#on the other side of things i’m also a manic depressive with added anxiety (for flavour x)

[gregmarriage]

liking someone is akin to a manic episode to me tbh

[fisherfurbearer]

I would absolutely live to hear about Future Plans and heritage fruits! My partners and I are looking at buying a house by the end of the year and I'm so excited at the prospect of a back yard to fill with food plants and gardening and everything! So I'd love to know more about someone else's plans!!

mmMMMMMMMMMMMMMM YOU OPENED THE CAN OF WORMS THE WORMS ARE OPEN THEY ARE EVERYWHERE NOW!!!! OHHHHHHH JEEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOTHING CAN STOP THIS!!!!

MMMMMM. I LOVE. DOMESTIC CROPS AND ANIMALS. SO MUCH.

SPECIFICALLY “heritage” varieties. The pre-industrial/commercial varieties that people lived on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, or even the stuff younger than that, it’s just...so!! Good!!!

You didn’t QUITE ask for this but this is where I’m going with it. I LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. The HISTORY of our domesticated crops (specifically fruits and vegetables, but mostly Tree Fruits!!!! But I’m also suuuuper partial to heirloom sweet potatoes/normal potatoes even though I don’t like the taste of sweet potatoes, they’re just SO FRICKING COOL and I want to learn more about other vegetables too) and animals is just....HOOOOO!!!!

Locally adapted,, perfect little....NUGGETS that just...perfectly fit their own SPECIFIC LITTLE NICHES...no matter WHERE you live, no matter HOW much space you have, no matter HOW good or bad your soil, NO MATTER WHAT, there is ALWAYS something to grow or raise, and we can thank so, so much of that to the incredible variety of heritage crops/animals (and methods of agriculture) out there. Mild, cold, hot! Lots of space, little space, no space!! Fertile, barren!! Every condition in every color and shape and flavor and size and ahhhhhhh!!!!! AHHHH!!!!

Hold onto your butts because this is one Hell of a Mega Ramble okay, there is so much to talk about here, oh man.

Some background, which you can skip if you want...!!! It’s a LOT and it get’s VERY NEGATIVE but also VERY GOOD AND HOPEFUL, it’s a real big story and it’s My Story and gives a lot of insight into Why I’m Like This but it’s okay to skip for sure!! Anyway:

I’ve been researching (i.e. writing literally 1.5-2k+ words nearly every single day) for literally 7 years now about all of my various Passions and Plans in life. Obviously breaks were taken due to Sad Times but no matter what I did, no matter what happened, I’d always come back to my dumb awful stupid notes. I have notes on my current laptop, my old harddrive, my SO’s laptop, my stepdad’s laptop, my SO’s OLD gaming laptop, my old netbook, my OLD OLD netbook, every phone I’ve had in the past 7 years (which has been like uhh...five? I have bad luck with phones..) and COUNTLESS pieces of paper and cheap composition books.

To call it research, it seems to silly. Writing these words here, to you strangers on the internet, I CANNOT EXPRESS TO YOU how VITAL these notes are to my VERY EXISTANCE.

I have been researching and writing and talking to folks and asking questions and LIVING AND BREATHING this stuff for LITERALLY, LITERALLY HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS if not ALMOST A THOUSAND OR MORE HOURS at this point!!!! If we were to actually SOMEHOW backtrack all the way to late 8th grade/freshman year when I first started dipping my toes into reptiles and fell in love with my first jumping spider that landed on my arm after I read Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak, after being so fascinated by the intelligent giant magic tarantula in the first book, and gathered ALL of my notes from then to NOW (I’m 21 now, if I was in college, I’d be graduating next May) it would EASILY surpass that. For YEARS in high school my family thought I was always playing games on my laptop, but really from the moment I got home to the moment I went to bed, I was watching lets plays with one side of the screen and reading, reading, reading, and writing, writing, writing with the other. For HOURS. Every. Single. Day.

Hell, this has been my most recent “Renaissance” of writing, after The Big Realization of earlier this year (I’ll get to that), and this is AFTER I went on a horrible depressed/manic rampage and deleted like 80% of my notes (that would have been from...hmm. This is what I didn’t delete, what Jessie recovered, and what I’ve added...so March to Early September, when Jessie switched my notes to a new program (I lost a lot of notes from lack of autosaving so now they’re on our nextcloud so I can’t lose them...but I’m too stubborn to use it still) and this is still like. A lot.

Keep in mind the average 10-11 kb file is 1500-1700 words for me. My biggest files (only of the ones I still have, on this laptop) are 40-60 kb. (Also these are Big Secrets that I don’t ever show anyone but Jessie, who I’ve been with now for almost 7 years, so this is pretty dang important to me and a big thing to be revealing.)

Current folder I’m usually saving to:

Nextcloud I don’t bother to use usually but probably should use:

Again, this is ONLY on my newest laptop, and this DOESN’T include the files I deleted a few months ago, nor the files I lost from February-early April after Jessie updated my computer and wiped my files, and I still have a BUTTLOAD left on my old harddrive from last year, but we never moved it up and I don’t feel a need to. (I’ve learned so much. So. Much. In the past year. I think I’ve matured a lot and really become more...Me. But I’ll get to that.)

Also doesn’t include the SEVERAL notebooks I’ve filled front to back this year (cheap $0.50 ones from work...I’ve blown through a couple biggish ones and I think 2-3 little quarter-size memo books) and all the receipt papers I have crammed into my work uniform...

But anyway why is this important? It really helps iron in just how HUGE this is to me. My future “Plans” aren’t just...it’s really important to me. Okay? I am but a humble stranger on the internet and my life and everyone elses’ respective lives are infinitely more complex than we can ever dare imagine one anothers’ existences to be, but just trust me when I say that I’m not pulling this from nowhere, this shit isn’t some sort of “fad” to me, this has been a long, long series of events and realizations and heartbreaks and so, so much pain that have finally led to everything kinda falling into place sometime this year where it hit me.

You see...all of my research topics followed a pattern. It went, in my rough memory, something like this.

It started with reptiles. Lots of reptiles. So many reptiles. I was so naive and young then and my sources sucked and I was very much a novice who dreamed of owning all sorts of cool reptiles when I got older, and of getting a gecko when I went to college. That was how it started and it went downhill from there. I branched off into gardening (I wanted and still want a blue tongue skink and had thoughts about how I’d grow a garden for vegetables and squashes and stuff for the skink and feeder insects) and THAT grew into this whole THING about raised bed gardening, square foot gardening, then into permaculture, which planted the seed for many things to come...and now I’ve ALWAYS LOVED BIRDS,, but when I learned that keeping CHICKENS was a thing (thank you Jennifer (Nambroth)!!!!!!!!!! Our emails back and forth are still saved forever, our talks about chickens changed my life and way of thinking Forever!!!) and I researched that, then I’d jump back to reptiles again, and back to chickens, then more reptiles, then chickens and QUAIL, or OTHER poultry,, and so on and so on. This beautiful fluid branching path that would always rebound on itself and I’d drop some topics, gain new ones, revisit old ones, learn what I liked, what I didn’t like, what were brief interests, and what were there to stay.

Some topics (chickens, new caledonian geckos, antaresia pythons, tarantulas, gardening...) would always come back. No matter what I did...they came back. As I grew as a person, I started to figure out what was important to me (CONSERVATION, animal welfare, reptile/invertebrate enrichment, vivarium design, combining art with animals, and did I mention CONSERVATION? and combating climate change/The World but that came later.) and while some of those points didn’t show up in my research until later...like my obsession with native wildlife/plants and domestic species...it never went away.

And as I grew older, outside of my research life went on, and I really went through A Lot in these seven years. Undiagnosed anxiety/depression all through high school, practically living in the guidance office junior/senior year, dealing with an emotionally abusive and animal abuser teacher for many years, living with my emotionally abusive/narcissistic mother, and eventually going to an amazing art college and having both the best and worst time of my life (Hahah!! Almost straight As and skipped a writing class with my amazing scores and was top of my class, Dean’s list first semester, in the Visionary Women’s Honors society, worked in the admissions office and did lots of cool things, but hahaha also really wanted to die and was Destroying Myself) and trying to get help while keeping it a secret from my mom...lo and behold of course she eventually found out about the Depression when I had to go inpatient near the end of my second semester, and she. HA, I can’t even cry about this anymore. She literally disowned me (took all my money, sold my car, cut me off of health insurance, made me pay my own hospital bills, refused to do my FAFSA for college anymore, dropped all support, and later when I had to come home because I relapsed again and the college made me go on a medical leave of absense, she threatened to kick me out and call the police [hilariously enough though the house was owned by my stepdad, not her, so she couldn’t do anything. Also I never did anything to her and she was just crazy and made up excuses. But yeah not fun trying to walk to work and being threatened over the phone that she was going to have me dragged out of work by the cops and not to come home, hahaha!!!!!! But then also when I did live with my neighbor for a few days she was apparently so distraught?? Haha what a weird person!!!! I haven’t seen her for three years now and it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me. Don’t mourn for me, it’s SO Much better now. Speaking of, she was a PETA-hugging ARA nutjob and if she knew what I was planning on doing she would’ve disowned me either way!!!!!!), and of course fighting to be able to move out and rent an apartment with my SO (I hate the word boyfriend. It’s been 7 years come January 11th, and we’ve been through so fucking much. And she [my mom...] and other people always made fun of him being my BOYFRIEND that that word is tainted for me...so Significant Other it is) and then being forced to live alone there for a couple months,, and then even after that, the fights with his family, the car accident in November, my mom ruining all chances of me going to college (keep in mind I had after leaving college, spent the next TWO AND A HALF FUCKING YEARS OF MY LIFE trying to make it so I COULD go back, spent all of my time, energy, hope, eVERY OUNCE OF MY BEING trying to do so,,, and she manipulated me and then lied to me and made it so I couldn’t), my rebounding depression, my Intensifying Aggression (terrifying. Developed when I was in college...I guess it’s some kind of rapid bipolar disorder, maybe triggered by me going on antidepressants in college, they said. But it was so long ago and they never knew the full story for a proper diagnosis anyway. But it’s gotten manageable and We’re Coping), the housefire on Christmas, moving Once Again to the new place and being told I can’t bring my 15 year old cat (he’s with my stepdad still now but it’s not okay.), the rats have to be in the basement, and oh yeah if you want to attend college again loans will be nearly 13% interest hahaha!!! and then finally just straight up breaking down in February and not leaving bed for DAYS and nearly committing suicide, just the real worst time ever, and my former therapist/psychiatrist place weren’t responding (turns out they discharged me!! haha kinda hard to make appointments WHEN YOU DON’T PICK UP THE PHONE and we DIDN’T GET THE NOTICE IN THE MAIL because our HOUSE WAS CONDEMNED and my mail was being sent to my STEPDADS an hour away!!!!!!!! Also really hard to talk to you when you BLOCK OUR FUCKING NUMBER and HANG UP ever time we fucking call haha!!!!!! Literally on the verge of suicide and not on my anxiety meds for MONTHS but hey sure that works too guys!!!!) which really didn’t help, and yeah it was really just the pits! Just the absolute pits, the Very Worst.

Now at this point I don’t remember exactly when/what changed, but SOMETHING did.

Leading up to February, I wanna say it was about October that I started getting kinda weirdly depressed, and I started REALLY tanking after the fire. After the fire, I had to move back to my stepdads within the night, and had to live without Jessie again and commute really far and keep the tarantulas a secret and in general be very alone and very sad. I started wearing down and it was getting so hard to just...enjoy. Anything. Even just taking care of the pets became difficult, and doing art or researching was impossible. I just...didn’t care anymore. I stopped caring.

On top of that, my climate grief and general feelings of Despair were at an all time high, and I just didn’t. Fucking. CARE. What happened next.

I spent YEARS of my life WEARING MYSELF TO THE BONE trying to get into college, the get back into college, to just try to do this thing that I was supposed to do, my ONE hope of having a career and a future that I probably wouldn’t even be happy with (I was an illustration major. I liked drawing. It’s what I was best at. But looking back, I wouldn’t have been happy doing it for a living. And Moore [no that’s not what my blog is named for, it just also happens to be my last name] was a great college but it just...wasn’t worth $30k a year with no cosigner for loans, even AFTER my scholarships) and my body and mind were wearing down and no matter what I did I didn’t care about myself, my animals, my partner, my life, nothing. I can’t explain how terrifying that is. Of all the time in my life, I think this was the worst. On top of my life problems, it must be said again that my climate grief and Misery regarding the state of our country and the world was also at an all-time-high, and I just felt...POWERLESS. Powerless and empty and uncaring and dead inside. I really wanted to just...drive off a bridge or eat a ton of pills (which I did do a couple times, don’t do that. Please. It’s NOT worth it.) and just stop Existing.

But then something just...changed.

