#so. for me (who does not have DIAGNOSED anxiety - i've been told it's just a symptom of my adhd and theres very little social anxiety-

[glados-kisser]

doing training courses for various therapeutic modalities is beautiful because now i know the secrets of social interactions.

[nikibogwater]

Everybody sit down and strap in, 'cause I have a doozy of a tale to share.

I've had anxiety for literally as long as I can remember. I've had periods of my life where it was so intense it became legitimately life-threatening (don't worry I promise this is going somewhere funny). And this was really bizarre because I have zero childhood trauma. Like, my family life is so idyllic it's almost comical. Therapists would do abuse screenings on me and look utterly baffled when I told them everything was fine at home. They'd interrogate my parents just to make sure I wasn't lying. I have one friend who I'm fairly sure believed I was just severely gaslighting myself when I said my family was great, school wasn't too stressful, and I've never lived in a dangerous neighborhood or experienced poverty.

Anyways, despite no one being able to figure out where my disorder was coming from, my doctors were able to help me manage the symptoms so that I would like, not die, and actually be able to finish high school. Which was awesome. Now fast forward to late 2021. My big sister (who has also had intense anxiety her whole life which no one could figure out why) is finishing up her doctorate and getting her physical therapist's license. Somehow, during all her studying and schooling, she finds out about this thing called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which explains literally everything that was going on with us. EDS is a connective tissue disorder that kinda fudges up your body in a whole bunch of little ways, including dysautonomia (episodes of very fast heart-rate that kick your body into fight-or-flight mode), and hypermobility (unusual flexibility). It's a spectrum disorder, so the severity of symptoms vary from person to person, but we definitely checked almost every box on the diagnostic list. My sister went to see a specialist, and yep, she was diagnosed EDS positive. She immediately calls my mom and goes "I know what's wrong with Niki" (thanks, sis, that's real encouraging lol). Initially we're like "okay Katie, that's nice" because honestly this kind of sounds like jumping at shadows, but I go in to see the specialist anyways just to make sure.

One consultation and diagnosis later, and suddenly my entire life makes perfect sense.

Now we get to the funny part. See, the diagnosis stuff happened in early 2022. So by the time late 2023 comes around and we're looking for a new dog (I promise this is relevant), we've been riding that chronic illness diagnosis for a while. Once again, my sister, ever the proactive one, decides she's going to help us get a new dog. She scours the adoption website, sends us photos of the cutest dogs available, and helps us make a decision. This is how we got Beverly, who has been an unstoppable force of chaos in our lives ever since we signed the papers (but she's also really cute so she can get away with it). Now on top of being a very excitable and anxious pupper, Beverly's got a weird little gimp in her hindquarters, which makes her sit all splayed-out and funny-looking, and while it doesn't seem to be causing her pain, we take her to a vet to get it checked out. Vet finds absolutely nothing. X-rays are taken and examined. Still nothing. At this point, they go "well, we could try a CT scan of her brain, which would run about $5,000, and maybe we could find something--" but my parents are already packing this dog into the car like "well that is a HARD nope." So we decide, look, Beverly seems happy and healthy, and those gimpy legs don't seem to bother her, so we'll just leave it be until it becomes clearer what's wrong with her because we do NOT have a cool $5,000 to throw around here.

Readers more astute than my family and I will likely have already figured out where this is going.

This morning, my mom is looking at Beverly sitting in her funny sprawled-out way, and something in her brain goes "wait...weird physical symptoms with no tracible cause that vets can see..." She does a bit of googling. Can dogs have EDS/Hypermobility? Yes. Yes they can. And the listed symptoms describe Beverly to a T.

So not only is my sister the one to finally figure out what's wrong with me, she also unknowingly got us a dog who has the exact same chronic condition as us. Meanwhile my poor dad, who is the only Normal Person in our house, is coming to terms with the fact that he is apparently just fated to always love chronically ill people and animals, and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it.

[igotthebees]

The five scariest words I could say according to my peers: "I'm going off my antipsychotics" aka a Disability Pride Rant about conditional autonomy

It's disability pride month and so I want to take some time to talk about concepts that I see rampant in both abled/neurotypical/whatever you want to call it spaces and in disability spaces as well, which I have jokingly summarized before as "Good Mentally ill/Disabled People Can Have Autonomy, and the Bad Ones Cannot".

More (a lot more) under the cut

I can guess what you're thinking by now. "There are no bad disabled people Nix!!!" I entirely agree. But in mental health and neurodivergent spaces especially I find that there is a lot of internalized and externalized hatred towards people with stereotypically "severe" symptoms, and in so many cases I've found myself caught in a West Side Story-esque battle between the Depressed and Anxious vs the Manic and Psychotic (which is frustrating because we should be friends or lovers! why is my PTSD and trauma history dismissed when I admit that it causes psychosis as well, why are my friends treated better as a whole when they go in for help for depressive episodes than for manic episodes?)

Sidebar, someone is inevitably going to stop reading at this point and scream at me how they've been treated horribly for their very severe depression and I am not only discounting their experience, I am making up an oppression scale, or using stereotypes, or even fabricating that because I am psychotic and dissociative I am better than them or have suffered more. That's really not the intention? I am simply looking at things from the perspective of my own extensive psychiatric hospitalization history, and from perspectives friends have told me. You can absolutely have depression and/or anxiety and suffer more severely than someone with psychosis - but the way the system treats the two of you is going to be severely different. No one escapes the psychiatric system unscathed, but I've been hospitalized three times, one time labeled as traumatized and depressive, another as having BPD, and yet another as an official schizophrenic and they were three very different forms of hell despite minimal symptom changes.

As one girl in a partial hospitalization program said to my face without a hint of understanding of how fucked up it was: "There are two kinds of psych hospitals. There's the ones for us who just want to get better - and there's the place they put the schizophrenics".

Where does autonomy come into this essay that is getting very long very quickly? I've been experiencing episodes of psychosis since I was 17 years old, diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 21, and finally undiagnosed with schizophrenia and rediagnosed with autism and severe PTSD with episodes of psychosis at the age of 24. I have been on 8 different types of antipsychotics in 3 years. Three days ago I stopped taking my antipsychotics entirely after nearly 6 months of slowly tapering off them and under heavy observation.

And it's scaring the shit out of people.

I am not a walking time bomb, compared to what people think. The last time I had any sort of delusion or hallucination was nearly a year and a half ago, (and it was while still on heavy-duty sedatives! Medicine isn't always a magic fix, even when it does make things better). But even if I was actively hallucinating this very second, shouldn't what medicine I take be my own choice, especially since I have been cleared multiple times as not a danger to myself or others and am being closely medically followed in case that changes? (not that I personally believe that drugging someone is appropriate even when they are reactive but let's start with mad liberation 101) How come it was so easy to talk to my doctors about going off some of my anxiety medication and lowering my antidepressants but the minute I said I didn't want to be on antipsychotics the word "insight" was thrown out?

