but last i talked to him he was a city planner in china loving life going to propose to his girlfriend who hed tell stories about us to and it turned her on that he was a "yankii bad drug criminal boy" (he was the sweetest flower child dandilion we just both didnt drink so tripped on the weekends or rolled instead) and that i needed to meet her because she had me built up as this insane character and then that was the last time either of us had each others contact so god bless hope hes still doing good the man was a literal actual angel he was my boy and like got that even tho i was doing the girl thing and didnt say anything about being detransitioned bc i lost a shitton of weight between drugs and ED nd was like "now that im not an ugly girl i wont mind being a girl" (incorrect) but even tho i wore like thrift store punk girl clothes he knew i wasnt a girl and never treated me like one and like we were fucking michael and trevor the way cishet men interprate the characters lol we were partners in mf crime literally and spiritually like i have so many dead friends especially after the fent crisis but also being as mentally ill as i am i knew a lot of my friends ether from treatment or because crazy looks out for crazy so a lot of them completed attempts as well so im very like used to loss especially having ASPD i just don't process the emotion like a healthy person im like "oh" but like whle i comfort everyboody else in my They arent around anymore" like i even found my favorite aunt's body and like i didnt cry at the funeral i didnt have an emotional reaction but like i lock myself out of the house and have to wait an hour for my mom to drive me her spare key and im like self harming with my mf fingernails i have such disproportionate random reactions to shit but this was the one thing that ever went down in my post-pubescent life where i experienced as close as my brain could experience to what normal people call grief. It was one of the ew times in my lie i felt mad and afraid without feeling violent in response to those feelings i have like a soft white underbelly backstory lmfao but thats the only time in my adult life other than to some degree my break of with my partner f 12 years in october who i had to come to terms once the cluster b idealization wore off that he actually raped me as a teenager and then lovebombed me and dragged me into all this serious bullshit and then gets over the whole thing and wants a normal domestic life and leaves me wen i cant do that but when he left and when they opened the elevator and told me the cops got izzy were the only two times that ive felt like actual grief without feeling violent in response it was a really weird quiet feeling but it was the only time i ever wasnt just cold that my response wasnt that somebody needed to pay or it it was (including so many rapes olvia benson late season would say it was overkill as a backstory) i think the worst thing to ever happen to me in my life was what happened to izzy and going through that

Also tis is the only pic we have of most of the full core of the whole operation we thought we were the coolest baddest fuckers on campus we look like such NERDS like we literally thought we were the toughest shit under the off campus operations we look like complete geeks we all look like it wouldnt be morally wrong to shove us in a locker because it would just me that natural we thought we were scary af we were literally baby art school students who shopped at Salvo we thought we were straight up thugs but thugs don't know how to use mf silk road in 2011 XDD

But until I was deep enough in that i was meeting people who pushed things like h and crack and meth and heterosexual male coke dealers drug dealers are the biggest fucking nerds like if he sells acid by the sheet his favorite cartoon is futurama and all straight E dealers go on rants about the different kinds of EDM like bubba from forest gump with the shrimp until it got to like the scary people maybe we've gotten a little in over our heads because carrying guns and having multiple friends involved in multiple homicides feels like it might be a good place to finally plant the goal post (that wasnt this crew that was some people friends of my ex ran with we were completely fucking harmless we just made people read a page of DeSade before wed sell to them and watch gore on research amphetamines) but we were such innocent little goofy kids who had no idea the potential legal consequences of what we were doing (i didnt know at the time but f we were busted we werent getting expelled we were getting upstate time) but we were such cringy fuckign DORKS in reality omg literally everybody in this pic but me and last i heard of izzy has a mf kid or died at this point

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tvmblrsillyman · 4 years ago

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might fuck around and make either a lemon demon nightcore remix or a midi vid

#neb talks #neb vents #its already getting late and midis take forever to render but i rly wanna hear cabinet man in key mash form #I also still have that midi vid tutorial in mind im just not sure how to go abOUT IT OH boy i just remembered a completely unrelated thing #that i wanted to do over a month ago but im already occupied w/ a ton of other projects #having a real teenage angst moment but its actually either a mentally ill moment an nd moment or a just a 'Neb-desperately-need-therapy-and #-need-to-get-their-shit-together' moment

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high-caliber-bitch · 2 years ago

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Self diagnosis really needs to stop being demonized. People get angry about how some people are self diagnosing based on TikTok, but seriously, how many of us self diagnosed or started down the path of diagnosis because of Tumblr?

So many people posting relatable content about what their life was like with autism or ADHD and their personal fixes for it. So many of us going, wow same, we're not so different, this must be a universal thing. Until you interact with people outside your little internet bubble and go "oh shit" it's not everyone, maybe I actually do have ADHD or ASD?

I'd been saving posts about ADHD and ASD for years like "yah same gurl" without it clicking that I shouldn't find nearly every post about these ND issues relatable if I'm NT. Turns out I'm not. I still didn't come to the conclusion myself. My psych major husband, who's almost every flavor of ND was the one who suggested I may have ADHD or ASD or BOTH.

So when we get mad at people who are like "damn this content about this disorder is relatable" even if they don't have said disorder, it's just harmful all around. Humans crave connection with others and sometimes we'll behave in extreme ways it make some leaps to get there. But also, it's really telling about the breakdown of society when more and more people are experiences what are typically seen as symptoms of mental illness.

There's been a spike in anxiety and depression, and a lot of people with ADHD and ASD have one or both as comorbidities. So when someone sees a post where either a diagnosed or self diagnosed person is listing some of their symptoms and someone finds that relatable. Even if that person may come to the wrong conclusion, nothing truly bad has happened. And hopefully, that person will see at least a therapist and have whatever "symptoms" they're experiencing taken care of.

ND people are better at recognizing and diagnosing ND disorders in our own. My husband has personally gotten at least three people to seek mental health help by recognizing symptoms in them that they failed to see themselves. Two major depressive disorders and one ADHD. So it makes sense that within certain communities we diagnose each other before some of us can get formal diagnosis.

That communal diagnosis is also important, because a lot of resources are simply non-existent for adults. If you Google nearly anything about ASD most of the search results are heated towards parents of autistic children and children with autism. Nothing on teenagers or adults. You can hardly find any resources on specific symptoms, only really the ones that overlap with ADHD usually and even then it's always clinical and impersonal and not humanistic.

