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#and some groups of people with stigmatized mental illness
voidxbrat · 2 years
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This is some love going out to other people with severe mental/developmental/etc disabilities! I mean severe like, in of need full-time assistance or *a lot* of accommodations. I mean people who legitimately can’t always control or understand their own behaviors. People who cannot live on their own, or maybe can’t make their own decisions. The people who get left out of everything, by everyone, even those who say to support people with stigmatized mental illnesses and not very nice symptoms and behaviors. Because, for all everyone shouts that they support these things - you really show you don’t very often (even on this site). Something people on here still really need to understand and support, is what *serious* and *severe* mental/developmental/etc disability really is.
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sol1loqu1st · 4 months
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ok can i be honest with you guys for a second. i know i said that i was gonna mostly keep the plurality shit to myself because i feel like it's pretty private and currently really tangled with cptsd and i just don't want plurality to be like. The Thing People Associate Me With, but after talking with my therapist about it and kind of coming to the conclusion that yeah, that probably is what's going on with me, i'm realizing that i have a whole lot of shame and fear mixed up in it too and a Semi-Popular Blogger(tm) (not naming names but like. yeah) recently published a long post out of nowhere complaining about how they could never be friends with plural people because they feel like they've been Pulled Into Somebody's Groupchat Drama and like i keep playing that in my head and feel like i'm going to lose all my friends if i don't make sure to keep it to myself. i feel like i'm finally figuring something out about myself and what's going on with me, but it's something that is judged and mocked by literally everyone, including otherwise perfectly nice people, and i'm honestly really scared that if i were to be even a little open about it, i would start to get dms from friends asking to cut things off or letting me know that they couldn't deal with me right now or whatever, even if it turned out that Embracing It(tm) and being a bit more open about it is like, a healthy step in the right direction. like i'm terrified i'm gonna lose people under the guise of "i can't be friends with a groupchat" even if the way i interact with people wouldn't change at all aside from *maybe* occasionally mentioning that it's a different alter than usual
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genderkoolaid · 7 months
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I think people forget that atheism ≠ anti-theism. Like in the same way, say, asexuality ≠ anti-sex/sexuality. Somebody talking about how antisemitism is bad is not saying people who don't believe in god are Bad, they're saying being against religious people is bad. And for asexuality, not being sexual yourself does not automatically mean you are against people who are
From what I've seen the basis for antitheism is "religion is inherently harmful and getting rid of religion will improve the world." but the problems with that imo are:
religion is a made up concept that's almost meaningless. like its a well known issue that "religion" is such a vague concept that is deeply western which is why its often really really hard to apply it to the vast majority of human spiritual traditions. hell even "religio" in the context of roman polytheism doesn't map exactly onto the concept of "religion"! like in a lot of cases the line between "religion" and "philosophy" is blurred or nonexistent. not to mention that there are religious atheists. jewish atheists are probably the best example since judaism tends to be far more open to that kind of complexity & fosters a culture which allows people to engage with judaism in a variety of ways. but there are people who don't believe in god or jesus-as-savior but are christians for cultural or philosophical reasons. there are tons and tons of atheists buddhists because its a helpful way of engaging with life regardless of whether or not you believe in samsara literally. the idea that there is this strict binary between Religion and Atheism is, like all binaries, made up.
scapegoating religion for all of humanity's problems is just unhelpful. the idea that religion is this force will propels people to do bad things, and that without religion we wouldn't do them, ignores how humans shape religion to our benefit. there's a reason that wealthy kings who want to maintain power emphasize interpretations of the bible or quran that endorse war while downplaying the ones that endorse peace and compassion. for the same reason that people will support philosophies that view humans as inherently mean and violent and in need of control instead of ones that view us as capable of communal care and cooperation- you don't need to believe in a deity to create a reason why you need to kill another group of people and take their shit. religion is a way this happens, and its important that this is dealt with, but this is not a unique feature of religion. getting rid of religion will not fix our shitty behavior.
going off 1 and 2: trying to get rid of "religion" will inevitably mean fucking over marginalized groups who have already had their spirituality attacked and whose culture cannot be so easily separated from their spirituality. and even beyond that, antitheism is just another way of trying to force a belief onto people. believing in no god is no more objectively correct than believing in one, or any other spiritual concept. there are always going to be spiritual people. also you can say "but there are nonwhite/formerly nonchristian antitheists!!" as much as you want but that doesn't change that saying shit like "all your beliefs are childish and mentally ill, you need an educated intellectual to make you realize you are being stupid and irrational and make you think correctly" is absolutely some classic colonial white supremacist bullshit.
also trying to force atheism on people actually does not help atheists. because it in fact only makes it easier for people to stigmatize atheism as inherently destructive and hostile.
anyways now that anon can get mad for being a wretched child ranting about antitheism. now i've earned it.