Just a warning: the concept of "insight" sucks. Yeah, okay, a large portion of people treated in hospitals for delusions or mania aren't aware of how severe or disruptive their own symptoms are. I've even experienced that before during an episode - I was having pretty significant speech symptoms and didn't realize until someone sat me down that I was acting any different than typical. (someone's going to inevitably bring up double-bookkeeping and my response is that's genuinely a real thing and helpful to talk about but it's not everyone's experience and I really wish that in normalizing it the experiences of people with severe reality distortion weren't erased or said to be an exaggeration).

Anyways - insight as a concept has been abused to hell and back to take away people's autonomy and further situations of severe abuse. When I came forward about my childhood abuse I was gaslit and coerced into telling a doctor that my previous accounts were a delusion and false memories (which aren't even an evidence-backed phenomenon but I digress) and was promptly diagnosed with the aforementioned schizophrenia.

Even other people diagnosed with psychosis have come to me and expressed horror that I am getting off my medication. I can't have a single bad or frantic day without having to do a checklist of if I'm returning to an episode, either because another person suggests it or because it's been engrained so heavily in my head that I'm a ticking time bomb and I know I will lose all my rights again in an instant if I exhibit certain symptoms publically.

Where is this going? Who knows lol, I guess my point is that this July think about how you treat autonomy even in the "crazy of the crazy" or the "ugly disabilities". Think about what you would fight and scream and cry about if it ever happened to you or your friends due to a diagnosis, and then ask yourself if you're just as mad when it happens to the psychotic and schizospec and bipolar communities; when it happens to people with intellectual disability or cognitive disability; people with complex diagnoses and physical disability too; the visibly disabled and facial difference/limb difference community; people with sensory disabilities - even people with your same disorder but higher support needs. Let's not pit ourselves against each other - I'm not magically a better or more deserving person for being crazy and medically complicated, sure, yeah, got it... but I'm also definitely not less deserving of respect because I've got diagnoses that make a lot of people (including other marginalized people) uncomfortable.

And I have to, of course, discuss for a second before I finally shut up and stare at a wall how every single thing I said is colored by my experience as a white psychotic and that being a person of color (particularly black) makes the things I've talked about significantly worse - schizophrenia actually is treated the way it is in society because it was used as a diagnosis in the 1960s in America to call leaders of the Civil Rights movement delusional and dangerous (in the 1920s and 30s when it was really popularized as its own disorder outside of the schizophrenia and/or autism diagnosis of dementia praecox, schizophrenia evolved into a disorder given to white women who said inappropriate things or couldn't take care of the house correctly or wouldn't marry, thought of as silly and delusional but harmless and needing help... which is also fucked up and politically motivated and fuck that, but the disorder was actually changed significantly when it was primarily used to target black men to include sections about violence and dangerousness that weren't included when it targeted white women. The cultural view of schizophrenia as a violent disorder that persists even today is due to racism).

(Required reading for every single person alive who can handle psychological and or/racial theory but especially those going into the medical field is "The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disorder" by Jonathan Metzel, probably the greatest and most eye-opening book I have ever read, ironically enough I don't have it anymore because I gave it to another person to read in residential and he then stole it and got kicked out of the program)

[schizoem]

TW: REALITY CHECKING, SCARY BELIEFS

I fear I'm faking being on the schizospec, although my psychiatrist thinks otherwise. I hope this isn't taken in the wrong way, but I don't seem schizophrenic.

As in, I've never been hospitalized for it, how do I know I'm having hallucinations, my delusions?

I feel as though I've been lied to. I was diagnosed with GAD and panic disorder... but I don't think I have those disorders... I feel that my anxiety and my depression are caused by psychosis.

I literally couldn't leave my house because If I did then the Earth would lose gravity and we would just fly up into the sky. Or other times I was too afraid to move because I knew I suddenly turned into a huge spider and If I moved and looked down, I would see my legs.

Since I was thirteen, I started thinking existential thoughts and had these beliefs, "I'm not real" "the world is not real", "what if I died or I'm in a coma?" (Sometimes I can hear the heartbeat monitor). I hear people say my name, and I ask those around me, and they tell me they didn't hear anything. I hear a voice that says, "HEY!" Really loud every now and then. I see bugs out of the corner of my eyes. I feel like I am not in my body but rather in my eyeballs and my brain is in my eyes.

I can't look around corners or outside my windows in fear that the alien creature is watching me. He is always there. He clicks his tongue, and I can HEAR IT! I hear constant ringing in my ears, my head. What if God decided he was done with the Earth and just poof! The existence ended. It's just abrupt.

I can't watch certain movies, videos, or content that talks about existential ideas. What if I'm dreaming all of this? Every morning, I pinch my skin to see if it hurts to know if I'm dreaming still or not. One time, I told my teacher to stop reading a book because I had woken up that day and I felt super off and not real.

The "panic attacks" I get, I become stiff and can't move at all, it feels like I'm slipping between dimensions and reality is shattering and I'm gonna find out that I'm really being controlled like a Sim. Someone is making me do these things. My family is not my family, I've been adopted even though there is proof that I belong to them. I don't know who I am, my name is not me, I am not me. I share bodies with someone else. I feel that I woke up at age 13 and I don't remember anything before then.

Anyone who is on the schizospec, is this familiar? Does what I experience seem to be the beginning phases of schizophrenia or other spectrum? I'm so paranoid about faking and thinking I'm just making it up, but I live daily, so paranoid of my brain and the thoughts I have. I'm not asking for a diagnosis, and I'll speak to my psychiatrist about this, but I feel safe asking the Schizospec community because you are the ones who live with the disorders.

Thank you if you respond. I sincerely appreciate it.

[weareweirdpeople]

not a vent but diabetic shit because why not I want to share my experience

I have diabetes. I've had diabetes sense i was an elementary schooler on the way to middle school. Diabetes fucking sucks and it runs in my family. Because of this, and the fact that my family refuses to call it a disability despite it literally being a chronic illness, it has taken me a while to realize I do infact have a disability.

in hindsight, I am "lucky" that my mom raised me restricting lots of "unhealthy snacks" (non health foods. My mom viewed fucking cheezits as unhealthy and she came from a family that was even stricter with 'healthy' foods.) This meant that when I got diagnosed with diabetes, I would be prepared for the fact that now they weren't just rare treats my mom was learning to be ok with. Now they were aparently dangerous to my health and I could almost never eat them again.

My uncle has severe type 1 diabetes and my mom used to try to help him manage it, but he's a grown man whos never taken good care of it and does what he wants. So now that I had diabetes she was going to are sure I definitely didn't end up like that. This means that even if he himself brought all the kids a sweet treat, depending on my blood sugar I wouldn't even be allowed to have it. Most of the time she didn't want me to have it. This all went down with covid and I got to live with my diabetic father. The plus side was that the restrictions where pretty much gone, and I just needed to manage my sugar. The bad part is that I was fucking terrified of pricking my finger. It would take me hours to pick my finger, and my dad would be pissed. It slowly became very normal. I also had to learn how to take pills and open a pill bottle.

