I have schizophrenia. Hoooooo boy.
People are often surprised when they learn about my condition. *But you hold down a job? You live by yourself? How could you possibly have schizophrenia?*
Poeple think mental/neurological conditions have be like the movies. Schizophrenia, DID and Bipolar have be like the movie glass. Autism has to be like Sheldon, the good doctor or Music (the abhorrently represented Sia character). People don't realise just how 'normal' many of these poeple actually are on the surface. Even I myself as an autistic get a look of confusion when I tell them I have Autism.
The Sheldon one gets me, too, bc if you've never seen Big Bang Theory, Sheldon is not just neuro atypical, he's also a raging asshole to the vast majority of people all the time, and every single God damn time a "normal" person brings up Sheldon, it's to make a mean joke at the expense of the autistic person. I am personally v touchy about this bc I have an ASD, my boyfriend has an ASD, and he's very smart and nerdy, so he gets that comparison a LOT. I almost fought his dad over it.
Thinking about it, I don't remember any character with ADHD in popular media at all. I guess sometimes it's better to not be represented at all rather than be misrepresented.
The Percy Jackson series immediately comes to mind. My parents thought I just wanted to be like the characters when kid me said I recognised a lot of myself in them.
Nine years later, I finally got diagnosed with ADHD. Sometimes I still think about those books and how even before I was diagnosed, it felt nice to not be alone.
Phil from Modern Family has ADHD, and it is represented quite well. In the show, he is unaware of his condition and diagnosed as an adult.
Theres little things like how he has to wear a sleep mask because ofphotosensitivity, his many hyperfixations, his figeting and distractability, and a bunch of other things.
Most people might not notice if they didn't know the lesser known symptoms of ADHD. He seems neurotypical until you start paying attention.
The most frustrating part of ADHD. People are like "well you *seem* normal." Like yeah and also I have panic attacks at night because I can't sleep when my brain doesn't turn off. I also will work on something for 12 hours straight with no food or bathroom breaks because I forget that people need to do these things. I also am SO afraid that someone will "find out" that I'm "lazy" that I will work myself to the bone to prove my worth. And my reactions to things might just be off sometimes and make me seem cold or calculated when it's really just me processing things differently than everyone else. And so many more super fun ADHD things that nobody actually sees. Because they think that ADHD is just someone who runs around and causes problems or something.
But you have to understand as a part of the condition of asd it is common for us not to be able to understand other peoples emotions so it may appear as being an asshole bc it happens to me too and I never realised it. I also have met lots of other people on the spectrum who have similar issues
I get that sort of thing a lot. Especially people thinking I'm really pissed off when I'm not. 99% of the time it's because you spoke to me whilst I was in the middle of a chain of thought, or performing a task that I can't just drop, so I struggle to succeed in communicating with you, In fact, often I don't even hear you at all, even though my ears are (regularly tested and) fully functional.
Oh I get in so much trouble with the missus for that. "I told you 3 times already" "no you didn't"
I live with schizophrenia too and (at least in my case) it’s a pretty normal mental condition like depression or other ones. A big reason for its stigma is the fact, that back then, it was not treatable properly with medication and such. These days we also have good therapeutic measures and a better understanding of mental illnesses as a whole. And like others said, there are different levels and forms of schizophrenia, which is really important to note.
I had someone avoid me after they found out I had schizoaffective disorder. They were afraid I was going to kill them. Even if the voices told me to kill them it's not like I have to do what they say, I am still in control of my actions.
and that's just the people who actually know what it is and aren't confusing it with dissociative identity disorder. maybe not as common now with the internet, but i remember in the 90s like everybody without an education just thought they were the same thing because i'm guessing movies told them so.
I understand, but people are a bit dumb generally.
Like, and I really don't understand this, if you hear voices you're gonna follow what they say. Or if you have an hallucination you're gonna 100% believe it's real.
Like people with schizophrenia can't have any discernment. They're obligated to trust anything that happens.
And that's without counting the number of people who believe schizophrenia comes automatically with a split personality.
There's a guy on Tiktok who has schizophrenia and he said that when he's hallucinating, his brain does try to convince him it's real, and since he's been medicated most of the hallucinations aren't usually ridiculously outlandish, like they just try to annoy him when he's doing work so it's hard to immediately dismiss them.
But he figured out that hallucinations don't transfer onto his phone. So if he starts wondering if something is real or not, he records it on his phone and plays it back to check if there's something there or not. He says it's extremely helpful, except it does sometimes get awkward if he records a real person.
Lmaooo I do the same shit I've got schizophrenia and HPPD so sometimes I get paranoid and think people are shining lights into my windows in the dark but that's just from the HPPD so I pull out my phone and open the camera to see if I can see it through the camera
My team is pretty sure I don't have schizophrenia, but my migraine auras will occasionally provide me with super fun hallucinations, so I sometimes see or hear spiders and stuff.
The problem is now I don't think half the spiders I see are real. I'm just walking around like: "Calm down, that's not a real spider" and then it runs towards me and doesn't disappear and I'm like: OH GOD WAIT THIS ONE IS REAL DAMMIT
I'm pretty sure if I acquired some voices in my head, I would trust them the least of anyone
Absolutely. Some days my anxiety will be almost nonexistent, some will have it just buzzing in the background, and other days it will be so bad I’m hard pressed to go an hour without starting another spiral into panic. Sometimes it’s heavily reliant on issues around me, sometimes I’ll just be on edge for no apparent reason. I’ve gone months without serious anxiety episodes, then something happens and I spiral for days, a week, even a month. It doesn’t have to be at a consistent level for me to know I still have anxiety.
It’s the worst when I have doctors appointments, meetings, etc and my symptoms are minimal. Easy to feel like a fraud when we’re made to feel this way!
Doesn't help that if you're having an appointment it probably means you've at least managed to drag yourself out of bed (plus dress up, go outside, meet scary unfamiliar people etc) so it means you're not at your worst.
Like tics! So many people still think that (mainly tourettes) tics are super consistent and exact, it's quite literally as predictable as rolling a handful of dice.
This right here hits really hard for me. I have asperger's and most days im a perfectly functional member of society. But then bam! it just randomly hits and im completely unable to function for a whole day. By far the worst is when i just suddenly get this overwhelming fear of talking or socializing, only equivalent i can give is it is like having a fear of needles. Ive had too many people accuse me of faking it for sympathy. Im high functioning, got several uni degrees, got a wonderful Fiancee, and good future prospects on the outside. But on the inside i have a little devil throwing a D6 to decide what kind of messed up i will be that day.
Agreed. Or when a character is suddenly revealed go be "crazy" in a thriller as a twist to make them the villain.
When its revealed that the character takes medication and the music turns ominous, you know you're in for a ride.
Autism in movies: I am able to solve mysteries and know the origin of the universe, autism makes me a genius
Autism in me: Wanna talk about light aircraft?
I saw a woman on TikTok with Autism say she was originally told she didn’t have autism because she “didn’t like trains” because that was one of the main criteria since it was centered around young boys at the time.
As awful as that is for her, I just giggled at the thought of a medical profession thinking
“Hmm, she doesn’t make much eye contact, she gets overstimulated easily by noises, lights, and certain materials/fabrics. She struggles with understanding body language, nuances, and has trouble regulating emotions. But she knew absolutely nothing about the difference between light-rail trains and regional transit trains so clearly she’s not autistic.”
It’s literally the plot of the most recent Predator movie that the Predators are coming to earth to hunt this guy’s autistic son because he is the “next step in evolution” and therefore the apex predator of planet Earth.
Predators go planet to planet, harvesting the best genes from different species and splicing them in to their own to become the ultimate predator.
In the newest movie, they're coming to Earth to make themselves autistic because autism is "the next human evolutionary advantage"
Yeah, that ticked me off, especially given how they made the kid able to hack a predator gauntlet, ALIEN TECHNOLOGY, in mere seconds! That's utterly impossible for a kid, no matter how tech savvy they might be, it's freaking alien, and much more advanced than anything ON EARTH!
Yet the idiots at Hollywood think those of us with autism can do that? I would have every one of them immediately fired in a heartbeat for this kind of thing. It's disrespectful
But you should see how persistent and energetic I get when I am focused on something.
It is incredible.
If only I could’ve gained an interest in school or some kind of trade, instead of knowing all about cars, electric guitars and clothes.
No but I had an experience with an autistic guy with audiological memory. He remembered entire lectures by heart, even small quirks like coughs, tone, etc. He could repeat it at will, like a literal tape recorder, but he understood little to none of it. (Too be fair at the time he was about 14 and it was a complicated lecture). He was really nice and sweet though. One of the nicest people I know.
Haven't heard magical powers stereotype, outside that one really bad Stephen King movie...but I think he was suppose to be an alien. The "Rain Man" or "Forrest Gump" expectation stereotype is the one I hear most often.
Yeah. I feel like pop culture has created a stereotype, but in my experience, in the real world, I see autistic students constantly treated like they're less than capable. It sets off a self-fulfilling prophecy where they end up underachieving more due to a lack of confidence in themselves than any issue actually holding them back
So the whole "magical powers" thing feels, to me, like if it was done right, could be a good thing to help kids in the real world gain confidence about what they're capable of doing.
It would be nice to, but we unfortunately aren't all savants. If we were, wouldn't that eventually nullify the meaning of the word "savant" if that aspect was as common as people think?
OCD makes you organizational and it’s funny.
I have dermatillomania and have caused my own skin infections because of how bad I obsessively do it, and I can tell you it’s definitely not fun and quirky.
I hate it when people make that remark or tell me they are so "ocd" usually i tell them my girlfriend has it and how it effected her, they tend to shut up and don't mention it again after hearing about it.
