#what that actually means tho is my symptoms are pretty mild

[auroras-void]

I realized this, like looking back I've been annoying as shit. But then I decided that actually who cares if I was annoying, everyone's annoying sometimes, it's part of being human. My friends are annoying sometimes, my girlfriend can be too actually, but you know what I figured out? I can still love them not just in spite of that, but *because* of it, because I love *all* of them, and being annoying is a part of *everyone*. And not to mention if I need to I can also just talk to them like a fucking adult.

The real secret is realizing that actually, I was never the problem, I just needed better friends who knew how to use their goddamn words to communicate with me, and who would have me do the same for them. All I ever needed to learn was how to ask for that.

"Read the room" room is bullshit, and it always has been, the answer has always been "Speak clearly", even in situations when everyone present actually knows how to do the former.

Once you have that, you get the last realization. Which is that actually, I trust my friends to love me for who I am and communicate their boundaries to me when necessary... So you know what? I am going to become *more* annoying, *on purpose*, because I know doing so does not make me any less worthy of love. No more hiding behind masks so thick they make my RAADS-R score look normal. I am going to be me and I am going to love myself for it, all else be damned.

That's what I love about this scene. Yes, it's painful to watch, but at the same time it's triumphant, because Laios is hearing all this and responding to it with a deep seated understanding of himself, he knows without even a moment of hesitation that he has never been in the wrong for being himself.

I'm (probably) not even autistic* myself... so I've been on both sides of this exact conflict even... which is why I can say with such confidence that Shuro deserved every bit of what he got for starting shit unnecessarily instead of acting like an adult.

every autistic person watching this episode of dungeon meshi:

[graylinesspam]

I guess I feel like stirring the pot tonight but I'm gonna actually put my two cents into this "tiktokification of autism" debate for a second. I'm gonna need everyone on this, the "we piss on the poor", website to take a fuckin breath.

In psychology there's this pretty simply concept they teach you in the 'intro to' class which is that when it comes to hereditary mental conditions if you carry the genes for a condition it's probably going to affect you a little bit, even if it is not a diagnose-able amount.

As a personal example My own great grandfather has Bipolar disorder and has been medicated for it for longer than I have been alive. As a result all of his children were very familiar with the symptoms and were quick to point out when each other was displaying or describing symptoms of that disorder in their own live. That stuck around for my mothers generation and now my own as well. None of his children have been diagnosed with the condition because they do not display these symptoms with a consistency or extreme that hinders their ability to live their day to day life. A couple of aunts have chosen to go on mood stabilizers because it makes their lives more enjoyable to live without the riding the emotional ups and downs. Which yes, many of us experience hormonal based emotional roller coasters that dictate whether or not we're capable of experiencing positive or negative emotions but those symptoms are so mild that they are not considered diagnose-able.

Where as pawpaw (who was diagnosed) had huge mood swings that would leave him so manic he destroyed the brick divider wall in their kitchen to open the space up one random day, followed by a week where he wouldn't even sit up in bed to take a sip of water. His children's experiences were more periods of increased confidence followed by periods of malaise.

The criteria for having a condition diagnosed is that it has to cause persistent and significant interference with your ability to live your life.

Now if you've followed me through that rant then listen to this one. Tiktok (and i am not advocating for that app lets keep it neutral) by it's very nature is an app that relies on quick reading and comprehension. Those videos aren't going to hold you're hand through explaining what they mean, you just need to figure it the fuck out using things like common sense.

So if you see a video where an autistic person is sharing the less irritating and sort of funny trait of their condition and it's something that "everybody experiences" or something that's totally "not" a symptoms of autism, maybe instead of immediately rolling your eyes at it why don't you take a minute to ask yourself if it actually is tho?

like sure not everyone who puts on music while they clean has autism, but ask yourself what if that trait did fit the diagnostic criteria, what would that look like? Because for me it meant that I literally got fired for a cleaning service job for smuggling my phone with me because despite being very competent at cleaning I physically could not do it without listening to music. I'm not talking about it was too boring or I just had a bad time at it. I mean I literally forgot how to clean a toilet and ended up having a crying meltdown at lunch after only getting through two rooms because I needed my music in order for my brain to function properly. I'd call that having a significant effect on my ability to live my life.

Maybe not everyone who has a specific hobby they keep up with for years is autistic, but the people whose hobbies consume them, leaving room for less of other experiences in their lives? the ones who buy too much merch and watch the content over and over and don't pick up new material? the ones who maladaptive daydream to the point of it interrupting their real life experiences, or have periods where they actually wish they could think about anything else? And also maybe the same kinds of fandoms attract those autistic people.

so next time you see a video about "if you were obsessed with these fandoms growing up then you might be autistic" maybe think about what the word obsessed might mean to an autistic person (whose has very literal and black and white thinking). Because assuming that they mean the most bland fucking vague horoscope version of a behavior or experience they're describing is exactly where you'll go wrong.

Btw, this is a good scale to use when wondering if you should get something mental or physical diagnosed.