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something to keep in mind while reading: i experience psychosis, i am professionally diagnosed with a variety of extremely stigmatized mental health diagnoses, and i identify strongly with the label "borderline."
sooner or later, the ~mental health awareness~ and ~neurodivergent awareness~ movements as a whole are going to have to reckon with the fact that mental health diagnoses are labels put on classifications of behavior patterns, and those behavior patterns can be actively harmful to other people. and what i mean by that is that classifying people's behavior is not identifying ontological attributes of people's personalities or biology; it's loosely grouping different behavior patterns into categories and slapping a label on them. there is no difference between "having borderline personality disorder" and "enacting a behavior associated with borderline personality disorder;" the only criteria for the diagnoses are that you enact some or all of the behaviors associated with the label.
the idea of "these stigmatized diagnoses do not make you a bad person" is objectively correct, in that the label "bad person" is inherently not useful and erases the material factors behind someone's behavior. however, framing mental health diagnoses as if they are some ontological attribute of the self divorced from behavior doesn't actually serve to "destigmatize" mental health as a whole.
people labeled as mentally ill are put in this catch-22 where we either admit that some of our maladaptive behaviors associated with diagnoses can be harmful to others (and thus are used as rhetorical supports for how mental illness labels are describing an ontologically bad and evil category of person), or we push the party line that "mental illness doesn't make you a bad person" and divorce any harmful behaviors entirely from the mental illness label of the person performing them (thus further stigmatizing those of us who have maladaptive and externally harmful behavior patterns associated with our diagnoses, as of course these can't be "because" of our mental illness--ignoring the fact that the mental illness label does not exist outside of our behavior to begin with).
it's a well-documented fact that the DSM buries the role of trauma and other material factors in shaping the behaviors it categorizes to begin with; the desire to divorce the label from any materially harmful behaviors it ascribes to itself is yet another case of ~mental health awareness~ pushing the responsibility of reshaping society and interacting with trauma onto the individuals suffering under these systems of oppression and systemically enabled trauma. in order to actually do the dirty work of addressing material harm, we need to get down into the weeds of why someone enacted that harmful behavior to begin with--what environment that maladaptive behavior arose from, and what material factors need to be addressed in order to solve that behavior and redirect it into healing and positive interactions.
like... that's the problem, at the end of the day. in order to address harm, you need to humanize and understand the person doing harm. shoving people off into more and more categories of "bad person" does nothing to actually, materially address the harm caused, and further enables more harm in the future. mental health labels, if used in a lateral and non-oppressive way, should be used as shorthand to refer to a category of behavior in order to more fully understand the material factors that go into shaping that behavior, in order to better promote healing and a functional community. there should not be a stigma around admitting that a label could describe someone who commits actions that are materially harmful, and that label is applied directly because of their behaviors--to say otherwise is just shifting who the group it's okay to oppress is, rather than trying to agitate for collective liberation.
(note: plenty of behaviors associated with mental health labels are not harmful to begin with. we could also do a lot better by examining how we conceive of "harm", because "someone existing with an emotion that makes you feel uncomfortable" or "someone doing something you think is weird" is not it. but that's not what this post is about, so i am choosing not to address it in-depth.)
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Azula the Scapegoat
I've talked before about how the Fire Nation in the comics were heavily whitewashed. How any and all moral ambiguity and their crimes are swept under the rug as all the characters are presented in the best light possible. The fact that they did any wrong doing in the past is gently brushed aside about how much progress and prosperity they brought to all that they...uh..."touched".
Thing is, you can't exactly have a post-war canon where there's no conflict. And since the Fire Nation were clearly the aggressors in the war, we can't exactly have them be squeaky clean morally either.
...not without a scapegoat.
