@leahazel / leahazel.tumblr.com
Say you break your ankle. You could know everything there is to know intellectually about the injury. Even with this vast knowledge, you will still experience physical pain.
Now take this logic and apply it to things like ADHD, autism, clinical depression, and other less visible/divergent disabilities. You cannot think your way out of feeling.
That is to say: you are not a bad, lazy, or selfish person for struggling, even if you know why you are struggling.
oh shit! I am sad for no reason!!!!!!
me, confused: we had a good day. we read some fun stories. we got to pet a cat. AND we got shit done. we are fundamentally godlike and our therapist is gonna high five us so hard, so what's going on w/ you buddy?
brain, sipping margaritas and staring off mournfully into a carribean sunset, whilst nibbling on a tiny paper umbrella: buddy im just not vibin
me: *pokes brain gently w/ their favorite reading material* hey buddy you wanna go outside? U want some belly rubs? I've got treats do u want treats? we can do whatever u wanna do...
brain: *cannot be distracted from frustratedly chewing on its own leg*
me: buddy
Here is problem: Brain must be sad sometimes because it knows sad things and needs to process sadness. It has back stock of sadness, instead of distracting from sadness let it be sadness for like...three to five hours. Then proceed with distraction from sadness.
No idea if this has any scientific backing but I love this and will be using this explanation from now on!
[id: meme photo of (???) hands labeled anxiety, depression, dyslexia, ocd, autism, adhd and in the center is says "wait, that's a symptom?!"]
How is this tweet SO specific?????????
Sometimes when I hear people talk about their cognitive disabilities, I have this moment of thinking, “…I have that too,” and that’s always the moment that I remember that ADHD, anxiety, and depression ARE cognitive disabilities and it floors me all over again.
this mirriam-webster page about the words lie and lay reads like a very tender poem
I can--and will--lie there all day.
I did some reading and I did some writing and I did some chores. And I’m tapped. I just... the idea of trying to initiate an action right now is more than my brain can handle.
Kait Rokowski (A Good Day)
I feel really sad for everyone panicking over the end of the decade, like somehow they haven’t achieved monumental and incredible things simply by making it to this point.
Congratulations, you survived, even when sometimes you thought you wouldn’t, maybe even if there were times you felt you didn’t want to. You made it, and I’m so proud of all of you.
I once said to my therapist after a particularly hard week, “I wish I could just fix all of my problems and move on to live a normal life” And he looked at me and said, “There is no finish line”.
Those words felt like a stab in my heart, but they were words that I desperately needed to hear. There is no finish line to my problems. It’s not possible to get through a certain point in life and have my problems simply disappear. And it’s unhealthy to think that way. Up to that point in my life, that’s what I though recovery was. I thought it was like working your way forward until it seems like your problems never existed in the first place.
The finish line does not exist. Instead, everyone has a capacity for recovery. You may never completely rid yourself of whatever causes you pain, but you will move miles from where you started. Don’t set your expectations too high and create that theoretical finish line in your life, or you will only end up chasing it. Instead, focus on your own capacity for recovery, and be proud of yourself for every step you take.
Some rando: You should think about stopping your prescription
Me: My pills make me not want to die tho
They: You shouldn’t want to die, that’s not normal
Me: Yeah that’s why I’m taking my pills
Again: But you aren’t the *real* you when you’re on your pills
Me: I’m the alive version of me
An actual doctor, once: “Relying On A Chemical Crutch For A Hormonal Imbalance Denies The Fortitude Of The Human Soul”
Me: Cool so like I’m agnostic
They: “But you might be on pills the rest of your life!”
Me: “So?”
Good! That means that I have a “rest of” my life to continue living!
Thanks to the pills.
Y’all, please, if I’m not responding to you on various different platforms, please do not create new accounts to talk to me, or start spamming me to get my attention on platforms where my inbox is not turned off.
I have my inbox turned off for a reason, I am socially and physically burned out to the point of dangerous exhaustion. This year, despite all the wonderful things that have happened, has been absolutely harrowing. I am exhausted, I am currently dealing with my own major depressive episode, and when I do leave my tumblr inbox open I get anywhere from 5 to 200 messages a day—not including my IMs.
I barely have the social energy to talk to my friends anymore, let alone strangers on the Internet with zero respect for personal boundaries, and who are creating new sock puppet accounts to ask me why I’m not responding to them on tumblr and do they not realize how much they need me.
I’m sorry you’re going through some shit, but I am not your therapist. I cannot help you in the way you need. I can wish you well and offer sympathy and maybe a nudge in the right direction, but don’t you dare pin your mental health on me then try to guilt me over not being able to help you.