[vtforpedro]

LONG POST, medical update. ptsd, suicide TW: I’m really tired. I feel like I’ve been saying that for a year but I am exhausted. mind, body and soul exhausted my head got better after I lost the water weight my chemo pill was packing on (I was 15lbs lighter than the three weeks previously. so it was pretty bad lol) but now it’s getting bad again. it never gets to the point of relief, but it gets manageable and now it’s becoming unmanageable again. it’s not water weight but it might be cause I’ve put on a couple pounds over the holidays (just barely a couple pounds, I’m eating much lighter in general) anyway I don’t see the point of being scared to name what it is my neurosurgeon and I believe this is anymore. my psychiatrist thinks it makes sense, my pcp, even the ER doctor I saw on dec. 2nd lol but I am 99.9% sure this is what I have and it does makes sense but every fucking time I think about it for a while it makes me so angry. so so so angry y’all. I wish I could sit every single medical professional I interacted with over the last year or so who didn’t believe me and tell them it’s all been real, they failed me to such a degree I have ptsd and anger problems that I’m going to need therapy for, and tell them to learn how to be better providers. blegh so I saw my neurosurgeon (one of the best in the country) for the first time in april. his thoughts? anxiety with muscle tension in my back and neck that led to tension in my head. as in the muscles around my bones, not inside of my skull. didn’t listen to me or believe me, thought all my crazy symptoms were just anxiety and possibly the chiari malformation but there’s no treatment for that beyond surgery and mine is so mild no one wants to go that route (me most of all lmao) I put off seeing him again because I saw different neurologists and my PCP over the months who basically all said the same thing. like my PCP believed me and gave me referrals to the neuros, but one told me to ‘stop worrying about this and just enjoy life’ and the other sat with me for an hour, the first half of which she was all on board the ‘anxiety is fucking with you, none of this is real’ train until I had to tell her to LISTEN TO MY SYMPTOMS firmly enough that she did. she went the opposite way then and said yeah ok something ‘mechanical’ is happening, you need to go back to a neurosurgeon. turned out she loves the neurosurgeon I saw in april (worship the ground he walks on, were her words) but told me maybe I still needed a second opinion. she did also mention that I’ve been living with this for so long that I’m ‘married to it now’ which still implies I’m making it worse than it actually is but :) whatever, she couldn’t think of what it could be decided to just go back to that neurosurgeon and tell him the physical therapy he prescribed in april I had to stop because it made things worse. his PA tried to prescribe me more PT on the phone before I firmly told her I needed to SPEAK with him face to face because my quality of life is gone, because I get close to killing myself weekly because of how bad this is and nothing has improved since april. only gotten worse. so I had my appt with him in late October I think? I explained all of my symptoms (again) and told him how nothing has changed, things have gotten worse, when I do x y z I have an episode, etc etc. he said he still doesn’t think it’s the chiari but he said it *might* be IIH idiopathic intracranial hypertension first time I’ve ever heard of it and even though it was over 11 months into this, it might just save my life now that I have idiopathic = we don’t fucking know why this happens, intracranial = HAPPENING IN MY SKULL AND BRAIN, hypertension = technically high blood pressure, but for here just high pressure cause my BP is good it is rare, it is unknown why people get it and why others don’t, it is most common in women of child bearing age who are obese. the thought is that the weight on the body causes the brain to very slightly inflate, decreasing spinal fluid flow and increasing pressure in the brain, sometimes CAUSING a chiari malformation to appear, which can cause other symptoms on top of IIH it used to be called pseudotumor cerebri because IIH makes the brain behave like it has a tumor while no tumor is actually present (which means normal MRI/CT scans and the main reason everyone told me I was faking it) I gained 80lbs in less than two years due to severe depression and ptsd. I’ve been at the same weight for almost two years now and was at that weight in Feb 2019 before things started happening in Dec 2019. sometimes it does just come on one day. it can be chronic, it can randomly go into remission and come back, and they have no idea why it even happens. it’s rare enough that no neurologist I saw could even think of it. rare enough that one of the best neurosurgeons in the country didn’t think of it until he decided he believed me lol he leans even more heavily into this because I gained weight so quickly (one of the hallmarks of getting IIH) and I had not a single symptom like it before the weight gain I don’t trust anything or anyone right now and I am extremely pessimistic and have no hope. but the one thing that’s given me a little hope, that’s made me believe this is what I have, is the fucking wikipedia page on IIH. it lists one specific symptom that I’ve seen nowhere else (and is EXTREMELY specific lmao) that I have and that everyone thought I was crazy explaining. beyond destroying your quality of life, the one thing IIH can do is cause permanent blindness. I’ve had a fuck ton of problems with my vision since this all started happening. one of the worst is that if I’m in the middle of an episode and I look up or to the left, it makes it h u r t and makes the episode worse. which is on the wikipedia page! which explains why I couldn’t fucking do EMDR therapy which involves rapid eye movement from side to side :) :) :) even my therapist was thinking this was all in my head and I was just letting my anxiety tell me EMDR would send my head into an episode instead of it actually happening lmaaaao god I am so angry y’all my mom and my uncle The Doctor wanted to commit me in March/April. I had an entire ER nurses station mock me for ten minutes for coming in repeatedly and having bizarre symptoms that, because they were unexplained, they thought I was faking. they belittled me when talking to me. one put the tv remote (no tv in the room) instead of the call button in my hand when I was too out of it to notice. the ER doctor that day told me I was making up a story, none of this was real, and to continue seeing my psychiatrist. I went home that day, told my mom I was fine for her to go back to work (she was angry with me and wanted me to go to a psychiatric hospital), took a shower and planned on swallowing a bottle of pills. I was in agony, utter agony, every single day multiple times a day I thought I was going to die, and it was being made clear to me that no one, not even my mom, believed me. I told my best friend and she talked me out of it, but I came very close and I will forever be heartbroken and angry beyond belief about this (my mom came around not long after this after seeing that this wasn’t going away and has thoroughly apologized for wanting to commit me. she has been helping me every single day since this started even tho she thought it was anxiety. I’m angry but I don’t hold it against her, not after the incredible sacrifices she’s made for me for a year) so yeah. every bizarre symptom, every agonizing thing I go through, the weird discomfort, pain and burning, vision problems, etc etc, all explained by IIH. the very specific ‘looking in a certain direction makes it worse’ has been there since day one. it’s because pressure has increased on the nerve behind my eyes so looking in a certain way aggravates the affected nerve further gaining all that water weight and having my head get so so so severe, enough to send me to the ER again, made me also think this was a real possibility and the ER doc agreed that the fluid retention was making pressure in my brain even more severe and it did ease quite a lot once that was all gone, another reason I believe this is IIH if you read up on IIH or read stories by people with it, it is life altering, debilitating, and agonizing to live with. most people will also have the same story of doctors not believing them and saying it was anxiety before getting this diagnosis the good thing? there’s a cure and while some people may need additional help later on, it works for most people. and it is, very simply, losing weight. 10-20% of body weight (some places say relief can start at just 3%) seems to completely cure it for most people because the brain is no longer inflated and because of that, any chiari malformation (cerebral tonsils sitting in the spinal cord opening) will actually go away, because it makes room in the skull for the tonsils to go back to their normal place I have some trouble knowing that I am partially at fault for gaining weight like I did, but my mom keeps telling me it’s so rare and how could I have possibly known and it was after severe trauma so. trying to deal with that too lol but yeah! weight loss journey. my chemo pill, if you read my last update, completely fucked me up for a while (including the fuckin weight gain despite a low calorie, low fat diet since like nov 1st) so it’s made it hard to lose weight. but now that I’m off of that pill, I’m down 7lbs and I will continue to lose. I have never been more motivated in my life to lose weight lmao and I’ve successfully done it before! I can’t exercise but my neurosurgeon said as the weight comes off and my symptoms start getting better, I will probably be able to incorporate more movement in my life. I can’t even walk around my apt for too long right now cause it builds pressure in my brain. it fucking sucks because this is something they don’t understand, it’s really only diagnosed if everything else has been ruled out (and with a lumbar puncture, but I am too fucking traumatized to have that done. but if I showed high pressure with no reason for it, it would be an ‘official’ IIH diagnosis). but I’m choosing not to do the LP because if I start to have my symptoms relieved as I lose weight, it’s pretty obvious that’s what this has been from the start my brain thinks it has a brain tumor and is going absolutely batshit insane and no matter how much I tried to get people to believe me, it took 11 months to get there. I will carry this with me for the rest of my life and once covid eases, I’m finding a good trauma therapist and working through this if my symptoms DON’T ease, we’ll talk brain surgery. but I think this is what I have and I think I’ll be okay when I lose enough weight (and I’ll feel better all around lol) anyway I’ve had an extremely bad couple of months and I wanted to get this off my chest, sorry it’s so long. if you can please, please, please cross your fingers for me and wish me luck that this is what it is and that over the next handful of months I lose the weight and get my life back, I will appreciate it more than I can say I’m going to thank all of you ahead of time because I lack spoons to reply right now and I also want to thank you all for your support over this last year and never doubting me. for always offering me words of encouragement and for being angry on my behalf. thank you thank you thank you I love you all <3