A while later now that I'm living with my whole family, I still have great care over my diabetes. I say great care as in how my family views it. I have the best a1c, I have the most consistent blood sugars. Personally I'm happy I can do that while having major depression but it makes me sad at the same time. It just pisses me off. Anytime my sugar is high I'm asked "what did you eat? What did you eat today? What was your sugar this morning?" I have an anxiety disorder. The doctors and google have told us that stress and anxiety can heighten blood sugar. Every time its about what I at. If im super sleepy? What did I eat? Whats my blood sugar? If im super anxious? Whats my blood sugar? Is it low? What have you eaten today?

My mom has always been focused on my diabetes. I low key hate it.

But in hindsight some of her ideas and things she let me do were so bad that its actually funny. Like holy shit mom, that was wild.

She at first wanted me to count all of my carbs. Every time I ate. All the carbs. She wanted me to check my sugar everytime I ate and then based on that it would determine what I was allowed to eat.

Then there was the point in time where she let me run around outside all day without eating lunch and sometimes even breakfast or any water until my sugar dropped crazy low and I was dizzy and shaking, and then id go outside again right after it went up. She doesn't like me reminding her of this because she says it makes her feel like a bad mother and that she was distracted. Im pretty sure the only constant meal was eating was dinner.

one time during Easter when we did an egg hunt my siblings got eggs fully of candy like normal. But my mom was running late on candy shopping so instead of giving me candy eggs, she made me get the special eggs she made, thinking they had zero sugar candy. They were fuckkng almonds. Unsalted Almonds. What. The. Fuck. I have never let her live that shit down, because who gives their kid fucking almonds as a treat??? Diabetic or not, unsalted almonds???

I was very very upset that year to say the least. My mom has always been stingy with any candy of any sorts. Even before we knew I was diabetic I was only really allowed 1-3 prices of candy from a holiday at most, and only after dinner. My Halloween candy especially would either go bad or she would eat it as well and I would not get much of it.

And after diabetes? Keto everything. My mom wanted to find as much keto stuff as possible, and I get it. We have a diabetic household, but she didn't do that shit until I got diagnosed with diabetes. I am happy that by now shes pretty much stopped all her restrictions and the keto stuff, she's still really diabetes focused when it comes to my mood and doesn't consider it a disability but that's okish.

Hilariously j don't have type 1 diabetes. Or type 2. I have a genetic mutation, and have had to convince multiple people that no I don't just have type 2, no I didn't not get diabetes because of my eating habits have you fucking seen me I am a god damm stick and even if I was fat that doesn't mean shit, no I cannot just eat fruit instead of candy that's not how diabetes works you peice of shit.

Long story short, i don't get a CGM or an Insulin pump. I actually make too much insulin, and dont really absorb it all and a CGM is to expensive... that means I just have to watch my sugar and take my pills indefinitely and I can't check my sugar too much because then I'd have to wait for my refills to get done because American health care fucking sucks ass.

lol diabetes sucks, stop being assholes to people with diabetes.

[etherealspacejelly]

hi dad, i'm having some internal conflict. i've always been a really anxious person (which is probably due to undiagnosed anxiety disorders) and i've never really "fit in." i've been treated as weird all my life. i've never understood tone and i get in a lot of trouble with my parents for this (even though i've explained i can't control it), i go nonverbal for brief periods of time occassionally, loud noises and bright lights cause me pain like extreme headaches, i always feel the need to follow self-created routines in order to feel safe, i don't understand social boundaries all too well, i intensely hyperfixate, i'm extremely hyperempathetic, etc. i've never understood why i'm the way i am. then i started learning more about autism and i think i may have it. many of my autistic friends seem to think so.

but my parents don't believe me and don't like me researching mental health stuff. they don't think i'm "autistic enough" because my mom used to work with autistic kids who were almost always nonverbal and on a more extreme end of the spectrum. i mask all the time too, as a defense mechanism since i get in so much trouble for misunderstanding. hell, my parents won't even get me an official anxiety diagnosis (even though i've had symptoms since the moment the signs can appear) because they think "labels don't matter."

and the big problem that comes along with this is, i don't want to self diagnose and seem disrespectful to diagnosed autistic people. i've done a lot of research and gotten a lot of opinions from neurodivergent people in my life, but i still feel fake because i have no access to a diagnosis. so many people have told me to try to get one and my parents completely refuse.

is it okay to self diagnose? will diagnosed people find this disrespectful? i'm not exactly sure how to go about this. it'll most likely be several years at best before i can get medically diagnosed.

tldr; i may be autistic but i have no access to a diagnosis and feel guilty about self diagnosing. any advice?

thank you and sorry if this was too vent-ish, i just wanted to see if you had any thoughts <3 feel free to ignore this ask if it's too overwhelming /gen

baby. honey. sweetpea. let me tell you something

autistic people actually dont care if you self diagnose. in fact, many of us are self diagnosed. diagnoses can be inaccessible for many reasons, and its perfectly understandable if you cant or dont want to get one

i can absolutely relate to you. my mum works with disabled kids too, and insisted that i couldn't be autistic because she "would have known". she considers herself an expert, but somehow missed all the signs in me. i guess because i am also quite high masking.

you definitely sound autistic to me, and if other neurodivergent people who know you agree then you probably are. autistic people can sense each other lol

i remember once when i friend of mine came to me and was like "hey btw im autistic" and i was like "yeah i know. you told me" and they were like. "um. no i couldnt have told you i only got diagnosed a few days ago and this is the first time we've spoken since then" and i was like. oh. i just Sensed it, you know? i just fuckin knew

so yes. you can self diagnose. thats perfectly fine. and if anyone tells you that you cant or that you're somehow "harming the autistic community" you can tell them to fuck off. self diagnosis does not harm the autistic community in any way, but it can really benefit people like you.

i hope someday you can get the accommodations you need and deserve. in the meantime, please give yourself grace. you're trying your best. and im proud of you, ok?

[rival-the-rose]

So, last week, just before my birthday, I developed dysphagia, gastroparesis, and ileus due to a weird viral infection (came with a fever and sinus inflammation but nothing else). In layman's terms, this basically means all of the muscles in my entire GI tract have stopped working - esophagus is not moving food to the stomach, stomach is not opening to allow food nor is it opening to release food, and my intestines are not moving things along, just being inflamed and full of gas.

This is obviously deeply uncomfortable, I have been on a liquid diet and barely reaching BMR, on top of being dehydrated bc plain water causes a lot of pain (adding a neutral-basic substance to high acid environment=bad).

