#psychology stuff

[cosmic-muses]

The brain is such a miracle... that thang should not function

[fruitsofhell]

So like about my last reblog: Personally I think it's usually a bad idea to write a character with the intention of making them fit into something like a mental disorder. I have plenty of characters who straight up have mental disorders I can list, but I didn't make them to be like that. I make a guy first, and flesh them and their personality and psychology out a lot, and then often I'm like, "hey they kinda fit into this", and then I use that to inform what other parts of their character might be like.

Because mental disorders are just a label of dysfunctional behavior that often clusters together, a mental disorder doesn't make you the way you are, it might predict other issues you have, but doesn't endow you with them. It's first and foremost a description of how someone's behaves in a dysfunctional way that gives people an idea of what the hell is wrong.

A lot of people I feel also forget that with most disorders, you don't need every symptom listed to be diagnosed with it, and even if you don't reach the criteria for an explicitly listed on there's usually a catch-all generic disorder, because this shit is a very tricky science. People are tricky, people's minds are even trickier, and psychpathology isn't some sort of precise measuring tool.

Because of that if you're just gonna look up a disorder and say "ok I'm gonna make a character who's all that" you're... you're gonna make a gijinka of dsm criteria. You're going to literally make a stereotype, no one is that simple, even people who meet all the criteria meet it in wildly different ways. In ways that would change based on opinion from psychiatrist to psychiatrist lmao.

Oh yeah and then also that book (and all official info understandably based on it) can be so fucking wrong too.

[xeternalmuse]

i <3 being a psych student

[mx-aster]

Dmitri and BPD coding

Poster this somewhere else but

Judging Dmitri’s symptoms of unstable identity,intense moods,something with him having a intense wave of anger and calling him then not anymore towards Sergei and was like “my truest friend” and some other stuff. I’m gonna guess a cluster B disorder but his symptoms are kind similar to those of BPD symptoms) if not that then some type of traumatic disorder.

[boyslit]

ok but as someone who has really really bad anxiety and has interacted with several examples of all three people.... reframing it from "being in trouble" to "dealing with consequences" has made it a lot easier for me to do things i need to, like stand up for myself against an honestly shitbastard of a psych, deal with debt and collection, a high dollar traffic ticket, apartment maintenance requests, eviction proceedings. and it's made me able to reassure myself about my own actions too. as in "I'm an adult and per our lease agreement i can and should demand this fix because it is their job to maintain the building", or "i am being pulled over and i was not watching my speed. i can deal with this calmly and deal with whatever the consequences are. if i don't know how to pay a ticket i will ask" (course i am white tho and i know your mileage with cops will vary based on skin tone in the US at least ���)

but yeah like. it's helped me neutralize the moral and psychological weight i was putting on all that shit. like yes we're all adults now, equals, and i will simply deal with whatever results of my actions or inactions (like getting pulled over for forgetting to renew my plates for three months 💀) it kind of starts dismantling the residual power structure framing in your head of 'I'm a powerless kid who can get in trouble and thus punished at the discretion of the person I've made angry' and let's you start building an 'adult society functions on legal and social contracts and dealing with consequences of breaking those contracts are simply something i have to take care of instead of my lizard hindbrain fearing punishment'

i won't say i don't get ANY anxiety with these situations bc that's a straight up lie lol i shake like a sweaterless chihuahua talking to people i don't know and dealing with the quencies often involves phone calls which i hate, but it's made it easier to deal with the aftermath and trying to sort things out and not like. crash into a useless ball of despair ✌️

hope this was helpful to someone bc the post op referenced really changed things for me

"you're an adult, you can't get in trouble with other adults" < person who has never interacted with a cop, psychiatrist or landlord once in their life

[faceyourphobia]

Owning a DSM-5 is like, really kind of crazy actually (It’s basically a book of diagnosis)

[cosmic-muses]

I want a Brain Scan. I want to see the activity of our brain in real time. I've seen our own heart beating plenty of times. But I've never seen our brain...

[fruitsofhell]

WE HAVE TO FUCKING NORMALIZE PEOPLE WITH PERSONALITY DISORDERS AAA (runs into oncoming traffic)

[quietgamelover]

Will never understand how going through school in psychology could ever make someone less sympathetic to neurodivergency. My psych degree made me realize just how in the dark I was about mental health and my own neurodivergency.

How can you learn so much about psychology and ignore/miss the whole point of studying it in the first place

a while ago i attended this lecture on autism. guy in the audience said he had many of the symptoms that were presented and asked what should he do to get treatment and possibly a diagnosis. instead of answering his question the psychologist went on a tangent about how “the clinic reigns all powerful over guesswork”, and how actually it has become a trend amongst little children on the internet to claim that they are autistic for cool points, and that this hurts real autistic people. no she didn’t tell him how to get his symptoms looked into, she just made it very clear that to her, aknowledging your own symptoms is bad and evil and hurts the poor real mentally ill people.

an ex-friend of mine, then a psychology major and by now probably a full psychologist, once lectured me on how horrible and bad it was that i told her “i probably have some sort of neurodivergency”, and that if i were her patient she would never give me a diagnosis because “you aren’t like this now, but i know that if you get a diagnosis you’ll use it as an excuse to start treating people badly. that’s just how mentally ill people are.”

same ex-friend was extremely disgusted when she found out that fans sometimes make neurodivergency headcanons for characters that have the same symptoms as they do, and that authors sometimes write books with neurodivergent protagonists in stories that don’t focus on that (ex: she seemed horrified that percy jackson has adhd?)