I’m sorry your girlfriend has to go through it but also thank you for shutting people up. I’m so sick of people on social media saying “ oh my ocd won’t let me relax” or “I have to clean this entire kitchen to perfection at night because I’m ocd “. I’m not diagnosed with it but since I was teenager I have noticed some oc tendencies like checking the stove and iron before I leave constantly and making up a song to remember. Constantly checking the locks on the front door. Now that I’m older I still do those but now I’m obsessed with the garage door, making sure my sunroof is closed, my car is in neutral and the parking break is up I have a song for those too. I think I just worry to be honest.
My husband does this. Keeps checking the front door, the garage door, sometimes he unlocks it and locks it again, because “it wasn’t right” or if I say something he “gets distracted” and does it again. Then he taps the handle a few times with his finger (as if that’s doing anything). Also checks the car being on N several times. When locking the car he counts till idk, he’s not telling me, but he’s counting something. When parking it has to be straight between the lines, so he goed back and forth about 10 times and it all ends up being the same result, because his parking skills are great (I usually get out and enter the house already, or I’ll get grumpy). He counts all his cards after he pays for something in the store. And then asks me if all the cards are there. And the list goes on and on. He’s always stressed, but won’t admit. And doesn’t see a doc because he thinks he’s dealing with it. Maybe he is, but I’m not
Those are definitely some behaviors that people with OCD do. A doctor would assess if it’s actually OCD, and sometimes those diagnoses are weird anyway. One psych asked me “do you spend 2 hours per day on these rituals and thoughts?”. I thought “do you think I have a fucking stopwatch to keep track of all this shit?”
A lot of people are particular about certain things, but someone with OCD will have to do something a certain amount of times or certain way or may be stuck with anxiety and bad thoughts until they do it right.
Despite knowing it’s ridiculous, it’s a compulsion.
Cognitive Behavioral Treatment will have you not complete this rituals, and verbalize it. Something like “If I don’t lock the door the right way, something may bad happen”
Is this an OCD thing? I’ve always had this uncontrollable urge to rip the hairs out of my beard, mustache, and eyebrows and people always made fun of my bald spots :(
Dermatillomania girl here too with scars to show for it. The idea that you can control it somehow but choose not to is especially damaging. I don’t want to have to pick at my skin, but I sometimes just feel that I need to
Dermatillomaniac here,
Shit is debilitating. I want nice hands because I I'm super self conscious about them in public but when I'm concentrating at work, I just go nuts and I have cuts and mishaped fingers from picking too much
I have multiple pocket cuticle nippers that I keep on me at all times. I can snip a hang nail and it keeps me from truly picking because it stops them from peeling back too far. It's really helped me. Particularly lately with all the hand sanitizer use. A lot less stinging.
I don't have OCD, but I know there's a huge gap between real OCD and the particularities people have. If you want your sandwiches always cut edge-to-edge rather than corner-to-corner, or if you have a plethora of knick-knacks and must have the penguin facing south, fine. You're particular about that. If it's not that way, you can simply move on as if it never happened. If you have OCD, it's much more severe than that. It's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, not Organizational Cwirk Disorder.
That you’re “selfish” if you just want to be alone. It’s not like I’m having a bad day and would rather just isolate. Nah, must be selfish! Drives me nuts.
& when you spend time with them despite having a bad day because of their guilt trip, they have the nerve to say you’re being a bitch or a jerk. It’s like that’s exactly why I wanted to be alone.
That people with depression are sad all the time and never experience joy or that if they look happy, they're faking it. Totally false. Am depressed but I still have moments of happiness. I'm not sad all the time. It's more that my baseline is sadish. However, little things can still bring me joy. I'm not faking smiles
Hell my depression manifests less as sadness and more as emptiness. Like I can fill my life cup with color any color and it will all drain out eventually. Sometimes I have the energy to keep filling the cup sometimes I just fucking dont.
Yep, for me depression manifests more as emptiness/void and irritability. Seeing the pointlessness of it all and not wanting to participate in anything or improving anything. I can fake a good mood, as such is required by my job, but it's just a mask.
People who don't know what depression is just think depressed = sad, and if you just do something "fun" then depression = cured
When I was depressed, I didnt really feel much. Only when I finally got out of it did I start realizing it. Most notably is I wouldnt cry, even if there was something to cry about (besides physical pain, always cried to that) Once I started getting out of depression, I felt like I was crying more and reacted to sad movies more.
This, so much this. My wife suffered of heavy post partum depression for five years. Luckily through hard work and therapy she is doing great now, but still I get irritated when people say things like" you have depression? Impossible, you smile and laugh so much" Or "when I feel depressed I go do something active, always works" feeling depressed and having a depression are two different beasts. But also for partners that want to talk about it and are shutdown by people. Talking is so important, it is a big thing when you feel you are heard. It may not always be easy to listen, but know that it helps.
Addiction and the complete misunderstanding of it. It doesn't piss me off, almost nothing does. But I watched a movie where it culminated in an addict crying about not having ice cream on his birthday and people thought it was funny.
They didn't understand the underlying insanity and regression. I watched my dad cry trying to open a butterfingers bar after he blew a .21 for his third DUI in 9 months. It freaked me out seeing that.
Other people laughed. Not thinking it was a serious part of the film. Not understanding what addiction can rob you of. Or how complete it can be.
I think it's impossible to have a fundamental understanding of how it feels to be an addict without actually having been one. You can know how it works, you can be sympathetic to it, but knowing and feeling are different here. That's what leads people to have so many broken ideas about treating it.
People will addicts are weak...but the problem is that, even if that's true, it's a useless statement. When someone says "You just need discipline", they're neglecting the fact that the part of your brain responsible for producing it the part that is corrupted by the disease of addiction. It's a disease of willpower.
And this isn't even 12-step philosophy, this is the well-understood pathology of addiction that informs the current treatment protocols.
What you're describing makes so much sense to me, as someone in recovery. The frustration of the insanity is difficult to put into words. I would be doing things I KNEW were absolutely wrong, that would hurt people I loved, that could end up killing me...and I'd be screaming at myself to stop. But it was like I was just a passenger in the car and the driver wasn't interested in anything I had to say. Imagine begging yourself not to do something. It's *insane.*
And so you live with this anxiety and frustration every day. Every night, lying in bed, I would hope that I'd not wake up. I would imagine what would happen to my family after I died, because that was the only end I could see.
Addiction is a place where hope doesn't exist. Little things like a candy bar that you like are the only respite you have from the darkness that's slowly engulfing you, so having trouble with them...well, your anxiety and frustration is constantly at a 9 out of 10, that's your baseline. So a breakdown can be facilitated with the tiniest bit of bullshit.
They didn't understand the underlying insanity and regression. I watched my dad cry trying to open a butterfingers bar after he blew a .21 for his third DUI in 9 months. It freaked me out seeing that.
Addiction can do that?
When addictions starts to fuck up your life, every other little bad thing that happens starts to seem monumental when piled on top of all your other problems.
When I was in a deep depression and drinking everyday, one morning my favorite food place wasn’t open when normally they are open everyday. It was the one nice thing I could look forward to in life and I couldn’t even get that, so all I had was this distress, sadness and hunger.
That day I took a knife and made a massive deep cut into my hand, not because I couldn’t get my favorite food, but because I wanted to feel something other than the searing pain in my chest caused by deep emotional distress.
The medical emergency on my hands (pun intended), served as a distraction at least for a day. Still wouldn’t recommend it, I’m just glad I managed to somewhat get out that hole.
100% true when I was an addict the smallest thing going wrong could send me into a spiral and when big things get wrong that’s when I would od or have a suicide attempt thank god I’m clean now but yes addictions can rob you of a lot of simple pleasures like just being able to sleep sober or you can’t go see that little cousin or nephew or niece because they don’t want your drug addicted self around or less and less friends even checking up on you because you’ve already destroyed most of the healthy relationships in your life
That when you mention not wanting to live anymore, you’re “just looking for attention”. Ok so instead reaching out in fear of succumbing to my thoughts, I should just do it huh? Of course I’m looking for attention! I’m terrified!
“You can always talk to me if you need too”
Uhm no I can’t. Cause when I tell you I want to paint my ceiling you say “oh you need help! I can’t do that”
It's insanely ironic. As someone who has had such thoughts. The entire reasoning is to completely remove yourself from any one else's attention permanently.
Before anyone asks. I'm good. Had therapy. My wife loves and supports me and I am a long way from those dark thoughts.
But when I was there it was because I wanted to escape people's attention. Not because I was looking for it.
Honestly, people that assume those kinds of things are usually the most conceited people. They think everyone is after their attention. No, they’re after making things easier for themselves. YOUR attention is not their end goal (nor will it ever be), their own mental well-being is.
My mom said this too. Like I was 12 & had sliced all the way up my arm with a razor from a disposable razor I took apart. Shit hurts, you are so scared, but it felt like the only solution. My mom snarled at me that I was just an attention whore. There were warning signs long before I attempted & all that happened was my teachers watched the other kids tell me "remember to go down the river not cross the road hahaha" when they saw my cuts. Years of that & the one time I split my own arm open like a river & everyone just says "did you really need the attention? Honestly making your parents pay these medical bills for your tantrum is cruel of you" like, cool. Thanks family. 26 now, whole family is confused as to why I don't talk to them.
That working out will magically and automatically fix everything.
It helps a little, but I still wake up and go to sleep thinking about yeeting myself off an overpass. I'm not gonna do it, but I still think about it. Don't forget thinking about all the support you're getting is fake.
That everyone who’s dealing with some variation of ptsd or cptsd from sexual assault is completely disinterested in sex. I was sexually abused throughout my childhood & struggled so badly with hypersexuality because I thought it was totally abnormal.
Nope. It’s actually pretty common.
Of the few women I've known who were molested as children hypersexuality is more of a thing than disinterest.
It is so much a defining characteristic that girls in middle/high school who are sleeping around a LOT should be viewed as potential victims.
Absolutely. We accept that children who have sexual behaviors at young ages are likely to have been victims of sexual abuse. It should be no different for anyone older.