On top of that, I am not a layman, and therefore I know that generally this suite of symptoms are associated with the Big Bad Diagnoses and once they show up they are frequently lifelong and not infrequently fatal. I also know that my history and symptoms don't match any of the Big Bads and it's more likely a weirdly dramatic response to viral inflammation, and I think we confirmed that with my doctor today. She's an osteopath who used to specialize in post-GI surgical care and felt that my intestines responded to manipulation in a way that was more similar to inflamed intestines than intestines that are no longer enervated. I would tend to agree and also she relieved so much pain today, I can take deep breaths again.

However, she hasn't seen or heard of this before. She expects that if there's no active damage being done, the inflammation should be mostly resolved in a week or two, but that's based on physiological knowledge rather than specific disease etiology.

So I'm having a lot of emotions. Anxiety, bc these are serious issues that I don't have a solid timeline on resolving. Anxiety 2, bc any time my body does something weird I become paralyzed with fear that this is going to spiral into profound disability again. Shame about Anxiety 2 bc I feel like I'm being dramatic and also being paralyzed with fear makes me feel bad about myself. Concerned that this is going to trigger an eating disorder relapse. Excited that I get to relapse "legitimately" and the fact that I've been on half rations for awhile is relieving the thoughts around how much weight I've gained since getting back from Vermont. Concerned bc I'm already feeling some of the emotional effects of calorie restriction (weepy+fussy) and physical (so tired.) Shame bc I feel like I should be done being sick and I'm tired of cancelling things I really want to do and also bc I look fine and I do feel ok as long as I haven't eaten recently. So I feel like I'm letting ppl down for no reason/I should be toughing it out more. ???Bad bc this is the eating disorder dream and why can't I be functional while doing it (aka being confronted with the reality that I can't indulge my disorder in a safe way which is so scary). Fussy bc I don't actually feel sick so I still want to do things but then I do and I'm uncomfortable/tired/frustrated immediately. Shame about just lying on the couch so much. Fear bc I want to start T and I'm in the process of applying to vet school and I can't do either of those things if I keep having organ systems shutting down (I really thought my lungs were doing better but they're apparently still not deflating appropriately).

Logically I can see that if someone told me they had these symptoms I would be like "why are you not in a hospital" (as long as I can keep up on calories and liquid reasonably it's not necessary). But I'm the one experiencing it and it's not that bad so why can't I do more stuff. Even though I worked full time this week and went to a doctor appointment today and OT yesterday. But I cancelled hanging out with my bestie on her birthday today so I feel really bad about that.

Idk. I just want to feel better. Except for the part of me that wants to starve to death. I'd say that's the core of the issue lol.

[bunnyboyzyon]

Happy disability pride month yall!!!

Love to everyone, shoutout to all the disabled queers out in the world bc I love u /p (for those who may ask "do I count" here's an article, it tell you what the colors mean near the bottom so you know if you count)

Shoutout to everyone under that white stripe (invisible and undiagnosed disabilities) with physical undiagnosed disabilities who get told they're too young to have trouble with *insert body parts* or that they're just lazy or they just need to work out more. Like no!!! (Personal experience) I've done sports for 2 years!!! I climbed 4 flights of stairs everyday for months!!! I'm not fucking lazy and inactive!!! There is something going on with my legs!!!!!!

Shoutout to those who don't have the ability to get offically diagnosed for whatever reason but have been told by a doctor what they have and people are still like what if you just walked more that'd fix the problem surely (I've been told now by 3 medical professionals that I very likely have EDS, I cannot afford to get that tested so I remain undiagnosed and continually told by people around me if I just worked out I wouldn't have problems, like mf working out does not cure a genetic disorder)

Shoutout to minors with autism that wasn't caught early on who can't get offically diagnosed because their parents have a negative bias towards/misinformation about autism so "you can't possibly have it" (yes I approve of self diagnosis with proper research bc guess what, not everyone can get diagnosed bc not everyone is that privileged!!!)

Shoutout to people with adhd who get called lazy, just bc your brain working differently does not mean you're lazy!!!

Shoutout to people with undiagnosed mental disorders that don't exactly know what's going on and feel like they're going insane, you're not going insane and someday you'll find out what's going on and be able to deal with it <3

Shoutout to everyone with depression who has to deal with the crowd that thinks just going outside or smiling more will fix it, it's genuinely ridiculous that some people still believe this cures depression

Shoutout to people with anxiety that prevents them from going out, whether it be parties, small hangouts, the store, anything, it's okay, there's genuinely so many people out there who feel the same way you do, you're not alone in dealing with this

Shoutout to people whos disabilities make them a picky eater, people act like it's such a wild idea that you don't want to eat certain foods like have they met a vegetarian or a muslim??? They don't complain when they don't eat certain things so leave us alone!!!

Shoutout to everyone who doesn't fall under these shoutouts I listed, I love u too /p and you deserve to be seen too

[iplaywithstring]

In 2020 my daughter (then 13) told me she had been looking at some stuff and she thought she might have ADHD. I had not considered this possibility before she brought it up, but with about 5 minutes of reflection, it made sense. We were already running on the assumption that my husband (her dad) has ADHD and our home had a lot of adhd-friendly ways of doing life and honestly some signs (time blindness, fidgeting, hobby-hopping, distraction) were overlooked.

Being that it was 2020, everything was slowed down and backed up, but being people with privilege, we were able to pay for a private psychologist to do a full assessment. It took about 3 months and ended up with a generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis and an evaluation that boiled down to "she probably has ADHD but she does really well in school so deal with the anxiety first and see if that fixes things". Took that to our GP, who basically said "I don't know what to do with this" and prescribed Prozac, which increased her anxiety so we stopped it and asked for a referral to a psychiatrist.

It took almost 18 months to get the appointment - meanwhile she had no supports, no treatment, and no follow up from her GP. At that appointment, the Dr revised her diagnosis - she absolutely has ADHD, but she's good at school, so no need to treat it. However, because she didn't respond well to the prozac and she "gets really sad sometimes" (that was actually the question he asked, no probing, or clarifying, just "do you feel really sad sometimes", to a 15 year old!), prescribed a mood stabilizer because she might have a mood disorder (bi-polar disorder). My husband (who was there for the appointment - I wasn't able to go) was so shocked and confused he just said thank you and left.

We did not fill the prescription for the mood stabilizer. No issues with taking medication when needed, but she showed no signs of excessive mood swings - she had also just had her first break up a couple weeks before the appointment. While waiting for the follow up (where I planned to advocate for treatment for the actual thing he said she had, not the theoretical maybe thing she might struggle with) I saw ads for a private clinic specifically for ADHD diagnosis and treatment. I was nervous - I've got medical trauma (it comes with chronic illness) and did not want to be seen as shopping around for pills for my kid, or ignoring medical advice, or any of the other things that would make getting her treatment more difficult.

So my husband went first - made an appointment, filled out the forms, got a diagnosis and treatment plan. It was so easy and affirming and validating for him, and since starting the treatment he's been so relaxed! He might also be able to stop his anxiety meds (he also has a GAD diagnosis, which might be wrong based on how inattentive type ADHD works).