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In order to create conflict yet keep the Fire Nation morally white, Yang designates Azula as the scapegoat. The person that's responsible for all of the Fire Nation's woes as opposed to the natural consequences of a literal century of warfare. She's the old remnant. The enemy. The last vestiges of the old order that needs to be destroyed for the Fire Nation (Zuko, Mai, Ty Lee, Ursa, etc.) to fully redeem themselves.
And to make sure she becomes that much more of a tempting target, her insanity and instability are brought to the forefront as all other characteristics and sources that made Azula her are quietly retconned into oblivion. Can't have squeaky clean heroes if their villain might be sympathetic after all.
Neither is she alone since her entire posse is made up of girls who were broken out of an abusive mental institution:
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Let me repeat that.
A group of mentally ill teenage girls who were likely the victims of a system that the narrative keeps trying to push as squeaky clean...are the bad guys.
To give you an idea of how horrendous this is, we see the same story in the real world. Whenever there is some societal ill or upheaval, the mentally ill are almost ALWAYS used as the scapegoat. Even though in reality it's usually the ones on top or the system who are to blame. It's just people who have been historically stigmatized are almost always the first target. Granted this treatment is not exclusive to the mentally handicapped (I mean there's racism, antisemitism, etc.), but I don't think it's a coincidence that Yang tried to play up Azula's insanity in order to make her a scapegoat.
Especially when instead of addressing the actual issues with the Fire Nation (inherent colonialism, rampant militarism, the amount of power the Fire Lord wields), they'd rather blame somebody else instead of helping themselves. That doesn't exactly make the post-war Fire Nation people you want to root for.
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anarchotahdigism · 20 days
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"It’s interesting how often people cite “CDC guidance” as their reason for unmasking. Although the CDC has absolutely participated in and cosigned the mainstream minimizing of the illness, even the CDC still acknowledges that vulnerable people are at risk from COVID infection. They simply encourage the public to let those people die.
During an interview with the BBC in the fall, Dr. Fauci famously said aloud “You’ll find the vulnerable will fall by the wayside. They’ll get infected, they’ll get hospitalized, and some will die.” Should he have characterized any other vulnerable group this way (“You’ll find Native people will fall by the wayside,” “You’ll find trans people will fall by the wayside,” “You’ll find Black people will fall by the wayside,” “You’ll find women will fall by the wayside”) there would surely have been an almighty backlash. But to say medically vulnerable people must die so the rest of us may have brunch indoors does not beget such a reaction- never mind that all the above-named groups- Native people, trans people, Black people and women- are at a higher risk for Long COVID, and other poor outcomes from COVID." ... "The move to frame the requirement of a public safety measure- no different from requiring seatbelts, helmets, pants and shoes in public- as a violation of bodily autonomy came directly from groups like the Atlas Network, which, as you might gather from its Ayn-Rand-worshipping name, opposes all public regulation. Meanwhile, we continue to violate the bodily autonomy of disabled people by making participation in public life contingent on accepting forcible, continual reinfections. Since Biden’s COVID normalization campaign, MAGA-style rhetoric about how disabled people should “stay home forever” and how they are “useless” and “weak” has absolutely infiltrated left spaces. Many disabled people, in fact, are effectively “staying home forever.” They are shielding themselves from a disease that may kill them, and certainly would likely lower their baseline health, and have been for years. Meanwhile, the pleas of these incredibly isolated people for the bare minimum of solidarity- please at least mask up indoors when not eating or drinking- are ignored because that is apparently too difficult for the mental health of abled people." ... "A last point I will address, I did see questions about how we are supposed to “force” people to mask. Disabled people, vulnerable people, and left groups generally do not have the power of the state. We are not going to be engaging in “policing,” because nobody is going to end up in jail, physically hurt, on probation, or with limited job prospects because of our community care. Simply write “masks required” on your event invites, distribute masks wherever possible (contact your local Mask Bloc!), and do your best to spread information while modeling good praxis by masking yourself. For the most part, people are following the crowd. They will do what the majority is doing, and many will be happy to mask if it is normalized instead of stigmatized.
A left that purges its spaces of everyone who values community care, everyone who is willing to experience a minor inconvenience for the well-being of another, everyone who thinks it’s all of us or none of us, is a drastically weakened left. A left that does not incorporate disability praxis is drastically limiting its own scope and ability to be effectual. A left that mocks vulnerable groups and seeks to justify harm to them is not grounded in real justice and has only a superficial understanding of its own aims. Join us in masking, keep your comrades safe, and relish the beauty of avoiding illness while knowing you did your part to protect others. It’s a good feeling at the end of the day, I promise you that."