[mcrmadness]

CW dental stuff:

Still 1,5 weeks to go until I get to go to the dentist. So weird to say that I can't wait for that, I am quite afraid of dentists to be honest and now I can't wait??? But I guess even that is better than living with a mouth like this.

I just keep having anxiety attacks every day. They change from just regular sensory overloads to health anxiety which pretty much looks like “OMFG what if it’s something serious and I’m gonna die now???” and I just want this done asap, but still have to wait 1,5 weeks and it’s not over then. Pretty sure it will be painful for a few days after that before it calms down again and then I need to go to the dentist one more time, because it’s root canal therapy I’m going to get.

Also, there’s cavities on a few teeth and those need to be done too but those are not that bad. I’m just wondering how I’m gonna eat and what if she does both at once, or maybe I’ll ask for her to do the right side on the second appointment as these others are not really bothering me but just that one root canal therapy tooth (at the left side) is. Right now I was just minding my own business and doing things and suddenly I had this anxiety attack because I “didn’t remember to worry about my tooth enough”. Like, fuck you, brain! I was finally being distracted from it after having anxiety attack and then you go like “WAIT the TOOTH!!!” I actually try to distract myself from it so that the time would go faster and April 13th would be here finally.

The tooth itself isn’t really painful unless I touch it with my tongue more, mainly I just can feel it existing and it keeps sending some sensations to my lower jaw (it’s an upper jaw tooth) and sometimes I can feel that in my cheek bone too and that’s what gives me those anxiety attacks. The lower jaw then gives me sensory overload.