My daughter had her first appointment this week, it felt so good. She was heard and understood. Her experience and struggles weren't overlooked. She was validated. The NP doing the appointment even mentioned how it's harder for intelligent kids to get diagnosed because they are able to mask so well and too many people just look at school performance. She has a follow up next week to go over a treatment plan. The NP even said she would look at medications not in pill form as my daughter has issues swallowing pills.

I can't express how excited I am. She's 16 now, in grade 11, and things have been so much harder on her in the last year. I'm hopeful that between the treatment plan and coaching, the transition to university will be gentle and she won't face the same breakdown so many people (especially women) with ADHD go through in early adulthood. I'm hopeful this will help her to see her strengths and to not feel so overwhelmed and broken most of the time.

It took far too long and was much more difficult (and expensive!!!!) than it should have been to get to this point, but I am so glad we have a plan now and that she feels good about it!

[my-castles-crumbling]

hey cas,

so, i dont really know exactly how to word things right so please bear with me while i try to explain a bit.

i think i have bipolar disorder (or something similar, im still looking into things), but i dont know if im just going crazy and imagining things. theres not really anyone in my life i can talk to about it to gauge their opinion, so im kind of left by myself to deal with it.

i dont have a trusted adult or loved one i can go to for help, and ive not been to a doctor since probably 2017 at the latest so im not even sure who id be making an appointment with to discuss anything like this. ive considered trying to get myself into therapy but im afraid that if i go in saying that i think im bipolar and have other mental illnesses (im about 99% certain i have anxiety and likely some sort of depressive disorder too, but that might be more linked with the mood swings of bipolar) that its the wrong way to go about it? like, i might just be really ignorant but i dont think thats how therapy works is it?

basically im worried that if i go in saying the disorders i think i have, then theyll tell me im exaggerating or that i need other people to back me up or that i do need to see my gp doctor (which, again, i dont actually think i have one) or that it isnt my place to try to diagnose myself etc.

im not really sure what im asking here? maybe if you have any advice/experience about what therapy is actually like or what i could expect? or a better way to go about getting help? i really dont know honestly aha, sorry

Well, you've definitely come to the right place lol, I've been to and ghosted many a therapist! (Don't ghost your therapist!)

Actually, recently I started therapy again and it's been a great experience, so let me tell you about it. Warning: I live in the US, so if you live elsewhere, it might be different.

When you start therapy, they're going to ask you a LOT of questions. Lots about your background, your childhood, your feelings, etc. It'll feel a bit invasive, but make sure to be honest! Like brutally honest. Like if you're like...'I might be feeling this way but idk if I'm faking..' tell them that. They need to know everything.

Then, if you're a minor, they'll talk to your parents and get their insight. If you have issues with your parents, make sure to tell them that BEFORE this part happens, so they can take what your parents say with a grain of salt.

Last, they'll give you a 'tentative diagnosis.' This means that this is what they think you have, but it's not a die-hard medical diagnosis. They'll treat you based on this, but if you ever wanted accommodations in school or anything for it, you would have to go to a clinical psychiatrist to get it written up.

Here's the thing: the diagnosis my surprise you or even make you feel invalidated. If it does? Tell them that. Because, two things: One- they may have gotten something wrong. Or two- they need to know if you aren't understanding something fully.

To be very personal, I am diagnosed with both depression and anxiety. When I started therapy recently and again got those diagnoses, I wasn't surprised. But I also was told I have 'illness-anxiety disorder' which is the new term for a hypochondriac. I was super insulted because I was picturing the stereotypical hypochondriac who fakes illnesses for attention (this was uneducated of me) but my therapist explained that this version of anxiety more means that I have a lot of anxiety related to being nervous to get sick or the results of getting sick. Which was like- oh. yeah. I do panic every time someone sneezes on me. My therapist said this has become increasingly common since COVID.

All this to say it sounds like seeking out therapy might be a great way for you to get the answers you're looking for. But even if they're not the answers you think they'll be, remember that your feelings and experiences are still extremely valid and no less real.

<3 <3 <3

[pluraldeepdive]

A comment from 2016 about viewing CDDs as "disordered" versions of plurality. I found this comment pleasantly relatable and really nice as a DID system, myself. That's my personal experience, though. Any CDD systems want to share their own thoughts?

(I'm not going to post the link with respect to this person's privacy but, for transparency's sake, this comment was found within a tulpa community.)

(Image ID is under the read more!)

[ID: "In any case, I do have a few notes I want to add. The first is on this comment:

Well, what makes DID a disorder isn't the multiple consciousnesses- it's the amnesia and derealization. Take these away, and you have a state of being that is not inherently disordered.

[Censored user's name.]

I was part of spreading this misconception, so I apologize for that. The truth is, it's not that simple. Saying DID is 'disordered plurality' is like saying 'war is scary'. It's technically true, but it downplays the scope of what goes on so much. Sadly, it took me uncovering the hidden traumagenic side of my system to get me to read DID systems' accounts in-depth and see that.

It doesn't stop at amnesia and derealization. That can be part of it, yes, but it's far from the whole. There's the trauma, whose effects will linger even if you get rid of the amnesia and derealization, which many DID systems have said is the worst part of the disorder. There's the confusion about who you are. There's the fear of being found out and discriminated against, no matter how functional you are. There's paranoia about whether you're making it all up, and frustration at being denied your own reality.

Every system's experience with DID/OSDD is unique, but... to borrow from what a member of a DID system posted elsewhere. Think of it this way. People are shaped by what memories they have, yes? Now imagine that you were born from traumatic memories, from a desperate means of surviving. You're thrown into a head with a bunch of others carrying trauma in this way, and then a few who don't know of that trauma consciously and carry on trying to live a 'normal' life. You have no context for what's going on, and even if everyone does realize what's going on, it's a mess of denial, people having conflicting desires and sabotaging each other directly or indirectly, being shoved down and denied over and over, and on top of that, some are already struggling with containing the trauma that started all this in the first place. The distrust, frustration, resent, anxiety between everyone, it doesn't go away overnight. It doesn't go away when you're diagnosed, and it certainly doesn't go away when someone tells you that the state of being that's caused you so many issues doesn't have to be a disorder. Especially when it comes off as, 'If you'd just appreciated your system more, it'd be fine! Look, look at how happy our non-traumatized and having-gone-through-entirely-different-experiences group is!'

With all that in mind, I can't really blame people for not wanting anything to do with plurality ever again. Some come to value being multiple, even with all the shit that went on. Others find they can't erase the past, or always truly 'put it behind you'. It's a wide array of experiences, as was said before.

It's sort of like... coming from a dysfunctional, even abusive physical family, and seeing all the other kids talking about how excited they are for Winter Break. And if you talk about how your family's been through the shitter, you get reminded that 'but not all families are like that! I'm so happy in mine!' Or told, 'But can't you still appreciate having a family in the first place?' Or get looked at sideways and asked why you aren't doing more to bring your family closer together. It's a slap in the face, even if it isn't meant to be that way. I don't agree with the abject hostility I've seen many clinical systems exhibit towards non-clinical systems--including a well-meaning but misguided yours truly--but sadly, I've come to understand where it comes from.