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Here’s some positivity for schizospec systems!
Living with mental illness can be incredibly difficult, and being plural on top of that can bring its own unique set of challenges. However, it is possible to struggle with mental illness and still live a happy life! This post is for all the schizospec systems out there!
⭐️ Shoutout to systems whose plurality is inherently tied to their schizospec disorder, or who consider themselves hallucigenic, psychogenic, or another xeno origin!
✨ Shoutout to systems with schizophrenia, schizotypal personality disorder, or schizoaffective disorder!
⭐️ Shoutout to systems who are often paranoid or struggle to maintain relationships due to their disorders!
✨ Shoutout to systems who are in treatment for their schizospec disorder, whether that means voluntary inpatient stays, individual or group therapy, and/or medication!
⭐️ Shoutout to systems who aren’t seeking treatment for their schizospec disorder for whatever reason (treatment is not a requirement for you to deserve autonomy and respect!!)
✨ Shoutout to systems whose psychosis has had a neutral or positive influence on their life!
⭐️ Shoutout to schizospec systems who are often confused, have muddled or fragmented thoughts, or struggle to effectively express themselves!
✨ Shoutout to schizospec systems with disordered speech, flat affect, and difficulties with their moods and emptions!
⭐️ Shoutout to schizospec systems who are POSIC, objectum, or otherwise able to connect and communicate with objects!
✨ Shoutout to systems who are questioning if they have a schizospec disorder, or are struggling with many symptoms without a diagnosis!
⭐️ Shoutout to systems who primarily have tactile and olfactory hallucinations, or uncommon, weird, or unorthodox delusions!
The world is often unkind to people struggling with heavily stigmatized disorders - psychotic and dissociative disorders especially! We want you to know that you belong in our spaces! You are a vital part of the plural community just the way you are, no matter how your plurality or schizospec disorders present themselves!
Please treat yourself and your system with kindness and self-compassion. You deserve to heal, to celebrate your individuality, and to embrace who you are! We’re wishing you a bright and happy future, and are rooting for you in all that you do. Thanks for reading, and take care!
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(Image ID:) A pale orange userbox with a cluster of multicolored flowers for the userbox image. The border and text are both dark orange, and the text reads “all plurals can interact with this post!” (End ID.)
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highball66 · 2 months
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We talk about male protags being a victim of toxic masculinity in which they can't have a moment of what makes them individually human, such as heavily influenced by an event, PTSD, medical complexities like head traumas, panic attacks, broken bones, etc. Like no one is actually a boulder.
But, the thing is, people who is against this idea, or people who's not from the cishet dudebro audience also does this, just with a different tone. The male character gets reduced to explanations such as "pathetic sad wet little kitten pup uwuuuu" all the same words, everyone just talks the same, from the same mout. Which kind of shows how much warped society's perception can be when it comes to actually, like, just simply be a human being. All kinds of people buying into toxic masculinity when it comes to male protags (as in what a male hero fighter should be), talks the same like everything everyone says build up on the same speech pattern with exact same key words, just under a different shade.
Oh I agree, and this is something I've had the displeasure of experiencing in real life too. I think it stems from ignorance, and the lack of information regarding mental health. The dudebros tend to take the "[x] makes you weak, just get over it" approach and believe that none of this should be shown in media-- specifically in regards to RE in this case.
But, on the opposite end, you've got people who think these traits make people inherently bad or "morally corrupt" as I saw one person refer to it. Leon having PTSD and alcoholism as a result, or Chris exhibiting symptoms of a TBI in RE6 don't make them bad people. With Leon, I blame the fact that most American media portrays alcoholics as violent, drunk, abusive father's but alcoholics, like every other group of people, aren't a monolith. This stereotype also further stigmatizes the illness and in some cases, makes it so people people don't recognize that what they're experiencing is alcoholism. But being an alcoholic doesn't automatically make someone a bad person, nor does having depression, anxiety, etc. and anyone with a functioning brain cell and an ounce of empathy should be able to put that together, no excuses.