I don’t know what it was, exactly. But I got SOMETHING back. SOMETHING “clicked”.

I’m crying a bit now. It’s so stupid to say, but I truly believe this is what saved my life. Realizing my purpose in life. That everything fell into place and finally made sense.

I’m going to be a bit more concise here but...basically...many of my passions and smaller aspects of myself all fell into place, so PERFECTLY.

It hit me that...ah jeez.

I will digress one more second. For those of you who don’t know, I have two Eurydactylodes geckos, named Vladimir (E. vieiliardi) and Estragon (E. agricolae). They are named for my favorite drama that we read in AP English, Waiting for Godot. It’s an aburdist theater play about two men who wait under a tree for someone (we don’t know who, just that his name is Godot) and that’s about it. Everyone had a lot of different things to say about that weird little book, but my take on it was that it’s supposed to be what happens to two men when they lack a “purpose” in life. Existentialism, and all that. They sit there and sit there and completely lose themselves just WAITING for this guy that they don’t even remember, they don’t even know why they’re there, and they do nothing to try and change that. The difference between existentialism and absurdism, however, is that absurdism specifically discusses this idea of a Chaotic Universe, this Lack of Meaning, this pointless quest of humanity to seek value and meaning in a universe without reason. It’s a fruitless effort, it’s Absurd! But the beauty of absurdism, this tiny idea that stayed with me in the goofy names of my geckos (I chose the names because I thought the play was amusing and I loved the characters’ relationship, which is Quite Gay and so Loving and Charming it warms my heart, and I loved that they called each other “Didi” and “Gogo”) and really held true to my own life. I DO NOT believe that THIS is why this change happened for me, but it’s ironic, no?

Back to Absurdism, Absurdism says... “here is this meaningless, Chaotic, RIDICULOUS universe. There is NO reason for ANYTHING, there NEVER will be, you DO NOT MATTER, you DO NOT HAVE A PLACE HERE. There is NO POINT to anything. So fuck it, and try to find one anyway.”

My original therapist did not understand why I found this so wonderful and inspiring. It’s so rebellious and selfish, I LOVE IT. To embrace the Absurd is to take the bull by the horns and flip it upside down! It’s to stare all of this dreadful pointlessness in the Void, and when it says “Why bother? Why care about these insignificant invertebrates? These ridiculous reptiles? These ABSURD apples???” and flip the bird both hands and say “BECAUSE I WANT TO, BECAUSE I SAID SO, BECAUSE I AM HUMAN, AND I CAN!!!” It’s...also more than that, it’s this long, defiant lifelong journey, this stupid, ridiculous journey of fumbling about trying to find one’s place in a cruel, vast world, and finding oneself in that journey.

I love people. I love the ABSURDITY of humanity, of people, of myself, of others. A Huge part of my Future Plans has to do with People, and Community, and Changing my little patch of the world. It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I know it can make a difference to someone and myself and that’s what matters.

Anyway back to the Clickening.

Around that time I had a moment like that. It was as if something in my mind was screaming at me, listen. You are here, and you have always been here to love animals, to love life, to make art, to tell stories with your art, to raise little sheeps.

And like that, it started Something.

I agreed to go to a local doctor, and was put on antidepressants. I’ve been on them since late February. I also got accommodations for work, so I have two excused absenses due to mental illness each month, which was good, because they tried to fire me 4 times now and they haven’t succeeded yet. (I’m DAMN GOOD at what I do, I’m just Sad and Unlucky and Dumb, but I’m doing a lot better now!!) I started taking all of the things I learned in the past many years and what I’ve learned about myself as a person (I won’t talk about it here but I’ve always struggled with my Identity [not gender wise, just...with my mental health and my mood disorder, it’s really hard to know What is ME and What’s The Illness) and it all started falling into place. My needle felting, my love for animals, conserving native wildlife AND heritage breeds with restoration grazing and positive impact forestry, utilizing my Overwhelming Charisma (in person I swear I’m quite a good talker! Way better than my typing here!) for education, outreach, and farmers market sales, my love for life and my fellow human beings and my plans to work hard to help feed my local communities and encourage sustainable agriculture and the dismantlemant of capitalism Love of our native wilds and backyards alike (I also have Big Thoughts about getting native peoples input as well, but I need to research that more and actually talk to people, but that would be in future years!!), and so, so many things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That started in late February/early March now, and since then I’ve still had Really bad times, but I’d say in the past mmmmm...probably since late July? I think yeah since about then things have really taken great turns. I’ve Matured a lot, really embraced who I am and what I want to do, and while I KNOW my plans are going to keep changing over time (tentative goal is to look for/buy our property in 2025!! That gives us 5 years post-graduation to settle down and see how things go, where Jessie will be working, where we’ll be living, how my mind changes, all of that!!) but I KNOW in my BONES in my SOUL that this is what I have always been meant to do. To raise things, grow things, and to Care.

ANYWAY WOW HAHAHA YOU SURE DIDN’T ASK FOR ALL THAT BUT THERE YA GO THERE’S THE BACKSTORY, THE FIRST HALF OF THE WORMS!!!!!!

TL;DR: I’m a sad sap who is now slightly less sad and has Big Plans that were 7 years+ in the making and I want to take all my Big Thoughts about exotic welfare (well, reptiles and spiders mostly, but sure) and also apply it to DOMESTIC welfare and Make a Dang Difference!!!!

Okay now I’ve become very burnt out, I’ve been writing for like two hours now? So this part will sadly be shorter, but I will definitely write more about it again if you or anyone else has questions or actually wants to hear about it.

Basically...the amount of These Plans that I am willing to let you folks know, is uhh...oh jeez where do I even begin, haha...

Well it started small plans (early years of research, when I used to think a small greenhouse was Super Wild and Crazy) but nah bruh we goin’ full hog, literally. My plans are to get a decent sized property, still in my state, and have a HUGE focus on Sustainability and Positive Grazing/Management! That means rotational grazing to IMPROVE soils!!! Thinning the woodlot and clearing brush for the HEALTH of the forest!!! Reintroducing blight-resistant american chestnuts to restore our forests and support a healthy wildlife population!!!! Using both honeybees AND cultivated native bees [did you know that’s a thing???? You can buy native bee cocoons, like raised humanely, and raise them for pollinating plants!! Like Orchards!!] and grazing pastured pigs and chickens under orchard trees, while also providing BUTTLOADS of native flowers and domestic tree blossoms for native pollinators!! All that great stuff.

My biggest focuses would be raising practical heritage livestock for sustainable agriculture and conserving heritage fruit trees, with a focus on apples and pears. I also want to grow a lot of mutually beneficial/low-impact perennial resources...think honey, maple syrup, nut trees, stuff like that! And I want to graze on pastures with native grasses and locality-specific wildflowers (check out Ernst Seeds, especially if you live in/near PA like I do!! Wow it’s so frickin’ cool) and focus on northern european short-tailed sheep (finnsheep, gotland, icelandic, leader, shetland, and soay) and small landrace American hogs (american guinea hog, ossabaw island hog) and the more recent but so full of potential idaho pasture pig. I also want to raise icelandic landrace chickens for utility (parasite/pest management, composting), conservation, and eggs. I also want to raise rabbits (silver fox crosses for meat, and french angora crosses for fiber! I have a dream of producing high quality tri color angora for spinners...three colors on one animal, and I want them to be especially great for fiber artists who want to raise their own fiber animals but don’t have a ton of space) and I have BIG orchard plans...SO MANY ORCHARD PLANS, HHHHHOOO YES....SO GOOD...also COPPICE WITH STANDARDS and FORESTRY and HOO YES!!!!! I LOVE SOME GOOD OL FORESTRY!!!

I think the best way to describe my current plans standings is that it seperates into a couple different “zones”, for my Current Ideas. This has taken months and so many countless hours of thinking, researching, and ironing out, and I’ve made so much headway in just this past week, but basically imagine this...

It’s mostly split into two pastures, the orchard, and the woodlot.

PASTURE 1

Pasture 1 would be the largest, where we would rotationally graze two primary groups of ruminants. Polled NES-T sheep (finnsheep/gotland) and horned sheep (icelandic/leader) with dairy cows (dutch belted) as well. Dutch belted for milk and specifically cheese production, and they would be grazed in front with the icelandics to help take care of the taller grasses that the sheep would avoid, and help keep the sheep a bit safer. All would be guarded by livestock guardian dogs. Group #1 of the icelandic chickens would be grazed behind them, to help break up manure and disrupt parasite cycles.

Pasture itself would be mostly a big bluestem/little bluestem/indian grass/switchgrass mix, with a good variety of livestock-safe wildflowers (small portion being nitrogen-fixers like tick trefoils and pasture pea) and seed-producing flowers for birds (wild birds and our birds!). Would be rotationally grazed 1-2 days at a time (avg. 3-4 days total) with a 21-35+ day rest period. Polled NES-T sheep would be moved to “silvopasture” (copse with standards, a portion of the woodlot, with coppiced trees for fuelwood/timber interspersed with standard-sized mast producting trees [would double as nut and persimmon orchard, and hog foraging in fall/winter!!!]) in the summer to help them deal with the heat. Summer would be the best time, as it’s after the spring predator pressure and before the acorns fall, which could be bad for them if they ingest too many. Rams and hogs would otherwise graze this land with much longer rest periods otherwise (more like 30-45 days or so).

PASTURE 2

Smaller pasture with similar planting, arranged ‘paddock paradise’ style for a small group of icelandic horses (SO GOOD, and useful!! Little horse hooves are much kinder to the forest than a UTV, and herding on horseback is less stressful for the livestock) and rotationally grazed shetland and soay sheep. Pretty simple, but important. Would also contain Icelandic chicken group #2.

ORCHARD

Worthy of a novel all on it’s own. I want to grow semi-dwarf heritage fruit trees with the fruit drop type synced to the rotation of pastured hogs (idaho pasture pig, american guinea hog, ossabaw island hog) and group #3 of icelandic chickens. Hogs would be in orchard spring-fall, and in the copse with standards fall-early winter. Hogs and chickens would be moved to a holding area during rainy times to help preserve the orchard floor and during winter, where we would also have a large waste management/composting set up for them to root and turn to their hearts content. Should be a lot warmer than the outside in the winter too, and I plan on it being in a high tunnel/hoop house so its covered.

I am ALL ABOUT pairing livestock with crops and encouraging multi-purpose acreage in general, so this is definitely one of my FAVORITE plans so far, and every time I revisit it, it gets better. I also want to raise BEES (honeybees, mason bees, leafcutter bees!!!) for honey and pollination. I also want to plant BUTT-TONS of native flowers and goodies for pollinators, as well as lots of seed producing plants and sunflowers for the chickens to forage for by themselves. These would be some happy livestock, for sure.

WOODLOT

Another huge part of the plan is that I want at LEAST 1/3-1/2 of the property to be Woods. Only a small fraction of the Woods would be managed for livestock foraging and more frequent harvesting (still looking at a good 7-10 year coppice cycle though for trees) and the rest would still be tended to, with the help of the local forestry folks, but it would be preserved for wildlife and low-impact timber and nut/fruit/sap collection.

The VAST MAJORITY of the farm would be multi-purpose acreage for both livestock AND wildlife benefit (and people too of course) and I truly, truly believe and KNOW it can be done. In fact it HAS been done, IS being done, in so many different ways by so many different people in different times, and I know that I want to be a part of it and I can make a difference and use my weird passions for Good and make a dang difference.

Ohhh jeez I’m real sorry I didn’t quite answer your question though but I hope this gives a little insight into what I mean?? And if anyone has Specific questions after reading this (if you make it to the bottom, bless your cotton socks, I’m so proud and also distressed) I can definitely answer them a bit better than this. And hopefully much less...whatever this is, haha!!

[enigmaphenomenon]

Something’s up with Jack (Another Jack analysis)

I believe Handsome Jack has Borderline Personality Disorder. 

Let’s first go through the symptoms of BPD. In order to be diagnosed with BPD one needs to have repeated patterns of 5 out of 9 symptoms of BPD. I’ll go through the symptoms Jack displays. 

Google gives a very brief list of symptoms. I’ll highlight the ones Jack is shown having. 

Behavioral: antisocial behavior, compulsive behavior, hostility, impulsivity, irritability, risk taking behaviors, self-destructive behavior, self-harm, social isolation, or lack of restraint

Mood: anger, anxiety, general discontent, guilt, loneliness, mood swings, or sadness

Psychological: depression, distorted self-image, grandiosity, or narcissism

So let’s just dive right into his symptoms. I don’t...really need to provide examples of Jack’s narcissism, do I? Because that one is obvious as all hell. 

1)  An intense fear of abandonment, even going to extreme measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection. 

Oh yeah. And Jack reacts quite violently to what he perceives as betrayals and/or abandonment. If you trust Jack instead of Fiona at the end of Episode 2, and refuse to trust him in Episode 3 when he asks you too...uh...