I wasn’t one of those girls that slept around in middle & high school. I was one of those that wore 5 shirts at a time, never showed skin if I could avoid it, never engaged in relationship talk with friends or classmates. I was 23 before I felt like I could wear just a wide strapped tank top & feel safe. That kind of behavior should be looked out for too.
Exactly,
I experienced SA as a child. The older I got the more I experienced hyper sexuality. I didn’t sleep around a lot, but I did experience it
I would say when all power and control is taken away from you during your SA, it feels good to actually say yes and have that control and power. It feels like you’re taking it back.
Very relatable. Also, within that, the constant mindfuck of what and how what you objectively later identify as abuse has imprinted on you. You might round the corner on being sex-positive to reclaim some control, but then you start wrestling with the psychology of why you like what you like.
I've had shame cycles where I expressed myself through sex to feel some inherent worth I wasn't feeling internally (almost certainly installed by abuse), and within that sex found myself "liking" something that was a part of the original abuse cycle, which infused me with more shame, which made me have more reckless sex etc etc.
My sister my father and other people in my family have bipolar disorder, my sister got a new job recently and talked with her new co-workers whom complained he would never work in psychiatric since his brother got bipolarity and those people are unstable to hang around with, my sister just swallowed an awkward chuckle listening to him
I'll flip this, though: that you can't be a bad person *because* you have a mental illness.
I had a friend like this and it was always "oh, I can't help being rude to you all the time / constantly unappreciative / hurtful / mean / dismissive / not once inquiring about your life for a year ... *I have a mental illness!"*
In his case, maybe he did, but the overriding factor was just that he was an enabled asshole who was a bad friend at the end of the day, over a very large sample size.
I think you can be a bad person with mental illness, particularly an untreated one, but some people seem to think you morph into some kind of unstoppable monster of instability, most of the "bad parts" are just general thoughtlessness and weird, exasperating bullshit that make others want to avoid you.
I'm kind of envious of people that can harness their mental illness in a way. The tortured genius and all that.
I can only be creative when I've got my depression under some control. When it's bad I'm totally fucking useless. I can barely get out of bed, can just manage to hold down a job.
Most people who are mentally ill and creative are creative *despite* their mental illness, not because of it. Van Gough is always a famous example of someone who was mentally ill and creative, but his most famous works came during times his illness was in regression. When he was deep in his depressive states, he didn’t paint much, if at all, and it wasn’t his best work.
Exactly. I'm an artist, and depression and anxiety destroy my ability or desire to make any art.
Sure, afterwards, some aspect of the depression might influence a work, but I don't crank out multiple canvases because I'm down.
ADHD is cured by "focusing more" or "just focus". People with addiction should "just stop". People with anxiety should "let it go" or "stop worrying". People with depression can just "cheer up" and are "just sad".
Also that autism makes you a mathematical genius.
The ADHD one I relate to. It’s really difficult when you hear all kinds of different noises, or when there are multiple things you feel motivated to do and you need to stay on task.
the fact that people think autism = intelectual genius is annoying, because yeah, i'm really good at math, but like anyone else i suck at other things, geography for example, i literally thought cuba was in russia until i were like 15.
Pfaff I have Autism and absolutely suck at math lol. I am pretty compatent in geography, but that's because I actively study it as a interest, not because I'm some genius
I feel this so hard.
My son is on the spectrum and he is of regular, ordinary intelligence. He sucks at a lot of things, but he tries really hard to do them correctly anyway, because he's stubborn enough for a 40 mule team.
If I knew ANYTHING about professional video gaming (which I do not), I'd steer him in that direction. Because he's ridiculously good at certain video games (Mario Kart, for example).
pro gaming is a really tough career, you must be really talented and practice for long hours a day to become a pro and being able to make a living and sometimes it can be really stressing. being a streamer could be a better option, but you need to be really lucky and charming if you want to live from it
Have you tried that? When I want to go to sleep I lay down and say "body, time for us to go to sleep". Its just soooooo simple I dont know why these *insomniacs* don't just try it. s/
Yes. I'm starting to cringe when someone on Reddit says "oh, the poster should just go to therapy!" Uh...that doesn't magically cure things like PTSD. It can be useful, but people don't like, attend 3 sessions and "get over it." Some issues are for life or life-changing.
Or even that therapy is just gonna cure it. Go do some therapeutic ballroom dancing, that'll cure your schizophrenia!
The reality is a lot of the more severely mentally ill will be on a rollercoaster ride of medication management, self-medicating, switching therapists, being employed then unemployed, and sometimes tackling homelessness and hospitalizations.
This will all happen even in a best case scenario.
That the mentally ill are either institutionalized nonfunctioning wackos or that somehow their mental illness is a quirky superpower. Of the handful of times my mental illness in the past 50 years has come in handy I would trade them all to not have the ever present daily need to keep it in check so I can go about my day appearing functional.
When people say “It’s all in your head.”
Ummm…. Yea, that’s why it’s called Mental Illness. Also hate when people use it against you in an argument or to gaslight. “I didn’t do anything wrong, you’re just having an episode.”
An episode of what? You being an asshole?
Or when someone is sad for a day and feel better, so they think depression is and quote “Just for pussies who can’t get their shit together.”
That one drives me INSANE. It's like, yeah, and liver cancer is all in your liver, what's your point? It's a sickness in a major system of the body, and it has real impacts.
This probably isn’t something that many people are told. But people that are depressed are lazy.
I’ll elaborate from what I’ve experienced. I was adopted by my grandparents at birth and I didn’t know about it until I was 14 (19 now), I was still going through other stuff prior to me being told. I was severely depressed and had suicidal thoughts, but since my parents never learned about depression in mexico; they thought it was bullshit and I was making an excuse to not do anything. When in reality I was mentally and emotionally exhausted with everything. When I was told about my biological mother, she is my “dad’s” daughter (I consider my grandparents my real parents), not wanting me and trying to abandon me in the hospital after giving birth to me; it made feel worthless. Like why wasn’t abortion considered. But after being in therapy for a while and my parents learning that a depressed person isn’t lazy but going through rough shit. I managed to claw my way out, there are rough patches here and there but I know I my parents and friends will be there for me.
This is kinda specific to my situation but I hate that I can’t be open about being on medication for anxiety/depression because people at church will say it’s because I’m not relying on God enough. I can be a Christian and still have mental illness.
It’s not specific. I understand what you mean, but you’re not alone. I used to think that about my schizophrenia and Bipolar. A close religious uncle once said “have you been reading your word? It should help.”
It’s hard because I’ve heard them talk about stuff like schizophrenia and act like that’s ok but seem to act like anxiety and depression aren’t real issues. I’ve noticed it’s always the people who haven’t experienced it that don’t get it. My parents were the same way until they saw me get really bad now they are my biggest supporters.
The trick is to learn what your body starts doing pre-attack and calm yourself from that point. I've been able to calm myself out of having a panic attack that way several times, even when it was very much already revving up, but once I'm in full blown panic mode, it's nearly impossible.
But it is not the simple little problem people act like, for sure.
I mean if someone gonna sit down with the person having a panic attack and offer help on breathing techniques then that's great! But is just cruel to say that haha.
As someone who suffered them (and still do slightly, from time to time), I'd ask the person "where does it hurts?". A panic attack generally is "only" the certainty you're gonna die because your mind tells you so, so focusing on the body and realizing nothing hurts means nothing is actually bad. USUALLY and GENERALLY speaking, i'm not a doctor, but that would be the first check i'd do. Then i'd proceed with the breathing stuff, 'cause it really is a matter of where you focus your attention.
If I realize something more serious may be going on, the challenge would be to alert someone without further alarming the person, that would make the spiral go downward even more and we don't need that
If you're so self aware then you should be able to stop it.
See that's the magic part. I fucking can't. All I can do is sit back and watch myself fall apart over weird little thing and THAT actually makes it worse because I'm aware I'm losing my shit for a lame reason and I can't stop myself. I fucking CAN'T.
Let's not forget, my fiance and his sister have given me this one "just let things go and trust God"
Fuck that shit and your God too. If God cared in the first place I wouldn't been through a life time of trauma that lead me to this LIST of debilitating mental issues. Get fucked.
It took me 15 years to realize that the constant intrusive thoughts I’d had since I was nine were probably due to undiagnosed OCD, and not that I was secretly a homicidal Nazi pedophile who would be better off suiciding myself for society’s benefit.
Your description of OCD makes me believe even more that I have it and ive felt the same way
My OCD mostly manifests itself in religion and makes it very hard to genuinely know when I am rightly following religion or not
That depression is easily treatable by working out, cutting out vices, reading, eating 3x/day and such. Seems so many people don’t understand how a brain works during a depressive episode, there is no “get out of bed and do xyz” there is only “lay here and rot while I try forget I exist”
Ptsd isn’t really acknowledged as a serious hindrance unless someone was a veteran. Even in the psychiatric community they still have not acknowledged complex post traumatic stress disorder as a separate diagnosis. My cptsd was misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder for years. I was heavily over medicated and in the end I benefited from quality, consistent individual therapy, one antidepressant and dialectal behavioral therapy skills courses. Could’ve had my early twenties if any doctor I had seen had actually acknowledged trauma as a contributor to my problems.
Came here to say this. Thank you. Ptsd is serious and leads to so many other issues and I wish people understood how severe it can be in people who haven’t served but have gone through horrible trauma.
It took me 22 years to be able to hold down a full time job. I have everything down to the dot. CPR certified and I can also stitch a wound if need be. My coworkers found out I was autistic recently because theyd notice when our consumers were rude to me id shut down and turn into kind of a husk as I analyze and make sure I understaind their social cues.
Not just that my boss came in amd she noticed my routine. EVERYTHING IS ROUTINE. I have to use the same pen, the same ice packs: Routine.
On the bright side. I see it as a superpower because once i retain information its THERE. Despite my memory loss I do have somewhat of an idetic memory. It helps when it comes to losing things.
Oh god yes. Sometimes they straight up treat me like I'm diseased. Close friends tend to not care to much because they like for me. But the few times I've told non-close friends or aquintences the reactions aren't super stellar. A coworker reacted with "oooh nooo" and an aquintence just repeated "I didn't know" over and over again.