I lived my whole life living with that kind of mental and emotional abuse. I will not take it from my blog. I am wholly sincere in my wish for you to get well and enjoy better times, but I cannot do anymore than that. For my own sake as well as yours: get the professional help you need. You deserve better.
Addendum: this was not an invitation to get your spouse to message me across multiple platforms trying to explain what you are going through and how I should be more empathetic toward you. I truly am absolutely sorry you are suffering, but this is beyond me and you need professional help, as I have been telling you with as much compassions as I have for months. I suspect both of you do, if there even are two of you. At this point it just feels like someone trying relentlessy to make me give them my attention even though my attention will solve nothing. Again, if you are somehow reading this despite me attempting to block the sockpuppets, please, seek proffesional help. And if you are the spouse of this person and you are genuinely concerned for their safety as you state, you need to get them to a place of safety and medical care, and stop messaging me about it. I cannot help you.
Strangers on the internet are not your therapist. If you need medical help, you need to talk to a trained professional, in person. What you *don't* need is to cyber-stalk disability activists who are just trying their best, every day, to get information to people who need it. Not only is this cruel and thoughtless, it's also useless. In fact, it's likely to cause *you* more harm than good. If you want to practice self-compassion, seek *professional* help from someone qualified.
“When you feel perpetually unmotivated, you start questioning your existence in an unhealthy way; everything becomes a pseudo intellectual question you have no interest in responding whatsoever. This whole process becomes your very skin and it does not merely affect you; it actually defines you. So, you see yourself as a shadowy figure unworthy of developing interest, unworthy of wondering about the world - profoundly unworthy in every sense and deeply absent in your very presence.”
— Ingmar Bergman (via wordsnquotes)
Oh. He knows.
Feeling empty or your feeling you mood darken? You might be very unstimulated.
I know its hard to find something that truly interests you; I’ve only found it recently (its this: my blogs and such), but keep trying different things. I know its hard but you won’t find it unless you keep looking.
Secondary depression is a depression in an individual who has one or more preexisting, nonaffective psychiatric disorders or an incapacitating or life-threatening medical illness which precedes and parallels the symptoms of depression. (link)
Secondary depression is essentially when you have depression secondary to another condition.. and in a lot of cases, the depression is “caused” by the disorder.
In the case of ADHD, its not uncommon for chronic under-stimulation to cause secondary depression.
Y’all, I lost years out of my real-ass life because every health care professional insisted that my anxiety and agitation were symptoms of my depression, and wouldn’t believe me when I said I felt sure that my depression was a symptom of being anxious and agitated.
Realizing I had undiagnosed ADHD changed my life. I’m not depressed anymore, I’m not anxious, and when I get agitated, I know that it’s because I’m either understimulated or overstimulated, and I can reset. But staying in understimulating situations because I didn’t realize they were damaging for me gave me a ton of nervous energy, which made me anxious, which made me withdraw, which led to my situation becoming even MORE understimulating, which led to depression, which took away my ability to CHANGE anything, because I was too depressed to leave the house.
6 different antidepressants did nothing for me, but re-tuning my life to give me control over how much I’m stimulated throughout the day fixed pretty much my whole situation.
This explains me and every time where I try to take a break or vacation and just do “nothing” all too well.
Avoid video games that use extrinsic motivation. A video game should at least mostly rely on intrinsic motivation, meaning that the playing of the game itself is the fun part, not the reward you get for playing the game. If you don’t enjoy the gameplay, but you want to earn lootboxes, you’ve fallen into the intentionally exploitative system operating within so many games nowadays, and you need to find another game, because you’re not having fun.
It doesn’t sound serious, but this kind of thing can make depression way worse if you’ve already got depression.
This post got me to stop playing Overwatch and I’m eternally grateful.
That’s also a core difference between a game trying to exploit the human brain’s tendency toward gambling addiction and a game that exists to entertain.
Like, it may sound like I’m reaching, but op described (pretty closely) the operation of gambling addictions. It’s also why the depression aspect is so real. You’re feeling a withdrawal, of a sort, when you can’t play the game.
things that made me stop wanting to die that require no effort whatsoever
Almost all of these are about variety. Humans need stimulation! We need enrichment! We literally cannot do the same thing every day!
The other day I was feeling miserable, so I hopped on a bus and rode it all the way back to where I’d started, and my brain, which had finally had some proper stimulation via new environments, was suddenly ready to go again!
This is why taking walks/drives and trying new hobbies are good for you! Don’t turn yourself into a sad zoo animal! You need some pumpkins to roll around in your enclosure!
I need to add enrichment objects to my rat cage.