“Oh. Oh, that’s a... shame. Because I thought--- I thought we were becoming pals. Saved your life back there and you...still don’t trust me? You know I’m uh...I’ve had to deal with this my whole damn life you know? You try to do the right thing and people just... crap all over you for it. Well, congrats kiddo. You’re the latest in a long line of Jack-shitters. Super psyched about it.” 

This isn’t the first time Jack mentions that he should have seen this all coming, he mentions it again at the end of Episode 5. 

“I should have seen this coming--ever since I came to this nacho-flavored shithole of a planet. I’ve been betrayed by everybody I gave rat’s ass about. My boss. My girlfriend. Hell...my goddamn daughter.” 

Then, of course, Jack telling Rhys...

And....

Jack has extreme violent reactions to people he views as being against him, even when they aren’t. Adding to this is Jack’s hatred of all vault-hunters due to Lilith and Roland’s betrayal and also his fear of being shot in the back if he lets his enemies live. Remember he was willing to forgive the Meriff and let him live until the Meriff tries to shoot Jack as he’s walking away. This then leads to Jack airlocking scientists just for the mere possibility one of them might be working for Zarpedon. Also, when Athena or whoever else you play suggest just rushing to the vault and not fighting Jack insists they all must die, stating that if you let your enemies live, they’ll shoot you in the back. 

2)  A pattern of unstable intense relationships, such as idealizing someone one moment and then suddenly believing the person doesn't care enough or is cruel. (People with BPD tend to have relationships that are intense and short-lived. You may fall in love quickly, believing each new person is the one who will make you feel whole, only to be quickly disappointed. Your relationships either seem perfect or horrible, with nothing in between. Your lovers, friends, or family members may feel like they have emotional whiplash from your rapid swings between idealization and devaluation, anger, and hate.)

Moxxi, Rhys, Angel, and his second wife. 

Moxxi says he was clingy and that’s why she dumped Jack, Jack blew up her slaughter dome thing due to this, but this doesn’t stop him from asking her for help to fight against Zarpedon. 

Rhys? Aw man just take a look at this switch. 

“Oh, wow. I wish I could hug you right now. I’m gonna make a robot that just hugs you when I tell it to. I’m so proud. I’m so proud of my special boy! This is a perfect partnership, Rhys. You trusted me. I trusted you, and now we’re here! Man--never really had a partner I could count on before. Feels kinda dope”

No Jack, Rhys doesn’t want a giant Endoskeleton to crawl inside his body. 

“This was YOUR chance to make history, you moron! To be part of a legacy! To matter for once in your useless little life!”

Angel doesn’t need to be explained right? In the ECHO logs in Borderlands 2 Jack cycles between being amiable towards her and then lashing out at her. 

His relationship with his second wife was ruined over him refusing to shut down the control core, and in an ECHO log it’s stated she disappeared shortly after telling Jack to shut down the control core. 

3) Identity disturbance, such as a significant and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self

Jack is a meglomaniac who sees himself as the hero and as a god, but, in BL2 he brings this up: 

"I know you think I'm a monster. You think I enslaved Angel. But you didn't see what she did to her mother. I had to restrain Angel's power. You get that? I had to."

He brings this up to the vault hunter. Why? What does he care what the vault hunter thinks of him? Jack sure as hell hasn’t cared at all about “bandits” opinions of him. And he really isn’t shy about blaming other people for something, come on, this is the same man who says he shot a baby because THE BABY was being a dick. 

Jack doesn’t blame Angel for betraying him. As he said in TFTBL, she had no choice. He also doesn’t say that vault hunters killed her. He says that she killed herself.

This is Jack being hit with the realization that his daughter is dead, and that he drove her to it. He’s the monster who enslaved Angel, but he says he had to do it (I’ll go deeper into this in a different essay). He had to to restrain her power, he had to, as if he didn’t have a choice. There is guilt behind these words. 

To compare, in Tomb Raider 2013 there was extra dialogue (that for some reason was not in the final version of the game) after Lara has her first kill, she tells herself “I had to do it. I had to do it.” That’s how Lara rationalizes taking a life. If she had not killed that man, he would have killed her, so she “had to.”

I believe its the same with Jack. There is guilt there. Why would he feel the need to defend his actions to the vault hunters? To the “bandits?” He saw Angel ask the vault hunters to end her life, he saw her call them friend, her last dying breath was needing to tell her father that he’s an asshole. Jack knows. He knows what he’s done. But he’s too mentally ill to accept it, or change it. If anything, that just drove him further into insanity. 

In TFTBL Jack also mentions that he knows where Rhys is coming from and imposter syndrome is normal, and to just strangle that voice in his head that says he’s not good enough. 

4) Impulsive and risky behavior, such as gambling, reckless driving, unsafe sex, spending sprees, binge eating or drug abuse, or sabotaging success by suddenly quitting a good job or ending a positive relationship

Hahahaha ooooooh yeaaaaah. 

Spending sprees: Butt Stallion

“My day? It's been pretty good. I just bought a pony made of diamonds, because I’m rich. So, you know. That’s cool.“

Unsafe sex: 

“If I’da just thrown stock options at the Vault Hunters instead of bullets, I’d be on a beach right now doing disturbingly graphic things with the local ladies.”

Drug abuse: 

He mashed up a mushroom and snorted it...a lot...

Primo hit of electri-drugs.

His chair also has contact activated Dopamine injectors. 

Jack drinks, a lot apparently, since he thought either sex or drinking would kill him. 

It really wouldn’t surprise me if Jack participated in orgies which he probably totally did.

5)  Extreme emotional swings. Unstable emotions and moods are common with BPD. One moment, you may feel happy, and the next, despondent. Little things that other people brush off can send you into an emotional tailspin. These mood swings are intense, but they tend to pass fairly quickly (unlike the emotional swings of depression or bipolar disorder), usually lasting just a few minutes or hours.

Jack is...really unstable and I don’t think anyone will disagree.  

ECHO logs in BL2 depict Jack going from manic to a fit of rage both with Angel and Mr. Tassiter. As well as Mr. Moorin who he strangles for mentioning his wife. 

Or when he gets really excited...

6) Chronic feelings of emptiness. People with BPD often talk about feeling empty, as if there’s a hole or a void inside them. At the extreme, you may feel as if you’re “nothing” or “nobody.” This feeling is uncomfortable, so you may try to fill the hole with things like drugs, food, or sex. But nothing feels truly satisfying.

After becoming CEO he became dictator of Pandora, then decided...hey why not conquer more planets? Why not basically become a god? That toppled on top of Jack’s drug use and sex life. He bought a diamond horse and named it Butt-stallion...

He also says that when he takes Rhys’ body he’s still gonna use it to eat food and bang a bunch of people. 

(A side note, Dameon Clarke while answering questions as Handsome Jack said that there’s a lot of smiling going on but he’s actually dead inside. I just wanted to add it here as a point of interest.)

Jack also tolerated Mr. Tassiter’s insults until Tassiter told Jack that he’s a pathetic nobody under his mask. This leads to Jack strangling him and keeping his goatee as a reminder of what happens to people when they’re a dick to Jack. 

7)Explosive anger. If you have BPD, you may struggle with intense anger and a short temper. You may also have trouble controlling yourself once the fuse is lit—yelling, throwing things, or becoming completely consumed by rage. It’s important to note that this anger isn’t always directed outwards. You may spend a lot of time being angry at yourself.

I don’t feel I need to provide examples for this one. We’ve all seen Jack’s rage. He uh....really goes off and it is not easy to stop him. 

Now that we got Jack’s symptoms out of the way let’s move on to causes. 

Most mental health professionals believe that borderline personality disorder (BPD) is caused by a combination of inherited or internal biological factors and external environmental factors, such as traumatic experiences in childhood.

...

Hereditary predisposition. You may be at a higher risk if a close relative — your mother, father, brother or sister — has the same or a similar disorder.

Stressful childhood. Many people with the disorder report being sexually or physically abused or neglected during childhood. Some people have lost or were separated from a parent or close caregiver when they were young or had parents or caregivers with substance misuse or other mental health issues. Others have been exposed to hostile conflict and unstable family relationships.

Let’s start with Jack’s genetics. If you saw my last post about Jack, it was wondering if Jack’s grandmother was a bandit and/or psycho due to her buzz axe. It is very possible that Jack’s grandmother and mother also suffer with some mental illness. 

Onto the stressful childhood. Grandma’s buzz axe which was a disciplinary weapon she used on Jack, and in The Pre-Sequel, Jack is asked to describe his childhood which he says his mother abandoned him on his abusive grandmother who would smack him around. He also had a pet cat that his grandma drowned because he didn’t make his bed. He cites this as “the usual stuff” 

Jack has both genetics and environmental factors that can lead to someone having mental disorders. 

Jack’s drug use and drinking would aid in making his BPD symptoms much worse as well.

So...yeah, there’s my Jack analysis.

[myectjourney]

ECT procedure #22 (6/7/2018)

This is my twenty-second electro-convulsive therapy procedure & my tenth bilateral procedure.

Also, my first bi-frontal electrode placement.

Pre-treatment analysis:

Honestly, I don't feel like going today because I've been sick all week but I have an in-office appointment right before ECT so I at least have to go to that and then I'll ask my doctor if I should cancel my ECT treatment for today.

This last week I've been feeling pretty good depression-wise and that's been nice. My over the top manic happiness has definitely mellowed out over the course of time I've been getting treatments only once a week.

Thing is, my anxiety is now at the forefront of my mind at all times. I guess before, my anxiety disorder always came 2nd in terms of day to day severity but now I'm worrying a lot about the future or things I obviously can't control and it's kind of ironically making my depression worse. Luckily, I'm not at the depression level I was before I started ECT so it's not making it as worse as it could BUT still. I mostly keep worrying about the medical debt this is probably putting me in because, y'all, I ain't rich. (If any of you feel like donating some money to me, lemme know so I can give out my paypal) but seriously, I already get debt collectors from other things calling me every day and I'm worried all these treatments will add up and I'll start getting calls from them. But maybe not. It was at least mostly covered by insurance because I was diagnosed with treatment resistant depression...sorry, I'm ranting. SEE? This is exactly what I was talking about. Now you see my point. Anyways. As they say in the movies, "I'm goin' in".

Post-treatment:

Firstly, my office visit went well. We just talked about my progress with the ECT and how I've been feeling. As I've said before, I've been doing the bilateral procedure (both sides of my brain) and I'm not sure if I've mentioned before that it's also a bi-temporal procedure too which means the placement of the electrodes on my head are on my temples/temporal lobe. Because of the fact my memory hasn't been recovering as quickly as I'd hoped and I've had some slowed cognition that's lasted a little longer than usual, we decided to switch to bi-frontal (which means they place the electrodes on my frontal lobe). This makes a difference because apparently it helps the memory side effects lessen. This only works if you've tried the bi-temporal first and it's been effective treatment-wise.

My doctor wanted me to know that my set of issues isn't really common and is probably happening because I have a dissociative disorder along with all my other illnesses, so for those of you reading: keep in mind that this is happening because of my specific set of illnesses and that unless you have depersonalization-derealization disorder, you'll probably not have to deal with the recovery being as slow as how it's going for me. Doesn't mean it CAN'T happen still but I don't want people to worry and expect it to happen or make people worry. I'm doing fine, the memory recovery process is just taking a little extra time.

As for my procedure, it seemed to go well and I woke up in the recovery room feeling fine. Like I said before, it helps to be in a good mood/think of good or positive things before you get put under. If you're freaking out beforhand, you'll probably wake up feeling the same way.

My head hurt less than it has previously and I felt less dizzy than in the past! That was nice.

Over all, everything seemed to go well.

Results:

Long-term Memory Questions: Answered all questions correctly with minor hesitation.

Short-term Memory Questions: Answered all but one question correctly with moderate hesitation.

Slow cognition: Yes (minor)

Memory loss: Yes (from previous treatments), No added memory loss

Attention span: Good.

Tiredness: Yes (moderate)

Trouble retaining newer memories: Yes (minor)

Symptoms:

● Headache (moderate)

● Loss of balance/dizzy (moderate)

~ End of ECT day #22 ~

Side Note: Sorry that I posted this late! I didn’t know that I didn’t post it and it was just sitting in my drafts. Whoops!

[encoresencores]

girl crush (part 3)

But none of the many objects of my adolescent (and then teenage) obsessions were quite so untouchable as Celeste. With her, it was different — I didn’t long desperately to be her friend, but was content with gazing up, from a distance, to the pedestal I had set her upon.