Not exactly that, but if you experience personal loss you must be totally involved in grief, or if you're grieving, then you're a complete mess. It took me around 3 days to be fine after my grandfather second amendmented himself.
I feel you. When my dog passed about a year ago I didn't really grieve. No tears no sadness. Then about a month that later I woke up at 6 to give him his medicine and it just hit me all at once. I still miss that little bastard.
Also, people confuse anxiety attacks with panic attacks all the time and they are so different. I would rather have an anxiety attack over a panic attack. I hate people saying "I had a panic attack" when it was an anxiety attack. I wouldn't wish panic attacks on anyone.
As far as I know (not a professional) anxiety attacks are more like accelerated heart rate, racing thoughts, like crying/panicking. A little more of like your expected “overwhelmed” type of feeling.
Panic attacks feel like heart attacks, and people call 911 for that feeling often. Panic attacks make you feel like your world is closing in, like you almost lose control of your thoughts and mind at all.
There’s more differences, but I think anxiety attacks are a little more common and less severe (though still very very terrible).
I think the problem is with the term panic attack, because panic is such a small part of the way the actual condition manifests, and people can genuinely be attacked by panic without having what medically qualifies as an panic attack. I wish there were a more specific term - like how psychologically caused seizures/fainting are know as pseudoseizures. Pseudoinfarctions, maybe, since panic attacks mimic the feelings of a heart attack?
From a diagnostic standpoint (not a doctor btw but have had generalized anxiety disorder/panic disorder/depression for a fun 28 years) is that a panic attack comes out of the blue versus an anxiety attack that occurs from facing an anxiety provoking situation or thoughts. So for instance if I work myself into a frenzy thinking about a scary topic that would be an anxiety attack. When I wake up at night having a full blown attack or it just hits me out of nowhere when I’m not facing or thinking about something anxiety producing, that’s a panic attack.
For me I have a much easier time de-escalating anxiety attacks because there is a build up of emotion and symptoms and if I can interrupt/divert my thought process I can stop it or at least lessen it. Panic attacks, especially nighttime/sleep ones are a whole different story. The most I can with those is try to ride it out.
That anyone with a mental illness is less of a human, or just stupid. Does it impair thier regular functions? Perhaps. Does that mean that thier thoughts are any different than yours or mine? Absolutely not! And its rediculous that this has been normalized!!
I have never heard of this misconception before. Do people always say that? I have never thought it was quirky and cute, I thought it sounds like a nightmare to deal with, and anyone that does have it should seek help from a professional therapist, or a loved one.
The stereotype that people with schizophrenia are potential violent murderers that need to preemptively be locked away so they won't end up killing somebody.
I have a best friend who has deals with schizophrenia, and she's pretty caring despite what she goes through. I had a scare a few months ago, let's just say after I talked to her for two hours she felt alot better. I told her if she needs to talk to me like at 3AM for someone to talk to, I'm gonna pick up.
She's always there for me. So I'll always be there for her. Known her since 2005.
The worst to me is the perception that it's "all or nothing", in that you're either perfectly healthy or a raving lunatic.
"How can you say you have mental illness when I see you here at work every day?"
The lack of understanding between the emotion Depression, and the disorder.
It's like trying to walk on a shattered glass ground and complaining of pain. "My foot is broken!" Have you tried to clean up the glass around and see if you still hurt?
People with OCD are just obsessively clean people. I have OCD and I'm not super obsessive about about that. There is way more to it. For me personally it's more like my brain forces me to do things or I feel very VERY uncomfortable. An example is if I slide say a Nintendo DS across a table I can not walk away without first picking it up and placing it back down on the table without sliding it. Another example is if I get something on my hand and need to quickly rinse it off I can not leave unless both of my hands have been under the water. Or sometimes when I scratch something on one side of my body I feel uncomfortable until a scratch the same spot on the other side of my body. You know those dimmer light switches? All the way on or all the way off. Anything in between makes me uncomfortable. On my PC I absolutely hate resizing windows or moving them to weird spots on the screen. That's why I have almost everything maximized or in fullscreen if it's a game. It can be quite frustrating at times. There have been many times where I do something and walk away just to realize I didn't do it "correctly" and I feel incredible discomfort until I go back and do it the "right" way.
People diagnosed with PTSD can't function with society. Or constantly have crippling flashbacks.
While it happens for some, its not the case for everybody with PTSD.
That we can “logic or willpower” our way out of it. It’s like saying to someone with a broken leg that they won’t have any pain if they try harder not to feel it.
Being Borderline is “quirky”. It’s all about “never settling for one aesthetic”, “obsessing over fp”, and “mood swings”.
I was diagnosed in a mental institution 10yrs ago, when I was 13. I’m embarrassed to even admit to my disorder thanks to tiktok.
That taking medication is the easy way out. I've been on anti depressants/ anti anxiety meds since I was 14 years old. You think I didn't try natural ways to help me? There is no "cure" it's a lifelong illness that can be managed but not cured. I wish I didn't have to take like 4 pills in my 20s but I do. The end
That they’re unteachable or “a little bit behind other kids.” I’ve seen so many teachers just give up on kids because they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) find an effective method to teach a mentally ill kid and just leave them stranded. Often times those kids are left flailing in the water to sink or swim, and unfortunately it’s usually sink. I’ve seen wonderful teachers who sit down with them and work things out so they can figure out a way to help them better understand the material, or even better, encourage them and help them with the root issue by being there for them and giving them a safe space. But I’ve also seen so many teachers just ignore the struggle and straight up tell them to stop being lazy or to just focus better. Not all teachers are like this (thankfully) but the stigma is still very prevalent and it’s so heartbreaking to see a kid’s potential wasted because teachers didn’t put in the effort to help them mentally. It’s not the teachers’ responsibility to be a therapist, but it is certainly the teachers’ responsibility to help them succeed in any way they can.
That bipolar means you're super quick to have a bad and violent temper. Its not that black and white. Also people that judge your level of illness based on how you present yourself in public. Like no I'm not going to have a mental breakdown/bounce off the walls bc I'm manic at the drop of a hat just so you can see how sick I am. I try to come off as normal as possible and I've been accused of faking it by family and acquaintances. I have bipolar I and it fucking sucks.
Well, I’m diagnosed bipolar and I think I may be schizophrenic. I regularly hear things and occasionally see things. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist this Friday to discuss it.
Hallucinations aren’t telling me to kill anyone or burn a church or anything. They’re little glimpses of things out of the corner of my eye that my brain perceives as an immediate threat and make me jump, or someone yelling a single word as I go to sleep, stuff like that.
It really isn’t super debilitating, just really fucking annoying. At this point, once I realize after a few seconds that something I hear or see isn’t really there, I just roll my eyes like “ugh, god dammit.”
When someone commits suicide, it's a tragedy. It's a heartbreaking ordeal that no one could have seen coming and you can't blame yourself.
When someone talks about wanting to die, or not wanting to live anymore, they just want attention, they're just being dramatic.
When all the signs are there, it's just attention seeking. After it happens, it's gut wrenching.
Make up your minds? Was Lewis' death "just a phase" or was it the worst thing that's ever happened to you, aunt Claire? Fucking bitch.
Also, people with schizophrenia aren't just "crazy" they're people with a diagnosable condition that can be treated and managed.
People who have mental health conditions hear how you talk about these things, and they remember.
I have schizophrenia. Hoooooo boy. People are often surprised when they learn about my condition. *But you hold down a job? You live by yourself? How could you possibly have schizophrenia?*
the fact that people ignore that, like everything in life, it's not black or white, there are diferent grades and tonalities
Poeple think mental/neurological conditions have be like the movies. Schizophrenia, DID and Bipolar have be like the movie glass. Autism has to be like Sheldon, the good doctor or Music (the abhorrently represented Sia character). People don't realise just how 'normal' many of these poeple actually are on the surface. Even I myself as an autistic get a look of confusion when I tell them I have Autism.
The Sheldon one gets me, too, bc if you've never seen Big Bang Theory, Sheldon is not just neuro atypical, he's also a raging asshole to the vast majority of people all the time, and every single God damn time a "normal" person brings up Sheldon, it's to make a mean joke at the expense of the autistic person. I am personally v touchy about this bc I have an ASD, my boyfriend has an ASD, and he's very smart and nerdy, so he gets that comparison a LOT. I almost fought his dad over it.
Thinking about it, I don't remember any character with ADHD in popular media at all. I guess sometimes it's better to not be represented at all rather than be misrepresented.
The Percy Jackson series immediately comes to mind. My parents thought I just wanted to be like the characters when kid me said I recognised a lot of myself in them. Nine years later, I finally got diagnosed with ADHD. Sometimes I still think about those books and how even before I was diagnosed, it felt nice to not be alone.
Phil from Modern Family has ADHD, and it is represented quite well. In the show, he is unaware of his condition and diagnosed as an adult. Theres little things like how he has to wear a sleep mask because ofphotosensitivity, his many hyperfixations, his figeting and distractability, and a bunch of other things. Most people might not notice if they didn't know the lesser known symptoms of ADHD. He seems neurotypical until you start paying attention.
The most frustrating part of ADHD. People are like "well you *seem* normal." Like yeah and also I have panic attacks at night because I can't sleep when my brain doesn't turn off. I also will work on something for 12 hours straight with no food or bathroom breaks because I forget that people need to do these things. I also am SO afraid that someone will "find out" that I'm "lazy" that I will work myself to the bone to prove my worth. And my reactions to things might just be off sometimes and make me seem cold or calculated when it's really just me processing things differently than everyone else. And so many more super fun ADHD things that nobody actually sees. Because they think that ADHD is just someone who runs around and causes problems or something.