You can find all sorts of personal blogs on how people have dealt with their depression, how they understand and that it's hard, but this approach worked for them, so maybe it'll work for you. No one ever questions these sorts of things. No one ever questions depression or anxiety. But once you get into ADHD or ASD or even personality disorders, people question everything you say. Saying you have to be an expert.

Like, I'm sorry but if someone with or without ADHD finds my way of doing something helpful, I don't care what their diagnosis is. In a world full of people who can't get diagnosed, who get misdiagnosed, or get late diagnosis, sharing our stories is important. This fight we have to be heard is the same as the fight for pedestrian and green spaces in cities. It's a bunch of new young people with mental health in mind against decades of mistakes and misinformation.

#adhd #asd #autism #adult adhd #actually autistic #autistic adult #diagnosis

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fairycosmos · 3 years ago

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TW: self harm

The way onision hated people who were self harming? He literally made vids about it where he made fun of people for doing that. Kinda fucked me up like i was 13 watching that and i was also actively self harming and idk watchinf that really hurt me. I even remember i was watching it in my bed and cried after watching it LOL i felt so pathetic that there is something wrong with me (i mean there was but u get what i mean). I didnt think "what a weird adult loser that makes fun of teenagers for hurting themself instead of providing help" but now that im 20 im just thinking...wow what an asshole

god he is such a fucking cunt. im so sorry he made you feel like that nd at such a young age too :/ words can not express how much damage he's done like i bet every kid in his audience felt the same at one point or another. set us all back 5 years in our personal growth lmfao. and his content was the most violent and predatory shit ever - his whole channel was just fuel for his narcissism and incessant need to shit on people and to look down on them. even literal children who were mentally ill. i was the same esp with his body image videos - took me years to think to myself why is this grown man behaving like this in the first place? before that it was so normalized in my mind, just having a parasocial relationship with youtubers in general was, that they always felt like friends rather than adults who had a responsibility to influence their audience in a positive way + to safeguard a secure community. i didn't see it like that at all when i was 10, 11 yrs old and creators like onision knew his kid audience didn't have the capacity to see what he was doing. it was a gross situation all around

#anon #i hope ur doing better now baby x

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livefromtheelephantsfoot · 5 years ago

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I am one month into college and I want to tell those of you struggling with high school that it's going to be okay. Those four years were the worst of my life and I was worried college would be harder, more stressful, that I wouldn't be smart enough or driven enough and would end up dropping out.

I can't speak for all college students-- hell, I can't even speak for my future self. But I can say that right here, right now, I am... happy? I don't even know what that word means anymore, but I have friends and like my classes and don't feel sad and empty all the time.

My whole life, I just wanted to get to this point. 1. Get good grades 2. Get into a good school 3. Get scholarships 4. ??? 5. Profit. I've never been ambitious beyond what I had to be, and I was scared that without that motivation, which was really a fear of debt and poverty and unfulfilled needs, I would lose the will to try.

But I didn't. I am relearning what it means to do things because I like them. To study because I want to know things. I don't see the financial aid I got as a ticket to success but the freedom to fail. If I graduate with a "useless" degree and work minimum wage it will be ok because I know how to scrimp and save, and I know how to scratch my creative itch without it taking up most of my income.

My situation is unique to myself, but if I divide myself by my identities I can perhaps give limited advice.

To LGBTQIA teens: if the people around you are cruel, I am sorry and I want you to know that this is not normal. There will come a time and place where you will expect decency from people.

To ADHD teens: school is hell, amiright? Here's the thing: a subject you enjoy taught by a teacher who cares is the most incredible thing in the world. If you're not an academic you'll find this experience in skills classes and trade learning, but if you are an academic I cannot recommend college highly enough. Even if high school was godawful and you never want to see a textbook again, just try a community college class that looks cool. Once school becomes fun, there is no turning back. (Also, I'd bet good money that a large portion of college professors are ND.)

To Jewish teens: not a lot of specific advice to offer, but oh boy will you meet a lot of other Jewish people at college. If you're worried about antisemitism, there is TONS of info online about campus culture, and even ranking lists for which places are most welcoming (same goes for lgbtq teens!).

To teens with mental illnesses: this one's hard, because experiences and struggles vary a whole lot. But focus on what makes you curious. No matter how swamped you are in apathy or despair or stress, there's gotta be something that makes you want to hang on and see what comes next. Make "fuck around and find out" your new life motto. Can you find something curious in a tv show? A class? A friendship? What do you want to find out badly enough to wait and see?

To otherwise nerdy, isolated, or awkward teens: as you get older, people will be more accommodating. You will have access to new sources of like-minded people. You will have more resources to dive into your interests or work through social problems.

And to every teenager struggling with school, parents, relationships, mental health: the control over your life that comes with independence is incredible. Just wait and see.

#long post #lgbtqia #lgbt #queer #Actually adhd #Adhd #Advice #Jewish #Judaism

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eeee-lye · 7 years ago

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So I’ve finished Tempests and Slaughter and ... look, I write long, rambling works more about character development than plot, so when I say there’s not enough plot in this book, the context from where I say it matters.

Pierce has never been a tight plotter. She’s better at it in the Circle universe books, where the structures of events in a single book gives a sense of plot that leads to a more definite conclusion (like Sandry’s destroying the murderers at the end of Magic Steps). Many of her Tortall books, though, involve a sequence of events that occur over a period of time, event after event, finally reaching a conclusion at the end of the series, but often stopping mid-series because it seems like a good spot to wrap up (with some character development to make it stick, with varying degrees of success). We’re just not reading Pierce for plot, and I don’t have a problem with this most of the time.

Tempests and Slaughter has no plot and only a very quick “oh this is a romantic relationship” revelation emotional tie-up at the end (not instigated by Arram). It is solely establishing set up for everything that happens before and during The Immortals. Yes, things happen, but there’s no real conclusion, just a tour through many, many scenes that are depictions of magic and growing up and learning with a lot of foreshadowing but not a lot of things actually happening.

(Some of the foreshadowing is utterly enjoyable for old Pierce fans. It’s fun to see Ozorne and Varice interact with each other and Arram, and Pierce’s showing us Tristan, Gissa and their relationship with the three is really cool.)