multiple psychologists i’ve seen on facebook agree that they should refuse to treat patients that say “i’m here because i have symptoms of a disorder and wonder if i have it”, and that a patient should arrive to a psychologist as a blank slate.

school psychologist asked me how i was feeling about my trauma situation and i told him i thought my friends would leave me. instead of addressing the issue he said that that no i didn’t, that i was lying, that i had searched “bpd symptoms” online and now i was faking symptoms because i wanted to have bpd, that he shouldn’t have told me he suspected i had a personality disorder because now look what was happening. no, i didn’t search bpd symptoms online. yes, my friends left me, it was a completely founded belief and not a symptom, let alone a faked symptom.

so the next time you hear someone saying they’re “anti self-diagnosis” i want you to understand what they’re saying. what they’re saying is:

- i don’t want people to be aware of their own symptoms

- i don’t think my patients should have access to any information that doesn’t come from me

- i don’t think neurodivergent people should learn how to cope with their symptoms and live “normal” lives

- i think neurodivergent people should be denied a diagnosis because the moment they get one they will become evil and dangerous

- i don’t think people who don’t look like a stereotype could possibly be neurodivergent, even if they have all the symptoms, so i think they are faking it for attention and should be denied treatment

[bl00dfroma-fairy]

[chamerionwrites]

Also, there is so much hand-wringing over the ethics of BDSM and while obviously it is worth taking care about ...sensation seeking is a thing. Many, many people enjoy eating habanero peppers and/or watching movies that make them cry. The conceptual leap from there to the idea that it's possible for sex to hurt good is a very short one, and sometimes it REALLY is as simple as that.

[alpaca-clouds]

Okay, see, here is the thing: Rich people loathe psychologists. They really, really do loathe them. Which is why most of them do not go to therapists and will now allow for evaluations. But among psychologists there is a theory by now that say, that once you have more than 1 or 2 million, something in you literally breaks. Again, we have a big issue, because humans need to consent to be evaluated and most of those rich people do not want to.

However, we have a few case studies of folks who have described exactly the same as the dude above, before having this moment of: "Wait a moment, something is wrong with me, isn't it?" And they went to therapists - and due to them we have those studies. And from them we know, that they got better when they stopped making money. In fact, they got even better when they gave some of the money away.

It is midnight over here, and I do not have the mind to look up the two papers on it again. I might try tomorrow unless my ADHD brain forgets. But yes, if you get too much money, something in you somehow gets busted. It is presumably fixable by getting rid of that money again. But because we do not have enough data points, we cannot fully say what it is.

But there are psychologists who are proposing the entire "tax everything above those 2mil anyone makes at 100% and give them a 'you won capitalism' trophy. Trust us, they will be better because of it", not just because many of them are also for UBI, but also because they do have some evidence that it would make the millionaires and billionaires a lot better, mentally speaking.

Despite every moment of life being indescribably precious and a wondrous mystery, I will spend it caring about dividends and how many rental properties I have.

[just-writing-ideas]

cw: abuse and trauma and other unsavory things

interesting character backstories

because "my parents hit me or force me to be perfect" won't cut it for every character in the cast

-characters who grew up poor. poverty is traumatizing, people. i wanna see characters who never ask for anything, count dollars and coins, freak out when the bill isn't split fairly and immediately suspect bed bugs when someone says they're itchy. and mention the ugly stuff too. smelling bad and having water stains on the walls. ice cream for dinner and not eating breakfast. lights going out and fourteen year olds supporting a family of five.

-characters who were neglected. not physically abused, neglected. who don't understand why people care when they don't show up, or seem kind of down today, or leave a party without saying goodbye. who are too independent for their own good. who can't think of anything to say when asked to describe their parents. who are okay with being lonely. who always feel lonely. who get uncomfortable if you even ask them how their day was. who does that?

-characters who were smothered. who were treated like a toddler well into their teens. who were practically stalked by their own parents, never allowed a moment of privacy. who were constantly belittled and denied their autonomy as the adults in their life made every decision for them. regardless of how loved they truly were, this is abuse. this could go in two diverging directions: end result of a very guarded, mature character feeling a constant need to prove themself, or end result of a passive, immature character who requires attention, praise and constant assistance. both have extremely low self-esteem.

-characters who are fundamentally different from their family. maybe they're queer, or adopted, or disabled, or aren't fully related to the rest of them (bonus points if they aren't the same race as their family). characters who watch like a ghost as everyone else smiles and bonds. and maybe it's their fault that they're like this, or maybe it's their fault for not reaching out to the family themself, but... nobody else had to ask for it.

i forgot about this blog

[sparkriel]

was gonna add more but i ran out of steam 😔👎 anyway here’s an infographic on how people with complex dissociative disorders are not that different from you lol

[nightbirdz]

Me: So yeah when I was little my mom used to make me take a nap or sleep whenever I was feeling angry or sad

My therapist: That sounds like it might be the root cause of your constant flight response being to sleep for long periods of time when you're feeling depressed

Me:

[bianxiousandcute]

I mean...in psychology a major way you work with kids is thru play so yeah, she was working them in a psychological way

the little girl i was looking after today was so effortlessly funny and she didn't even know it. she wanted me to play "holidays" with her, which i assumed was a game where you pretend to be going on holiday - and it technically was, except her version mostly consisted of roleplaying being stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the airport