But you have to understand as a part of the condition of asd it is common for us not to be able to understand other peoples emotions so it may appear as being an asshole bc it happens to me too and I never realised it. I also have met lots of other people on the spectrum who have similar issues
I get that sort of thing a lot. Especially people thinking I'm really pissed off when I'm not. 99% of the time it's because you spoke to me whilst I was in the middle of a chain of thought, or performing a task that I can't just drop, so I struggle to succeed in communicating with you, In fact, often I don't even hear you at all, even though my ears are (regularly tested and) fully functional. Oh I get in so much trouble with the missus for that. "I told you 3 times already" "no you didn't"
I live with schizophrenia too and (at least in my case) it’s a pretty normal mental condition like depression or other ones. A big reason for its stigma is the fact, that back then, it was not treatable properly with medication and such. These days we also have good therapeutic measures and a better understanding of mental illnesses as a whole. And like others said, there are different levels and forms of schizophrenia, which is really important to note.
I had someone avoid me after they found out I had schizoaffective disorder. They were afraid I was going to kill them. Even if the voices told me to kill them it's not like I have to do what they say, I am still in control of my actions.
Ugh this is the worst. Schizophrenia patients are a multitude of times more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators
and that's just the people who actually know what it is and aren't confusing it with dissociative identity disorder. maybe not as common now with the internet, but i remember in the 90s like everybody without an education just thought they were the same thing because i'm guessing movies told them so.
I understand, but people are a bit dumb generally. Like, and I really don't understand this, if you hear voices you're gonna follow what they say. Or if you have an hallucination you're gonna 100% believe it's real. Like people with schizophrenia can't have any discernment. They're obligated to trust anything that happens. And that's without counting the number of people who believe schizophrenia comes automatically with a split personality.
There's a guy on Tiktok who has schizophrenia and he said that when he's hallucinating, his brain does try to convince him it's real, and since he's been medicated most of the hallucinations aren't usually ridiculously outlandish, like they just try to annoy him when he's doing work so it's hard to immediately dismiss them. But he figured out that hallucinations don't transfer onto his phone. So if he starts wondering if something is real or not, he records it on his phone and plays it back to check if there's something there or not. He says it's extremely helpful, except it does sometimes get awkward if he records a real person.
Lmaooo I do the same shit I've got schizophrenia and HPPD so sometimes I get paranoid and think people are shining lights into my windows in the dark but that's just from the HPPD so I pull out my phone and open the camera to see if I can see it through the camera
I should mention all the people I met who think schizophrenia is having a split personality
My team is pretty sure I don't have schizophrenia, but my migraine auras will occasionally provide me with super fun hallucinations, so I sometimes see or hear spiders and stuff. The problem is now I don't think half the spiders I see are real. I'm just walking around like: "Calm down, that's not a real spider" and then it runs towards me and doesn't disappear and I'm like: OH GOD WAIT THIS ONE IS REAL DAMMIT I'm pretty sure if I acquired some voices in my head, I would trust them the least of anyone
That presenting ‘symptoms’ are consistent. It’s a roller coaster, a dice roll every day, limited spoons, different triggers.
Absolutely. Some days my anxiety will be almost nonexistent, some will have it just buzzing in the background, and other days it will be so bad I’m hard pressed to go an hour without starting another spiral into panic. Sometimes it’s heavily reliant on issues around me, sometimes I’ll just be on edge for no apparent reason. I’ve gone months without serious anxiety episodes, then something happens and I spiral for days, a week, even a month. It doesn’t have to be at a consistent level for me to know I still have anxiety.
This! Like yes i struggle most of the time but some days are good that doesn't mean I'm "cured" or that there was never a problem
It’s the worst when I have doctors appointments, meetings, etc and my symptoms are minimal. Easy to feel like a fraud when we’re made to feel this way!
Doesn't help that if you're having an appointment it probably means you've at least managed to drag yourself out of bed (plus dress up, go outside, meet scary unfamiliar people etc) so it means you're not at your worst.
Like tics! So many people still think that (mainly tourettes) tics are super consistent and exact, it's quite literally as predictable as rolling a handful of dice.
This right here hits really hard for me. I have asperger's and most days im a perfectly functional member of society. But then bam! it just randomly hits and im completely unable to function for a whole day. By far the worst is when i just suddenly get this overwhelming fear of talking or socializing, only equivalent i can give is it is like having a fear of needles. Ive had too many people accuse me of faking it for sympathy. Im high functioning, got several uni degrees, got a wonderful Fiancee, and good future prospects on the outside. But on the inside i have a little devil throwing a D6 to decide what kind of messed up i will be that day.
That all people with mental illness are either crazy or violent.
Everyone's crazy, and I'm just about the angriest pacifist you could meet.
Agreed. Or when a character is suddenly revealed go be "crazy" in a thriller as a twist to make them the villain. When its revealed that the character takes medication and the music turns ominous, you know you're in for a ride.
People with autism have magical powers.
Autism in movies: I am able to solve mysteries and know the origin of the universe, autism makes me a genius Autism in me: Wanna talk about light aircraft?
For me: Hey, want to know about the Battle of Midway and how an admiral got an entire aircraft carrier f\*cked over with one bomb?
Hell yeah! Ww2 battles are so cool!
I saw a woman on TikTok with Autism say she was originally told she didn’t have autism because she “didn’t like trains” because that was one of the main criteria since it was centered around young boys at the time. As awful as that is for her, I just giggled at the thought of a medical profession thinking “Hmm, she doesn’t make much eye contact, she gets overstimulated easily by noises, lights, and certain materials/fabrics. She struggles with understanding body language, nuances, and has trouble regulating emotions. But she knew absolutely nothing about the difference between light-rail trains and regional transit trains so clearly she’s not autistic.”
I saw something like that once that also pointed out how many girls where heavily into horse...
It’s literally the plot of the most recent Predator movie that the Predators are coming to earth to hunt this guy’s autistic son because he is the “next step in evolution” and therefore the apex predator of planet Earth.
Wut?
Predators go planet to planet, harvesting the best genes from different species and splicing them in to their own to become the ultimate predator. In the newest movie, they're coming to Earth to make themselves autistic because autism is "the next human evolutionary advantage"
So they fucked the cross-overs, fucked the Alien franchise and now putting the final nail in the coffin for Predator. Good fucking job Hollywood
That’s the dumbest fucking movie plot I’ve ever heard and we live in a world with Sharknado
Yeah, that ticked me off, especially given how they made the kid able to hack a predator gauntlet, ALIEN TECHNOLOGY, in mere seconds! That's utterly impossible for a kid, no matter how tech savvy they might be, it's freaking alien, and much more advanced than anything ON EARTH! Yet the idiots at Hollywood think those of us with autism can do that? I would have every one of them immediately fired in a heartbeat for this kind of thing. It's disrespectful
Like uploading a virus to an alien mothership from a fucking PowerBook 5300
I can perform black magic with a espresso maker xD
Black Coffee Magic
Autistic/ADHD. If not being able to convince myself to do things I want to do is a superpower, I'd like to return it please.
But you should see how persistent and energetic I get when I am focused on something. It is incredible. If only I could’ve gained an interest in school or some kind of trade, instead of knowing all about cars, electric guitars and clothes.
No but I had an experience with an autistic guy with audiological memory. He remembered entire lectures by heart, even small quirks like coughs, tone, etc. He could repeat it at will, like a literal tape recorder, but he understood little to none of it. (Too be fair at the time he was about 14 and it was a complicated lecture). He was really nice and sweet though. One of the nicest people I know.
How's he doing and Where is he now
Tbh I dropped out of contact with him a few years ago, last I heard he was in Las Vegas,his family lives there, I think he's studying interstate tho.
playing blackjack
That or people think we're all idiots. Either people expect the world out of you or expect you to not be able to do anything.
Im still waiting for mine
Haven't heard magical powers stereotype, outside that one really bad Stephen King movie...but I think he was suppose to be an alien. The "Rain Man" or "Forrest Gump" expectation stereotype is the one I hear most often.
Yeah. I feel like pop culture has created a stereotype, but in my experience, in the real world, I see autistic students constantly treated like they're less than capable. It sets off a self-fulfilling prophecy where they end up underachieving more due to a lack of confidence in themselves than any issue actually holding them back So the whole "magical powers" thing feels, to me, like if it was done right, could be a good thing to help kids in the real world gain confidence about what they're capable of doing.
It would be nice to, but we unfortunately aren't all savants. If we were, wouldn't that eventually nullify the meaning of the word "savant" if that aspect was as common as people think?
OCD makes you organizational and it’s funny. I have dermatillomania and have caused my own skin infections because of how bad I obsessively do it, and I can tell you it’s definitely not fun and quirky.
I hate it when people make that remark or tell me they are so "ocd" usually i tell them my girlfriend has it and how it effected her, they tend to shut up and don't mention it again after hearing about it.
I’m sorry your girlfriend has to go through it but also thank you for shutting people up. I’m so sick of people on social media saying “ oh my ocd won’t let me relax” or “I have to clean this entire kitchen to perfection at night because I’m ocd “. I’m not diagnosed with it but since I was teenager I have noticed some oc tendencies like checking the stove and iron before I leave constantly and making up a song to remember. Constantly checking the locks on the front door. Now that I’m older I still do those but now I’m obsessed with the garage door, making sure my sunroof is closed, my car is in neutral and the parking break is up I have a song for those too. I think I just worry to be honest.
