#tw: mental illness.

[agapestricken]

hey, y'all! i just wanted to let you know that i'm still here and will be replying to some memes / asks in general i have in my inbox as soon as i can. one thing that i wanted to make known about anastasiy that's related to his mental health because i always try to talk about it with ALL of my oc's; and that's because it could greatly effect how a character acts, and/or reacts to things, though this doesn't absolve them of having to take responsibility for their own actions OFC.

and i was thinking about it for a while as i stated in my carrd that ana had a rather severe case of social anxiety + still has it, but he is someone who takes meds to help him with it. however, anastasiy has also had major depression for years, and it had recently developed into psychotic depression — so along with having symptoms that are typical of depression... ana also has been experiencing things like delusions and hallucinations. another important thing to note with this is that, according to the research i've done on it (as i'm not a licensed mental health professional, but i try my best to be as accurate as possible about these things)...

ana also fits the criteria for having psychomotor agitation or physical activity that is marked by restlessness. and by that, i mean he engages in things such as pacing, handwringing, and pulling at his clothes (and this is a symptom of major depressive disorder). there is more to it than just this as well, but from what i've seen of it, he has a form of it that's likely to be considered mild.

but this means that staying still is definitely difficult for him. masking is something that anastasiy feels as if he has to do on the daily especially considering he is in active psychosis (+ this might explain some of his unusual behaviors such as celebrating after completing another 'job' and why he's able to uhhh... continue on with his daily life so casually, i guess you could say, even though he's literally killing people. so yeahhh).

i hope this helps give y'all a deeper insight into his character and that you enjoyed this meta on ana, though i know this is quite a heavy topic

[mad-hunts]

so, tonight, i will talking about barton's mental health once more because i was thinking about dexter (as in the show) and how one of the characters in it who's name is doakes + this is because for a while... he was the ONLY person in the show who was able to recognize there was something a bit 'off' for lack of better words with dexter himself. and i'm bringing this up in particular because i like how the show itself points out how, because doakes's character was a killer himself, that he was able to kind of see past the facade that dexter put on. and/or sense that they were similar in that they both had this sense of darkness inside themselves.

which brings me to talking about how, as i have done some research on it (though this still doesn't make me an expert on it OFC! i'm just trying to do my due diligence to get everything as accurate as i could while using the internet as a resource), it kind of depends on other's having similar traits to him for barton to be able to recognize when other people are 'like him' - and also for him to get to know them at some capacity, especially because some people's way of 'masking' is very different from barton's. BUT barton is not particularly in the business of labeling anyone as a sociopath because he doesn't think of himself in those kind of terms either, really.

though anyhow, like i was saying, barton can see when someone is like him through them possessing traits like a lack of morals, callousness, 'predatory' behavior (or the act of trying to exploit other's for their own gain to put it simply), etcetera. and when someone acts this way towards his friends, family, or dare i say his partner then barton absolutely has the tendency to become protective over these people in his 'inner circle.' like, he will make his dislike towards them known one way or another because hey...

barton's logic here is that someone can mess with him all they want, but whenever it comes to the people he cares about in his own... barton-like way (LOL) then he will not put up with that at all. barton will be glaring at them hard-core during any interaction they have, distinctly when they're clearly trying to prey on a member of his 'inner circle' in one way or another. he will also threaten them through not-so-subtle ways. and if it comes down to it, let me just say that barton has a history of violence + a rap sheet a mile long so that may or may not have something to do with what his next cours eof action would be if they don't back off.

so, basically, what i'm trying to say is that people with NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) or ASPD like barton or just possess these traits definitely do not get off scott-free just BC they may be alike. and i thought this was kind of interesting because i know that i have talked about how barton doesn't even know how his mind works himself half-the-time before, BUT. him displaying this behaviors while he's still all those other things does say something to me; and that is that its quite possible that barton really does mean it when he says things like he doesn't want to be like his father, wesley.

because do you know what his bio father would've done in a situation where someone with the same kind of behaviors as him was threatening their family? stopping them from continuing would've been more of a matter of keeping up this 'image' for himself that he cares about barton. but barton actually does this because he genuinely doesn't want these people he's built relationships with to get hurt, and yeah, that doesn't make him automatically a good person. because he isn't one. though in some ways, i'd like to say he's put a halt to the generational trauma in the mathis family.