And unfortunately, then we get what I refer to as the people who pretend to care, that infantilize the shit out of people the second they find out they have some form of mental illness or disorder. They don't actually do anything to help you, advocate for the destigmatization, etc.-- they pretty much do the opposite. Speaking from my own experiences, the second someone found out I had anxiety, suddenly they began policing everything I did because they were "worried" it was going to cause a panic attack and were "looking out for me" which, ignoring the fact that that's not how anxiety even works, strips me of my agency in a way. Regardless of if someone has anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc. they're still a person, they don't become that illness or disorder. And I feel like people use the fact that Leon's traumatized to infantilize him as well.
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avpdpossum · 1 year
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Hello! Hoping anyone that comes across this could share their thoughts as well, but I was curious if you consider personality disorders on their own as neurodivergent? Why or why not? Thank you
they absolutely are neurodivergent!
i think a lot of people’s introduction to the concept of neurodivergence is through the autistic and adhd communities, and that leads people to assume neurodivergence only includes things you’re born with, but that’s not actually the case.
here’s how i would explain neurodivergence:
the social Powers That Be in our current (Western, capitalist, etc) society have designated certain ways of thinking, feeling, perceiving, and so on as the Correct Ways of Existing.
most of our world is built on the assumption that everyone’s brains will work that way, because that’s the way they “should” work. when people’s brains don’t work that way, it’s assumed that the solution is to find a way to “fix” them or get rid of them.
as a result, people whose brains do work in that way have an easier time navigating the world and are generally treated better by it, while people whose brains deviate from that expectation in some way have a more difficult time navigating a world not built with them in mind and are treated as “wrong”/“bad”.
people in the first group, who can navigate the world with very little added stigma or difficulty as a result of the way their brains work, would be considered neurotypical.
people in the second group, who do face added stigma and barriers to functioning as a result of the way their brains work, would be considered neurodivergent.
so, if you want to determine if something makes someone neurodivergent, you can ask yourself a few questions:
does it have to do with their psychology/neurology?
does it affect their thinking, emotions, perceptions, or other brain functions in a way that is considered “abnormal” by current social norms?
does it carry a stigma and make them more likely to be mistreated?
does it cause them extra difficulty with navigating and functioning in the world?
if the answers to those questions are yes, chances are it’s a form of neurodivergence!
so, if we look at those questions for personality disorders:
this is the easiest answer — yes!
personality disorders are classified as “mental illnesses”, put in the dsm, and generally assumed to be under the jurisdiction of psychiatry, so i think we can pretty safely say that yes, personality disorders are seen as “abnormal” forms of brain functioning according to current social norms.
personality disorders and their traits are incredibly stigmatized — pwpds are assumed to be violent, abusive, generally bad people, and so on. this is most visibly true for cluster b pds, but stigma against the other pds and against the personality disorder category in general is also very real. so this one’s a yes — pwpds are very frequently mistreated on the basis of our brains being “wrong”.
personality disorders, by definition, come with some sort of functioning difficulties, and the world isn’t built to accommodate those differences in functioning. as an example, think of the high expectations of emotional regulation (not “too” emotional but not “cold” either) and social capability in professional spaces, even ones where emotions and social interactions don’t affect a person’s ability to do the job well. that makes this one a yes too; a society that took pwpds into account would seek to accommodate the areas we struggle with and ensure that there’s a place for us, and that definitely isn’t happening right now.
so yeah, according to my own personal understanding of neurodivergence, personality disorders absolutely count. we diverge from the assumed norms of psychological/neurological functioning, so we count as neurodivergent, even those of us who aren’t also neurodivergent in other ways.
on a personal level, i can say i feel no real difference in how i internally experience being audhd vs how i experience my personality disorders — they both just feel like my brain doing its thing, sometimes in ways that are unpleasant/difficult for me to deal with and sometimes in ways that just feel totally fine and unremarkable from my point of view. i also rarely notice a difference in how neurotypical people treat them — they usually don’t know the difference between audhd “weirdness” vs avoidant/narcissistic/schizospec/dissociative “weirdness”, it’s all just one big blob of Weird And Bad And Wrong to most people. the only time they’re ever really treated as different is when certain other neurodivergent people try to separate the two.
trying to draw lines between neurodivergence and “mental illness” (which is usually what’s happening when people say pds aren’t a form of neurodivergence) doesn’t actually help anyone. in my opinion, it’s basically just a way for certain people to try to get ahead by putting other people down — it says “accept us because we’re different in the good way, not in the bad way! we’re not sick like those people!” and that kind of attitude doesn’t do anyone any good. sure, the experiences that come with having a since-birth neurodivergence can be different from those that come with having an acquired neurodivegence, but people within those groups also have different experiences because everyone’s experience is going to be unique, we’re all different people in different circumstances! diversity of experiences among neurodivergent people is to be expected and is honestly a good thing, not a reason to avoid associating with each other.
in my experience, the people who insist that pds aren’t true neurodivergences are usually pretty damn sanist toward pwpds - they exclude us because they don’t want to be associated with us, they want to be accepted but they don’t think we should be so they try to make us seem totally different from them. in reality, neurodivergence is a broad umbrella and there’s room under it for all of us.