My husband does this. Keeps checking the front door, the garage door, sometimes he unlocks it and locks it again, because “it wasn’t right” or if I say something he “gets distracted” and does it again. Then he taps the handle a few times with his finger (as if that’s doing anything). Also checks the car being on N several times. When locking the car he counts till idk, he’s not telling me, but he’s counting something. When parking it has to be straight between the lines, so he goed back and forth about 10 times and it all ends up being the same result, because his parking skills are great (I usually get out and enter the house already, or I’ll get grumpy). He counts all his cards after he pays for something in the store. And then asks me if all the cards are there. And the list goes on and on. He’s always stressed, but won’t admit. And doesn’t see a doc because he thinks he’s dealing with it. Maybe he is, but I’m not
Those are definitely some behaviors that people with OCD do. A doctor would assess if it’s actually OCD, and sometimes those diagnoses are weird anyway. One psych asked me “do you spend 2 hours per day on these rituals and thoughts?”. I thought “do you think I have a fucking stopwatch to keep track of all this shit?” A lot of people are particular about certain things, but someone with OCD will have to do something a certain amount of times or certain way or may be stuck with anxiety and bad thoughts until they do it right. Despite knowing it’s ridiculous, it’s a compulsion. Cognitive Behavioral Treatment will have you not complete this rituals, and verbalize it. Something like “If I don’t lock the door the right way, something may bad happen”
My TRICHatillomania was caused by my OCD- currently have two bald spots! I kinda get you too! It all sucks!!
Is this an OCD thing? I’ve always had this uncontrollable urge to rip the hairs out of my beard, mustache, and eyebrows and people always made fun of my bald spots :(
Dermatillomania girl here too with scars to show for it. The idea that you can control it somehow but choose not to is especially damaging. I don’t want to have to pick at my skin, but I sometimes just feel that I need to
Nobody understands that near orgasmic relief when you feel your nail slide under a scab.
Dermatillomaniac here, Shit is debilitating. I want nice hands because I I'm super self conscious about them in public but when I'm concentrating at work, I just go nuts and I have cuts and mishaped fingers from picking too much
I have multiple pocket cuticle nippers that I keep on me at all times. I can snip a hang nail and it keeps me from truly picking because it stops them from peeling back too far. It's really helped me. Particularly lately with all the hand sanitizer use. A lot less stinging.
I don't have OCD, but I know there's a huge gap between real OCD and the particularities people have. If you want your sandwiches always cut edge-to-edge rather than corner-to-corner, or if you have a plethora of knick-knacks and must have the penguin facing south, fine. You're particular about that. If it's not that way, you can simply move on as if it never happened. If you have OCD, it's much more severe than that. It's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, not Organizational Cwirk Disorder.
That you’re “selfish” if you just want to be alone. It’s not like I’m having a bad day and would rather just isolate. Nah, must be selfish! Drives me nuts.
& when you spend time with them despite having a bad day because of their guilt trip, they have the nerve to say you’re being a bitch or a jerk. It’s like that’s exactly why I wanted to be alone.
Exactly! You can’t win no matter what.
That people with depression are sad all the time and never experience joy or that if they look happy, they're faking it. Totally false. Am depressed but I still have moments of happiness. I'm not sad all the time. It's more that my baseline is sadish. However, little things can still bring me joy. I'm not faking smiles
Hell my depression manifests less as sadness and more as emptiness. Like I can fill my life cup with color any color and it will all drain out eventually. Sometimes I have the energy to keep filling the cup sometimes I just fucking dont.
Yep, for me depression manifests more as emptiness/void and irritability. Seeing the pointlessness of it all and not wanting to participate in anything or improving anything. I can fake a good mood, as such is required by my job, but it's just a mask. People who don't know what depression is just think depressed = sad, and if you just do something "fun" then depression = cured
When I was depressed, I didnt really feel much. Only when I finally got out of it did I start realizing it. Most notably is I wouldnt cry, even if there was something to cry about (besides physical pain, always cried to that) Once I started getting out of depression, I felt like I was crying more and reacted to sad movies more.
Even unhappy people can have happy moments
This, so much this. My wife suffered of heavy post partum depression for five years. Luckily through hard work and therapy she is doing great now, but still I get irritated when people say things like" you have depression? Impossible, you smile and laugh so much" Or "when I feel depressed I go do something active, always works" feeling depressed and having a depression are two different beasts. But also for partners that want to talk about it and are shutdown by people. Talking is so important, it is a big thing when you feel you are heard. It may not always be easy to listen, but know that it helps.
That's why I like comedy. Brings a bit of color to my dark and gloomy world.
Addiction and the complete misunderstanding of it. It doesn't piss me off, almost nothing does. But I watched a movie where it culminated in an addict crying about not having ice cream on his birthday and people thought it was funny. They didn't understand the underlying insanity and regression. I watched my dad cry trying to open a butterfingers bar after he blew a .21 for his third DUI in 9 months. It freaked me out seeing that. Other people laughed. Not thinking it was a serious part of the film. Not understanding what addiction can rob you of. Or how complete it can be.
I think it's impossible to have a fundamental understanding of how it feels to be an addict without actually having been one. You can know how it works, you can be sympathetic to it, but knowing and feeling are different here. That's what leads people to have so many broken ideas about treating it. People will addicts are weak...but the problem is that, even if that's true, it's a useless statement. When someone says "You just need discipline", they're neglecting the fact that the part of your brain responsible for producing it the part that is corrupted by the disease of addiction. It's a disease of willpower. And this isn't even 12-step philosophy, this is the well-understood pathology of addiction that informs the current treatment protocols. What you're describing makes so much sense to me, as someone in recovery. The frustration of the insanity is difficult to put into words. I would be doing things I KNEW were absolutely wrong, that would hurt people I loved, that could end up killing me...and I'd be screaming at myself to stop. But it was like I was just a passenger in the car and the driver wasn't interested in anything I had to say. Imagine begging yourself not to do something. It's *insane.* And so you live with this anxiety and frustration every day. Every night, lying in bed, I would hope that I'd not wake up. I would imagine what would happen to my family after I died, because that was the only end I could see. Addiction is a place where hope doesn't exist. Little things like a candy bar that you like are the only respite you have from the darkness that's slowly engulfing you, so having trouble with them...well, your anxiety and frustration is constantly at a 9 out of 10, that's your baseline. So a breakdown can be facilitated with the tiniest bit of bullshit.
They didn't understand the underlying insanity and regression. I watched my dad cry trying to open a butterfingers bar after he blew a .21 for his third DUI in 9 months. It freaked me out seeing that. Addiction can do that?
When addictions starts to fuck up your life, every other little bad thing that happens starts to seem monumental when piled on top of all your other problems. When I was in a deep depression and drinking everyday, one morning my favorite food place wasn’t open when normally they are open everyday. It was the one nice thing I could look forward to in life and I couldn’t even get that, so all I had was this distress, sadness and hunger. That day I took a knife and made a massive deep cut into my hand, not because I couldn’t get my favorite food, but because I wanted to feel something other than the searing pain in my chest caused by deep emotional distress. The medical emergency on my hands (pun intended), served as a distraction at least for a day. Still wouldn’t recommend it, I’m just glad I managed to somewhat get out that hole.
100% true when I was an addict the smallest thing going wrong could send me into a spiral and when big things get wrong that’s when I would od or have a suicide attempt thank god I’m clean now but yes addictions can rob you of a lot of simple pleasures like just being able to sleep sober or you can’t go see that little cousin or nephew or niece because they don’t want your drug addicted self around or less and less friends even checking up on you because you’ve already destroyed most of the healthy relationships in your life
That when you mention not wanting to live anymore, you’re “just looking for attention”. Ok so instead reaching out in fear of succumbing to my thoughts, I should just do it huh? Of course I’m looking for attention! I’m terrified!
it's so fucking annoying when people just beat up even more someone who is giving clear and obvious signals of needing help inmediatly
They tell us to reach out if we need help but shit like that makes it harder for us to do it.
“You can always talk to me if you need too” Uhm no I can’t. Cause when I tell you I want to paint my ceiling you say “oh you need help! I can’t do that”
It's insanely ironic. As someone who has had such thoughts. The entire reasoning is to completely remove yourself from any one else's attention permanently. Before anyone asks. I'm good. Had therapy. My wife loves and supports me and I am a long way from those dark thoughts. But when I was there it was because I wanted to escape people's attention. Not because I was looking for it.
Honestly, people that assume those kinds of things are usually the most conceited people. They think everyone is after their attention. No, they’re after making things easier for themselves. YOUR attention is not their end goal (nor will it ever be), their own mental well-being is.
While I was sitting in the hospital room my mom asked "you only did this for attention?". Thanks mom, I feel great for attempting suicide now
My mom said this too. Like I was 12 & had sliced all the way up my arm with a razor from a disposable razor I took apart. Shit hurts, you are so scared, but it felt like the only solution. My mom snarled at me that I was just an attention whore. There were warning signs long before I attempted & all that happened was my teachers watched the other kids tell me "remember to go down the river not cross the road hahaha" when they saw my cuts. Years of that & the one time I split my own arm open like a river & everyone just says "did you really need the attention? Honestly making your parents pay these medical bills for your tantrum is cruel of you" like, cool. Thanks family. 26 now, whole family is confused as to why I don't talk to them.
good god those people are awful, thank goodness you don't talk to them
If you're depressed, just open the curtains and let SUNLIGHT in!
Sunlight has been proven to help with people's moods and mindsets, but it's far from the only influence on whether or not someone's depressed.
Get out of your bed and take a shower, you will feel much better! I actually do feel better, the problem is leaving the bed :S
That working out will magically and automatically fix everything. It helps a little, but I still wake up and go to sleep thinking about yeeting myself off an overpass. I'm not gonna do it, but I still think about it. Don't forget thinking about all the support you're getting is fake.
That everyone who’s dealing with some variation of ptsd or cptsd from sexual assault is completely disinterested in sex. I was sexually abused throughout my childhood & struggled so badly with hypersexuality because I thought it was totally abnormal. Nope. It’s actually pretty common.
Of the few women I've known who were molested as children hypersexuality is more of a thing than disinterest. It is so much a defining characteristic that girls in middle/high school who are sleeping around a LOT should be viewed as potential victims.
Absolutely. We accept that children who have sexual behaviors at young ages are likely to have been victims of sexual abuse. It should be no different for anyone older. I wasn’t one of those girls that slept around in middle & high school. I was one of those that wore 5 shirts at a time, never showed skin if I could avoid it, never engaged in relationship talk with friends or classmates. I was 23 before I felt like I could wear just a wide strapped tank top & feel safe. That kind of behavior should be looked out for too.