I never knew her personally; I only knew of her, and that was enough. In school she was one of the lead Chinese dancers, and at every Chinese New Year or Teacher’s Day (or whatever uninspired drag of a special occasion’s) performance, the curtains rose on her standing front and centre. When the other girls filed off into the wings, she would emerge from the riff-raff, upstage in the spotlight, regal and delicately arranged like a flower as she remained on stage waiting to begin her solo; the calefare having dutifully made way for their star. Everyone knew who she was. She was Ding Laoshi, the Chinese dance instructor’s, favourite; I once heard from a friend that Ding Laoshi referred to her as “小公主” - little princess - and it was obvious why. When she danced, in her long graceful lines and winsome smile was a dramatic air of triumph and tragedy combined, femininity glorified and yet reproached. She was all vulnerable charm and earnest strength. I could never tear my eyes away from her when she was onstage.

Offstage, she was steeped in a mist of mystery.

But first, a description: she was tall and lithe, with a long neck and expressive fingers, no curves to speak of. A golden-brown, sharp-jawed face with full lips and fierce, dark eyebrows; large almond eyes that were challenging and secretive at the same time; long lifted cheeks that gave her face a sense of yearning openness. To this day, I am still of the opinion that no one’s features came together as alluringly, as perfectly exotically, as hers did (which I suppose already explains my untiring fascination — as you might know, I am too easily mesmerised by all things beautiful).

In real life, she carried herself in a self-conscious, tentative manner that made her seem more fragile than her strong limbs and powerful technique on stage betrayed; her shoulders were slightly hunched, accentuating jutting collarbones, and her hands always carefully held in front of her body (I knew this from passing by her in the corridors, or spotting her from afar in the canteen). On Instagram, for she was one of those people who lived their lives on Instagram, she regularly posted dimly-lit close-ups of herself looking vacantly into the camera, lips parted so a flash of white teeth showed through, and captioned these photos with melancholy and cryptic poetry. She was too thin, and her gaze a tad too raw, to be considered sexy — but she was endlessly sensual.

She was not just a talented dancer, but also a gifted artist. A painter and sketcher, one of her favourite canvases was herself — she experimented with wild lipstick colours and stunning, deftly-blended eyeshadow creations that would not have looked out of place on a runway. She was equally bold and varied with her fashion choices: from heavy maxi skirts and boots (in Singapore weather!) paired with skimpy tank tops, to baggy men’s shirts and oversized pants and aviators, to clashing colours and unyielding eclecticism of pattern layered unabashedly on pattern, to slinky evening gowns fit for a red carpet, to girlish blogshop chic… she pulled it all off seamlessly. Her style was the sum of all styles, her great skill that of metamorphosis. A chameleon of a girl, flitting from one look to another.

Fittingly, these artistic inclinations were accompanied by failing grades in math and science. Even her name suited her perfectly. Celeste - elegant, ethereal, poetic. Unique but not blatantly so. Anything else would have been too coarse, too common, trying too hard. But not everything about her was so deeply-passionate and dramatic: like any other teenage girl (here is a reminder that we were merely sixteen at the time), she posted cheery OOTDs, and food photos, and group snaps where she was grinning so wide that her eyes were tiny and all her teeth showed — those were my favourite photos, the ones where she looked gloriously happy. Tortured artist perhaps, but there was joy in her life, I was sure. This only served to further my obsession. I marvelled at how such a pensive, complex being could also be so purely exuberant and vital — it was precisely this polarity that mesmerised me. The capacity for feeling that she appeared to possess (deep plunges into depression, lofty heights of euphoria) was too far removed from my own petty anxieties and common joys for comprehension; she eluded understanding. I wondered how she had grown into this identity, what thoughts went through her mind, how much of what I saw was real. Her entire personality seemed like a dream.

I’m well aware that I’m manic pixie dream girl-ing her from start to finish; even back then I knew very well that the Celeste-construction in my head was merely my selective interpretation of what she projected to the world. But I reasoned that it was harmless, since it was all in my head. What makes me feel more guilty, is that I know the current, 2020 Celeste would likely be horrified if she ever stumbled across this. Her and her great struggle with being looked at and evaluated, her impassioned revolts against the unforgiving bounds of beauty. What violation would she feel if she saw me picking her apart, analysing her younger self in such excruciating detail? (On the other hand… perhaps the exhibitionist in her would enjoy the attention. I don’t know - I never properly knew her and I still don’t.) Now I recognise that she struggled intensely back then with body image and self-esteem and mental health in general — but at the time I knew only to be entranced, not empathetic.  

When I step back and look at it, actually, it’s strange the manner in which I viewed her. Because in a school as small as ours, I had many friends who knew her personally. I mean, we were in the same damn school — she wasn’t that far off at all. Also, it wasn’t precisely a secret that I thought she was cool, because she was sure to come up in rabid gossip sessions; she was considered “high profile” in our school, and in my defence, I wasn’t the only one who pondered and speculated about her life and her relationships (she briefly dated a boy in our level, a well-muscled good-looking jock-type, who was as obscenely rich and distastefully boyish as one could get — it perplexed me how someone like her could be attracted to someone like him — but that’s a story for another time).

A friend, Gina, once interrupted me when I mentioned Celeste’s unblemished complexion (while bemoaning my own persistent outbreaks) — “Celeste? No way. Her skin is quite bad leh.” Gina, always flippant and unabashed, and who was a classmate of Celeste’s, seemed keen to correct me. “She has a lot of pimples on her forehead. But in photos you can’t tell because of the concealer.” I took this in for a second, with brief wonderment. With just that, she had inched closer to reality.

The last degree of separation between us dissipated come year 1 of junior college, when we ended up in the same H1 Chinese class. It was a small class, only 7 students, all of us having had failed our Chinese O-Levels (haha). She sat at one side of the classroom with her classmates, and I sat at the other with mine. Our two groups didn’t mix, and there was no need to. No one really listened or participated in class anyway. It was H1 Chinese. By that time I was no longer as enamoured of her as I’d previously been, but it was still a thrill to be in the same room, to listen to her reply Chen Laoshi (a grumbling man of retirement age, balding and constantly sweating or complaining about the school management) in stilted mandarin when called upon. Her voice was husky, sounding like it did in the acoustic covers she posted online (by then she had added singing to her repertoire of talents).

One lesson, Chen Laoshi, exasperated by our unresponsiveness, shuffled us around and made us discuss a news article. I ended up paired with Celeste — we exchanged awkward smiles before going about perusing the passage in silence. All of a sudden, I felt distinctly embarrassed to be in her presence. I became conscious of how the waistband of my skirt dug into my stomach, and how my blouse was sack-like and sloppy, and the way baby hairs sprung straight upwards from my hairline no matter how I tried to pin them down. I squirmed internally considering the unattractive largeness of my round, sweaty face next to her fine-boned features. She was, and I was sure of it in that instant, too pretty not to be cruel. But when she finally spoke (in English) to ask me what the last sentence of the article meant — her voice, though American-accented, had an undoubtedly Singaporean accent. She had seemed so beyond my ken, but when the words “lah” and “leh” came out of her mouth, I was shocked to realise that somehow she was just another girl. Illusion dispelled — I gathered myself, and replied that I thought it was trying to say that, despite seeming advances in Singapore’s conservation practices, there was still a long way to go before the nation as a whole really embraced the spirit of sustainability.  

(this is so fucking long I’m dying omg kjfhafhalsf I have no idea how to end this. how did what I intended to be a brief character sketch turn into such a sprawling mess…. but still posting it NOW bc I just want to be done with it lmao. TO BE EDITED/COMPLETED, mayhaps)

(27.01.20)

[nothingneverforever]

Yesterday (2019)

When I’d just seen the trailers and promo stuff for Yesterday, there was some great excitement in me. I loved The Beatles years ago, I mean, I really really loved them, I’ve got about 15 books on them, borrowed my mom’s credit card to shop online for DVDs of all their original movies when I was 14, etc etc, so Yesterday’s premise added up and seemed to look like something I’d enjoy: Danny Boyle, mysterious ultra-niche alternate reality in an otherwise utterly regular world, some kind of deadpan irony about the whole situation…

Then it came and went in cinemas and I never got down to seeing it. So I watched instead this film review by DazzReviews on Youtube, titled “Yesterday Missed A MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY (SPOILERS)”.  It’s a short and simple analysis of key weaknesses of the film, being that its actual contents greatly pale in comparison to its great potential. Even without watching the film, I understood Dazz’s gripe because even seeing snippets of the film bored me. It is such a unique, and almost cute idea afterall: a blackout causing selective loss of memory in every single individual in this world (save for 3, later to be discussed) where post-blackout, The Beatles and other cultural/social phenomenon do not and have never existed. Our protagonist, who pre-blackout was a struggling singer/songwriter, then decides to release Beatles songs from his memory as his own, thus gaining global popularity and attracting immense adoration. It’s not novel, perhaps reminiscent of time-travel narratives idk, but it’s still fun right?  

Yet even after watching this review video and understanding the film’s flaws and being able to imagine how disappointing the film would have been, watching it in full for myself was still an upsetting experience. Google tells me that Yesterday is of the ‘Drama/Fantasy’ genre, which gives me a good starting point for my critique: how utterly un-fantastical it is.

Our protagonist Jack Malik is LITERALLY the most vanilla, ungrateful, boring, not-alive, nothing-at-all, annoying, pathetically male (in terms of tantrum-throwing and ingratitude) character I have ever seen. None of this is hyperbolic, his character literally sucks so freakin much omfg, absolutely devoid of any redeeming or even remotely INTERESTING qualities at all. In fact save for maybe one scene (which I will talk about below), I don’t think there was another single second in the entire film where we saw him smiling. This is not to say that he’s portrayed as especially tortured or depressed in demeanor, merely to indicate his absolute dearth of warmth and personality.

Meanwhile, it becomes clear as the boring film progresses boringly that Yesterday is in fact nothing more than a love story. The cute Beatles twist is merely a device to show us how Jack and his “love interest” Ellie (inverted commas cos their love sucks omfg I cant imagine that ANYONE viewing it is convinced) were in fact meant to be, with Jack’s momentary superstardom existing to show him that all he ever wanted was his old life, the one with Ellie (even though they were never together because THEY ARENT EVEN MEANT TO BE IN THE FIRST PLACE OKAY….). But, just as Jack’s character itself is flawed and awfully written, our female protagonist Ellie is SOOOOOO early 2000s. Just think of the most typical stock supportive, sweet, pretty, unfailingly kind and patient female whose presence is taken for granted etc etc… So her stock sweetie pie female character coupled with the most unbelievably charmless and unlikable male character make for the most unshippable couple you could possibly imagine. We are supposed to be charmed by her obvious-to-everyone-except-him love for Jack, supposed to have our heartstrings tugged by the singular scene of teenage schoolgirl her standing by the wings of the stage with hearts in her eyes while teenage schoolboy him sings a most soulless rendition of Wonderwall but it literally does absolutely nothing. The means has not met the end! This is a grossly uninspiring love story and there is no fantasy whatsoever!!

Honestly how is this even a Danny Boyle product? But then again… Zhang Yimou, boasting the incredibly genius Raise the Red Lantern (1992) on his resume, also did The Great Wall (2016) so I guess even heroes have the right to bleed or even the best fall down sometimes or something. OMG WAIT  I just googled the film again and not only is it directed by Danny Boyle but also written by Richard Curtis LOL wtfffffffffff okay this is the worst film ever seriously

Early on just after the global blackout thing, before Jack becomes the huge superstar that he does after his music (“his” music) is released into the world, when he first decides to use the songs of The Beatles, he is cajoled by his parents into performing for them in their humble living room. (by the way his parents are played by Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal who I have LITERALLY seen in about 1000 British TV shows and movies by now… idk maybe Yesterday was intended as a semi-ensemble cast film? Since there are other “appearances” by other known faces… ok whatever.) I guess this scene of him, superstar-to-be, sitting down at his piano in the claustrophobic living room with his parents exaggerating their domestic inclinations and comforts (by holding their cups of tea and settling themselves into their sofa-chairs etc) is meant to be comedic, we’re meant to laugh at how his parents have no idea the genius that is about to be released unto the stratosphere embodied by their all-great son Jack Malik, and it’s a predictable scene: his parents get disturbed by the bell and other things in the first 10 seconds of his performance, so Jack has to begin Let It Be 4 times over and never gets past a few lines… and okay, it’s funny because they are treating Jack’s “performance” as such because he has never before produced anything worthy of actual attention and has never performed in any manner that has demanded any respect given that he was an absolutely mediocre singer, but the scene is ruined by how Jack was written to have to react. Instead of taking it in his stride and recognizing that his parents are taking it so lightly because they have no idea how big the song is going to be because they have had no reason to expect anything great of him before, Jack throws a big fucking tantrum and asks why they cannot and have not respected the greatest song to ever be written etc etc… and okay, maybe this was intentional because we are to infer that Jack’s reaction is a projection of his own insecurities about releasing entirely unoriginal songs as his own, perhaps he has doubts about whether they would do as well as they did when The Beatles themselves released them, perhaps he has doubts that he is the right person to do this at all, anxieties and fears about being able to get away with it all… Sure, but I don’t want to give the writers the benefit of this doubt. If I were to watch the scene with my eyes and ears and not my brain, all I’d see is a dumbass manchild with a temper and ego problem incapable of accepting responsibility for the decisions he’s made, plus being unnecessarily cruel and disrespectful to his simple parents who want only to support him, if superficially. Basically, he’s dumb and the worst protagonist you’d want for a romcom.