The major problem here is that Arram Draper is a character to whom things happen, and, honestly? This never a good protagonist makes. There’s gods talking about how he’s destined for great things (he has a sunbird called Preet, which is basically the equivalent of Alanna/Beka’s Faithful/Pounce) but Arram Draper does almost nothing himself. Gods find him. Teachers make decisions for him. His friends find him. He ends up in situations of tempests and slaughter from the actions and decisions of others. I’m honestly racking my brain for more than one or two instances where Arram decided to do anything without someone else deciding for him or pushing him towards it. He doesn’t instigate adventures, he doesn’t try to investigate a certain mystery himself (most of Pierce’s other characters would have tried to solve it instead of leaving it for the next book). Arram does nothing but let the universe push him around, and since the book tells me so unsubtly that he’s destined for great things, it undermines this message--the telling and the showing don’t match up.

That Arram does little of his own will is why there’s no plot. A proactive character who makes decisions, good and bad, generates their own plot. A character who has his decisions made by others and handed to him does not; you just get a character coasting from scene to scene. There’s not even a great sense of character development--you see Arram learn about magic and observe things about Carthak and Ozorne, but very little about himself. One of the two character arc moments that formed the conclusion was handed to us in the first chapter!

I suspect this is meant to contrast the massive changes that Arram makes to become Numair in the next books, but it leaves Tempests and Slaughter lacking in emotional punch. It’s dull. I was reading just for the foreshadowing, for mentions of Lindhall. I wasn’t reading for the character of Arram Draper, and when compared to every single one of Pierce’s other protagonists, that’s not something I want to say.

I didn’t love Battle Magic, but it’s a much stronger story with an antagonist, a threat, something at stake, and characters who deal with magic and awfulness but don’t walk away unchanged by it. (Plus there’s delightfully polyam and bi Rosethorn.) Tempests and Slaughter doesn’t have a clear antagonist whose actions impact Arram and doesn’t have anything at stake for Arram despite the murder and political doings. It’s the Star Wars prequel trilogy of the Tortall verse.

Under the cut, I’m going to talk in slightly spoilerish fashion about mental illness and the Tasikhe family:

Mental illness has a stronger presence here than in most of Pierce’s books, excepting perhaps The Will of the Empress / Battle Magic / Melting Stones. There’s potions made that seem to be the functional equivalent of antidepressants and antipsychotics, purposefully for mood-lifting and calming. I think this is awesome, generally--I’d love to see more fantasy novels with fantastic treatments for mental illnesses. I’d love to see a fantasy protagonist take a potion every night or morning to manage their symptoms, just like I do.

But. When the only characters seen using these potions are from the Tasikhe family (Ozorne and his mother) and are generally depicted as unstable, racist and violent, and when Ozorne is a damn series antagonist, I have one hell of a problem.

(There’s also the fact that one of the characters giving Ozorne’s potion is Very Clearly Up To No Good, which leaves me wondering if the potion is meant to damage or harm Ozorne long term. That connotation, as it maps to psychiatric meds, is troubling to say the least.)

There are no other characters written as mentally ill in the same way. Arram is clearly ND-coded, written as distractible, narrowly-focused, shy, anxious, awkward--a healer character makes a comment about his mind being a singular place that reads, to me, straight from the autism playbook. Arram, though, isn’t written as unstable in the way Ozorne is, and at no point is Arram’s neurodiversity ever named; at no point is he shown getting support for it. It isn’t treated in the same way as seeing Ozorne being given a potion that settles his depression symptoms enough that he can return to more normal functioning.

Ozorne has some degree of PTSD from his father’s death and depression, specifically seasonal affective disorder, although it’s forgotten about in the later stages of the book. He is a reasonably good depiction of depression earlier on, but also prone to rage and violence towards anyone remotely connected to the ethnicity of the people who killed his father. I’m far too white to speak properly on this, but I’m not liking the approach of giving a racist character a “you people killed my father” backstory justifying his racism. What I can speak on is the fact that we’ve got a mentally ill character who is racist, violent and hateful, and while mental illness never stops one from being racist (and we white mentally-ill folks need to not use mental illness as an excuse) it is dangerous to associate mental illness with violence the way it is in Ozorne and his mother.

People with mental illnesses are more like to be the victims of violence than its perpetrators, yet here we are getting characters who are visibly mentally ill, to the point of needing treatment--one of whom will become an antagonist who does some horrifically terrible things during The Immortals. We’re getting another character, treated similarly to Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, who is written as even more obviously and unambiguously mentally ill because it is inconceivable that anyone without mental illness can be a violent, lethal series antagonist, and as a mentally ill person, I am so not okay with this.

This is a carryover from The Immortals, but it is so damn unnecessary. Ozorne did not need to be mentally ill. He didn’t need to be written as a mentally ill character, undergoing the treatment of a mentally ill character. He could have been written as a racist would-be conqueror without any suggestion of mental illness; I don’t believe it would have changed his character arc at all.

Given that Pierce writes YA, and given that she’s written suggestions in the Circle universe of mental illness and its treatment being more normalised (at least with regards to trauma/PTSD), I think she’s done mentally ill teenagers a massive injustice here. Teens with depression and SAD do not need to see a character who has their symptoms and experiences being built up to be a series antagonist who wrecks destruction and violence.

It’s ableism, and given that this is the set up and where Ozorne’s character must go, I’m doubtful it’ll get any less ableist.

#how is this not a review?#reading #books #reading things #ableism #mental illness #mental illness things #tempests and slaughter readthrough #Tamora Pierce #long post #very long post

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spamtonology · 3 years ago

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@dumthicc (Please do not harass this person.) I am going to assume you meant this in good faith and want a serious answer. You won’t get “hatecrimed” for having an opinion, that’s not what this place is for. Fire is right on his part, and in his original tags alludes to the fandom phenomenon of Flanderization, which is exactly what is happening here with Spamton.

Wikipedia’s definition:

Flanderization is the process through which a single element of a character's personality, often an originally mild element, is inflated in importance over the course of a work until it becomes their primary defining characteristic

Yes, Spamton is all of the three: Creepy, mysterious and odd. That’s one facet of his character and it’s good to keep in mind that is how he is in the game. Flanderization of this trait would be focusing exclusively on the creepy aspect and not the other aspects of his character (manipulative, sleazy, even friendly if you go to his shop).

