#personal mental health tag

[faithfromanewperspective]

figured out how to not be scared of the future and all it cost me was 6 years and $50k of student debt

[edge-oftheworld]

might be the cheesiest post I ever make but

this year I learned from luke how to slow down, switch off, feel my feelings, be comfortable with and accepting of myself, and process them in however a creative way I like and be consciously proud of the output

this year I learned from ashton how to listen to my intuition, what I really want to do and what satisfies me, which is something to always be curious about especially when I don’t feel satisfied, and go after that with all that I am (but rest too)

this year I learned from calum to be as weird as much and disappear from perceived obligations as much as I need to be happy, to focus on what matters to me and that sharing my unhinged side is an honest way of connecting

this year I learned from michael that there’s someone out there doing the things I long to do and with whom I’ll feel understood and validated and if I just keep doing the things that I love and feel like myself in, it’ll bring me to them eventually

[faithfromanewperspective]

still not convinced that anyone ever defined these 'great things' so i'm going to. defining them as whatever i am currently doing

what's wrong babe you've barely touched your potential even though all your elementary teachers really liked you and said you were gifted and that you were going to do great things

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

[faithfromanewperspective]

why is booking appointments so hard like I either have to be free all the time (on a weekday?? who is??) or I have to know what I’m doing weeks or months in advance. couldn’t be me sorry

[edge-oftheworld]

went where the wild things are harder than usual today. think I could get used to living like this but I unfortunately was born without regard to my safety

[faithfromanewperspective]

idk to me it’s like when doctors run tests and say ‘you’re fine’ and you still don’t know what’s wrong with you

therapists saying you're surprisingly self aware is like being called a pleasure to have in class for adults

[honeypleasejustkillme]

i thought i was at my lowest but holy shit it gets lower

[enii]

🐱☁️⭐️🌕💕

[d1zt0rt3dl3zb14n]

do yall also ever get the soul crushing realisation that you are in fact mentally unstable and its not just something you made up for attention or because its "quirky" and then just sit there like damn

[thebibliosphere]

tw compulsive behavior, skin picking, self-harm, acne. I am perfectly fine; this is just a vent post because I'm driving myself bananas.

So, like a lot of people with ADHD I'm a chronic skin picker.

Except I never used to call it that. I've called it "skincare" for the last 20-odd years and kidded myself that because I used skincare tools to "extract imperfections," I was actually taking care of my skin.

That I've left myself with serious scars from doing this was neither here nor there in my mind.

I've since realized that was bullshit and started tackling it in therapy for the problem it is after my therapist finally helped me realize that it's a form of self-harm that's been masquerading as a skincare routine, so really, I need to get a handle on it because, yeah. That's not great.

And it was going fine. Great, even. Until the mild drugstore cleanser meant for sensitive skin that my old dermatologist recommended, but I never tried until recently, gave me the worst cystic acne breakout of my life.

Because, of course, it did. And, of course, it's taking a glacial age to heal, so that's fun. Love that. Love feeling like my jawline is glowing with pain from all these little lumps and bumps.

Anyway. I'm being so brave right now and not tearing my skin off the way I want to. So, so brave. Not at all having a bit of a breakdown over my face having Textures I can't compulsively gouge out. Nope. No sirree. All fine here.

[faithfromanewperspective]

idk how to answer it it was like 'i was so ahead of the curve the curve became a sphere' like if there was some option connecting best and worst years around the other way??

[lastoneout]

As much as my ADHD has made my life absolute hell at times and I truly wish I had been diagnosed sooner...as I unpack my past in therapy I've realized my undiagnosed ADHD actually did do me one HUGE favor.

Bcs without getting too into it my response to the specific way I was raised and the trauma that came with it was to make myself smaller. A lot of kids in my situation would have just lashed out, but I just started cutting bigger and bigger bits of myself off because I thought if I wanted attention or affection then I needed to be perfect and normal and not even the smallest burden or inconvenience to the people around me, and I fell so hard into that mentality that part of healing has legit been trying to like get back in contact with who I was before all that made me into someone I wasn't.

Which is hard, but not impossible, because during all that trauma no matter how hard I tried to shove everything "ugly" and "imperfect" about myself into a tiny little box where no one would ever see it until I was the perfect daughter, I couldn't quite manage to get all of me in there, because my ADHD wouldn't let me.