But let it not be said that I am an extremist with my views: there was one sub-plot that showed promise and that made me think perhaps there was more to this film than the nothingness it had conveyed hitherto. When Jack played in Moscow, as an opening act for Ed Sheeran, we saw the haunting face of a large man in the crowd, carrying a knowing look in his eyes. It gave us a great sense of unease, seeing his concerned face contrasted with the throng of pretty girls screaming their hearts out (you know, à la “Moscow girls make me sing and shout”). Then later we see an English lady (played by the iconic amazing Sarah Lancashire who I know and love so so much from Happy Valley), who like the Russian man, carries the same speculation in her sharp eyes, as she sees Jack manically making his way through Liverpool, visiting key landmarks like Eleanor Rigby’s grave, Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane etc because, as she says to him later, “you cant write songs about places you’ve never been to”. So anyway, this odd pairing make up the only 2 other known humans in the world who for unexplained reasons also remember the existence of The Beatles, and thus recognize that Jack’s positioning of the entire Beatles discography as his own original work to be fraudulent.

So we as audiences who hardly care for this dumbass Jack but have still held on to some hope that the film would bring us some element of surprise and karma for this annoying fraud (whose singing voice by the way is literally the most forgettable ever), we would have loved nothing more than for Jack to face the sound of music (as Mother Mary comes to him). But instead of, I dunno, chopping his head off or outing him to the world, the mysterious duo thank him for bringing their much beloved Beatles songs back into the world, the whole who has forgotten them. They thank him for doing justice to the memory of the greatest band of all time, and together the duo and Jack dance and cheer in a side room minutes before Jack goes out to perform for the biggest crowd he’s ever played to. It’s just…  lame and not even a satisfying easy way out. Oh remember above when i said there was literally only about one scene of Jack smiling, this was it. And he only smiled because obviously he was relieved at not having his secret revealed to the world by these two..... ughhh WE DONT WANT TO SEE YOU HAPPY!! WE HATE U!!

Okay haha I shall end this as I do all my other ‘reviews’… by saying that I’m lazy already and cant really be bothered to continue but shall conclude by proclaiming that this film sucked… not in a remotely camp or quiet or interesting manner either. It was just boring and bad and of great disrespect to the music of The Beatles.

 -------------------

Omg I have just attempted to read some actual reviews of this film and some actually think it’s ‘charming’ and ‘surprisingly moving’ and that the leads have ‘chemistry’………….. that’s literally the fakest thing I’ve ever heard lol bye bye!

[lyraeon]

Hi! Sorry for intruding, and you definitely don't have to answer if this too personnal or invasive, but I've been wondering if my depression might be a bipolar one for a while now, only I don't always see myself in the way people talk about mania/hypomania, only sometimes I do? And the way you described mania being /straightforwardly frustrating/ sort of spoke to me, so I was wondering if you could explain what you meant by that? (or direct me to posts where you have?) Huge thanks!

Hello friend!

I’m sure I have other posts about it somewhere, but short of digging through my whole relevant tag, I wouldn’t know where to look for them. But I don’t mind explaining overall.

First of all, if your depression seems to come and go, but not necessarily be replaced by hypomania or mania, it may be something else. Seasonal Affective Disorder is the most common alternative, but Cyclothymia is also a thing, and should especially be looked up if your depression also never hits a bottomless pit level. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking “well, it’s not THAT bad, so I guess I’m ONLY cyclothymic and I shouldn’t worry about it” or whatever though!! That’s just the depression talking and trying to keep you down. Ignore it.

I don’t know if I get manic or hypomanic, doctors have consistently disagreed about it. But, I know I have two main modes of mania, though they can bleed into each other.

There winds up being talk about hallucinations, self-harm, and graphic nightmares in this, so if that’s gonna bug anyone reading this, J on past it

Hyperactive mania:

What is sleep? This is not me procrastinating sleep or being distracted by other things, this is me flat out not needing more than 3-4 hours of sleep a night and having trouble getting to sleep to begin with, not in an insomnia “I’m so tired but can’t settle down” way but in a “I don’t feel tired unless I drink or take sleeping pills or otherwise really wear myself out” way.

Zero focus - I have little to no attention span most of the time to begin with (I suspect I have ADHD but most doctors will be reluctant to diagnose that in addition to bipolar, since mania has a lot of overlap). This typically gets worse during mania; I will repeatedly get up out of my chair to walk laps around my house, often gesturing wildly and definitely talking out loud to myself if no one’s home. I’ll sometimes try to play music to get the energy out to that, but rarely get through a single verse before skipping to the next.

Hyperfocus - and when I do manage to focus on something, (which has to either be something I’m REALLY ENJOYING or something social) I will get dragged into it for 14 hours and only snap out of it if I need a bathroom break or something. The Sims is a common one, not just for me but for a lot of people from what I hear. I always know something was a hyperfocus and not a thing I really wanted to do in general because after 3 days - 2 weeks of the thing I won’t touch it again for months or years. My last manic fit involved playing a sim city phone game for 6-7 hours a day and binge watching multiple people’s entire hermitcraft 4 season. The one before that had me playing rollercoaster tycoon constantly.

sex drive - suddenly characters and celebrities I had not previously regarded as hot are hot. Suddenly I have 15 AO3 tabs open. I feel like people who know me well can notice my mania just by how often and what gets reblogged to my NSFW blog.

poor decision making - I’m far more likely to buy ice cream or alcohol or other things I don’t need to be spending my money on. I’m far more likely to give in to the whole not sleeping thing, or to take sleeping meds despite cutting it way too close to when I have to be up the next day. I lose my verbal filter. I still don’t know if the fact I don’t do anything life-ruiningly stupid is evidence I’m only hypomanic, not manic, or just my anxiety keeping me in check.

Intense emotions - I cried at a University of Phoenix ad yesterday y’all. I also in general am not one to cheer or yell at something happening on TV/in a video, but get more invested when manic and react on a level closer to when I’m actively playing a game or something.

But there’s also the frustrating side (not that the above isn’t often frustrating, just that the above are more associated with positive emotions or at least not a pervasive Stressed Out feeling)

Easily frustrated - I am not one to get mad, normally. I actually get criticized for just letting things slide that obviously upset me/”you keep saying it’s okay right after saying it’s not okay”. I don’t know how to handle getting mad due to gaslighting issues growing up that I won’t get into right now so when I do start getting mad, it tends to build up until I find myself tense and literally stomping mad and sitting in the car screaming in frustration (because if I scream in the house someone might hear me). I also snap at people far, far more often when manic, losing any patience I would typically have and sometimes going for passive aggressive gouges if what they’re annoying me with has built up over a couple days as opposed to instantly. For example, yelling at people who are in my raid group.

nightmares - dear god the nightmares. I will do things in them that I find barely or completely unquestionable in them, then wake up freaked the fuck out because I just - well, we’ll go with today’s example, which is that I fuckin shot my dog in my dream, and for no apparent reason! Death is a pervasive thing in these, including me getting jolted awake by my own death in them, but unstoppable torrents of water are also common as is things just not making any sense - an object I’m holding turning into something else the moment I try to give it to someone else is also something that happens a lot

tense - dear god do my shoulders and back hurt, and not my normal everyday chronic arthritis pain, because that’s in the joints. This is every muscle pulled as tight as it will go and locked, and often carries a sensation of “the only way to fix this is to literally claw them off the bones”. Upper back is the most common but my forearms come next (especially near my elbows) and every major muscle can feel that way if I’m far enough gone. This used to lead to self-harm in the form of me scraping at those areas trying to make the sensation stop (and has lead to weird masochism stuff), but it’s something I consciously avoid now. I’ll usually try to rub at them or stretch to relieve the tightness, but often sleeping it off is my only real recourse.

really, really, REALLY unable to focus - I can’t get through two minutes of a video without pausing it. I skip every song 4 seconds in and instead of just feeling like they don’t fit quite right, each song feels like it’s personally offending me by not being the right one and I eventually give up and take off my headphones in a huff. I’ll forget I was loading the dishwasher halfway through. I’ll keep doing one more little task and one more little task for hours to procrastinate simple things like eating or walking the dog. I always in general have trouble finishing my sentences sometimes, because I’ll lose words or I’ll wind up reading/hearing something mid-sentence, but it becomes every third sentence.

Itchy - everything feels wrong. My hair has to be pinned up as thoroughly as possible so it can’t touch my skin, my glasses have to be perfectly clean because the smudges will piss me off, my clothes have to be just right so they don’t touch my skin in ways that will make me jump/itch like if my hair touches me, any rough edge of my nails or cuticles has to immediately be chewed off, if there’s a weird hair or a zit or a scab anywhere on me I will be picking at it instantly, whatever I’m sitting or laying on is too lumpy, etc. My scalp itches regardless of when I last washed my hair, but washing my hair sounds dreadful because the sensation of wet hair weighing me down is even worse (vs it normally being a soothing sensation to me). My ears itch!! it’s maddening and distracting.

noise and light sensetivity - everything is too bright and too loud! I’ll have as many lights off as possible (sitting in the dark, showering in the dark, screens all as dim as they will go; I’ll often close my eyes or blindfold myself if I really need to concentrate on something I’m typing or listening to). I try to get white noise because background sounds like the dog walking around will drive me batty, but white noise will give the same “wrong one” sensation as music, and if I notice ANY repetition in the white noise (obvious bird loops for example) unless I have deliberately chosen a repetitive melody because it feels right, I will snap and have to turn it off and probably just cover my ears for a while. 

The sensation that shit would suck less if I was drunk right now, because that would either “at least give me something to do” or “make all of this funny instead of annoying” (but alcohol only intensifies what I’m feeling, so if I’m “good” manic it makes me super happy and if I’m frustrated manic I just get angrier)

just an overall sense that everything is wrong and there’s nothing I can do about it and unlike when I’m depressed, wherein I feel like it’s all my fault and I probably deserve to die because of it, it all just pisses me off more and makes me need to get up and wander around. in the less extreme of these moments, I end up trying to figure out lists of what needs to be done, but getting frustrated trying to think that hard. In the worse ones, things will be blown out of scale and I’ll be plagued not just by the problems in my own life but by how fucking frustrating it is not to be able to fix, oh, our broken government, or how frustrating it is that I don’t have the money to just buy us a house right this second, etc.

hallucinations - this is top floor mania for me. The only thing above it is the roof that I will sometimes lay on at 2 in the morning, limbs spread as wide as possible for minimal skin contact, laughing uncontrollably on the inside while feeling paralyzed. My hallucinations are “mild” ones - I’ve only had one or two visual flashes in my life, everything else has been sounds, and it’s rarely been even words, let alone more. it’s usually alarms and sometimes music. I’ll hear my boyfriend’s alarm going off, or the fire alarm going off, or my own alarm going off, or my family’s burglar alarm going off, etc. This is one that meds have been royally good at keeping under control and I’ve only had breakthroughs of it when I’m also sleep deprived.

-basically, mania is fUCKING FRUSTRATING AS ALL GET OUT because you have all this energy but nothing FEELS RIGHT so nothing gets DONE, 99.94% of the time.

The additional problem for me with breakthrough mania - that is, symptoms that happen despite my medication keeping me mostly “normal” -  is that it rarely brings any of the positive aspects that make being manic at least fun in the moment, if not sometimes genuinely worth it. I can get a LOT done when manic if I can take advantage of it before the bad symptoms set in, and I suspect a lot of my current writer’s block issues are because I’m not getting the same kind of hyperfocus days that I used to. But boy do I still itch sometimes, boy are my shoulders craving for me to go rub on a tree like a bear, boy is my stomach cranky because I’m so hungry but eating food sounds like a horrifying chore because what if it doesn’t taste right, etc.

I don’t really know how to explain exactly what I mean by the emotions feeling stunted, but it’s sort of like trying your hardest to find the can opener because you know it’s got to be somewhere, but it’s not anywhere you’re looking, except the can opener is your ability to be excited about this thing you wanted to do, or is your ability to be mad about something you know for a fact you’re pissed about, but you get stuck sitting there just dully frustrated instead because you can only read the label of the can, not actually experience the contents? Or maybe like opening it and finding store brand, “no sugar added” peaches instead of the really good del monte overly sweet stuff; your emotions themselves just feel lackluster compared to what you know they can be.