Right now I’m also feeling extremely tired. I showered today at least but I also really meant to cook for myself but it’s almost midnight and I just feel so exhausted. I really need some food tho so maybe I try to do that anyway, it won’t take TOO long to be finished, after all... I also feel a bit dizzy? Like I was sitting on a boat. That is often caused either by oncoming migraine or stiff neck. Or maybe it’s just anxiety and me being lightheaded.

Gosh, every day really is like torture now. But it’s my brain that is torturing me, mentally. Now also my dreams from last night are coming back, I don’t remember much anything from those but I just remember there was some bathroom pipe leaking and it was giving me anxiety because I’m ACTUALLY afraid of water flow that I cannot control, like a pipe breaking down or something like that.

I think I’m just tired and should go to sleep - but: I still need food. Not eating anything but bread (and a can of tuna) in 4 days is not good at my mental health at all, but it’s just so damn difficult to get myself to do anything right now. This is also what’s giving me anxiety. I don’t know if I’m so tired because of anxiety or because there’s something off in my system. Like, I keep worrying that I’m sick and that I don’t know it because I don’t feel sick at all. Sometimes I also worry if these are “post-covid symtpoms” altho I’ve never even had covid. I’ve never had any covid symptoms. Last time I had a common flu was in 2017. *knocks on wood*

Maybe I should actually do what I have been meaning to do for a few weeks now and stay overnight at my parents’ place at some point. Maybe even this weekend. Then I would only have 1 week left, and after that therapy on Monday, and finally the dentist’s appointment on Tuesday. I really try to survive until that because she seemed like a nice dentists and I don’t want to cancel it and try to find another dentist when the appointment is ALMOST here already.

It’s just weird how I keep having major mood swings and it can change in matter of seconds. I can be extremely happy about everything and the next moment I’m rolling in anxiety and texting my mom about how I might come over at night. Then I don’t because it goes away and I go to sleep. I’ve also been really excited because finally I’m gonna get this tooth fixed and when the root canal therapies are over, HOPEFULLY I don’t need to do anything about that anymore. I mean, I have been living with a temporary patch since 2017. I haven’t really used the left side of my mouth for eating since my tooth started hurting for the first time in... maybe 2015 or something like that. I don’t even remember when was it but I literally have been chewing everything mainly on the right side of my mouth for FIVE YEARS. And I have constantly been thinking about how I wish this was fixed already but didn’t want to go to a dentist because I was afraid they’re gonna say it needs to be removed. I’m actually still worried that they’d say that, and the longer it took me to book another appointment, the bigger the fear grew. I was so afraid that I took so long with all and that it needs to come out and if I just went to a dentist earlier, it could have been saved. Fortunately it seems that the canal root therapy is possible so I don’t need to worry, but I still worry about what are they gonna find from inside that tooth. I’m not a dentist so I’m afraid of everything because I don’t know anything about anything. But I guess it’s still empty because the temporary patch is still there and it apparently was empty in the röngten images...

But yeah, some days I’m just so excited that maybe after a month or so, I can finally use my mouth’s left side for chewing and I don’t need to worry about a patch coming off anymore. And hopefully all the sensations and mild “pain” after cold or hot foods or liquids will be over. At this point 1,5 weeks just feels like another 5 years.

[ceyrann]

THANK YOU SO MUCH 😭😭😭

I’m putting a break thingy here cuz don’t wanna spam y’alls timeline with my problem hhhh but if y’all are interested in my Pain then help yourself lol

Well I've actually consulted two diff docs and both docs said that there's possibilities for both cases. I had to go to the doctors cuz my pain was... Pretty much unbearable. I'd say it's worse than my menstrual cramps cuz I know those usually amplifies my pain and makes me more emotional. But this. This pain literally gave me a fever. I had to wrap myself in three layers of blanket in Malaysia's weather without the a/c on lol.

The entire thing (pAIN) started on Thursday when I had pain on my right abdomen. It's like mid to lower part of the abdomen and it was at work. I noticed the pain and I had to bend and walk and it was Not Nice. The pain kinda increased and went on. I told my mom I may need to go to the hospital to check up cuz the pain was not leaving. I didn't want to take painkillers too cuz the doc would need to know where and why and all that stuffs.

First doc I went to on Friday was our company's panel clinic doc (my company only accepts MCs from panels and govt clinics which... sucks. Welp.) Did urine test there and doc said there are traces of blood detected, which was why he suspected it was mild case of kidney stone. So he gave me sachets of RO and some medication to... Dissolve? The kidney stone? As well as some painkillers and antibiotics and other medications.

Second doc I went to is a surgeon in a private hospital (on Saturday) cuz people around my mom keep saying that my symptoms are very much like appendicitis and it doesn't hurt to get a second opinion. But because I've taken painkillers, this doc is unable to properly gauge the area of my pain (tho it's still on the lower right side). He mentioned that it may be a case of kidney stone or appendicitis. But either way, he prescribed me with stronger antibiotics and told me to take those instead. And then go back on Friday for check up again.