And as I was growing up I saw this as a bad thing, obviously. Like I didn't know it was ADHD at the time ofc but I knew that my impulsiveness and loud ass laugh and distractability and habit of talking too much to fast and struggle to shut the fuck up about whatever weird thing I was into were parts of me I could never seem to fully change. No matter how hard I tried to be quiet and have normal interests and stop doing impulsive shit like talking really loud or going off about an interest I know no one around me shared, I couldn't actually do it.

So now, looking back with a healthier frame of mind, with a fiancé who became interested in me bcs we shared one of my "weird" interests, who smiles and laughs and tells me he loves me when I get loud and passionate about things I care about, who loves my loud ass laugh so much that once after I was sick and didn't laugh for like a week the first time I did went "oh good, I missed that sound", I can see at least a bit of good in the ways my ADHD stopped me from being able to destroy myself completely for the sake of others.

More often than not my ADHD was a huge rock tying me down, but it turns out deep inside that rock was a geode protecting the things about myself that I used to hate but now love more than anything, and now that the rock is smaller and easier to carry I can be thankful for that.

[faithfromanewperspective]

what’s there not to understand about hypomania? you know when you get overtired, and like a toddler, you get all hyperactive and also want to cry or do Every Fun Thing you can think of and it actually becomes harder to sleep? like as a result of too much overwhelm or being so emotionally exhausted that’s how your body makes you able to cope, the aftereffects of too much adrenaline? just imagine being stuck like that. and every day it triggers itself more, overload of emotional whiplash and energy and you’ve lost all ability to think rationally and you can do anything at this point, because why not? you’ve got nothing left in you to hold back on any idea that could be exciting and stop you from falling into the void where the wiredness you feel has nothing to latch onto to burn off that nervous energy in a positive way, emotionally. for days or weeks or months on end. you don’t need to have ever experienced this fully to extrapolate and be like. yeah. I can see how it would suck eventually to get stuck like that

[edge-oftheworld]

seeing all these luke interviews has really got me thinking about how sometimes there is good to be found in formative experiences also acknowledged to have been traumatising and how important it can be to really make sense of both. and I know this isn’t possible for everyone and some things are plain awful, but especially if you’ve been a ‘gifted’ unrecognised neurodivergent kid pushed past your limit (and then got rightfully angry and stood up to the people who pushed you into burnout) there’s cases where it’s important to acknowledge that too. finding beauty in hard things is often as rebellious as saying the things we’re told to chase aren’t satisfying and choosing self care instead.

before I speculate into something I really can’t speak to I’m gonna say how I’ve seen the need for that myself and I’m ready to celebrate and be grateful on my own terms. It’s always easy to hear stories of the band’s origins and think ‘what was I doing then’ because I moved away from sydney like a week or something after the band formed (and then didn’t hear about them til they opened for one direction, sometimes I wonder if I’d stayed local would that be different).