If a lot of this sounds familiar - if you’re like, yeah I get really annoyed easily and get sensory issues etc but I thought I didn’t get mania because I’ve never been pulled over in vegas going 110 in a 45 and all the media presents of mania is that and crazy chicks putting themselves $12,000 in debt overnight and waking up with no recollection of it - then you probably have hypomanic bipolar. If little bits sound familiar but they always are accompanied by existential dread and/or the pervasive sense you’ve gotta keep moving Or Else, it could be some sort of anxiety disorder. Parts of this list also overlap with autism, or with ADHD, or with BPD, just depending on which symptoms you have.

By my understanding, the one cornerstone of any form of mania is that you feel like you have more energy than normal; not more energy than depressed you, but an actual excess. That energy can fade fast/turn out to be just a sensation and not actual energy, but the sensation is still there, and usually fucks with your sleep.

Hopefully that helped. If it didn’t, or if it did but there’s something else you want to know, feel free to shoot me another anon or a message. I might be slow to respond because my sleep schedule is currently fucked to three more hells than normal, but I will definitely do what I can to help.

[kai-keda]

I’ve been meaning to talk about this for awhile but I wasn’t sure how to go about it.

I almost asked myself if I wanted to make a poem out of it but I decided that that wasn’t where my talents lied.

As per the doctors permission to see if a side-effect was really a side-effect, I stopped taking my medicine for a few days.

The thing is, I made a mistake.

I was given permission to stop taking the bipolar medication, not the anxiety/depression medicine.

So I hit a manic+depressed episode. I talked about that while it was happening and I realized that I’ve hit them before.

Those times when I would rant and rave on tumblr about how much I hated myself were from racing negative thoughts that lead to sleeplessness which lead to delirium and a bad mood.

A simultaneous manic and depressed episode.

I hate the idea of self-diagnosing anything on any level but seeing as to how I have been officially diagnosed with bipolar I think it’s fair for me to suggest that maybe I’m what’s known as a “rapid cycling” case. Those simultaneous episodes happen more often with rapid-cycling is what I’ve come to understand. Also, cycling as often as I do is not normal even by bipolar standards.

So what’s the point of this?

Well, I’m not sure if this is common knowledge, but it just so happens that people will sometimes be ok before medicine, amazing on medicine and then terrible off medicine.

Two days of not taking the medicine that is meant for anxiety/depression left me worse than I started out.

I was suicidal.

I left my house when I realized what was happening to me and forced myself to go to church where my brother was covering for me since I was sick the day before with food poisoning.

After the mass I immediately turned to my sister and told her “I can’t be left alone because I almost left this place to go purposefully OD. I’m not okay.” She hugged me and I could tell she was freaking out.

I still haven’t told my parents.

My brother and sister refused to let me even drive myself home cause they understand how quickly those thoughts can hit and turn into reality. So my brother drove me home and when my parents came home from their mass (my dad is the Deacon at a separate church) my sister told them to keep a close eye on me and she took my brother back to our church so he could drive his car home.

I realized what was wrong and, with added pressure from my sister, I took the anxiety/depression medicine and vowed to never stop taking it ever again.

That episode made me glad and grateful that not only do I have the family that I do but that I also have bipolar and not clinical depression.

That feeling of being in a cold room with no windows and doors and seeing no escape from the feeling but the presence of the phrase “death” over and over and over again is not something I can imagine myself living with.

There’s being upset that a family member died and struggling to go on after that and then there’s the icy touch of knowing you have no right to seek death but still looking to it as your savior. Your hero. The one who will take you away from the freezing chill of a mental disorder.

I wanted nothing more than to drink the blood of Christ and be freed from its clutches.

I wanted nothing more than to be warm.

I rubbed my arms like you see in the movies and pictures and suddenly understood.

I was cold.

On the inside my blood had turned to an icy river in a hot summer month in a tiny church on a hot summer day.

I wanted it to stop.

I wanted whatever it took to make it stop to stop it.

I wanted death to stop it.

I thought about how my teachers in Elementary School would tell us that people would accidentally over-dose on medicine because one dose “made them feel so good” and I thought about how I could make it look like an accident.

I still haven’t told my parents about the feeling of suffocating within a freezing bowl of tar that held me still because I don’t want them to blame the medicine and take it from me.

Yes, I was fine before the medicine for the most part but I DID feel this before.

I’ve only told two other people this but I made up a fib about how I was lying to one of them shortly after. I told them because we were in a group chat and I needed to calm one of our younger members down and the way to reach her was to tell her that I went through it and got past it so she could, too.

I didn’t want to look like I was begging for attention when it happened because my constant ravings of “there’s something wrong with me” were always falling on deaf ears anyways.

I almost killed myself in High School.

Freshman Year.

I was always the first one to come home at the end of the day.

I grabbed the scissors in the kitchen and stared them down.

That icy feeling was strong and real.

I just wanted to feel warm and I figured my blood would do the trick.

I pointed the scissors to my heart and thought about how glorious and beautiful heaven would be. How Purgatory would clean my soul of all that filthy ice and prayed to God that he forgive me and send me to heaven.

And then my mom walked in.

It had turned out she didn’t have school that day because of a doctor’s appointment. I froze for a second and then put the scissors up.

I later argued with her about something stupid due to what I know now is bipolar.

Too many times I can think of from high school where I reached for the razor and almost cut myself hoping that the warmth of my blood would feel good and if not at least I could die from bleeding out and it would be over.

But I was a coward.

The idea of living for eternity as my religion tells me still frightens me to this day. I wasn’t prepared for that and while I didn’t have the perfect care for my situation I still had some love and care around me and I was never left alone for very long.

And the Trich?

“I don’t know why I pull!” That was always a lie. Every single time it was a lie. I pulled because it felt good when nothing else would. Pulling was my self-harm. It was the self-harm that gave me the dopamine fix that nothing else would without the stress of family and friends calling me an attention seeker.

Now that there’s finally clarity and freedom starting to form because I’m finally getting treatment for this sort of stuff, I felt it was fair to come clean.

Reda will see this and no-doubt freak out and call me and want to talk about it and ask why I posted this story on tumblr before telling any of my family first but the answer is simple, really.

Writing is easier for me.

And when I’m writing there’s less of a chance of lying. I even started it out with a lie saying that it’s the medicine’s fault I felt that ice but it wasn’t. It was just the first time since High School that I almost went through with it.

And with the talk of Chester Bennington killing himself after the song “Heavy” got me through to my appointment I noticed that there’s still a need for awareness of what Depression IS and what it FEELS LIKE and how it DOESN’T MATTER how happy you are. You can be the happiest person in the world and that icy chill inside of you will still call you to kill yourself.

God, do I need to go to confession for all the times I told my family I wasn’t ever going to have suicidal thoughts?

[cchie]

Dear future me- Dear best friend- Dear person I hate- :)

Dear future me,Normally, I’d say something like “God, I hope you’re happy”. But where I’m at right now, I don’t need to. I know I’m going to be happy. That in itself is huge progress I never thought I’d make. You’re ideally married to Daniel, have a house, and are working a job you don’t hate. You also probably have a cat or a dog (whether it’s Ziggy or not). I hope you’re back in school. I hope you’ve been doing well for yourself. Don’t forget to communicate with old friends, new friends, and family members that you don’t hate. I hope the ghosts that haunt us have quieted a significant amount. I only wish I could fast forward, but a part of me is super content living these days out. All I can say is, don’t forget these days.Dear best friend,You suck. Jk. You are my very best friend in the world. Without you by my side all these years, I don’t quite think I’d make it. You’ve been there for me in times where nobody else has. We’ve both lived through some of the hardest times in our lives together, both being there for each other and being each other’s escapes. The long night drives, the places we’d eat, the midnight releases of movies we’d go see. You understand me on a level almost nobody else can. Without you, I would not be who I am and where I am today. And for that, I am eternally grateful. I am so proud of everything you’ve overcome, everything you’ve worked hard for, every day you’ve survived. I had never admired someone the way I’ve admired you these past years. I cannot tell you how lucky I am to be so close to you, to see you grow and only continue to grow, and share parts of your happiness. You mean the world to me and I love you. I’m so happy that you’ve found who you’ve found. He’s a fucking weirdo but, he’s your fucking weirdo. And you two work so well together even when it’s hard as shit. Even when he says the stupidest, funniest things, I see how it makes you smile and laugh. And I see the way you two look at each other and it is absolutely unprecedented. I’m so goddamned happy for you that I’m actually tearing up right now and that’s gay. You two belong together. And I’m so glad you two are finally getting married. Dear person I hate,I cannot stand you. I cannot stand seeing you in pictures with my friends. It makes me so fucking sick. What you did to me for those almost 2 years, I will never forgive you. Your trauma and abuse does not excuse you for how you treated me. I was so weak back then and you trampled all over me. Throwing things, punching walls, yelling at me, telling me I’m the reason you’re unhappy, leaving me crying in an argument because you couldn’t “handle” my depression and anxiety, how you jerked off to any other woman you could find or to ads in Craigslist about couples looking for a 3rd person to enter their bedroom, your complete disregard to who I was as a person and your sick infatuation with who you wanted me to be (your manic pixie dream girl), your cheating and your constant lying, your gaslighting, your manipulation, your condescending tone, your forcefulness, how you couldn’t understand the word “no”, your inability to empathize with anything I ever felt, how you lead me to believe you were a good guy with an asshole front, your temper tantrums, your guilt trips when I was already depressed and anxious, you said one time that I would “ruin the wedding” that I already told you I didn’t want to go to because you slept with her, your complete lack of motivation to better yourself and instead wallowing in self hatred and pity leading towards your hatred towards me, when I told you the love I felt for you was no longer romantic or how I imagined love was supposed to feel and I wasn’t quite sure it was something I could even call “love”,  the way you left me crying when I broke up with you and you partied with your friends all night like nothing had happened, the drunken texts you’d send after we broke up, how you hated Josh and Daniel because that meant I wouldn’t sleep with you again, how you desperately tried to make me jealous by reconnecting with your ex, how you tried to make me feel lesser for realizing my worth and being able to move on and find happiness. God, there’s so much hatred in my heart and I fucking despise it because I try my fucking hardest to be a good person and be filled with love and forgiveness (even though there are some people I just can’t do that for). But you are the reason for many of my issues today and out of spite and love for myself, I am overcoming them. So fuck you and everything you ever said and did to me. I hope you rot in your self hatred forever.

[mormonmommyphilosopher-blog]

Crazy Pants

Crazy. Looney. Nuts. Psycho. Wacky. Kooky. Insane. Bonkers. Mad. Batty. Barmy... ADHD. Bipolar. Borderline. Depressive. Anxious. Schizophrenic. Multiple Personality. Obsessive Compulsive. Disorder. Disorder. Disorder...

Fortunately over the last decade or two, mental illness is becoming less taboo. Less discriminated against. What at one point was defined as demonic possession, is now realized as Multiple Personality Disorder or Dissociative Personality Disorder. We still have a long way to go, but is it now, I would hope, safe to say that someone whom is plagued with a severe mental disorder is considered just as ill as someone with rheumatoid arthritis, or plantar fasciitis, or fibromyalgia.

All three of these conditions cause pain. One, two, or all of these may cause sleep problems, fatigue, weakness, and irritation. If you're familiar with mental illness, than you are aware that emotional pain, sleep problems, fatigue, weakness, and irritation, are also very common symptoms of mental health disorders.

About six months ago, I was diagnosed with Bipolar II/2 Disorder. Unlike Bipolar I Disorder, Bipolar II is less manic, more depressive—Hypomanic instead of Manic and less often. Severe Depression instead of Depression and more often. When first diagnosed, my initial thoughts were, “yeah, that makes sense,” but also, “thank goodness it wasn't something worse.” When I went to see the psychiatrist, I was hoping upon hope that I wasn't going to be diagnosed with a personality disorder like a couple of members of my family, and was dreading that it was going to be, Bipolar Disorder. Which at the time, I didn't realize has varying degrees. 

When I think Bipolar, I still think crazy. I still think of over the top, intense, rash, hysterical, etc.. I hate that I think that. And I know that I am not the only one that thinks that. The psychology of it is fascinating though, isn't it? When we can drop shame and prejudice against mental illness as an actual illness, the reasons for each individual disorder is quite compelling.

 I was also diagnosed with PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Aside from the fact that this disorder can be debilitating at times, I'm amazed at how much of an impact an event, or time period, in my case, my childhood, can have on a person's mind. Especially an adult person with a fully formed brain.

We all have basic vulnerabilities that can make us “act crazy” sometimes. Hunger, anger, loneliness, tiredness.. Think of how “crazy” a normal person can get when they're “hangry.” Now add a disorder. Our vulnerabilities lead to thoughts, which then invoke certain emotions, that lead to more thoughts, and invoke more emotions, until a behavior or an action is expressed. Hunger can lead to anger which can sometimes lead up to lashing out at someone. Is it so unreasonable then when a person with an added vulnerability might lash out, doing something that is not construed as normal behavior? Throwing a chair, punching a wall, yelling at their loved ones, turning inward and going silent?