The head nurse of that private hospital told us that the antibiotics are bound to work cuz those are the strongest in that hospital. The pain is supposed to subside and the inflammation should go down. But, if it's really appendicitis, the pain will return some day and then it would be confirmed that it really is that problem.

It's now Sunday night. I'm now able to walk with my back straight and able to carry stuffs. Which means I gotta go back to work tomorrow (which mentally and emotionally drains me lot cuz first, I don't like it there now and second, I have a gut feeling that my manager is upset with me, no idea if it's over my work performance or health problem or what not. whatever lol). Tho it’s generally under... control,,, it’s very situational. This morning it kinda hurt but in the afternoon I was fine. Now as I prepare for bed the pain came back but it’s more like a muscle cramp kinda feeling so... idk anymore tbh. Generally feeling nauseated throughout the day tho.

So yeah! This is my entire situation for now!

BUT FOR REAL THO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR EXPLANATION AND HELP @rattaemin I REALLY APPRECIATE IT NOW I HAVE A CLEARER PICTURE AND KNOW WHAT TO ASK THE DOCS NEXT TIME INSTEAD OF BEING LIKE A DAMN FAWN WITH THE HEADLIGHTS FLASHING ON ME (can’t blame me cuz i was in pain lol)

Hello science side of Tumblr, I have questions:

What are the methods to check for appendicitis and what's the difference between the symptoms of it with kidney stone pain?

[cookinguptales]

I could probably write a thousand posts about how terrible American cops are wrt disability, and how cops are trained to read disabled behavior as “erratic behavior” that should be addressed with lethal force.

BUT INSTEAD I’M GONNA WRITE ABOUT SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETERS.

I mentioned this briefly a little while ago, but I grew up in a pretty abusive household. My younger sister was a little monster, and for a long time, no one would believe me when I tried to tell them she was hurting me. Because she was younger than me. Smaller than me. Deaf. My sister, like many other members of my family, has a hearing disability. (To my knowledge, none of them choose to identify as Deaf and some specifically don’t, so I’m just gonna stick with deaf.) And growing up with a sibling who left me bloody and bruised all the time taught me something important: our society has very few resources for violent PWD.

Now, my sister probably did have a lot of anger in her because of her disability (though that part is probably her story to tell rather than mine) and she did eventually get diagnosed with some sort of mental illness. But deafness doesn’t make a person violent, and mental illness isn’t an excuse for it. Like hell, I’m disabled and mentally ill and I never hit my sister with a metal baseball bat.

What is true, though, is when you have a deaf family member who is violent, there just aren’t as many treatment resources. Therapists who can sign are few on the ground, and therapists who will cooperate with interpreters (and interpreting requests) aren’t as common as they should be. (Plus, therapy with an interpreter really is more difficult for the patient; you never really get to be alone with the doctor.) Many of the treatment centers who help families deal with “troubled children” don’t take deaf patients. Honestly, most treatment options (and believe me, my parents looked and looked and looked) just aren’t available to children with special needs. The ones that are are often too expensive for families to seriously consider.

And cops, as I later learned, don’t bring interpreters.

My sister got worse over time, you see. The baseball bat wasn’t the worst thing she did to me. And when we were young, she mostly focused on me -- but as she got older, I learned how to get out of her path of destruction and she started hurting other people. My parents started calling the police on her to deal with domestic disturbances fairly often. There was a period there where the police were coming to our house every week or two. (Generally because my sister had straight-up tried to kill one of us or something. You know, mild stuff.) It was a pretty small police department. The same damn guys came to our house every time. They knew exactly who we were and what the situation was in our house.

And they never. Brought. An interpreter.

Now here’s what you need to know about sign language interpreters. Legally speaking, they’re supposed to be supplied by the business/service, not the consumer. Often, interpreters will refuse to be hired by an individual consumer because they want to protect the standard set by the ADA that the business/service must supply the interpreter. The school provides the interpreter. The doctor provides the interpreter. The lawyer provides the interpreter. The cops provide the interpreter. Or they’re supposed to!

These cops never did. They never did much to help us, either, but I guess that’s a separate issue. (Or maybe it’s not. Maybe they didn’t want to deal with a deaf kid in the system and that’s why they never took her into custody and wouldn’t let us press charges. She got Baker Acted a few times, like when the cops had to physically restrain her, but that’s about the extent of it.) And here’s the thing. Here’s the big problem with them refusing to bring a goddamn interpreter literally ever. It meant that they ended up asking us to interpret.

Think about that for a second. These cops regularly asked the victims of violent assault (and the people who reported that violent assault) to interpret for the person who assaulted them. It wasn’t fair to us to put us in a room with someone who’d hurt us and was usually still screaming about how she still wanted to. (idk if the cops could always understand her when she talked; I could, but I mean, I grew up with her. They learned to recognize the profanity tho, lmao.) And you know what? As much as I hate her, it wasn’t fair to her, either. We could have lied. We could have framed her. We could have misrepresented her statements as a result of our own trauma. Who’s to know? We certainly weren’t impartial. It’s hard to be after someone puts their hands around your throat. And we were usually crying and stuff. The whole situation was emotionally exhausting. My sister has always been terrifying when she’s angry, and no one likes calling the cops on their own family. Like we were not good interpreters at that point. lol