It can be easy to dismiss homeless discrimination because for the most part, people have an unconscious bias against homeless people propagated by media and news sources. It’s easy to “otherize” them and forget that they too, are people. They are therefore reduced to the “hobo” carciature: filthy, mean-spirited, animalistic drug addicts who must be avoided at all costs. It does not help that Spamton fits this carciature a little (probably unconsciously on Toby Fox’s part). But again, he is not just this trait. Again, Flanderization of this trait would be reducing him purely into this stereotype without taking into account his other traits: he is actually charismatic, looks well-kept by all accounts, and if “fried pipis” is anything to go by, he seems to make his own food just fine.

Ableism is not when neurodivergent and mentally ill people project onto/headcanon a character as mentally ill, it is the act of deliberate mocking and discrimination of mental illness, reducing it to offensive stereotypes. People who are ND and mentally ill recognize these stereotypes and generally try to avoid them, and want to destigmatize mental illness above all.

Are there some people who don’t realize this and display unconscious ableism when headcanoning him? Certainly; just like with homelessness, mental illness is often stigmatized and “otherized”, so bias is easy to fall into. In that case, it’s wise to let that person know and to correct them on their stereotyping. A headcanon becomes Flanderization when you focus solely on his, say, delusions and make that his only defining trait to the point it displays offensive stereotypes of mental illness, such as having murderous intent (I have seen this as an actual example of a headcanon, yes).

Spamton technically does have avian traits, this is something that is factual to the game, but again, Flanderization is when these traits are so exaggerated that it’s all he is, a literal animal rather than a humanoid who has bird-like symbolism (namely, a caged bird seeks freedom). This then leads to the (unconscious or not) relation of mental illness and homelessness to being akin to animal behavior, contributing to dehumanization of these stigmatized groups.

Lastly, the infantilization of his character is a real issue and extends far beyond “small and cute”. The traits of being small and cute are not bad in itself, and it’s one reason Spamton is an appealing character: he’s about the size of a short teenager and resembles Pinocchio. “Small and cute” old characters are also something you see in cartoons, too. Flanderization is when these physical traits become exaggerated to the point that he is depicted as needing a stroller, needing to be pacified, and, rather egregiously, needing a rubber ducky to calm down during a bath.

Just as Fire said, it’s not weird or “blowing it out of proportion” to criticize how the fandom has come to treat Spamton’s character, especially when certain forms of Flanderization and treatment like these reveal what the person thinks mentally ill, homeless, short people must be like instead of who they are. These, at the surface “harmless” thoughts and ideas about Spamton’s character really do contribute to and show how stigmatized people are still reduced to stereotypes and dehumanized, that their existence is purely there for jokes in this case.

Toby Fox’s characters have a lot of nuance, and there is a common phenomenon in the fandom to Flanderize characters, reducing them to one or two traits and then exaggerating those. It’s been seen with Sans and Papyrus, and it’s a repeat with Spamton.

I have faith that most fans understand this and want to avoid falling into these (admittedly easy to fall into) traps, that’s partially why I created this blog. For those who don’t, I hope they can learn from this blog. For those who don’t and subsequently don’t care, I don’t know what to do with those people except criticize their actions from afar.

I hope you understand.

Why are the two fanon Spamtons just “super suave 6’5” sexyman” or “literal toddler”

#spamton #I wrote a lot...That's all right. I take this seriously #I write essays often so this is nothing haha

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evehasplans · 8 years ago

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Anxiety and Safe Spaces

The other day, The New York times did this long form piece (paywall) on the rise of anxiety for teenagers.

Instead of really talking about why,1 they spent roughly half the time talking about a teenager who had several breakdowns due to his anxiety and the other half of the time talking to psychologists. Some of whom are involved in running a rehab camp for teenagers with mental illnesses, specifically focusing on anxiety.2

1. One low-context quote blaming social media as the cause. They don't examine this in sufficient detail but if they're going for an anti-bullying message, they undermine it with their “toughen up” stance in the rest of the article. Also lots of shade thrown at safe spaces and other “be considerate of others” efforts. Remarkably little empathy for the fact that some of the teenagers they talked to ended up in the rehab facility because of being bullied thanks to places without safe spaces. 2. But lumping in OCD and a few other things the DSM no longer considers a part of anxiety. The camp is a bit behind. NYT noted this but not so blatantly.

The “default” position in our society should be able to justify itself without trying to make its detractors look weak.

If you go out and talk to adults3 about how to be considerate to neurodiverse people, you'll quickly discover there are a lot of people who think making accommodations for neurodiversity is just going to make people soft. The unstated assumption is that people should “toughen up.”4

3. Defined here as people who have reached the age where they've decided they don't need to grow with society anymore. Never been happier not to be a “functioning” adult. 4. I think I've talked about this before but I haven't been on Tumblr for awhile so just in case … the number of accommodations ND people make for NT people is startling once you start listing them out. NT people seriously need to stop acting like it's such a chore for them to do even the smallest things to be considerate.

Half of the things the main psychologist said were word for word what I've heard from adults arguing against using even the most basic consideration for ND people.5

5. By their reckoning, I should be too soft and weak to make it all the way through their article. I've read it twice. 💅

They spent a lot of time taling about Exposure Therapy (ET). In ET, you're exposed (in a small, controlled environment, a bit at a time) to one of the things that makes you anxious in order to help you overcome your anxiety. I could spend a lot of time talking about my frustrations with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The core concept (of CBT) feels like it's blaming people with mental illness for not having the coping skills our society (and CBT) didn't bother giving us. ET isn't itself the problem. Even though I dislike CBT, it's not in itself a problem.

If you have the wrong motives and mindset, your results are going to be less than ideal but ET and CBT to blame. We are.

Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons will undermine compassion every time.

The thing about anxiety is that, yes, some of it is “irrational.” You're probably not going to be laughed off stage if you speak in front of an audience. Not all anxiety is irrational though.