but even before then I had some really magical friendships who’ve survived the test of time, I’d abseiled down waterfalls and had adventures in the park-scattered suburbs and experienced the strange juxtaposition of haves and have-nots and contentment and gratitude but also fear and sheltering that you don’t really get in the same way anywhere but the suburban and peri-urban working class strip of Sydney’s west and south. and then I moved and soon learned to build anything I wanted to use for fun reasons or practical reasons. I learned how to basically run a farm and I learned how to gauge when it’s a good day to do laundry and I learned to be responsible for the lives of some of the beautiful animals we share this world with, helped renovate the house and dug clay out of the ground and made it into toy tea sets. saw a different set of haves and have nots, a different culture, a different way of approaching faith that isn’t too distinguishable until I needed something different and realised the way I grew up in those earlier years—that was different. I had an excellent education not only academically (though it was. still wild to think about—I had ideas and could go with them and that made something hard bearable. we used to write and record entire songs in high school music. messed around but also learned how to use patterns in maths and write entire short stories in upper primary. designed entire houses in high school graphics, learned how to solve global issues in geography, and proved how to get enough iron as a vegan in science, graduated with a dream to use all this to design places that look after people and the environment) but also from a perspective of being confident to be myself when that’s not always what capitalism would want. I got a weird mix of the western sydney work ethic meets suburban Brisbane satellite community tells zillennial children to dream big. got to learn all about the planet and how to care for it in uni. what kinds of study don’t work for my brain, and then later in postgrad ways that do. realising urban design is going to be the art form I give back with and I never lost my passion for it though I grew older and learned how to be more realistic but optimistic despite it—how it’s like I’m made for it and that’s so, so validating. played the xylophone in school when I lived in sydney and picked up the viola in brisbane, but it was my mum who taught me piano and music theory while my dad taught me woodwork and how to safely use ropes. I also learned how to care for people with the backing of community and religious groups, and how not to preserve myself in that, how sometimes I need to question power and theology to do better in it next time. and yeah I did get burnt out. really burnt out. made my brain sick and my whole body too is dealing with the fallout of that, it’s hard to function, it’s hard to take care of myself, when it’s been years of weathering experiences that were too hard, harder than I could keep up with, too many responsibilities at a young age, stacking up and each diminishing my ability to tackle the next. I did pick up some really bad self destructive habits. there’s been a lot that I’ve never been quite sure that I could survive when I always needed things individualistic society is unable to give and require a delicate balance of things beyond my control in order for my motivation not to drive me into the ground but also to not be frozen in fear and overwhelm so that I don’t meet any of my physical needs. things I’ve narrowly made it through, sometimes dangerously, when I have no idea to even explain the parameters around help I need and so end up going without, relying on chance and luck instead. but there was good among it too. skills I pick up in hindsight when I finally process something and realise, this is important to me, I think I can still do it, how can I prioritise working back up to it in a way that honours my limits?

and I guess I’m saying this because I’m not a global pop star or anything and my life has been a lot more normal and probably relatable for the average tumblr user. but some things remain the same and remain relatable and when I’m living my life advocating for preventing things like burnout and giving words to people to understand themselves and the kids of things they need—I’ll also advocate for having people believe in you, adults who seem naive, but teach them how to apply this to those who don’t fit some specific idea of talent and also to be validating of hard things while they do. for being out in the community and learning empathy and learning to get by with not much but also going for opportunities simply because you want to, and how as a community we can together take down the barriers that prevent it. and maybe it seems obvious or something but I’ve never been grateful for my youth before. It’s been too hard, too much what I was told to be by people who seemed almost wilfully ignorant of how much it cost me

[faithfromanewperspective]

this post is back!! tbh it’s made me feel a lot better abt how I get emotional amnesia when I’m not directly reminded of how I’m feeling with some trigger from the external environment even if it’s just that I’m safe to feel. and it’s made the experience of plurals I know seem a lot more relatable and understandable even when it isn’t directly my own

i think a kinda big flaw in the "plural system" framework is that the "singlet" it positions itself in contrast to doesn't actually exist. there's like, an understandable social utility in being able to communicate that you experience a more highly developed multiplicity than baseline or what's considered normal in this time and place, but i think it would actually be more useful to interrogate the idea of singularity itself, because no one alive is actually a single being. even from birth, which is a fragmentation, then growing up in a culture which ideologically separates the mind and body, another fragmentation. the school & the workplace violently enforce this ideology by treating the body as a thing to be conquered, in the simplest, cruelest ways, things like denying people the ability to eat when they're hungry, move freely, pee when they have to pee, etc. they train dissociation. someone who can "turn off" the part of themselves that wants to eat when they're hungry is engaging with a maladaptive (which actually is adaptive to the society it exists in) multiplicity. those of us who experience additional (in addition to the baseline) traumas, usually of a particular intensity, frequency, etc. tend to have a more profound or developed sense of multiplicity, but the base conditions were already established.

even if you don't buy into the psychological/developmental parts of this line of thought, we experience plurality in a very material, biological sense. the human body in itself is a composition of multitudinous sets or cultures of microorganisms, each with unique but interdependent roles and differential outputs -- the "conscious mind" is just the end result of sorting and processing the inputs of many tiny minds, and even that process isn't purely internal, it's largely dependent on input from both the human and non-human environments. we do not think on our own ! every thought we have is generated and shaped in collaboration with the exterior. do u see what i mean? show me a "singlet" and i'll show you someone who has been made unaware of the collective process of Being.