Now, I’m not gonna say that my sister wouldn’t have grown up to be the violent asshole she was if she’d been able to get proper treatment as a kid. I don’t know that. It’s possible, I guess. I hear she’s doing better now, though now that we’re both adults, I try to limit our interactions. I do know that I would have been hurt a lot less often as a kid if we’d had more treatment options. I would have spent less of my life living in fear, and I’d probably have fewer symptoms of trauma now. If she couldn’t have been cured, maybe she at least could have been contained. (That sounds horrible to say, but you try living with someone trying to kill you for fifteen years. You won’t care where they go as long as it’s away from you.) And honestly, my experience with my sister speaks to a lot of problems we have with our justice system, too. Our justice system just isn’t designed to accommodate people with disabilities and special needs. Cops shoot autistic people and show up to household disputes with no goddamn interpreter. They aren’t trained and they aren’t held accountable, and that puts PWD like us in danger. I can look at this situation as someone who felt disenfranchised as a victim, but also as a person with a disability who might find myself on the other end of police disinterest one day.

Like, look. I have a physical disability and a mental illness. I hate the stereotype of the violent disabled person as much as anyone. But sometimes PWD really are violent, and for all the horror stories we have about ~scary disabled people~, we actually have very few institutional protections in place for when something like that happens. We don’t train cops or hold them to acceptable standards. We don’t have interpreters on staff or fully accessible facilities. We don’t have treatment programs for PWD that might stop the problems before they become too bad. We don’t always have ways for PWD to be heard if they’re being abused -- or if they’re worrying that they might be the abuser. And we have a lot of cultural stereotypes about disability that we need to unpack. God knows I had trouble convincing people that I had a sister who was deaf and violent, and that the two were unrelated.

I don’t talk to my sister anymore, not unless I have to. Most days I kind of try to pretend I’m an only child. I’m not sure I have a single good memory of her from our childhood. Even the peaceful moments were tense; her mood could turn on a dime and I was always scared of a potential blow up. I still kind of am. These days, I wish her all the best in her recovery -- as long as it happens far away from me. My childhood was already ruined. So was hers. I hope we move forward and increase both accessibility and specialty treatment options so other children don’t have the same fate.

[self-doom-blog]

Chapter 1. "Doom"

noun.  Death, destruction, or some other terrible fate.

verb.  Condemn to certain destruction or death.

First of all, I’d like to say that most of the times I will not use my own words for what I’m about write on this blog, I have a really hard time trying to express myself and since I’ve never ever written or wrote before, I’ll be using a little help from quotes, songs, books, etc… -A

It’s so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself sometimes. I’m a mentally ill person, I’m suicidal, although it’s been years that I haven’t tried to kill myself, but you know… I'ts always on my mind, like a “plan B” if things ever go wrong. I’m considering suicide like ‘this is normal’.

Thinking this again... I'm not suicidal, but if a car came while I was crossing the street, I don't think I would move out of its way. And if someone held a gun to my head, I wouldn't exactly beg for my life. In fact, I'd tell them to go for it. No, I'm not suicidal. But if I had an opportunity to die without having to kill myself, I'd probably take it.

I don’t like being this way, it’s scary. I never choose to be this way but this is how I am. And this is my journey.

I’m 22. Self diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.

I bet that sound crazy. I know I’m no doctor to do so. Sometimes I feel like I have something more, sometimes I feel like having a much more deeper mental illness or maybe I have nothing at all… Who knows? In my life I have only attended to 3 different psychologists in life for behavior and mood problems. Did it help? No… I’m not saying seeking this kind of help is useless, it just didn’t work for me.

For introducing myself, I come from a very average family. Never suffered hunger, money was never a problem and I have always attended to private schools. There’s nothing wrong where I come from, I don’t blame anyone for my situation / condition. Right now I study medicine at a private university. I want to become a surgeon, a plastic surgeon to be more specific, my second option is being a psychiatrist.

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, I live alone. I like that. I’m always on my laptop, doing absolutely nothing but listening to music. I do that 24/7. It’s like a therapy for me, I like rock, I am of those persons who likes ‘classic’ known bands such as  Queen, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, David Bowie… I have a very extended taste in music, I enjoy anything that comes from the 60′s to 90′s, from country to heavy metal. I like songs for their lyrics more than for the rhythm. I don’t like today’s music, they only sing about butts, alcohol, women, partying, drugs, cars, money… I find it disgusting, boring and sometimes even repulsive. The point is that I spend a lot of time in iTunes, I don’t do anything else, I sing, I think, I sing, I think, I sing, I think… that’s the routine. Sometimes I isolate myself like ‘how am I going to avoid everyone today’. I have a secret tho. I talk alone. Like a schizophrenic person… but I know that I talk alone, I mean, I know there’s no one there. I do not confuse what’s real and what’s not. I just talk like there’s someone there to talk to, actually is like a group of people in my house. Yeah, like talking to imaginary friends, but I repeat, I know I am talking alone. Do I have real friends? Yes. I have 5 real friends, those kind of friends that are trustworthy. I don’t have ‘’part time friends’’ or ‘’party-only friends’’ or ‘’side friends’’ or whatever, you know… those extra friends. The 5 friends that I mention are beautiful people, they have never showed me disrespect of any kind, they help me with whatever I need, they guide me when I don’t know what to do, they help me with homework and with university stuff and so much more things. I prefer being with real people more than talking with my “extended personalities” (talking alone). When I’m talking alone I create different persons along with their personalities, I like to think that are just extensions of my own personality, like the person I cannot be, or the person I would like to be; for example, some of them are shy, they can be extrovert, they can be sarcastic and rude or they can be clownish and I create an image for each. I have never tell this to any doctor or psychologist and I have never been to a psychiatrist, for fear, like they can make me take pills or stay in a mental ward for sure. I know how it works. But as long as I think I’m sane I will keep it for myself. And does my family know about this ‘’extended personalities’’? No. I think they have heard me talking alone but I don’t think they find it alarming, because some people think out loud or talk to themselves… And I have said this to them, that sometimes I talk to myself… but not in the way I really do, that consist of creating various personas.