This comment took a turn for the darker, but I do feel it was something that needed to be said.

Anyway. Be careful, too, of using examples from across the spectrum to prove that other parts of a spectrum exist. If I were to claim that the color 'X' existed, collecting green objects wouldn't be sufficient to prove that 'X' exists. It would be sufficient to prove that color exists, and since 'X' is hypothetically a color, that 'X' could thus potentially exist. You would need to collect objects of color 'X' to show that 'X' itself exists. Which, well, I think the fiction writer study and Nimoy's autobiography do well enough, in any case."

END ID]

[horce-divorce]

as someone who has been all but fucking abandoned by doctors to manage my extreme and severe nerve damage pain from my rare disorder on my own. every time someone brings up cannabis hyperemesis syndrome to me makes me more insulted and irate than the last.

especially because the last several times I wasn't talking about vomiting. I was talking about preprandial PAIN. that began when I was NINE YEARS OLD. ie pain after EATING. that is RELIEVED. by SMOKING.

1. onset of CHE must be AFTER several YEARS of continuous cannabis usage. the reverse is true in my case. I did not start smoking cannabis until several many years AFTER onset/worsening of pain and other symptoms like vomiting. cannabis RELIEVES these symptoms and is in fact THE ONLY THING THAT DOES THAT and NO! gabapentin didn't do fuck all for me!!!!!

2. CHE is characterized by vomiting, pain & other symptoms occuring AFTER YOU SMOKE! and symptoms that get better when you stop! FUCKING FASCINATING! that is, again, the exact opposite of true for me!!!!

3. People with CHE find relief in hot showers???? Lmfao my POTS having ass could never but ESPECIALLY when I'm nauseous are you fucking kidding me? That would actually kill me!!! What is actually going on with cannabis hyperemesis???? like. that is weird as fuck.

(source btfw. since apparently doctors love referencing shit they cannot fucking read)

so not only do the 3 MAIN DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA blatantly not apply to my case, I have seen DOZENS UPON DOZENS of other doctors, do you really think none of them fucking thought of ibs, anxiety and cannabis hyperemesis syndrome? because lol, lmao, I promise you, each and every single doctor I've ever spoken to went out of their way to mention those each MORE than once.

The fucking university that diagnosed me with MALS, a rare disorder characterized by pain so severe it caused panic attacks, has a strict no opioids policy, and apparently I'm not a candidate for MALS surgery until I'm dying already (they literally told me id have to be on a feeding tube first. that is a whole separate posts worth of bad information). they literally told me to go smoke weed and fuck off. they left me on my fucking own. and it took me TEN (10) YEARS to get diagnosed. It took me a DECADE To get to the point where I was told "yeah we know exactly what you have and that it's insanely painful and causing a lot of nerve damage. umm smoke weed about it since you love doing that so much? bye"

so I do what they ask of me, I take my care entirely into my own fucking hands and I learn everything I can and *I* painstakingly stay in top of the latest research about my condition, and *I* find ways to manage the pain, and *I* document my results, and *I* am my own fucking full time carer since this pain is so disabling it cost me my 20s. Only to have every SINGLE fucking one of my doctors turn around and disrespect and disregard ALL of that fucking work I do to ask me "have you considered not smoking weed, in the interest of me doing a bad and lazy job?"

literally how fucking hard is it to give someone- WHO HAS ALREADY PROVEN THEY ARE COMPETENT ABOUT THEIR DIAGNOSES!!!!! Ok!!! So we are not talking fucking hypotheticals here, we are talking 'i have a piece of paper from the university next door that says I have this and I am actually explaining what it is TO the doctor' okay??- THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT ABOUT MY OWN EXPERIENCE. which btw, is the PRIMARY evidence you even HAVE to work with and do your job. basic lab results will only tell you so much.

why is it so FUCKING HARD to get medical professionals to treat disabled people like we are fucking people!!!!!! they act like it's so hard. like we're asking them to go fucking above and beyond or something with this shit.

this was far from being the worst thing about that visit btw I just am sitting here seething at 4am checking off every single box on the Shitty Healthcare Provider Bingo Card in my brain and I'm going "AND ANOTHER THING!" ableist as fuck, check- she literally called autistic people assholes in the context of, "not EVERYONE with autism is the stereotype, like, an asshole and into trains or whatever"- and then suggested to Bel that his widespread joint pain is probably from being clumsy and hurting himself bc he's autistic.........). disregarded everything we said, check. repeatedly recommended a bunch of irrelevant and ineffective medications or options (such as "quitting smoking weed") that we have already tried, check. brought up a legitimate related issue (hypoglycemia) that she then glossed over and told us nothing about, check. made HELLA assumptions instead of just fucking asking us things- she started going into this spiel about how, like, you know getting diagnosed doesn't mean you'll get a CURE, right? :/ And we both had to be like ummmmmmmmm. I have a vascular compression and fucking nerve damage I need to know about that shit happening inside my body. That's not about getting a cure it's about making sure all my organs get enough blood and that I GET ADEQUATE MEDICAL CARE, INCLUDING PAIN MANAGEMENT.

This is why Bel and I go to all our appointments together these days. I can't imagine how fucking awful this would've been if we'd met with her alone, so she could've just steamrolled over us 1-on-1 in private.

I fucking hate doctors this is why nobody ever wants to go to the hospital. Not only does it cost an arm and a leg, we are paying to get fucking disrespected and disregarded, and then they're all confused about why their patients have shitty dispositions. Fuck you

[hikarry]

You know that old saying about "breaking the family curse"? It always sounded so fucking dramatic to me. But real life is dramatic as fuck, innit? For my family, there are many "curses," things less visible — a shit load of undiagnosed mental health issues that silently influenced every part of our lives for fucking generations but that everyone insisted in ignoring.

Growing up, I always sensed there was something different about how my mother handled stress, emotions, and relationships, for example. It was like walking through a fog that we could never quite see through. Conversations were avoided, and emotions were bottled up. There were very few moments where we, as a family, spoke about our feelings. I saw the patterns repeating in my parents, my grandparents, and even in myself. It wasn't until I reached a breaking point that I realized something had to change.

I've been diagnosed with depression and anxiety - and so has my grandmother, but im the first getting diagnosed with adhd. Getting my diagnosis was like finding one of the missing pieces of a puzzle that had been scattered across generations. There is more. I know there is more. I am the culmination of generations of struggles people insisted on ignoring and that I'm working so hard to bring to light. It isn't easy— there is a lot of reaching out to my psychiatrist because my meds aren't working, and a lot of medication changes that drive me insane. I'm so tired of changes and nothing sticking. I'm losing hope on ever fixing this. Of ever having a functional brain like I had once for a week when a med by miracle made me into a normal functional adult and then lost its effect. Being back to shit after that week has been hell. But, at the very least, finally having a name for what I was experiencing, some things started to make sense.