[lususnatura]

so, i have talked about mental health and the struggles that my characters have with it in particular before, BUT i have yet to do so on this account. thus... i'm going to touch upon how blamore has bipolar 1 disorder and how that affects its daily life. here's just a little background about bipolar one in particular just in case y'all don't know a lot about it — bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that is usually characterized by periodic albeit intense emotional states that affect a person's mood, energy, and ability to function. these periods could last anywhere from days to weeks, and there are usually two types of mood episodes. though some people also experience periods of neutral mood as well. the first of these two types are manic/hypomanic, in which the main mood that the person will be in will either be intense happiness or irritability.

the other kind of mood episode is depressive episodes, where the person affected by bipolar disorder is in an intensely sad mood or the ability for them to experience joy has seemingly disappeared. the onset of when blamore realized it had it was when it was twenty after having a manic episode, which led to him having to be hospitalized because it had experienced what is known as psychotic features (esp. disorganized thinking and hallucinations) along with the normal but also severe symptoms of a manic episode: increased risky or impulsive behavior, decreased need for sleep, and uncontrollable racing thoughts, just to name a few.

and i have done some research about it that states that mood-stabilizers / anti-psychotics, as well as psychotherapy, do help to treat it (though meds are usually the main way to, it seems) which i think blamore immediately tried to take after being told his diagnosis because it had encouraged him to make some bad decisions regarding his academic life + he was having trouble with maintaining his relationships as well and felt like his emotions were so heightened that he felt hopeless. i mean, to the point where it was crying and screaming into it's pillow every night.

so blamore decided to seek treatment after a bit of time spent in reluctance to accept that what he had was bipolar disorder, because at first, he just wanted to believe that he was depressed. and after trying out several medications along with different regiments, it seemed like it'd finally found something that worked for it. so blamore was doing well and thriving, in fact, for a while with just a little extra help from its meds. which is definitely possible for someone who has bipolar disorder to do, of course, because your diagnosis isn't who you are. and it is treatable like i mentioned previously.

now, however, is... a slightly different story. blamore has tried to return to taking medication for his bipolar disorder with the same dosage + regiment in general, but because he has an accelerated metabolism, it affects it's body differently now and has led to it experiencing some side effects that are pretty unfavorable in it's opinion. so it stopped taking it at that dosage and has now been switching between meds at the lowest possible one to try to find the right prescription, though blamore does sometimes forget to take it + has gotten sort of frustrated with it seeming to have no effect on him. so he may or may not be teetering in between the decision of just stopping it altogether.

though yeah, right now, the general gist of it is that blamore takes a drug for it at the lowest dose... inconsistently. so he may be prone to forgetting to take it for like a few days, or possibly longer and because of that, the meds may not have had enough time to work within him properly for lack of better words. and he has had several depressive episodes over this time as well as one really bad manic episode with perhaps some hypomanic ones that had gone undetected. thus, thing's are a bit complicated for him right now, to say the least and he is suspectible to experiencing more severe mood episodes again. buttt yeah,, i just thought i'd give y'all a little insight as to what having bipolar 1 has been like for blamore + how it tries to manage it today. i hoped you all liked this longer drabble of mine (':

[anthromimicry]

OH, speaking of misao, while i'm still here... let me talk about how she was introduced to playing instruments + why she still does it often to this day. as you may know, misao's mother — kaiyah — did suffer from mental health issues, and in ancient japan... they were very behind in terms of providing the appropriate care to those who had mental health concerns. while doing research on it, i also discovered that it was also unfortunately HEAVILY stigmatized and thought of to be caused by spirits and/or brought about by spiritual means. and so kaiyah would often have to find ways to try to help herself cope with her symptoms; one of which turned out to be music. and misao remembers which instrument kaiyah used to play vividly because listening to her play music, as well as sing, was one of the ways that they'd bond despite them having a rather complicated relationship. kaiyah used to play the biwa, which is a plucked string instrument that sort of resembles a guitar and whenever she'd play, kaiyah would sit cross-legged. and this wasn't only because that was the traditional way to play the biwa, but so that misao could sit in her lap as she strummed the instrument. and misao also remembers kaiyah just looking at her with this look that was just made up of pure happiness during those moments. which, although they were very ephemeral, kind of helped her pull through her childhood because they gave her hope that maybe she could be like this all the time at first; and then upon discovering that although that might not be the most realistic thing to think... it helped her pull through because she would believed that she rather hold onto whatever scrap of happiness she could get, rather than try to forget these experiences with her mother, because of the fact that they hurt her so badly emotionally sometimes. and this was because she wanted to help kaiyah the same way that music seemed to — she just didn't know how. but as the years passed, misao came up with the idea that maybe learning to play it could be a method in which she could assist kaiyah with feeling more... at peace, i guess you could say, and so she did.