And I walk around in a dissociated state, not remember what I've done each day thinking 'it must be Halloween soon' even though its April.

Why am I writing this? The answer is simple. Sometimes I feel like taking out all this emotions in someway and this is it. 

I think this was just a little introduction for who I think I am. As the time passes I’ll write about my past, my thoughts, my everyday life, along with memories that comes to my mind at the moments. You’ll get to know me slowly.

You don’t understand? Trying to explain mental illness to someone who's never experienced it is like trying to explain color to a blind person.

If you want to read what Borderline Personality Disorder is like, here you go. This is how I feel, is pretty accurate for me.

***Borderline personality disorder (BPD)***

Pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by impulsivity, unstable affect, inconsistent interpersonal relationships and poor self-image. Some individuals also display uncontrollable anger and depression. Symptoms include intense fears of abandonment, sensitivity to feelings of rejection, and irritability of vague or uncertain origin. They often engage in idealization and devaluation of others, alternating between high positive regard and great disappointment.

Self-harm, suicidal behavior, and substance abuse are commonly associated.

.SYMPTOMS.

-Splitting (thinking in extremes) -Chaos in relationships -Markedly disturbed sense of identity -Intense or uncontrollable emotional outbursts -Unstable interpersonal relationships and self-esteem -Concerns about abandonment -Self-damaging behavior -Distorted self-image -Impulsivity -Frequently accompanied by depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse, or rage.

.EMOTIONS.

Feel emotions more easily, more deeply, and longer than others. In addition, emotions may repeatedly resurge and persist a long time. Consequently, it may take more time for people with BPD than others to return to a stable emotional baseline following an intense emotional experience.

The sensitivity, intensity, and duration with which people feel emotions have both positive and negative effects. People with BPD are often exceptionally enthusiastic, idealistic, joyful, and loving. However, they may feel overwhelmed by negative emotions (“anxiety, depression, guilt/shame, worry, anger, etc.”), experiencing intense grief instead of sadness, shame and humiliation instead of mild embarrassment, rage instead of annoyance, and panic instead of nervousness. They are especially sensitive to feelings of rejection, criticism, isolation, and perceived failure. Before learning other coping mechanisms, their efforts to manage or escape from their very negative emotions may lead to self-injury or suicidal behavior. They are often aware of the intensity of their negative emotional reactions and, since they cannot regulate them, they shut them down entirely. This can be harmful to people with BPD, since negative emotions alert people to the presence of a problematic situation and move them to address it which the person would normally be aware of only to cause further distress.

While people with BPD feel joy intensely, they are especially prone to dysphoria, depression, and/or feelings of mental and emotional distress.

There are 4 categories of dysphoria that are typical of this condition:

1.- Extreme emotions

2.- Destructiveness or self-destructiveness

3.- Feeling fragmented or lacking identity

4.- Feelings of victimization

Within these categories, a BPD diagnosis is strongly associated with a combination of three specific states: feeling betrayed, “feeling like hurting myself”, and feeling out of control.

In addition to intense emotions, people with BPD experience emotional lability; or in other words, changeability. Although the term emotional lability suggests rapid changes between depression and elation, the mood swings in people with this condition actually fluctuate more frequently between anger and anxiety and between depression and anxiety.

.BEHAVIOR.

Impulsive behavior is common, including substance or alcohol abuse, eating disorders, unprotected sex or indiscriminate sex with multiple partners, reckless spending, and reckless driving. Impulsive behavior may also include leaving jobs or relationships, running away, and self-injury.

People with BPD act impulsively because it gives them immediate relief from their emotional pain. However, in the long term, people with BPD suffer increased pain from the shame and guilt that follow such actions. A cycle often begins in which people feel emotional pain, engage in impulsive behavior to relieve that pain, feel shame and guilt over their actions, feel emotional pain from the shame and guilt, and then experience stronger urges to engage in impulsive behavior to relieve the new pain.

As time goes on, impulsive behavior may become an automatic response to emotional pain.

.RELATIONSHIPS.

Their feelings about others often shift from admiration or love to anger or dislike after a disappointment, a perceived threat of losing someone, or a perceived loss of esteem in the eyes of someone they value.

This phenomenon, sometimes called splitting, includes a shift from idealizing others to devaluing them. Combined with mood disturbances, idealization and devaluation can undermine relationships with family, friends, and co-workers. Self-image can also change rapidly from healthy to unhealthy.