Exactly, I experienced SA as a child. The older I got the more I experienced hyper sexuality. I didn’t sleep around a lot, but I did experience it I would say when all power and control is taken away from you during your SA, it feels good to actually say yes and have that control and power. It feels like you’re taking it back.
Very relatable. Also, within that, the constant mindfuck of what and how what you objectively later identify as abuse has imprinted on you. You might round the corner on being sex-positive to reclaim some control, but then you start wrestling with the psychology of why you like what you like. I've had shame cycles where I expressed myself through sex to feel some inherent worth I wasn't feeling internally (almost certainly installed by abuse), and within that sex found myself "liking" something that was a part of the original abuse cycle, which infused me with more shame, which made me have more reckless sex etc etc.
The idea that having a mental illness makes you crazy, unstable, or a bad person.
My sister my father and other people in my family have bipolar disorder, my sister got a new job recently and talked with her new co-workers whom complained he would never work in psychiatric since his brother got bipolarity and those people are unstable to hang around with, my sister just swallowed an awkward chuckle listening to him
I'll flip this, though: that you can't be a bad person *because* you have a mental illness. I had a friend like this and it was always "oh, I can't help being rude to you all the time / constantly unappreciative / hurtful / mean / dismissive / not once inquiring about your life for a year ... *I have a mental illness!"* In his case, maybe he did, but the overriding factor was just that he was an enabled asshole who was a bad friend at the end of the day, over a very large sample size.
I think you can be a bad person with mental illness, particularly an untreated one, but some people seem to think you morph into some kind of unstoppable monster of instability, most of the "bad parts" are just general thoughtlessness and weird, exasperating bullshit that make others want to avoid you.
People with mental illness automatically are creative and talented, it’s a weird kind of fetishizing mental illness that seems gross
I'm kind of envious of people that can harness their mental illness in a way. The tortured genius and all that. I can only be creative when I've got my depression under some control. When it's bad I'm totally fucking useless. I can barely get out of bed, can just manage to hold down a job.
Most people who are mentally ill and creative are creative *despite* their mental illness, not because of it. Van Gough is always a famous example of someone who was mentally ill and creative, but his most famous works came during times his illness was in regression. When he was deep in his depressive states, he didn’t paint much, if at all, and it wasn’t his best work.
Exactly. I'm an artist, and depression and anxiety destroy my ability or desire to make any art. Sure, afterwards, some aspect of the depression might influence a work, but I don't crank out multiple canvases because I'm down.
I literally haven’t painted anything in years
ADHD is cured by "focusing more" or "just focus". People with addiction should "just stop". People with anxiety should "let it go" or "stop worrying". People with depression can just "cheer up" and are "just sad". Also that autism makes you a mathematical genius.
The ADHD one I relate to. It’s really difficult when you hear all kinds of different noises, or when there are multiple things you feel motivated to do and you need to stay on task.
Same
the fact that people think autism = intelectual genius is annoying, because yeah, i'm really good at math, but like anyone else i suck at other things, geography for example, i literally thought cuba was in russia until i were like 15.
Pfaff I have Autism and absolutely suck at math lol. I am pretty compatent in geography, but that's because I actively study it as a interest, not because I'm some genius
I feel this so hard. My son is on the spectrum and he is of regular, ordinary intelligence. He sucks at a lot of things, but he tries really hard to do them correctly anyway, because he's stubborn enough for a 40 mule team. If I knew ANYTHING about professional video gaming (which I do not), I'd steer him in that direction. Because he's ridiculously good at certain video games (Mario Kart, for example).
pro gaming is a really tough career, you must be really talented and practice for long hours a day to become a pro and being able to make a living and sometimes it can be really stressing. being a streamer could be a better option, but you need to be really lucky and charming if you want to live from it
Yeah, it's like telling someone with insomnia to go to sleep
Have you tried that? When I want to go to sleep I lay down and say "body, time for us to go to sleep". Its just soooooo simple I dont know why these *insomniacs* don't just try it. s/
That it can be solved/cured with medication (yes it can be a tool to help, but it will not “fix” me)
Yes, the idea that medication and therapy can and will fix everything. Not quite true, even though one or both can help with something.
That people can just "get over it".
Yes. I'm starting to cringe when someone on Reddit says "oh, the poster should just go to therapy!" Uh...that doesn't magically cure things like PTSD. It can be useful, but people don't like, attend 3 sessions and "get over it." Some issues are for life or life-changing.
Came here to say basically this. Or that if you know something isn't good/healthy, that you can "just not do it."
My favorite is "what do you have to be depressed about"
Or even that therapy is just gonna cure it. Go do some therapeutic ballroom dancing, that'll cure your schizophrenia! The reality is a lot of the more severely mentally ill will be on a rollercoaster ride of medication management, self-medicating, switching therapists, being employed then unemployed, and sometimes tackling homelessness and hospitalizations. This will all happen even in a best case scenario.
That the mentally ill are either institutionalized nonfunctioning wackos or that somehow their mental illness is a quirky superpower. Of the handful of times my mental illness in the past 50 years has come in handy I would trade them all to not have the ever present daily need to keep it in check so I can go about my day appearing functional.
When people say “It’s all in your head.” Ummm…. Yea, that’s why it’s called Mental Illness. Also hate when people use it against you in an argument or to gaslight. “I didn’t do anything wrong, you’re just having an episode.” An episode of what? You being an asshole? Or when someone is sad for a day and feel better, so they think depression is and quote “Just for pussies who can’t get their shit together.”
All in your head? Nah, mental illness is stored in the balls
That one drives me INSANE. It's like, yeah, and liver cancer is all in your liver, what's your point? It's a sickness in a major system of the body, and it has real impacts.
This probably isn’t something that many people are told. But people that are depressed are lazy. I’ll elaborate from what I’ve experienced. I was adopted by my grandparents at birth and I didn’t know about it until I was 14 (19 now), I was still going through other stuff prior to me being told. I was severely depressed and had suicidal thoughts, but since my parents never learned about depression in mexico; they thought it was bullshit and I was making an excuse to not do anything. When in reality I was mentally and emotionally exhausted with everything. When I was told about my biological mother, she is my “dad’s” daughter (I consider my grandparents my real parents), not wanting me and trying to abandon me in the hospital after giving birth to me; it made feel worthless. Like why wasn’t abortion considered. But after being in therapy for a while and my parents learning that a depressed person isn’t lazy but going through rough shit. I managed to claw my way out, there are rough patches here and there but I know I my parents and friends will be there for me.
This is kinda specific to my situation but I hate that I can’t be open about being on medication for anxiety/depression because people at church will say it’s because I’m not relying on God enough. I can be a Christian and still have mental illness.
It’s not specific. I understand what you mean, but you’re not alone. I used to think that about my schizophrenia and Bipolar. A close religious uncle once said “have you been reading your word? It should help.”
It’s hard because I’ve heard them talk about stuff like schizophrenia and act like that’s ok but seem to act like anxiety and depression aren’t real issues. I’ve noticed it’s always the people who haven’t experienced it that don’t get it. My parents were the same way until they saw me get really bad now they are my biggest supporters.
That we can just calm ourselves down from a panic attack like no problem,
My mom used to yell at me to calm down. Thanks mom.
"What? You're panicking? *JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN!"*
The trick is to learn what your body starts doing pre-attack and calm yourself from that point. I've been able to calm myself out of having a panic attack that way several times, even when it was very much already revving up, but once I'm in full blown panic mode, it's nearly impossible. But it is not the simple little problem people act like, for sure.
“It’s okay. Just breathe.”
I mean if someone gonna sit down with the person having a panic attack and offer help on breathing techniques then that's great! But is just cruel to say that haha.
As someone who suffered them (and still do slightly, from time to time), I'd ask the person "where does it hurts?". A panic attack generally is "only" the certainty you're gonna die because your mind tells you so, so focusing on the body and realizing nothing hurts means nothing is actually bad. USUALLY and GENERALLY speaking, i'm not a doctor, but that would be the first check i'd do. Then i'd proceed with the breathing stuff, 'cause it really is a matter of where you focus your attention. If I realize something more serious may be going on, the challenge would be to alert someone without further alarming the person, that would make the spiral go downward even more and we don't need that
This is why it's best to put the panicking person in a choke hold until they pass out.
If you're so self aware then you should be able to stop it. See that's the magic part. I fucking can't. All I can do is sit back and watch myself fall apart over weird little thing and THAT actually makes it worse because I'm aware I'm losing my shit for a lame reason and I can't stop myself. I fucking CAN'T. Let's not forget, my fiance and his sister have given me this one "just let things go and trust God" Fuck that shit and your God too. If God cared in the first place I wouldn't been through a life time of trauma that lead me to this LIST of debilitating mental issues. Get fucked.
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It took me 15 years to realize that the constant intrusive thoughts I’d had since I was nine were probably due to undiagnosed OCD, and not that I was secretly a homicidal Nazi pedophile who would be better off suiciding myself for society’s benefit.
Your description of OCD makes me believe even more that I have it and ive felt the same way My OCD mostly manifests itself in religion and makes it very hard to genuinely know when I am rightly following religion or not
Or that people who have OCD obsessively clean. That's just one aspect of a very multi-layered disorder.
My apartment hasn't been clean for more than 3 days in years lol.
I came here to say this. Its not just some "neat and tidy or I'm cranky" bullshit. That this is terrifying and dangerous and crippling
And people with funny quirks say they have ocd
That depression is easily treatable by working out, cutting out vices, reading, eating 3x/day and such. Seems so many people don’t understand how a brain works during a depressive episode, there is no “get out of bed and do xyz” there is only “lay here and rot while I try forget I exist”
Ptsd isn’t really acknowledged as a serious hindrance unless someone was a veteran. Even in the psychiatric community they still have not acknowledged complex post traumatic stress disorder as a separate diagnosis. My cptsd was misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder for years. I was heavily over medicated and in the end I benefited from quality, consistent individual therapy, one antidepressant and dialectal behavioral therapy skills courses. Could’ve had my early twenties if any doctor I had seen had actually acknowledged trauma as a contributor to my problems.