The journey won't end with the diagnosis. In many ways, it is just the beginning. I still have therapy, i still have a lot to learn, but, even if I try to talk openly with my family about my struggles and try to explain it, they still don't understand it. They have told me in my face that they don't know what to do with me anymore, and is there a way to make someone feel like trash worse than that? I dont know what to do with myself either. I just needed someone who sat with me and cared. And listened. And tried to understand.

Breaking part of the family curse doesn’t mean everything is perfect now. There are a lot of hard days and ongoing challenges. I still haven't found the right medication and I'm in the middle of finals season. I can't study. My brain just goes blank. If I look at the laptop it's like I'm seeing Chinese. And no one gets that. No one gets how frustrating that is. I don't want to be there one more year. I want to finish my degree and be done with it, but I can't mentally study. My brain literally doesn't want me to. Does let me. It fights me, and it's so so infuriating. At the very least, it's a step towards healing, and as i dont want children, it ends with me. Or if one of my brother's children is diagnosed, they know they can rely on me.

If you’re reading this and feeling like you’re stuck in a cycle you can’t break, know that you’re not alone. All of this is a step towards understanding yourself and breaking free from patterns that have held you back. It will take time, but one can hope.

[celestewilllow]

This reminder to everyone out there. It is incredibly important to be financially independent. Say it with me. It is important to be financially independent. Especially for those who have been oppressed or abused. We can never put ourselves in somebody else's hands, in ANY way.

Personally, I've been dealing with an emotionally abusive (sometimes physically abusive too) dad since I was 14(now 21), and he was physically abusive to my mom as well (she was hospitalized every time he hit her, it was a little way back and he did stop it completely, but the trauma is hard to let go off).

The abuse and pressure were there for us to be top students, and as an older child, it's crazier. It got to a point where I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder. Somehow, after I got into a good college, I got into spirituality and astrology, and believe me they helped me a lot. I was willing to forgive him for all the mental health issues he has given me and I genuinely almost did. Even then, you know I loved my dad. I really did. The only person who can emotionally affect me so much in a matter of seconds. I was willing to understand his need for us to be well settled, to be well established. I thought he did everything for us. I forgot he was willing to discard us the moment we didn't do that good in our studies. My mom is the only person holding me and my sister for a good time. I don't know how she does it, but she does it. She works, she teaches us things, she's a boss, she's wonderful. She tells me, "Nana, you should never depend on anyone, ever."

Today me and my dad had a huge fight, and he told me to fuck off. To have a parental figure, especially my dad tell me that, really really destroyed me. I've just been very broken for a minute now and I realized this. I can't ever depend on him. Ever. And I can't let my sister go through the same thing I did. I'm earning a very small amount right now and I'll somehow figure out to work and earn more. But I just wanted to remind everyone struggling out there. Please don't give up. It's all very hard sometimes. Most times. But that's okay. Stay confident. Work to be independent.

[designersheets]

i forget if i ever said on here that i finally got diagnosed with PCOS cause i found a doctor that actually cares about people and does her job. thank god lmao.

there's of course not a whole lot that can be done but she got me on a different birth control that sometimes helps with it and so far since starting it i've had NO hot flashes! even through this hot as hell summer! those used to debilitate me and leave me bedridden with cold towels trying to cool off and NO doctor wanted to give a shit about that!!!!!!! and now they're gone just like that!

there's been some other changes too that indicate my hormones are in a better balance now, such as much more regular periods.

this is of course a great thing, but it's also so incredibly frustrating because the solution was THAT simple but i had to suffer for YEARS cause most of my doctors just didn't care. they wouldn't listen when i asked about it.

i once told a doctor that yes, i am being treated (successfully!) for anxiety and i can only assume that's in my chart and has forever branded me as having Hysteric Woman Syndrome and so i'm not listened to.

i explained exactly that to the new doctor before explaining my actual concerns (i was told she's an especially good doctor if you've had this experience before), which she immediately said sounded like textbook PCOS.

she checked my records and apparently the doctor who tested me for PCOS years ago when the hot flashes first started, and said i didn't have it... never checked my testosterone, often one of the most telling hormones of PCOS. NEVER checked it! and had the gall to tell me i was negative for PCOS!

also never did any of the other apparently standard testing like ovary and transvaginal ultrasound to check for cysts. yanno. the cysts in polyCYSTic ovarian syndrome. you can just look at the ovaries and see if they have cysts or not!

to be clear, doctor said the presence of cysts doesn't automatically mean you have PCOS, and apparently you can have PCOS with "normal range" hormone levels and no cysts at all, or have cysts but no PCOS. it all depends on the individual and any traits or symptoms present, cause it's different for everyone.

anyway she also checked all my nutrient levels and turns out my frequent dizziness and fatigue was from low iron! another incredibly simple thing to fix! yet i had doctors telling me it was labyrinthitis and prescribing me dramamine before ever considering that maybe it was low iron. i just take a daily multivitamin now (i used to but stopped for a long time which explains why this was a new problem for me). bam. fixed.

idk you'd just think doctor could be expected do the goddamn job that they signed up for, but that's the exception instead of the rule. why? why can't we have higher standards for them? why can't medical laziness/negligence be punished or prevented more meaningfully?

i could have saved so much time and money and suffering if they just checked two simple blood levels during the multitude of bloodwork i've had done over the years trying to figure this shit out.

anyway i'm just gladstrated (glad and frustrated) about it all

[chipped-chimera]

Ugh ... I am low-key so worried about how the BG3 ending is gonna play out for Karlach that I'm considering stopping playing and just coming back to it when I can handle it. Some of this shit is just hitting too close to home and I'm not sure I'm cut out for it.

More personal context under the cut if you want.

I relate to Karlach's pain so much. Too much. To the point it makes me teary thinking about it. Both of our lives have been cruel.

It has been hard for me, despite a stable family upbringing that most would envy, in a lower-middle class family that for the large part has been financially stable. I'm also white. I know I'm lucky in that capacity - god I fucking know (and the thought that what I've gone through could be considered a 'lucky' position? What does that mean for others? It keeps me up at night).

But that didn't stop the pain crawling in. I wasn't diagnosed with Autism until 27. I wasn't diagnosed with co-morbid ADHD until I was 28. I wasn't medicated for ADHD until I was 30 (and that was AFTER being told by a psych who also invalidated my Autism diagnosis aka the context for fucking EVERYTHING in my life, I couldn't have ADHD because I could 'read a book').

Before that? I knew I was depressed at 13, but didn't want to burden my family so I did nothing - we may be lower middle class and stable but I knew that was only because my parents tried so fucking hard. We had camping chairs in place of furniture up until I was eight. I lived with the pain because I didn't want to burden them, and without the context of my neurodivergence I just blamed myself for the problem, not being good enough, not trying hard enough - not being ENOUGH. I held onto it until I cracked and couldn't take it anymore at 16. I was diagnosed with Depression and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. It's since been upgraded to chronic Major Depression and it's classed as treatment resistant.