 I have three major things that I deal with in my own mental illness. Two sides of hypomania and then the depression. When I'm happy hypomanic, I'm hyper, excitable, happy, and I like to tease. I become the life of the party. I am so much fun to be around. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this was my favorite side of my disorder. Unfortunately, this type of hypomania can easily slip into irritable hypomania; when I've had enough fun, been somewhere too long, or I just started the day being irritable hypomanic. Mind you, these are my own terms of classification—happy and irritable hypomanic.

When I’m irritable hypomanic, the smallest things bother me much more than they would a normal person. The cashier at Walmart was snippy this last week and I acted like a pushover even though I was screaming on the inside. A day or two later, I had to cancel providing a meal for the missionaries that I had previously signed up for, but ended up out of town for, and when I called the man in charge of scheduling the day before the meal to cancel, he put me on a guilt trip, to which I again acted the pushover, but I felt the fire burning inside of me. A couple of days after that, a lady in my ward that I’m doing a kindness for, nitpicked at me about being on time and called me out for “running behind” previously on another kindness I had done for her. Upon reading her text message, my knuckles nearly collided with the passenger side dash in front of me. Irritable hypomania is the most difficult, frustrating, and embarrassing side of my mental disorder that I have to face on a semi-regular basis. I’m not proud of it. But it is a very real part of my life that I and my poor husband have to deal with. Along with that irritability comes horrible anxiety. Actually I'm pretty prone to anxiety in general. But it is especially bad in this case. To the point where, sometimes, all plans for that day have to be cancelled and I have to lock myself away and be isolated for awhile.

The third, and most frequent side of my mental illness is the depressive side.  My depression ranges in severity from simply a continuous somber mood and moving slightly slower than the rest of my peers on a regular, day to day basis, to the really bad days when I am nearly incapable of getting out of bed, nearly incapable of speech, nearly incapable of dry eyes, and entirely incapable of leaving my house. I say “nearly incapable” in most of these instances, because ultimately I am capable of getting out of bed, speech, and dry eyes, and the reasons are two beautiful blue eyes in the sweetest little face of the sweetest little three year old girl you've ever seen. Even my husband is incapable of getting me out of bed in most cases, except for the times when he has literally grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me out of bed. Seriously.. He has done this.

 I know that the topic of mental health is still something difficult for many people to talk openly about. Recently I posted something on social media about my current struggle with my irritable hypomania and how it is the most challenging of the three sides of Bipolar 2 to manage. Shortly after, I received a private message from a friend who had struggled with a bad case of post-partum depression, and it broke my heart to hear that she hadn't shared it with anyone except for her husband because of how worried she was that people would judge her harshly and talk badly about her behind her back.

I have so much faith that in general, people are kinder than that. That human beings, at our core, are more sympathetic and empathetic than we as individuals give each other credit for sometimes. I am really grateful that I have gained the confidence to be able to speak about my own mental illness publicly.

 As much of an advocate as I am of acceptance and love in all of our varying differences, obviously it is also important to be cautious and to keep ourselves and our families safe. I, myself, had to cut ties with a family member within the last month due to his harmful actions derived from his mental illness of narcissistic personality disorder. God wants us to love everyone, but sometimes we have to love some people at a distance.

Mental illness is very real. Unfortunately, it cannot be cured. Not right now, nor anytime in the near future anyway. But, thankfully, it can be treated. If you struggle with mental illness, it is not the end. There is therapy and medication available just as there is for rheumatoid arthritis, plantar fasciitis, and fibromyalgia. Most of us also have loved ones whom are willing to make the effort to understand and to listen to our difficulties. If you do not have faith in God, I encourage you to seek Him through prayer, and He will answer you if you seek Him humbly and diligently. His son not only atoned for our sins, but atoned and felt all of our pain and all of our sorrows. He knows you by name and is forever reaching out to you, waiting for you to reach back to Him.

For those of you whom do not suffer with your own mental health, but are the loved ones of those that do, I encourage you to soften your hearts to them. I know that they can be really frustrating sometimes and you can't wrap your mind around why they're acting the way that they do. It doesn't make any sense. But it does to them. That's just how they are and they don't know any different. Unless it's harmful to themselves or others, it shouldn't be too much of a concern. You might just have to deal with a little “weirdness.” 

If your mentally ill loved one needs a break and needs to be alone for a little while, let them. If you need a break sometimes and you start feeling like you're starting to go a little, dare I say, “crazy,” being around them, make sure that you take a break as well. There's also nothing wrong with non-mentally ill people seeking professional counseling. If anything, seeing a therapist might help you be able to understand and cope with the everyday challenges that you meet with your loved ones who struggle so much. 

It is my hope and prayer that as we journey further into the future, we, as the human race, will be able to better understand mental health issues, and address those that carry them, with more kindness and understanding than we have in the past.

Best regards,

McKell

“There will always be more blessings than burdens--even if some days it doesn’t seem so.” -Jeffrey R. Holland

[psychicwolftraveler-blog]

Bipolar and the stigma

Bipolar and the stigma against mental illness

When people hear mental illness they tend to shudder with fear and smugness as if there better than anyone who suffers from something. When people hear Bipolar they run a mile! Some may say I am exaggerating but I am not. Iv seen it first hand. I myself suffer from Bipolar Type 2. Now i emphasise the type as thats important. When people hear Bipolar they think of manic, mania, psychosis, hyper, unhinged...the list goes on. But I am none of those things. Type 2 sufferers tend to have long bouts of low periods and very intense anxiety, in all honesty the anxiety can manifest into paranoia-so there is an element of psychosis but nowhere near as much as a Type 1 sufferer.

I was diagnosed 3 years ago at the age of 27 going on 28. Prior to this, Id only ever had one other breakdown and that was 10 years before hand in my late teens. I had always suffered from some form of anxiety but i had always managed to control it. My job as a manager kept me mentally busy and challanged and i thrived on stress, in fact in one interview i even said i loved it! but in the end it was stress that broke me down, and now sadly that aspect off any job i do in the future will be a no no for me! But since my diagnosis iv noticed a wave of stigma attached to mental health. People are geniunly scared of it! There scared of what it means and what it can do. they dont realise the effects that can have on the person suffering!

I myself have never told any of my employers about my illness for this reason, because a lack of understanding on their part can make them nieve, and regardless of how qualified I am I wont be fit enough for the job because my brain ever so slightly works in a diffrent way to others! I know my triggers and I can control it to a point...the only thing that stops me having control is pregnanacy, because adding those hormones to an already altered mind makes for very confusing times! I spend weeks indoors not talking to anybody or seeing the outside world-but its all for the greater good, and though i can turn into a hormonal nightmare when pregnant, having a baby is a blessing and ill take all the bad that comes with it!

I recently wrote an open letter on twitter to many celebrity ambassadors for mental health, including the young royals- below is the letter i wrote:

I am writing to you today as I have been reading about all your work that you are doing surrounding mental health namely the stigma surrounding it. I am writing to you in a capacity of desperation to get my voice heard. You both are the voice that can speak for the millions so I figured it was worth a shot so here goes. Let me give you a background on myself. I am 31 and am a freelance journalist/poet and a manager within the NHS. I has my first mental breakdown when I was 16 at the time people thought it was a mixture of hormones and family factors, none the less I had to leave 6th form and was medicated for a few years. When that fog lifted I returned to college and went onto university to study new media journalism. To support myself I had to work in the post room within a NHS trust. I worked my way up that corporate ladder very quickly and after graduating kept the journalistic side to freelance and continued to work my way up in the NHS,  iv worked in A&E as admin manager, iv worked as unit managers for CNWL's Addiction services, and even ended up managing the admin team at the same unit that treated me when I was 16 within west London mental health trust, which was ironic really but also showed how far I had come and accomplished! The same doctor that treated me still worked there too! I went from being her patient 10 years before to drinking with her in a pub at 26 a fully fledged cured adult who managed the admin team including her secretary! The signifance of me telling this will become apparent soon.... In november 2014 I suffered a severe break down and voluntarily went into a low secure mental health unit just to rest and get the treatment I needed! Again it was west London mental health I was treated by, but this time I had two perspectives, one the patient and two the employee! The same doctors and nurse I had been drinking in a pub with 2 years before now saw me as a patient, some wouldn't even say hello.  The only people to acknowledge me were the patiebts who rembered me from the services they attended, but now i was one of them. This was my first experience of the stigma of mental health, I was no good anymore I was just another patient. It was at this point I was diagnosed with Bipolar type 2, I would like to emphasize the type 2 as that's another stigma I get. The difference between type 1 and 2 is vast, there is no mania with my type and more anxiety and depression. It was a hard diagnosis but it hadn't come from nowhere I had it since 16! It made sense all the times I'd have down patches I just put down to environmental factors, a bad relationship, argument with friends, stress at work etc... I just thought it was what the doctors had said when I was 16..hormones and family factors, but it wasn't it was bipolar.. So the entire time I had been working I had bipolar and nobody had known, not me, not my colleagues not even the doctor who treated me at 16 and drank with me on Friday night and now wouldn't even say hello to me after seeing me in hospital! Stigma is stigma and even employees and doctors have them. Knowing that keeping busy controlled it and stress made it worse I went straight back to work in a brand new job at the RNOH in stanmore in January 2015!! I took a step back and went in as a EA to the hospitals operations director....not an easy job but less stressful than managing things myself but it wasn't long before I got the urge to take the reins once more and within 9 months I was unit manager of paediatrics at the same hospital!  Again nobody knew until I fell pregnant in March 2016, I was not on any medication apart from calming pills to stop my anxiety flaring up but I stopped all these when I found out. I had my first and only encounter with perinatel who are a great team and service, unfortunately I miscarried at 20 weeks, and within 3 days I was discharged from the perinatal service and was on my own. The pregnancy hormones and lack of medication had made Me very edgy and anxious more so than I had ever been, then losing the baby caused more emotions which were hard to deal with. I had to finish at my job in the June of 2016 as the stress and the commute were making me sick again and being pregnant I had to make that my priority not my career. It was the first time I hadn't worked since I was 18 and being at home made my illness worse. None the less me and my partner tried again and I fell pregnant in may 2017 but again lost it at 6 weeks. This sent me into a downward spiral and I had to make a decision to try again or go back to work but we tried again and here I am 11 weeks pregnant and everything thus far going well and being monitored  everything but my mental health. Iv had no further contact from a perinatel team and  am on no medication. When I do see my midwife my mental health always gets used as a weapon. Iv been told I must have a cesarean for my own health but I also must have meeting regarding mental health to see if I could cope with a baby and what my support network is. That is what has pushed me to write to you both.... The stigma. Just because I have a diagnosis does not mean I am not capable or of sound mind! I went 12 years with nobody none the wiser not even the doctor who had originally treated me at 16, but now they can name my problem I'm not a worthy and am treated a second class citezen. People Dont talk about mental health because of this reason, and things need to change. If I had another invisible illness like epilepsy would I have the same stigma... Probably not. With my corporate mindset I ask you, when you work with mental health issues, departmentalise each issue.... Suicide, depression, psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders . within each of these things there is a stigma and within each of those boxes is a person like me who can control, hide and survive through my issues everyday with nobody knowing, working in high level jobs too scared to say anything because when I do I become somebody everybody is scared of abd treat differently just because I'm labeled with a mental illness and as the voice of the many I do hope the work you all do goes someway to helping the case I have put to you today because this is an issue that needs changing and changing fast.I have enclosed copy's of 2 poems I have written about mental health which are also published online, I look forward to your response Yours faithfully

Needless to say I never got any replys-which made me more determined to start a blog, to have my voice and get it heard!!

Iv recently read in the news today that they believe the grand old president of the USA, Mr Donald J Trump is apparently suffering from a mental illness-which could in effect cost him his job! According to the BBC, experts believe he is suffering from narcassistic personality disorder- now hes the kind of person that gives people with genuine mental illness a bad name! He's not mentally ill, hes an egotistic old man who is too twitter happy and obscessed with big red buttons. Everything he says is pathetic and he cant be taken seriously, the way the USA can justify thier horrific mistake of electing such a gorrilla is to brush it off with, "we didnt realise he was mentaly ill"!! cop out if you ask me!!! Just take his tweets with Mr Kim Jung un- iv seen 3 year olds in nurserys have better arguments than that!! Thats not a mental illness its a child in a 70 somethings body!! Hes the human real life version of Tom Hanks's character in Big, just not as nice or as clever or as entertaining!! I defenitly wouldnt want to play the big piano with him in a toy store-god forbid you were better than him- you'd be banned from America and called a loser on twitter before being handed a shovel and some bricks to go and build his mexican wall!