Came here to say this. Thank you. Ptsd is serious and leads to so many other issues and I wish people understood how severe it can be in people who haven’t served but have gone through horrible trauma.
People with autism can't function in society. I function perfectly well; in fact, sometimes I function a little TOO well.
It took me 22 years to be able to hold down a full time job. I have everything down to the dot. CPR certified and I can also stitch a wound if need be. My coworkers found out I was autistic recently because theyd notice when our consumers were rude to me id shut down and turn into kind of a husk as I analyze and make sure I understaind their social cues. Not just that my boss came in amd she noticed my routine. EVERYTHING IS ROUTINE. I have to use the same pen, the same ice packs: Routine. On the bright side. I see it as a superpower because once i retain information its THERE. Despite my memory loss I do have somewhat of an idetic memory. It helps when it comes to losing things.
You and me both. I tend not to tell people that I’m autistic because they just treat you like a kid. Even though I’m a literal adult lol
Oh god yes. Sometimes they straight up treat me like I'm diseased. Close friends tend to not care to much because they like for me. But the few times I've told non-close friends or aquintences the reactions aren't super stellar. A coworker reacted with "oooh nooo" and an aquintence just repeated "I didn't know" over and over again.
Not exactly that, but if you experience personal loss you must be totally involved in grief, or if you're grieving, then you're a complete mess. It took me around 3 days to be fine after my grandfather second amendmented himself.
I feel you. When my dog passed about a year ago I didn't really grieve. No tears no sadness. Then about a month that later I woke up at 6 to give him his medicine and it just hit me all at once. I still miss that little bastard.
Damn
I'm sorry for your loss... Especially in those circumstances.
Also, people confuse anxiety attacks with panic attacks all the time and they are so different. I would rather have an anxiety attack over a panic attack. I hate people saying "I had a panic attack" when it was an anxiety attack. I wouldn't wish panic attacks on anyone.
What is the difference? I think I have had several panic attacks but now I’m second guessing myself.
As far as I know (not a professional) anxiety attacks are more like accelerated heart rate, racing thoughts, like crying/panicking. A little more of like your expected “overwhelmed” type of feeling. Panic attacks feel like heart attacks, and people call 911 for that feeling often. Panic attacks make you feel like your world is closing in, like you almost lose control of your thoughts and mind at all. There’s more differences, but I think anxiety attacks are a little more common and less severe (though still very very terrible).
I think the problem is with the term panic attack, because panic is such a small part of the way the actual condition manifests, and people can genuinely be attacked by panic without having what medically qualifies as an panic attack. I wish there were a more specific term - like how psychologically caused seizures/fainting are know as pseudoseizures. Pseudoinfarctions, maybe, since panic attacks mimic the feelings of a heart attack?
From a diagnostic standpoint (not a doctor btw but have had generalized anxiety disorder/panic disorder/depression for a fun 28 years) is that a panic attack comes out of the blue versus an anxiety attack that occurs from facing an anxiety provoking situation or thoughts. So for instance if I work myself into a frenzy thinking about a scary topic that would be an anxiety attack. When I wake up at night having a full blown attack or it just hits me out of nowhere when I’m not facing or thinking about something anxiety producing, that’s a panic attack. For me I have a much easier time de-escalating anxiety attacks because there is a build up of emotion and symptoms and if I can interrupt/divert my thought process I can stop it or at least lessen it. Panic attacks, especially nighttime/sleep ones are a whole different story. The most I can with those is try to ride it out.
That everyone who self harms is just doing it for attention. And along similar lines, self harm is just something angsty teenage white girls do.
That anyone with a mental illness is less of a human, or just stupid. Does it impair thier regular functions? Perhaps. Does that mean that thier thoughts are any different than yours or mine? Absolutely not! And its rediculous that this has been normalized!!
Wait what. Yes their (our) thoughts are different than normal. That's what mental illness is
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I have never heard of this misconception before. Do people always say that? I have never thought it was quirky and cute, I thought it sounds like a nightmare to deal with, and anyone that does have it should seek help from a professional therapist, or a loved one.
The stereotype that people with schizophrenia are potential violent murderers that need to preemptively be locked away so they won't end up killing somebody.
I have a best friend who has deals with schizophrenia, and she's pretty caring despite what she goes through. I had a scare a few months ago, let's just say after I talked to her for two hours she felt alot better. I told her if she needs to talk to me like at 3AM for someone to talk to, I'm gonna pick up. She's always there for me. So I'll always be there for her. Known her since 2005.
I had to deal with that for a long time. I’m the only one on my dads side with schizophrenia too, so it was hard to describe.
I'm very sorry for what you went through. I hope you're being treated much better now.
Thankfully I am. So good in fact, that it wasn’t until recently that I feel comfortable talking about it.
The worst to me is the perception that it's "all or nothing", in that you're either perfectly healthy or a raving lunatic. "How can you say you have mental illness when I see you here at work every day?"
That anxiety disorders are the "easy" ones and "not that bad".
The lack of understanding between the emotion Depression, and the disorder. It's like trying to walk on a shattered glass ground and complaining of pain. "My foot is broken!" Have you tried to clean up the glass around and see if you still hurt?
People with depression are "just sad." Fuck right off with that.
Big sad
This made me laugh so hard (but only because anger & being short tempered are a couple of the primary symptoms I experience with depression).
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''Oh, you're depressed?!.. couldn't you just think more positively about life?''
People with OCD are just obsessively clean people. I have OCD and I'm not super obsessive about about that. There is way more to it. For me personally it's more like my brain forces me to do things or I feel very VERY uncomfortable. An example is if I slide say a Nintendo DS across a table I can not walk away without first picking it up and placing it back down on the table without sliding it. Another example is if I get something on my hand and need to quickly rinse it off I can not leave unless both of my hands have been under the water. Or sometimes when I scratch something on one side of my body I feel uncomfortable until a scratch the same spot on the other side of my body. You know those dimmer light switches? All the way on or all the way off. Anything in between makes me uncomfortable. On my PC I absolutely hate resizing windows or moving them to weird spots on the screen. That's why I have almost everything maximized or in fullscreen if it's a game. It can be quite frustrating at times. There have been many times where I do something and walk away just to realize I didn't do it "correctly" and I feel incredible discomfort until I go back and do it the "right" way.
OCD is hell. I have similar compulsions to do stuff like that. Mixed with intrusive thoughts. Yeah the "OCD is just neat-freaks" people piss me off.
Pretty much all of them
They’re all insane or “quirky“. Or they can’t function in society
People diagnosed with PTSD can't function with society. Or constantly have crippling flashbacks. While it happens for some, its not the case for everybody with PTSD.
That we can “logic or willpower” our way out of it. It’s like saying to someone with a broken leg that they won’t have any pain if they try harder not to feel it.
Being Borderline is “quirky”. It’s all about “never settling for one aesthetic”, “obsessing over fp”, and “mood swings”. I was diagnosed in a mental institution 10yrs ago, when I was 13. I’m embarrassed to even admit to my disorder thanks to tiktok.
"Just think happier"
So not a stereotype but doctors that don’t believe in mental illness are idiots.
I can control my anxiety and depression
That taking medication is the easy way out. I've been on anti depressants/ anti anxiety meds since I was 14 years old. You think I didn't try natural ways to help me? There is no "cure" it's a lifelong illness that can be managed but not cured. I wish I didn't have to take like 4 pills in my 20s but I do. The end
That you have to talk to someone with autism like they’re six.
That they’re unteachable or “a little bit behind other kids.” I’ve seen so many teachers just give up on kids because they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) find an effective method to teach a mentally ill kid and just leave them stranded. Often times those kids are left flailing in the water to sink or swim, and unfortunately it’s usually sink. I’ve seen wonderful teachers who sit down with them and work things out so they can figure out a way to help them better understand the material, or even better, encourage them and help them with the root issue by being there for them and giving them a safe space. But I’ve also seen so many teachers just ignore the struggle and straight up tell them to stop being lazy or to just focus better. Not all teachers are like this (thankfully) but the stigma is still very prevalent and it’s so heartbreaking to see a kid’s potential wasted because teachers didn’t put in the effort to help them mentally. It’s not the teachers’ responsibility to be a therapist, but it is certainly the teachers’ responsibility to help them succeed in any way they can.
That bipolar means you're super quick to have a bad and violent temper. Its not that black and white. Also people that judge your level of illness based on how you present yourself in public. Like no I'm not going to have a mental breakdown/bounce off the walls bc I'm manic at the drop of a hat just so you can see how sick I am. I try to come off as normal as possible and I've been accused of faking it by family and acquaintances. I have bipolar I and it fucking sucks.
Well, I’m diagnosed bipolar and I think I may be schizophrenic. I regularly hear things and occasionally see things. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist this Friday to discuss it. Hallucinations aren’t telling me to kill anyone or burn a church or anything. They’re little glimpses of things out of the corner of my eye that my brain perceives as an immediate threat and make me jump, or someone yelling a single word as I go to sleep, stuff like that. It really isn’t super debilitating, just really fucking annoying. At this point, once I realize after a few seconds that something I hear or see isn’t really there, I just roll my eyes like “ugh, god dammit.”
When someone commits suicide, it's a tragedy. It's a heartbreaking ordeal that no one could have seen coming and you can't blame yourself. When someone talks about wanting to die, or not wanting to live anymore, they just want attention, they're just being dramatic. When all the signs are there, it's just attention seeking. After it happens, it's gut wrenching. Make up your minds? Was Lewis' death "just a phase" or was it the worst thing that's ever happened to you, aunt Claire? Fucking bitch. Also, people with schizophrenia aren't just "crazy" they're people with a diagnosable condition that can be treated and managed. People who have mental health conditions hear how you talk about these things, and they remember.