walleffect

[walleffect]

i would honestly rather be called a slur than "neurospicy"

[walleffect]

depression is a serious medical condition actually

day 7876 of being annoyed that "mental health advocates" made depression and anxiety the "normal" mental illnesses- probably because it's easy to simplify them down to feeling "sad" or "scared".

A lot of the time, mental health advocacy takes the form of teenagers on the internet joking about their experiences or well-meaning people trying to explain conditions they don't have, but I'd honestly rather they didn't at this point.

It took me nearly dying from an overdose to realize that this condition that I'd been diagnosed with isn't a joke.

I have this memory of the night I got discharged from the hospital, staring at my last blood tests results, trying to listen to the ER doctor as he told me that he wanted me to come back here before I try to hurt myself again. I remember telling him that I felt like this whole thing was just me making a big deal out of nothing because I genuinely believed, at the time, that depression wasn't a big deal, that I needed a more debilitating set of symptoms to actually call myself ill.

He told me that he didn't care if it wasn't a big deal to me, but it was his job to make sure that I didn't die. It took a couple of days, but it sunk in.

The problem with most mental health advocacy these days is that it quite frankly trivializes depression. That word has a specific medical meaning, it's not something that should be taken lightly, and I hate that it's suddenly become normal for people to just take these medical words and use them with no regard for the weight they hold.

There's a broader point here about people bringing therapy speak into everyday language and how it erodes and invalidates the seriousness of what said words imply, but I'll let someone else make it.

[walleffect]

about me:

You may call me Abby!

I'm 21 years old.

I use she/her pronouns.

I'm bi and (probably) ace, but I don't care much for labels online.

When I'm not online, my interests include reading, baking, painting & sketching, writing, and going on walks.

I'm a huge coffee nerd, and my favourite tea is either a good masala chai or earl grey.

This is just a fun fact: my username is a reference to research I've done in neutron physics! Please feel free to ask me more if you're curious, although this isn't going to be a physics blog.

topics on this blog:

Chronic pain and all of the medical and non-medical things that make it annoying to deal with.

How mental illness affects my life, specifically dealing with my history of severe depressive episodes.

A documentation of what my journey to accepting and treating my health issues has looked like.

The occasional opinion post about the changes I would like to see in healthcare, society's views on chronic illness, and how online communities sometimes get too carried away.

disclaimers and additional info!

I'm not a medical professional! While I enjoy learning about medicine, I do so very much as a hobby and usually focus on my specific issues: please don't put too much weight in my words.

I am not planning on being a discourse blog, however: I have some pretty strong opinions on how some communities have a tendency to misunderstand the purpose of a medical diagnosis and perpetuate misinformation under the label of being pro-self dx- while I wouldn't consider myself anti-self dx, I think it's safe to say that some people have gotten a little carried away.

Following from my last point, I strongly believe that there are very, very few- if any- situations that are black-and-white. I try not to label my stances as anti-xyz or pro-xyz, but I will often use those tags.

I will be using the block button liberally, don't be rude, and follow along if you'd like :)