A reasonable person would say my anxiety about cars is rationally founded. I've had my cars break down dozens of times. I've had a person hop out of his car and try to beat my window in with his fist because I made a driving mistake6 on unfamiliar roads. I've had 18-wheelers try to merge on top of me.7 I've had my transmission die in the middle of nowhere and paid thousands of dollars out of my savings to repair it. I only managed to keep my job bcause a friend had a spare car they didn't mind lending me for a whole month. Every time I get in my car, I have the very rational and very painful fear that the car isn't going to start or I'm going to have a life-alteringly bad experience on my trip.

I didn't start out this way. I used to love driving. I'd go out driving in the middle of the night on back roads to relax. Exposure to driving gave me my anxiety. You can't cure my anxiety about cars through exposing me to more of them. A compassionate psychologist isn't going to try to expose me to more cars.

6. No vehicles or people damaged by my mistake. 7. Repeatedly, when I'd been in the same lane running cruise control for miles and miles.

From the perspective of the folks in the article, I don't have a problem because I still make the long drive to and from work every work day. Over 300 miles a week. Mission accomplished! If this was judged on pain management instead, they'd recognize the problem because I don't drive any other time. I only drive when I have to. I'm using cars as an example because I've lived with it but there are plenty of other rational anxieties.

ET is one tool in the toolbox. It can be a great tool when it's the right tool and it's used with compassion. Meaningful coping strategies are another. Teaching people how to apply self-care, when to give themselves a break, and how to ask for compassionate behavior from others (aka “safe spaces”)? Those things don't undermine a compassionate CBT.

Without a core of compassion, you don't have tools. You have weapons.

I hope to Eris there's one day a meaningful treatment for rational anxieties.

More than that, I hope for a world where our experts don't reach for the uncompassionate, patient-blaming answer first. Where we don't carry water for the vicious and cruel impulses of our culture in the search for the easy answer. Where we give up the search for the easy answer and instead dedicate ourselves to the compassionate answer no matter how hard it is. Because there really can be value in ET when it's applied correctly, from the right mindset, and in the right situations.

When it's not, it makes us and our world crueller and less caring.

I don't want to live in a crueller world. This one is bad enough as it is.

#cw anxiety and psychology #long post #tumblr is remarkably bad at dealing with typing a long post

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rottenbutrecovering · 8 years ago

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No! anyone who hurts someone on purpose is not 'neurotypical'- they may not have a diagnosis but they are not 'neurotypical'. Tbh, i hate that word anyway, it suggests that people without mental illness all think the same way, but pretty much everyone experiences a bout of depression in life-even without realising it.i feel the same with diagnosis sometimes,its strange how we put people in boxes and ignore the fact everyones mind works differently!(i understand its sometimes needed in treatment)

idk like i completely disagree

violence doesn’t mean the person is mentally ill- cause anyone who isn’t ND is mentally ill/disordered, by definition.

like people can hurt people for many reasons? teenagers bitching about over teenagers and casting them out is done by p much all teenagers, it doens’t make them ND, but thats hurting people

people get angry and punch people, doesn’t make them ND

people murder people, doesnt make them ND. it could be because the other did something wrong and they want revenge, doesn’t make them ND

It’s not just mentally ill people that hurt people, NTs do it to, even if you don’t like the word.

#answered #Anonymous

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completeworksofsigmundfreud · 8 years ago

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Studies on Hysteria (1895) - Part II - Case Histories - Case 2 - Emmy von V., 40 year, from Livonia (Freud) - English summary

The second case of Studies on Hysteria is a woman performing under the alias Emmy Von V., who Freud took care of from May 1889. According to his observations, it was very easy to get her into the state of somnambulism and so he decided to use Breuer’s method since his friend described it to him in detail, although he was inexperienced in it and it was his first try. When he saw Mrs. Emmy for the first time, she lay on the sofa and her still youthful appearance was giving her enough charm despite her age. Her face was distorted by a painful grimace, though, her forehead was wrinkled, the tone of her voice too low and she often alternated between states of stammering. Her hands were tightly clasped, her facial muscles kept moving, just as the muscles on her neck. She kept disturbing her speech by a clacking sound coming out of her mouth. When she started to tell Freud about her illness, she spoke intelligibly and she showed a high level of education and intelligence. In the middle of the conversation, she fell into hallucinatory state, though, her face twisted in disgust and contempt, reaching out her hands to Freud with bend fingers and yelled at him not to come any closer to her and not to touch her (Freud later discovered that it was her defensive mechanism). At a slap, she became normal again and resumed the conversation without being aware of her hallucination. Freud got to know everything essential about her origin – her family descended from central Germany, but lived in Baltic provinces in Russia for the last two generations and owned vast estates there. Emmy was thirteenth of fourteen children from which only four children survived under the supervision of their strict mother. In her age of 23 years, she married to rich, significantly older man, who died of stroke soon after the wedding. She was forced to bring up two daughters completely alone (now in the age of 16 and 14 years) who were often ill and suffered from various neurotic problems. Emmy herself attributed her illness to these events as she withered away year by year despite several treatments and procedure she had been through all over the world. Freud advised her to disconnect herself from her daughter who had her own governess by that time, and to move to a nursing home where he could pay his entire attention to her. Emmy agreed without objections.

On 2nd May 1889 Freud visited her in the nursing home and noticed that Emmy always startled whenever anyone entered her room. He ordered to everyone to knock loudly and wait for her invitation before entering. In the following days, Emmy felt better thanks to Freud’s practice – he ordered hot baths for her and massages of her whole body twice a day. Before she went to sleep, he always lightly hypnotised her and tried to convince her that she should sleep well and her symptoms should improve. Emmy reacted more than positively and she never asked him about her hypnoid states, slept well and spent most of her days by peaceful rest in the bed. Her daughters could visit her, or Emmy could read and deal with her correspondence.