While strongly desiring intimacy, they tend toward insecure, avoidant or ambivalent, or fearfully preoccupied attachment patterns in relationships, and they often view the world as dangerous and malevolent. BPD, like other personality disorders, is linked to increased levels of chronic stress and conflict in romantic relationships, decreased satisfaction on the part of romantic partners, abuse, and unwanted pregnancy.

.SENSE OF SELF.

Tend to have trouble seeing a clear picture of their identity. In particular, they tend to have difficulty knowing what they value, believe, prefer, and enjoy. They are often unsure about their long-term goals for relationships and jobs. This difficulty with knowing who they are and what they value can cause to experience feeling “empty” and “lost”.

[mcrmadness]

Anxiety stuff. I just need to vent in order to calm down so don't mind about me here venting. (And just a draft doesn't feel the same, I need this OUT of my system, scream it into the void.)

I don't know what is it with my body/mind now but I'm extremely tired of whatever it is. I don't like it at all and it reminds me of the anxiety phases I have had in the past and that always gives me even more anxiety because those times have been some of the worst experiences of my life.

Currently I can't sleep. Because my heart keeps beating so hard? Like not really faster, just so hard that it feels like it's shaking my whole body. If I try to breathe long and deep, I feel like suffocating and my breathing is slightly broken(?) because the pulse feels like it punching me in the stomach meanwhile. Nothing hurts and I'm not out of breath, I'm just so sensitive to any sensation of my body that it makes me easily overwhelmed. I tried sleeping but the heart distracts me from that too much. I tried listening to a nature document meanwhile but nothing.

I'm also shaking a little. This is where the anxiety steps in. This heart beating and shaky feels happen sometimes when I eat and the blood sugar levels go up too high. I just ate about 1-2h ago so it maybe was just that. I'm currently sitting on my sofa and rocking myself back and forth which often also helps me to calm myself down and I'm already feeling better. Still I put some rye bread in the toaster, I'm not really even hungry but sometimes ALSO low blood sugar level does this same thing! In the past I have had very wild fear of low blood sugar and I have often eaten for anxiety because I cannot stand the psychosomatic symptoms of anxiety AT ALL so my first instinct was always: eat, in case it's low blood sugar and ice often had trouble telling those symptoms apart from each other.

However, I think the shaky feels are from migraine. I had quite a strong one yesterday. I had stayed up almost 24 hours, didn't drink any tea in that time and slept very weird hours and woke up at 10pm on Friday night. I already had a headache that later either turned or revealed itself to be migraine instead. I took painkillers at night but I still had mild headache but strong neck muscle pain all the way to the morning. I couldn't take another painkiller yet but went to sleep instead. I could fall asleep and slept pretty okay, on my sofa tho. The whole day after that I had this post-migraine zombie feel. Where anything physical feels bad in the neck and head and causes mild nausea. Certain posture in the neck still feels slightly painful. But I didn't have any proper headache anymore so I didn't take painkillers. It's nothing new that I feel this shaky the whole day after migraine, especially after such strong migraines. It's just my health anxiety and my tendency to become overwhelmed and overstimulated by such things that then make me to want to do nothing else but sleep, but I can't sleep because I'm so severely overstimulated. Both tire me out until I basically pass out from exhaustion.

Anxiety is not neat, especially not on worse days. I don't know what's causing this now. The days that are getting logger? Usually spring is my time and I become energetic. This year it apparently means I have so much energy I'm almost maniac and my brain doesn't care about time nor light but basically refuses to sleep more than every other night/day. And it's exhausting too. I haven't been out since last Sunday. And now is yet another Sunday morning. We're supposed to go to the supermarket today. I've been hyperfixating on creative stuff and haven't showered since Wednesday. I stink awful.

Last week I was stupid and decided to cook before doing the dishes - "I'll do them once I've eaten." WRONG. I never do the dishes after eating and cooking. Brain says "we don't need the sinks nor the dishes in next 2 weeks, no need to worry about them until that :)" Usually I do the dishes because I need SPACE. And utensils. That day I had enough of both. And this is always the result and I never learn. Now my sink is full of stuff, I have one clean plate in the cupboard and no clean utensils left. I'm too tired to take care of them and my brain is overjoyed when I can tell myself "I don't need to do them now because I've had migraine and I deserve rest." because it's a good excuse, no need to feel bad for procrastinating. Usually everything is "oh and I SHOULD do this and this and this"...

I think I feel physically awful also because migraine just affects the whole body. My neck muscles still feel awful. It's hard to explain. During migraine they basically feel like they'd suddenly start sinking in size but they're still attached to the rest of my body so it feels like the muscle would be pulled to every direction possible. And after that you feel liike you'd have spent a day in those torture machines where they stretch yours arms. Sometimes feeling sore, but usually just plain stiff. Like the whole body feels like it has turned into stone. No wonder why I feel like I can't get air from ny heart beating against my lungs if all my muscles are so stiff they're hard like stone and can't relax even that much that air could have enough space to move between my lungs and mouth/nose.

I think the heart beating was actually just high blood sugar. It's back to normal now aka I can barely feel it which is good. My neck still feels awful but I'll try to get some sleep soon. I'm starting to feel tired finally, too.

I have therapy on Monday. I hope I somehow get more sleep than just two hours before that.