Hoy hace 8 años que llegué a Tumblr. 🥳

Happy World Mental Health Day!!

Happy Holidays to all of my lovely psychotic followers! I know this period can be really hard on our mental health so let's practice some self care and take our meds, and try to enjoy the holidays as much as you can

Best wishes ❤

I think I'm kinda hallucinating an alarm clock. It's soo annoying 🙄

When you think you’re finally on a good medication and haven’t had psychotic symptoms in a year, and they suddenly come back

HEALING (with a chance of relapsing) long post ahead

Hello everyone,

Yes, I know I've said a million times that I'm not very active here lol, but there's been a lot going on in my life. I was really active on the schizophrenia spectrum chat though, I miss it so much, we built a small but warm community there. It's too bad tumblr decided to terminate them

Anyways, oh boy where do I start? Well, I finally got a job!! And a good one. I've been working as a Bilingual Executive Assistant at an international scientific organization. It's a job that I actually enjoy, despite some differences I have with a coworker, people are actually really nice. Also it pays good, at least a bit above average income in my country. So that's something that has kept me motivated.

Also, I got a disability pension!! It's amazing since it's really difficult to get. Most people don't qualify for it and spend sometimes years appealing, going to interviews to finally getting rejected. Also to get disability due to mental illnesses is even harder! It was a really exhausting process with lots of very triggering interviews, after each interview I felt really dissociated, but it was worthy in the end. And after that I realized that looking back, I've been really ill these past 10 years.

Also, I've been in therapy for a few months now, and I love my psychologist, she gives killer advice, especially about how to deal when I'm on a dissociated state. Also we've been treating my many traumas.

I no longer have trouble sleeping, I take a big cocktail of meds though, but now I can sleep very well and I'm always able to wake up on time, since I've got to wake up at 5 AM in order to get ready and arrive at work at 8 AM. But as I said before, I like my job so I don't see that as a huge sacrifice.

What else? Well, I'm saying I think I'm healing because not only I haven't hurt myself in months, but also I got a couple of tattoos done, one of them on my arm where there are scars so I got it done there to cover them, because I don't want to hurt myself again. And the tattoos are beautiful! I found a good tattoo artist on a studio recommended by a friend of mine.

Then why do I say there's a chance of relapsing? Well, I haven't spoken to my brother in months, he did some awful things and I got sick of his constant abuse. Due to that, I've been dissociating quite a lot. Also I started to think people at work are spying on me, and it's been a strong feeling that started a couple of weeks ago. But I won't let it control me, I immediately started working on it, I spoke to my psychiatrist and she made a med adjustment. The feeling is quite strong though, but like I said, I'm working on it. I won't be hospitalized again 😤.

Finally, there are elections in my country (Chile) where the two candidates for ballot are from extreme opposites, one of them is from the far right, and he's a kind of Trump/Bolsonaro type, extremely conservative who is threatening to going back 50 years into civil rights. The other candidate is from the left wing, but he's really open for dialog and unity for my country, he's young and he's promising more equality and improving on human rights, and he actually has OCD and has been hospitalized for that illness, so he knows about mental health from first hand experience and he wants to improve mental health. Is it too obvious who I am supporting?

And that's about it I guess. As you can see there is a lot going on. Thanks so much for those of you who actually took the time to read this looong post, I really appreciate your support

Take care everyone! And I wish all of you good mental health

On Friday I had a horrible episode where I thought people from work where spying on me.

I've suffered a lot of dissociation lately. Some repressed memories about my childhood are coming back

A lesson on dissociation/dissassociation:

Dissociation can be difficult to understand, especially if you haven’t had much experience in knowledge of it. Dissociation in basics represents a disconnect among one’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, memories, and identity. Below is a list of classic signs that you are dissociating.

Depersonalization: Depersonalization is the experience of feeling separation from yourself and your body. People who experience such a feeling usually observe that they feel like they are watching their own body from the outside, or from another perspective.

Derealization: Derealization is vaguely similar to depersonalization, but it is a feeling of detachment from the external world, such as other people or objects. Derealization may cause familiar things to become unfamiliar.

Amnesia: Some people who experience dissociation have fluent periods of amnesia, of which they are feeling as if they don’t know who or where they are. There can be any amount of time in which they are awake and alert but cannot remember what they were doing.

Identity Confusion: Probably the most common experience, this occurs when a sufferer experiences an inner struggle about who they really are, their identity, what their personality is, why they are alive etc.

Identity Alteration: This is an experience of a person who senses that they act like a different person some of the time, creating a personality tailored to take place around each specific person in one’s life. Things like voices, clothing and interests differ amongst each loved one.

A common occurance of dissociation in everyday life is zoning out. You might be walking along the street, listening to music and you become so unfocused on reality and so focused on a thought or image that you miss a section of conscious walking. And to your surprise, you’re still upright and walking.

All of this is very common in bpd, and it can be quite frightening if it’s never happened to you before. The first step is accepting that you do dissociate. We have experienced a series of traumatic events and our minds try to block it out in an attempt of protection. You will have to accept that in a stressful environment, memories of the trauma will try to come back, but it is only a natural way of your brain reminding you of the danger and as a result we dissociate to stay safe. Many will not have the ability to face those traumas right then, however that does not mean you never will. But, a dissociative episode can be dangerous depending on where you are, so it’s definitley best to try your hardest to refocus and rettach if you can. Stay safe out there.

Same

Am I the only one treating their intrusive thoughts like an actual person? Like I be out there talking to them, being like: "no we are not gonna do that, no I am not gonna punch the wall, just leave please?" And by the way, I still do them in the end even though I tell them I won't :))

Hello everyone!!

I haven't been really active on this blog since I came back from the hospital

I've been really busy looking for a job and studying some online computer classes because they ask a lot of computer skills for executive assistant which is the kind of job I'm aiming to get.

Also I began the process of getting a disability card which was suggested by my occupational therapist, this card would help me to get a job on companies that require a percentage of disabled people, also to get some benefits from the government, but it's not guaranteed they'll give me the card since despite all my hospitalizations and sick leaves due to mental illness I'm quite functional except when I'm in crisis, but I won't lose anything by trying to get it.

Also I've been having some episodes (not psychotic at least) from BPD where I've felt really angry and I've TW hurt myself, but I'm on therapy we're finally we're tackling my trauma that caused PTSD.

And that's about it!! I hope you guys are doing ok.

Take care!!

It's weird how songs I listened to when in psychosis are sentimental to me now.

Being actively psychotic is exhausting. Give yourself credit and grace.

You don’t need to “look” sick for people to take your mental illness seriously. Just because our disability is invisible doesn’t mean it’s not as valid. 

every day i find it so hard to believe i have multiple diagnoses, as though there’s a limit and all symptoms must belong to one diagnosis. comorbity is a common, ordinary thing. no symptoms exist in a vacuum and everything affects everything else. conditions and illnesses intertwine and compound each other. there isn’t always a clean cut answer, and that’s okay.

Hey guys, I just changed the name of this blog because I no longer have the schizoaffective diagnosis, but I still suffer from psychosis due to BPD. Nothing else will change