On 8th May 1889 she piqued his interest by a story she read in newspapers that made her tremble with fear – about a boy who was tied up by an apprentice and who gave him a white mouse into his mouth. The boy died of fear. When Freud hypnotised her, he found that the article in the newspapers really tells a story about a boy who was tormented to death but there was no mention about mice or rats. He came to the conclusion that Emmy had to create the association by herself in some sort of delirium after one of the doctors told her that he sent a crate of mice to Tbilisi. In the evening, she couldn’t remember anything about it, she just mentioned that she suffered from cramps in her neck in the afternoon. Freud tried to convince her in the hypnosis to talk more about her past experiences so he could find out why she associated the tormented boy with mice and rats. Although she mediated before every single answer, she was able to give him the answers during which she kept twitching and the expressions on her faces kept changing from the one of horror to the one of fear. She started talking about how her siblings threw dead animals at her which caused her first fits of fainting and cramps. Her aunt considered it as unacceptable so these demonstrations of her mental state stopped. Another traumatic experiences were dead bodies of her sister and aunt, and her brother who scared her dressed as a ghost. On a question why she kept throwing herself so much, she explained that when she was talking about all the traumatic experiences, she could see them in front of her quite lively and colourfully. Freud swore to himself to help her to free herself from these lively notions by therapy and induced this suggestion to her by stroking her eyes for a couple of times.

9th May 1889 – Emmy slept well but she started to have digestive problems after she spent too much time with her daughters in the garden. Freud advised to her to limit the visit of her daughter to two and half hours at maximum. There were also other symptoms that had origin in a shock she suffered after she leafed through an ethnological atlas and she saw American Indians dressed as animals. Freud tried to convince her in the hypnosis not to fear of the pictures but quite the contrary, to laugh at them which she did after she woke up. She kept giving out the clacking sound, though (she brought it about when she took care of her sick daughter and was forced to be completely quiet and now the tic showed when she was nervous or anxious), and especially after Breuer’s visit (she didn’t mind him) and a doctor from the nursing home (the reason of her anxiety). By the evening, she was cheerful and showed very surprising humour sense considering her social status that was directed mainly on her previous therapy which she tried to get rid of, but never found the courage to do so. That happened after a remark from Doctor Breuer but then she was horrified that she was too indiscrete. Freud calmed her down that it wasn’t like that and hypnotised her so she could tell him more about her fears. Emmy started to talk about her teenager years where she started to suffer from fear of insanity because her female cousin and her mother spent some time in an asylum, and from one of the maids who was also in the asylum, she hear horrific stories about how the patients were treated. Freud tried to fix her impressions about the asylums. Then Emmy talked about her concerns for her mother because she once found her after a stroke which mother survived but few years later, she died anyway and Emmy found her. Freud succeeded in suggesting that she should perceive these facts but shouldn’t associate them with any emotions.

10th May 1889 – Emmy went through a bran bath for the first time and she didn’t like it, claiming that it caused her a lot of pain. During the massage, she relaxed and while she was afraid that Doctor Breuer could get insulted by her yesterday’s behaviour, she also started to talk about her queer male cousin whose parents got all his teeth pull out at one sitting. She got into hysterics during these moments and kept repeating her defensive mechanism, then she calmed won again. Freud focused on her defensive mechanism during the hypnosis and found out that the phrases she used had an origin in her past – “Keep still” was connected to a period when she was attacked by her animal hallucinations. “Don’t touch me” reflected in a past experience where her brother grabbed her strongly in a fit caused my morphine overdoes, or when her daughter was sick that one time and almost strangled her to death. During the evening hypnosis, the focused on her stammering problem and it came into light that she got into a situation in the past when she forced herself to keep quiet so the frightened horses wouldn’t be frightened even more. After another suggestion therapy that Freud practiced in her case, she got rid of the problem. Then they talked about other cases during which Emmy got scared and they came to the understanding as to why Emmy always startled when someone entered her room. All her shocks and past traumas usually came suddenly and unexpectedly.

11th May 1889 – gynaecological examination of her daughter made Emmy very nervous and Freud had to hypnotise her. It came out that she was afraid of telling him something that could insult him the other day, but Freud explained to her that nothing like that happened. After the examination they talked about her greatest shocks and fears – especially the death of her husband and the following illness of her daughter who was a bit retarded during her childhood. Freud argued that her daughter was now an adult and she was in a very good condition by which he helped Emmy to get rid of the inner fear what would happen with the child. Then they returned to her fear from asylums and Freud once again tried to convince her that the patients were treated well. He realized, during these hypnoses, that it wasn’t good to interrupt Emmy because she was angry with him for that in her hypnoid state.

12th May 1889 – despite Freud’s expectations, Emmy didn’t sleep well and didn’t want to talk about the bad dream she had had. During the massage, she rather talked about the times she spent at the Baltic and people from the neighbouring town she entertained etc. During the hypnosis, she uncovered that her nightmares from the last night concerned her fear from animals. Freud tried to force her to the root of the problem, but she informed that they would get there when she wanted and he should let her to narrate the story. When he did so, she started to talk about her husband again, how she couldn’t believe he had been dead and how she hated her child for three years because of that, because she believed that her husband could have still been alive if she could have taken care of him, instead of lying in the bed because of this child. These events were also connected to drear of foreign people after the family of her deceased husband started a campaign against her, slandering her, printing defaming articles in the newspapers about her, and keeping accusing her that she poisoned her husband because they couldn’t stand their marriage and their happiness. Emmy relaxed after Freud told her a couple of soothing words.

13th May 1889 – Emmy slept badly again and although she was in relatively good mood, her tics returned. She spoke about her fear of animals in the hypnosis that appeared after she had been on one theatre performance and had gotten scared by a character of giant lizard. She also spoke about her digestive problems they connected with depression after her husband’s death when she ate out of duty. She also confessed that although she hated her child, no one could ever notice it and she reproached herself until this day that she had been fonder of the elder child more.

14th May 1889 - Emmy slept well finally but she complained about pains in her right leg. During the hypnosis, they returned to her fear of foreign people when she listed all the other cases of this fear. Freud saw the main problem in what had happened after her husband died, though. When he came to see her in the evening, she was anxious again. Breuer had visited her and she had startled when he came in. She considered it as inappropriate because she disparaged Freud in front of Breuer according to her opinion. Freud had noticed so far, though, that she always tried to be obliging and dutiful to comply with Freud’s wishes and when it wasn’t like that, she reproached herself. He assured her during the hypnosis that nothing happened and she shouldn’t be so hard towards herself.