My point is, mental illness is a stigma and when its used to describe somebody like Donald Trump its no wonder people get scared!! We should be allowed to talk about it more freely and openly without the fear of being judged-but if that will change who will know...Until then all we can do is live on and fight the big fight that is mental illness which ever one it may be..... we'll talk more on this subject... but until then take care...

The typist behind the screen xxx

www.gogsworld.net

[waitineedaname]

Syng

SkamFicWeek:

Day 4: rewrite/extend a canon scene

Pairing: Even/Isak

AO3

It shouldn’t have happened like this. It shouldn’t have happened at all.

Even had thought the guys were better off without him, especially after everything that had happened - after everything he’d done. Cutting off contact would be good for them, and finishing school at Nissen would be a fresh start for him.

It had worked so far. Eventually, they stopped texting him, and he’d deleted his social media so he never saw them on his feed. He avoided parties he knew they might appear at, and Sana was respectful enough to never bring it up.

It wasn’t really a fresh start; he couldn’t escape the gossip that followed him from Bakka. He knew how to turn a blind eye to it, and ignore the stares, the whispers. It hurt, but he could take it. He made a few friends who didn’t pay attention to the rumors, and he had Isak.

Oh, Isak. Isak with his quick wit and snarky attitude. Isak with his kind heart and patient nature. Isak with his loyal friends that adopted Even like he was family. Isak, who Even loved unconditionally and - somehow - loved him back just as much. Isak who he woke up next to every morning and made Even thank the universe over and over for.

Isak should never have been involved.

“Do you want to get some air?” Isak asked him as they stepped off the karaoke stage. Having him at his side had brought him down to earth - out of the rising tide of panic brought on by the sight of his old friends - but he was still a little shaky. Isak was right; some fresh air would do him good. He nodded and Isak took his hand, grounding him further. He told the guys not to worry about following them out, finish their beers, and then he was gently leading Even through the crowd and out the doors.

The cool springtime air felt good on Even’s face and he let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Isak led him down to the benches and looked at him with those concerned eyes of his eyes. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t get the chance before someone else spoke.

“Even?” They both looked up and Even’s throat closed. Jogging over was none other than Mikael. Out of all of them, seeing him was the hardest. His kind brown eyes were fraught with worry and it pained Even to know that was because of him. “Even- Ya Allah, we’ve been trying to get ahold of you for ages!”

Even couldn’t answer. He didn’t know how to. Panic was building in his gut. It was hard to breathe.

“Are you okay?” Mikael started to reach to touch Even’s arm when suddenly there was someone else shoving himself between them.

“Leave him the fuck alone!” Isak shoved Mikael, who stumbled back a couple steps.

“I’m just trying to talk to him!”

“You’re getting in his face!” In some moments of weakness, he’d wondered what it would be like if his old best friend met his boyfriend. He hadn’t wanted to happen like this, with neither of them knowing the full story and tempers flaming. Isak pushed Mikael again, firm in the center of his chest, and Mikael fell backwards. “Just get the fuck away!”

“Hey!”

It was all happening in slow motion. He saw Mikael fall on his ass, unable to stop it from happening. He heard Elias’s voice from the Syng doorway and suddenly he was there, between Mikael and Isak, and Even couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to keep them apart, and Elias’s fist connected with Isak’s face.

And then everything sped up. Even finally managed to unfreeze and bolt forward, catching Isak before he fell to the ground. He heard yelling, saw Isak’s friends rushing out to meet Elias and the guys, but he didn’t pay attention; Isak’s bloodied face and pained noises gave him a distraction.

“Shh,” He tried to soothe Isak, helping him to the bench and gently touching his cheek. Isak hissed in pain, flinching away. “Fuck, that looks bad.” Even glanced back at the throng of people and he felt sick when he saw Mahdi and Elias struggling back and forth, Jonas shoving Adam and landing hits where he could. It felt unreal, like a sick nightmare he’d wake up from any minute now. His past and his present meeting in the worst possible way.

He turned his attention back on Isak. He couldn’t think about it right now. He had to take care of Isak, or else the guilt swarming in his mind would overtake him.

“Where does it hurt?” His nose; his eye; his upper cheek. “Are you dizzy?” No; yes; it hurts, Ev. “We’ll get you to the emergency room. It’ll be okay, baby.”

The yelling increased in volume - Sana’s voice was there now, when did she get out here? - and then fell. He heard Isak’s friends approach, heard Mahdi ask if Isak was okay.

“We have to go to the emergency room.” Sana’s hand was on Isak’s cheek, but Even wouldn’t let himself focus on anything else right now. “Are you coming?”

They were; of course they were. They weren’t leaving their friend behind.

--

The tram ride was tense and quiet. The boys formed a protective shield around Isak, all buzzing with leftover adrenaline. Even sat at his side, rubbing his back in soothing circles and whispering comforts. Isak curled into his side and was silent except for occasional hisses of pain when he moved his face wrong and disturbed the blossoming injuries on his face.

(Even remembered for a moment the tram ride they shared so many months ago. The awkward conversation, shying away from each other, compared to how Isak’s hand was now clasped in his, his face curled into Even’s neck. Things were so much better now. And yet, they were also so much worse.)

It didn’t take long for them to get to the hospital and they sat in the waiting room for next to no time before a nurse was leading Isak away to get checked out.

Even sat hunched over, his knee bouncing a mile a minute. He could feel Jonas, Magnus, and Mahdi’s eyes on him, could feel their silent questions, but he didn’t look up. It was getting hard to keep down the guilt and anxiety threatening to burst out of his chest.

Isak was brought out not too long after he was brought in. He had a concussion - a mild one - but none of the injuries were serious. He’d have a black eye and should probably not go to school this week, here’s a note to send the principal, and here’s some pain medication, he’ll be sure to have a headache so avoid bright lights and ice it, and are you sure you boys don’t want to press charges?

No; they were sure; thank you for your help.

--

The boys stuck with them on their way home. Even’s not sure how it happened, but before he knew it, he was sitting on his bed and passing Isak an ice pack, and his apartment was occupied by three more people than usual.

Isak took the ice pack with a mumbled ‘thank you’ and pressed it to his eye. The hospital had cleaned up the bloody parts, but the swelling was quickly becoming obvious. He looked at him, one visible green eye sharp with worry.

“Who were those guys?” Mahdi spoke up from the table.

“That was Mikael, right? From Bakka?” Isak added. Even’s breath hitched and he looked down at his lap, nodding softly. “Even, what happened with you guys?”

Even was silent. He wasn’t sure how to start.

“We can leave, you know.” Magnus piped up. His voice had the oddly caring tone it took on when the situations required him to actually be serious. If he were feeling better, Even would smile. The others might tease him, but Even was really glad Isak was friends with Magnus. He was a good person. “In case you don’t want to say it in front of us. We’d understand.”

Jonas and Mahdi murmured their agreement.

“Or… if now isn’t the right time, it’s okay.” Isak reached over and squeezed his hand. That felt wrong; Isak was the one with the black eye and concussion; Even should be comforting him, not the other way around. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Even let out a long breath. No. It was now or never.

“I’ve… known these guys for a long time. Ever since we were kids, really. Elias-” Even looked up at Isak for a moment. “-the one who hit you, he’s Sana’s brother.”

“Asshole.” Mahdi suggested and Even laughed dryly.

“No, he’s a great guy actually. They all are. They’re really good people. He probably only hit you because he saw you push Mikael.” Even fell silent again, trying to figure out how to word the next part. Everyone else was silent, waiting until he was ready. Isak squeezed his hand gently. “I… I wasn’t diagnosed until last spring. They thought maybe I had ADHD or depression before then. I hadn’t had a really big episode until last year.

“I…” Even licked his lips and took a deep breath before continuing. “I did a lot of really out there stuff. It was just snowballing and I didn’t know what was going on. I’d… I’d been questioning my sexuality a lot. No one knew, but it was at the front of my mind all the time. And Mikael-” He smiled weakly. “Mikael was my best friend. He was funny and smart and handsome and I-” He could feel Isak tense beside him. “I kissed him.”

He closed his eyes tightly as memories of the panic in Mikael’s face, of how he’d shoved him off of him and asked him what the fuck he was doing flashed through his mind.

“That was a really bad idea.” To say the least. “He got upset with me- not angry, but freaked out. It kind of came out of nowhere.” He picked at a loose thread in his jeans, unable to look up at everyone in the room. “Mikael is Muslim, so to my manic mind, that’s why he was pushing me away. I- I got a Quran and began memorizing everything I could.” Isak’s fingers threaded through his own and gave him the courage to keep going. “I found all the parts about being gay and how, because I liked men, I would be going to Hell.”

Isak scooted a tiny bit closer to him, putting Even’s hand between both of his own.

“I posted them everywhere. All over my Facebook, all over the revue wall, all over Instagram. Normally when I’m manic, it’s a lot of intense happiness. This time, it was the worst despair I’d ever felt. And when I crashed, it was even worse. When I was depressed, I tried to-” The words stuck in his throat. “...They diagnosed me with bipolar 1 disorder at the hospital. I dropped out of Bakka. I haven’t talked to the guys since.”

The room was silent. He could hear cars outside and the gentle hum of the building’s air unit. And then Isak pulled him closer, wrapping him into his arms. Even folded against his chest, feeling like he’d just performed some great exertion, and he felt Isak kiss the top of his head.

“Thank you for telling me.” Isak whispered into his hair. Even curled his fingers into his flannel. He smelled like sweat and beer and blood and his deodorant and the soap Even picked out because Isak doesn’t know how to shop for that kind of thing. It was comforting.

“...I need to talk to them.” He said after several minutes of silence. Isak’s fingers were combing through his hair.

“Yeah? Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He was sure. Things were bad that night, but they were better than they were a year before. He was better than he was a year before. He was in the arms of his boyfriend, in the apartment they shared, surrounded by fiercely loyal friends who hadn’t even known him half a year but still treated him like a brother. Things were better.

And it was time to talk to the boys.

[ackwardlyclumsy-blog]

Personification of mental illness February 4, 2017 *TW*

I'm not going to lie, right now my depression is eating me alive. my BPD is like living with two people who hate each other. anxiety is mixed with paranoia because hey is a toxic combination. sleep paralysis has me afraid to sleep. Insomnia decides if I do actually sleep. dissociation I don't want to leave my house due to PTSD. ADHD gets to tell me when I can be focused or not. image this okay stay with me. each of them as people, they all conflict, have different interests hate and love different things. its like a compass but you never know what will happen each day. combine all of them..and...its something like this depression is like you can get out of bed have no motivation to shower and you feel numb or nonexistent to the world dissociation is adding another layer of you watching yourself as in your in so much excruciating pain you have had to disconnect from your self as a survival mechanism. anxiety takes part of motivating yourself to the part where your shaking and throwing up because your worried, terrified and overthinking. depression has waited till the last minute to do things. anxiety is pushing you to get it done because your afraid of being yelled at. dissociation decides you cant comprehend all off it. ADHD has it to your not sure if its that or your stressed of you just can not pay attention to what you were suppose to do in the first place. paranoia doesn't let you go what was it you were suppose to do, are they looking at you. What's in there pocket are they pulling out a gun? get to the exit! sit there just in case they look uneasy what are they going to do... depression comes in and lets you know it doesn't matter if you die anyway.. all you've wanted was to sleep for three days insomnia decides its a bad idea so paranoia and anxiety work together to keep you awake. killing your mind and keeping it on overdrive. fearing every single thing in this universe and knowing why at least three times. PTSD makes it so you don't want to leave your house, your cat, you want to feel as "safe" as possible. BPD decides I'm not in control to keep me in rants and moods then change to the opposite side. once I start a swing its all hell breaking lose. I can scream and hate with passion and then swing and be manic. depression decides right now you shouldn't be that happy so you cant leave your house to PTSD and Paranoia but your really happy but depression decides you are too much of a burden if you leave your house. BPD says you don't give a fuck for about half an hour, then your on a low swing crying because no one ever likes you and you cant understand what your doing wrong. you go home and sit there feeling so unloved and anxious because no one will ever accept you. depression reminds you; you never get anything done and your failing class. anxiety starts freaking out saying you need to get it done but anxiety is also making it difficult to talk to anyone because your so scared. you've been awake for 5 days now on a cocktail of volatile emotions and sleep paralysis sets in, You do not know your asleep your awake being murdered your head severed you cant find yourself. your cat is being taken. your family split up. you are a prisoner in a cage abused under a bush you see everything unable to move or close your eyes. you wake up and are terrified for your life and your cats you run crying to get out of the house you have been imprisoned in to realize it was your own and its again all in your head.. and you cant ever walk away because this is your reality every day. you realize no matter how far you run you can never get away..