Both of us have had moments of building ourselves up from nothing. Through therapy and medication I was able to feel a bit better, more positive as I left high school. Thinking maybe it was gonna be okay after all, out there in the world.

It felt like I'd slowly reached out into the light, tentatively, hopefully - there'd be something more, that I'd live out the dreams I'd had, the things I'd always wanted to do. I was still optimistic.

Instead it felt like that arm had been immediately lopped off.

The story is long and too complicated to tell without this being longer than it needs to be. But like Karlach, I feel I've lost years of my life. Like Karlach, it's been a decade - ten years. That I cannot get back, that I grieve keenly.

I have been isolated, and then betrayed by those I thought I trusted. First, by the systems that were supposed to help me when I was struggling - my own government's system as they hit me with a debt that I couldn't even pay, on a scheme which has in retrospect been found to be completely illegal, but has left me with lasting trauma and damage and no closure. Not even a sorry. Because I, with my undiagnosed Autism and ADHD and a growing fatigue issue where I was so exhausted from simply being alive I just couldn't fight it. So I let them take money out of my social security payment - which was and still is considered below the poverty line. I was punished for being poor, I was punished for arguably, being disabled.

And then, by the person I trusted most. The person I thought I loved, the person who made it felt like everything was okay - I may be struggling still but there was still a future! There was someone who cared about me, who would be beside me for the rest of my lifetime. He asked me to marry him. We were engaged for three. Years. We'd been dating for 10. I thought everything, despite all the shit happening to me, was going to be okay.

It wasn't.

I had landed some employment for the first time in 3 years. I was working more hours than advised by the psychologist who diagnosed me with Autism but I had no choice - I was literally on the minimum limit available to me, due to the barriers I still have to navigate to qualify for disability supports (again, from a government system that I no longer trusted and gave me the earnest impression that they preferred me dead than 'leeching off their system'). But I was not living. I couldn't handle even 15 hours a week, I was more exhausted than I'd ever been. I felt like a corpse. I spoke with my disability employment coordinator (no, despite what I said, being on disability EMPLOYMENT services does not qualify you getting onto disability support, just means the government will only hound me for a minimum of 15 hrs a week instead of 30 in order for social security, that's a whole other complicated thing) IN CONFIDENCE that I wasn't sure I could keep up with the current work format and hoped I could discuss some solutions. Next minute I find I'm locked out of the work facebook. I was fired, without warning and without protections because I was a casual. Because my employment coordinator told my boss before even discussing anything with me.

My relationship was suffering but I wasn't aware. I was too tired for intimacy, and probably two tired to see the signs. I'd gotten my Autism diagnosis at this point and maybe it was a bit difficult for my fiancée at the time to understand, but he came to terms with it. The ADHD assessment was booked. I had realized at this point pushing myself to be something I wasn't, thinking somehow landing work and earning money for myself would help the depression - it didn't. I was worse than I'd ever been. Then the moment came where I was handed a notice that the government would no longer give me any social security because my partner, on his meager chef's salary was earning too much. All because I'd tried to do the right thing by the government. I'd tried so hard to be good. I'd tried so hard to be ENOUGH.

I wasn't enough.

My fiancée came to me, my fiancée who I'd been talking to about our upcoming wedding plans now the pandemic was over, my fiancée who I'd been cuddling with on the couch last night watching films - he came to me when I was battered, and raw and broken and crying in bed - just said 'I can't do this anymore.' And that was it. It was done. As I processed it, I realised the root of it was, it was because I'd taken the mask off. I decided I wasn't going to try to be something I wasn't anymore, because I knew and it was backed up in countless studies - what I was doing was actively killing me. And he didn't want to deal with that. I wasn't enough, and yet I was too much.

It has been two years since then. My ADHD is medicated. I live in a stable, safe environment with my parents where I don't have to worry about my security. I have set firm boundaries that I learned while I was independent, and they respect them. But the wounds are still deep and it'll take a long time to recover, to get that trust in the world back.

When I look at Karlach, I see some of myself. Someone who has been used, abused and betrayed by those they trusted. Someone who felt abandoned by everything, that there was no hope, no way out. And yet in spite of it all - kept going. Who, deep in their heart kept something soft and safe. Held onto and protected what little shred of optimism left. Because if we don't practice kindness, who will? We want to be the kindness we want to see in the world, because fuck, have we seen so little of it. It is so easy to give up, to fall into despair when you've been through so much shit. It requires so much vigilance and energy and momentum to keep going, when you're wading through a battlefield of carnage and gore in your life, whether metaphorical or literal. We hold on and we are kind because we hope, one day, that kindness will touch us back. That despite it all we try our fucking hardest to wear a smile, and see the good in everything we can.

And I think that's why it hurts so much. Karlach is finally free. And happy. She feels loved. She's finally feeling some of that kindness again kindness that I know, that she knows she fucking deserves. And it's on a fucking time limit.

And that's what's fucking breaking me. I know she's supposed to be some kind of allegory for terminal illness. And I know this isn't my story. I know it's a story that is important to tell, and it will touch others in a different way. But for me it feels like all the wounds I've barely scabbed over are being ripped open again. Because this is not an ending she deserves at all. It makes me sit and wonder, is that all there is for people like us? Just brief windows of happiness in the pain until we die? Don't we deserve saving? Don't we deserve a happy ending? A peaceful one? Don't we deserve to wear that smile, that happiness without us having to fight for every second it with tooth and nail to keep it there? To believe in it?

I don't know the endings in detail for her. But i have seen enough in the vaguest sense to feel it won't be good, and I don't know if I'm ready for that. I have played games with sad themes, like I know Cyberpunk isn't that great either - but I think the difference is who it is happening to. It's somehow easier when it's you, as the player. But when it's someone else? When you know that pain so fucking keenly you would rip yourself apart just to let them escape that hell, it's hard to stomach.

Then there's the disability angle that bothers me so much. Currently her options, as she puts it, are burning up and dying or going back to Avernus. I understand why she's choosing death, like, fuck man I do. Why is it always death though? Why is death better. Why can't she get a replacement heart? Make it shit! It can be a shitty heart that still works, but needs tune ups, and maybe she can't fight like she used to but she gets to fucking live a happy life! Because a shitty, happy life is better than nothing at all. Because as it goes, it feels to me I'm just being told it's easier to just die than submit to the suffering again whenever a piece of media picks an end like this. It's either the cure-all or death, there's never room for something in between. There's never room for making peace with what you have lost and still reclaiming some of your life, grieving what you have lost but still finding something worth having and holding onto. And when you're in that limbo state yourself, it's a hard pill to swallow. And it's hard to let anyone else fall into it.

We both deserve life. We both deserve happiness.

Fuck.