15th May 1889 – Emmy slept well again, but she started to be anxious immediately. She explained that she had advised her daughters to used a lift in the pension both for a ride up and down. But because she didn’t trust lifts, she reproached herself for causing a threat to her daughters’ lives. Freud, who knew the pension and its owner, explained to her that the lift is safe and the owner wouldn’t make such an advertisement out of it if it wasn’t. Emmy was able to laugh at her unwarranted fears, but Freud suspected that her today’s anxiety had different roots. He started with the massage of her body, but Emmy spoke mostly about her social life in German Russia and North Germany and entertained him with many stories. During the hypnosis, they returned to her morning anxiety and it came out that she was afraid that her period was about to start and it would prevent her from having massages, but in attempt to avoid this fear, she attached to something entirely different – thus to the lift in the pension. Freud added in the footnotes that this hadn’t occurred for the first time – for example she once claimed that she didn’t want to take cold bath because they caused her a depression and when Freud convinced her through hypnosis that she wanted cold bath, she really started to take them. However, she fell into depression anyway, but later admitted that she read in newspapers reports about riots in San Domingo and her brother, who hadn’t sent any message about himself, was there. Freud came to the conclusion that during the splitting of consciousness, there is also a transfer of psychosis onto different object, most of the time seemingly irrational. Then they focused on her pains in the various parts of her body, when Emmy talked about the events when she had felt them the most. In the evening, they also focused on her fears about the family members – illness of her children, life of her newlywed brother. They talked them through in detail and Freud also gave her a couple of advises considering her pains.

16th May 1889 - Emmy slept well and she complained again about some pains, but the hypnosis didn’t reveal a thing. When Freud came to her in the evening, she was nervous and her thoughts kept running without any kind of order. She wasn’t able to answer on any of the questions he had asked her, and so he hypnotised her and started to take her words one by one to let her talk about it.

17th May 1889 – Emmy had a very good night, but the pains and anxiety lasted, she was overly cheerfully and didn’t want to talk about why she was so excited. In the hypnosis, Freud focused on animals because she saw worms in her bran bath. She began stammering again and when he asked why, she answered that it did so every time she felt frightened. She was afraid that because of the return of some of her symptoms, Freud would lose patience with her and stop his treatment, and she also worried about not thanking him for coming to visit her. Freud assured her that she was getting better, and that she was more resilient and opened to people she was close with and that was the important thing. By the evening, she was very content and hypnosis didn’t bring anything. Freud focused on the pains in her right leg then which he managed to get rid of in her hypnoid state but after she woke up, the pain partly returned.

18th May 1889 – allegedly, she hadn’t slept so well for many years. The pains still last, though.

By that, Freud completed his notes about Emmy. Because he always waited for various symptoms to appear and let the things flow, the notes were often repetitive and didn’t bring anything new. Existing notes considered as sufficient. After 7 weeks of treatment Emmy’s state improved enough that Freud allowed her to return home with that both he and Breuer would stay in contact with her in correspondence to know how she was doing. She relapsed 7 months later because her daughter started to have some uterus problems. Freud advised her to visit his gynaecologist friend who managed to help her daughter for a couple of months. After the return home, the daughter got worse and Emmy chose a different gynaecologist. She started to reproach herself because of what happened to her daughter, and she also accused Freud’d gynaecologist friend, as well as Freud himself, by which she completely destroyed the results of his treatment. The situation improved fter Breuer’s intervention, but the aversion towards Freud still lasted. She let them persuade her, though, to transfer her to a sanatorium where the main doctor was in contact with Freud and received recommendations from him how to treat Emmmy.

Sanatorium proved to be a failure, though, because Emmy refused any kind of treatment. She improved after her family relative “kidnapped” her from sanatorium and took care of her in her home. Soon after, Emmy decided to leave for Vienna and ask Freud for his help again. He found that her state wasn’t that bad as he had heard. The anxiety was replaced by confusion, moments of sadness in a particular hour and various tics. He had problems to hypnotise her because of her unpleasant experiences in the sanatorium, but he succeeded in the end. During the hypnosis he came to the conclusion that to reach the therapeutic effect, the described event must be retold fully and completely truthfully. He started to pay attention if Emmy wasn’t holding back anything or distorting the facts. He “abused” the hypnosis to make her forget on unpleasant sanatorium. He had bigger problems with “storms in her head” as she called them that were connected to the illness of her daughter, but he managed to get over them, as well. At the end of her treatment, he found out that Emmy ate a little and she couldn’t drink anything else but thick fluids, according to her words. Freud ordered to increase the food portions and drink alkaline water. Emmy agreed with that she was doing it because he said so and warned him beforehand that it was going to end up badly, because her digestive system wasn’t adapted the way to eat normally. Freud dismissed that because he didn’t consider likely that someone could be able to cause digestive problems to himself by this way. However, he found her in depression after the food and she complained about digestive problems and he came to the conclusion that the problems were caused by psychical problems. He tried to hypnotise her but Emmy rebelled and accused him of causing her these problem, and mainly that he threw away all the progress just because he wanted to learn her eat how he wanted. Freud told her that he would leave her for 24 hours alone to think it over and consider whether the digestive problems were really caused physically or if it was a psychical problem. If she would insist on a physical problem, he would ask her to leave because he couldn’t help her anymore. After 24 hours, he found her submissive and complaint. She admitted that she thought that the digestive problems were caused by her psychical problems but just because Freud thought so, as well. Under the hypnosis, she then talked about a series of experiences that produced disgust and distaste in her (inappropriate behaviour of other at the table, her mother forcing her to eat cold meat etc.), as well as her disgust towards water (caused by experience in the childhood when her whole family suffered from digestive problems because of bad drinking water). The therapeutic effect of hypnosis showed immediately the second day.

After she was released from the treatment, Freud remained in contact with Emmy as she wrote him how well she ate and drank, and how she gained some weight. She had problems with her daughter, though, who became disobedient with unreachable ambitions and even became violent. Freud came to the conclusion that it was a case of hereditary psychosis and said that to Emmy who accepted with understanding. In spring, he met with her in her home and was glad for her new and healthy life when she lived full social life with a couple of occasional, trivial problems, such as problems with travelling by train and gaps in her memories. She was also afraid that she would be less obedient to hypnosis but Freud managed to convince her otherwise by a little trick. After this visit, their communication was limited, Freud only heard that her daughter started to worsen and in 1893, Emmy sent him a letter if he agreed to hypnosis from a different doctor. Freud agreed because Emmy fell ill again.