though misao only got to play the biwa for her mother a few times before ryu was born, and whenever that happened, everything changed. but of course... none of it was his fault. all those good feelings that misao had associated with the biwa now had a sort of bitter taste to them because of kaiyah's neglect towards ryu and once more, although this conflict was a lot more nuanced than it might've appeared because of her mother's illness, misao felt this strong urge to just completely smash her biwa into pieces because she felt so bad inside. though, honestly, misao is glad that she didn't today. because it honestly is one of the few things that she still has around that reminds her of kaiyah, and although she literally cannot play it because the last time she did, misao just sobbed all the way through it — she was able to pick up another instrument that vaguely reminded her of the biwa and allowed her to reconnect with that old part of herself: which would be the guitar. but it is a very private part of herself that she doesn't reveal to a lot of people. she'll really only play the guitar around people she really trusts, as whenever she's playing it, it's almost like she's playing to her mother again.

[tofumarinado]

it's so funny to me when i see pearl-clutching articles about how "teenagers are diagnosing themselves with mental disorders via tiktok" because like. this is not happening in a vacuum. teenagers are severely and i mean severely medically neglected. i cannot stress this enough. teenagers do not have free access to medical care. those same news outlets would be clowning on women with housewife psychosis in the 1950's.

i sometimes go pale when listening to some of what my friends have gone through in their childhoods and teenagehoods. they talk about it so nonchalantly, things that would be considered straight up torture if done to an adult, can't fathom the effect this has on children. they are on multiple anti-psychotics and several antidepressants and anxiety meds now that they are adults. medical neglect has legally and effectively disabled them. a timely diagnosis and intervention could have saved them.

of course teenagers are self-diagnosing using tiktok. if your knee-jerk reaction is to scoff at the idea and dismiss it as dumb teenager shit instead of being radicalized because the best shot young people have at attaining the mental health support they need is a fucking dancing videos app, you're categorically a political enemy of the youth.

[bloomdoom1]

[emotionaleating]

when someone doesn’t wanna tell me what i did wrong and suddenly i’m 8 years old wondering what i did to make my mom mad again

[schizopositivity]

Things I'd love for the Internet to leave in 2023:

• misusing the word "delusional" or saying "delulu"

• public freakout videos that are just someone displaying psychotic symptoms

• "I'm in your walls" and other paranoia triggering "jokes"

• schizoposting

• misusing the word "psychotic"

• baiting and triggering people online who are openly psychotic or displaying psychotic symptoms

• excluding schizo-spec and psychotic people from any neurodiversity/mental illness awareness

Let's just all try to be better to schizo-spec and psychotic people. And hold others accountable as well.

[todostoast]

every year i reach new lows and wish i killed myself earlier

[lullxbyblue]

How are you supposed to just get up and go to school and go to work and come home and make dinner and fold the laundry and not want to kill yourself the whole fucking time.

[mad-hunts]

when the mask comes off of barton, though (and i don't mean his literal mask in this case), i can tell y'all for sure that if your muse were to be around him while it happened... that they'd MOST DEFINITELY be able to tell about 9 times out of ten. because, as i've said before, barton has literally spent an almost frightening amount of time just observing people and tailoring his behavior to that.

and barton, of course, does this in terms of how he should react to certain situations / just how he should act in general in order to not raise suspicion. but sometimes another character may get him SO angry and/or they will do or say something that he views as a slight to him (like one particular trigger for him in regards to this is people saying that they 'see right through him,' or anything of that nature) — that it'll almost seem like barton will suddenly forget how to successfully mimic people.

because it honestly is true about what they say about the eyes being the 'window to the soul.' which is relevant to what i'm describing because the first thing that another hypothetical character here would notice is that all the life just kind of disappears from them, and the look that he gives them is cold. it's like barton is more of a shell of a person than anything else. he also tends to either get really quiet or explode based on the circumstances.