#studies on hysteria #Sigmund Freud #completeworksofsigmundfreud #josef breuer #emmy von v #hysteria #Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder #ptsd #psychology #psychoanalysis

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tellmeyourstory-art-blog · 8 years ago

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Facade

Why is it we feel more intimacy to things then we do to people?

‘No-one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no-one understands anyone else.’

Uttered by one of history's greatest writers, and highly accomplishe Goethe as he laid on his death bed.

This is what great works of art accomplish - they take us deep into the minds of people we are intimidated by in order to show the more average, relatable experience and reassurance in that others minds much work in much the same way ours do. filled with uncertainty and anxiety.

The history of art is delievered by people who couldn;t find anyone in the vicinitu to talk to. Classic works trancend space in time and we can take up the coded of words of intimacy say in a Roman poest and a renaissance paintings or lyrics of a singer who describes our blues in a rock song from 1986.

mutual incomprehension is what we should expect from life from the very start - and we should teach how the idea for it to be something to show where life has gone wong is wrong

once we understand loneliness we can sing, write produce poetry, fully understanding that poeple may never understand us,

A good Example would be deeply misunderstood and mentally ill Van Gogh who only sold 1 painting while alive. A starry night was painted while he stayed in a mental asylum, some believe it was his view, others relegious meaning counting the stars int he sky and relating to bible verses. His critics said his brush strokes were childish lookign for realism and proved the man was clearly insane, but we when we look at the painting we see an overarching theme, hope. Light of the night projecting down onto roof tops and lighting the way into a dreamy star gazed night.

My moms bedside table was the product of the same msiunderstanding.

On it a picture of my dad in a golden frame with a poem attached on the back, a bear called Minky’ he had given made from Mink fur, a white crystal and a buddha who belly had been worn from rubbing. Much later on the table would

Meaning from which all had to her, and no one else ould understand.

She had kept a lot of the furniture my father and accured before he died, They lived on a farm together called ‘The ferny glen farm’ but this was no country bumpkin farm. It had a white picket fence surround 60 hectres of mountain side, it had it’s on beautiful lake and bridge you'd have to drive up to get too.

The furniture inside the house was oak, and had the smell of being freshly cut and varnished. This was the furniture that would adorn our house while I grew up and would slowly be destroyed. Included was a priceless painting said to be a Tom Roberts, which would later end up in my hands after she died and then in the dump (but that’s a story for later)

My mom had a Job at the Art Centre, and I grew up in the backstage of theatre, preforming in the plays, learning how to sing and play piano but being more interested in the Backstage costume and props department. I loved the Props/costume room. When I was little I was convinced that that room was what heaven looked like.

She had put my sister and I through a catholic primary school, and managed to buy a house beachside. I think this was the most accomplished my mom had ever been in her life. Though this was short lived and after a good facade for normalcy

She kept everything of my dads. A brief case still locked, boxes of clipped newspaper articles. Clothes, letters, reciepts. it was if my father hadn’t died or was coming back home at a later date. but there she slept in a large empty for poster bed with nothing but his photo next to it. Desperately trying to be understood again, after his death.

Expensive paintings soon filled our house, & furniture I wasn’t allowed to touch. Even my room was decorated a like a spoiled white kid though I hated the color. She swapped out my favorite bed sheets that were the ocean on one side and the sand on the other, for ugly striped butter cup sheets and buttercup color walls. and the picnic table curtains.

Our house looked like a magazine, a falsely represented upper middle-class family. Although at the heart of it completely broken.

This house is the prominent memory for me and still haunts me today as the lifestyle was a facade.

My mother had borrowed all the money to make this work. She had loaned thousands of her Mother, hundred thousands in credit card debt and thousands more to put me through private school when I would've done just as well in public. She was keeping up an image. Which I only realised after I grew up. Sitting in a bank with her death certificate being asked to sign a joint account to her 100k+ debt with this bank and 3 others. THANK GOD I was under 18. Because if I had been an adult when she died, I would still be in her debt today.

Though when I rebelled at as a teenager this became even more apparent that she was living a dream no longer accessible to her, while simultanously blaming external influences.

But this is what we do in addiction. When we aren’t satidifed with what we have or who we are internally. We keep everything and fight to keep our delusions running. Because the realit of it all will have us kill ouselves in that moment. because sometimes 5 minutes of illusion to someone who believes they have nothing left is enough bliss to keep them living in it. Like a shot of herion or a intensity of a good orgasm, escaping into delusion is just the same.

s when my mom ran through the door drunk a late afternoon, saying to tell me that the police were going to knock on the door and to say she had been home for 2 hrs.

She ran into the guest room and hid and left me to confron the officers who as she had fortold were knocking on the door. Being young - Police officer were good and allowed in the house. I answered the door and they ask me where my mom was and i happily showed them where she was in the guest room.

I watched her sheepishly try to explain why her engine was hot and that she had been drinking red wine since she got home 2hrs ago... which wwas a blantant lie. Because the police didnt catch her dricing or couldnt prove it.. they left but what insued was me being verbally abused for 2hrs about how I didnt listen to her and having water thrown at me.

Unfortunatley the verbal abuse stayed after my oma left back to america. Behind closed doors and after school when my mom was home. I would learnt hat she didn’t like me very much.

Had the police shown up to a lower class suburb when my mom had been called in for dangerous dricing drunk while 6 year old me was in the back of the car, child services would have stepped in before things got really out of control.

But Because we’re taught to keep opposites separated, as most paradoxes make us feel ambivalent and uncertain, not only in life metaphors but basic math. We think of shapes such as curves and lines as separate and distinct. We know this because we’re taught to know things in relation and in opposition to each other. - Similar to the poor man must be poor because of bad choices, or the shady neighbor must be a pervert.

No one believed that something could be entirely wrong because how could a single mom working hard to put her children through school be neglectful.

how could a painting that looks so beautiful on the outside be so misunderstood. How could I late throw out a priceless painting?

Stong woman, single mom, who triumphed widowhoodcouldnt be related to the normalcy of childhood abuse, neglecta nd addicticion and

at the heart of it a widow so desperatly trying to be understood through a photo and a poem on her bedside table.

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