though, that's not all that happens. because although this isn't a guarantee, this is when another character might find barron at his most violent because he no longer has a reason to quote unquote 'hold himself back,' i guess you could say. and he's prone to lashing out physically at people after doing something like staring them down in the eye to see if they'll back down. and if they don't... he might just inhale as if this is the most irritating situation he's been in before doing whatever he was planning to do.

barton also gets a kick out of mocking others whenever he's like this, if i'm being honest. and although he usually prefers to use strength to overpower someone, he isn't above using psychological tactics to get someone to do what he wants them to do. + barton has and WILL do this in ways that might seem immature on rare occasions, though still enough for it to be noticeable. and i believe this is because people with ASPD tend to not mature emotionally + this is partially why they end up being so selfish.

but yeahhh. i know this is a super long post, BUT i just wanted to talk about this because although barton may be good at pretending, he also makes it terribly obvious sometimes that he doesn't as a rule 'think like other people'... as he is constantly having to fake things like empathy. though, this is still a problem area for him beyond cognitive empathy. and thus, to summarize this all, barton is mentally unwell; but he's also a bad person as he chooses to do the things he does in the end + is responsible for his actions.

[incorrectbatfam]

[anthromimicry]

‘you’d be amazed by the things a person can do to survive.’

it was one o-clock on a wednesday and like clockwork, misao found herself coming back from lunch to see another patient of hers. one whom, perhaps-not-so-coincidentally, had just been committed to arkham once more that very same day. and although misao still wasn't entirely sure what to expect upon seeing mary, as she'd come to know her as, she had heard whispers in the hallway that she apparently really didn't look her best. which could really mean any variety of things. thus, one could probably understand why misao braced herself for anything when an orderly finally came into view escorting a vaguely gaunt looking mary into her office. no. actually, upon closer inspection, she could say for certain that she was gaunt. the angles of her patients face did seem more pronounced than ever and she was overall just a lot thinner than before.

misao couldn't help but want to ask mary almost immediately what happened to her upon being greeted with the sight. starvation was, unfortunately, not something she was altogether unfamiliar with herself. and it was like torture for her; meaning it must've been even worse for mary as she was experiencing it, considering she was human. misao still managed to remain as neutral as possible however as she begun their session: though, this time, the doctor had all but raided the small fridge she had in her office in order to give mary more than enough drinks. specifically those with high electrolytes in them. reintroducing food to someone who had been deprived of it for an extended period of time could lead to pretty disastrous effects, unfortunately. and that made making the replacement of those nutrients the most important thing above all.

smoothies, fruit juice, and pedialyte were among them. now, they were talking about what mary had done while she was on the outside. then the topic came to misao telling the other it took a lot of strength to pull through weeks of having little to no food. (well, misao's brain had put in by itself) ‘you’d be amazed by the things a person can do to survive,’ mary told her, plain and simple. misao blinked several times to try to will away a memory of the years she'd spent living solely off of insects when that was clearly not what her body wanted. the doctor leaned forward then, maintaining eye contact with mary.

❝ yes — that's true. the human spirit is a remarkable force that drives us to face challenges head-on, to adapt, and to persevere. i'm just inquiring about it because, when starved of food, the body responds by reducing the rate at which it burns energy. but the human brain operates at a very high metabolic rate, and thus, without proper nutrition... our brain is left vulnerable. ❞ misao stated this in a soft tone as she spoke to mary. emotional comfort was something her patients usually sought out of psychotherapy, after all. she intertwined her hands in front of herself.

❝ so, it could lead to stressful situations being more difficult for those who are in this kind of situation to cope with them. as a result, if you'd be comfortable with it, it's important that i ask you this: how would you rate how you're feeling right now? ❞ misao lowered a hand down before maneuvering it into a sideways position and rose another hand above it, ❝ are you down here, ❞ she shook the lower hand, ❝ more in the middle... or, perhaps maybe even somewhere higher? ❞ she made the higher hand shake a bit. misao honestly wasn't sure whether mary would answer this, but it was worth a shot.

[eccedentesiast-skies]

You’ve grown into someone who would have protected you as a child. And that is the most powerful move you made.

[emotionaleating]

pls don’t flirt with me i want to be nonchalant so bad but i unfortunately crave connection so intensely that i will give you my entire soul and forgive you over and over until i’ve lost myself completely and feel like i’m drowning

[wowlookwhosspirallingagain]

i don’t want to live like this. i only exist at this point. all i do is distract my mind so i don’t kill myself