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trauma-culture-is · 7 months
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not trauma culture, i just wanted to ask and make sure if you support the idea of "narc/npd abuse" ?
i absolutely don't. i'm sure there are many resources people can access explaining why demonizing an entire group of people based on what disorder(s) they have is bad, so i'll keep this brief, but what it essentially does is harms innocent people and removes the agency of abusers.
people who abuse others chose to do so. even if they're not aware of their abuse, they chose to take abusive actions. saying that someone is abusing people because they have a disorder takes that accountability away from their actions because they "can't stop themself". the same goes for any other mental illness- people with bpd, depression, adhd, etc aren't predispositioned to be abusive or toxic, so why would people with npd?
on the flip side, someone who's doing their best to manage their npd symptoms and is very cautious and aware of how they might hurt people will still get attacked just for having a stigmatized disorder. (even if they aren't managing their symptoms well, or they have hurt people in the past, they don't deserve to be harassed for having a disorder. people don't deserve to be harassed in the first place.)
i feel like personality disorders are probably some of the most affected by stigmatization and casual ableism. every mental illness has horrible stereotypes and gets discriminated against, obviously (this isn't a competition, everyone loses) but i've never seen more vile insults than those directed towards people with npd or aspd.
just call it emotional abuse.
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chronic-cane · 3 months
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It's so odd that ADHD is so commercialized, medicalized, and stigmatized.
I got an ADDitude magazine from the library to look through for anything that could help my current research project. A little over a third of the pages have ads. A lot of them specifically marketing towards helping ADHD. About 25 out of 70 pages. Compared to National Review's 3 out of 60 pages or The Progressives 5 out of 70. There is literally a dedicated section for advertisements in ADDitude.
In the past this group has been helpful for me a few times, but its also heavy in pseudoscience. Plenty of the ads were for "ADHD supplements" and shit. But it's the thing you first come across when looking for resources.
I'm fully aware that ADHD is seen as basically the anti capitalist machine disorder. The main focus behind treatment is to increase productivity most of the time. Which has lead to people rightfully pointing that out before then unrightfully stating that it isn't a real mental disorder or disability. So then those of us with ADHD see the ones that are dismissing us and even go so far to over medicalize ourselves in the process. Or at least the second part is my experience and what I theorize.
And that really sucks. I look to the autistic community more than the ADHD community at this point for support with my developmental disability.
We could have, and still can, incorporate ADHD not only as an example of some mental illnesses are socially constructed based off of societal norms, and instead a more extreme example of most if not all mental illnesses constructed off of societal norms.
We could recognize that even though medication helps focus and some behavioral aspects, we still appear odd, neurodivergent, to people. That we learn how to go through the world differently and face plenty of stigma and discrimination. Not because it's a medicalization of "bad character" but instead of form of madness impacted by sanism.
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fizziepopangel · 10 months
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A Fizziepop Take: Let's talk about the (soon to be) ex-wife from hell
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I’m not sure about everyone, but I personally have always loved villains and morally gray characters. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a lot of fucked up situations where no one was every really the “good guy”, not even the people I loved and trusted…. So I learned early on that bad guys aren’t always bad and even when they are, being bad isn’t always as bad as it seemed to be made out by everything on tv and in books. Having this way of thinking from a young age, it’s no surprise that some of my favorite characters in books and movies tend to be the villains. Now, as much as I love Stolas (and want his relationship with Blitz to work), I’ve kinda into Stella on this ‘I want my husband dead’ trip, and after watching “Western Energy” a few times, I think I figured out why and I can’t be the only one who feels like this, so let’s get into it!.
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If you know how most villains are written and portrayed, a lot of them have some sort of reason for doing whatever fucked up thing they're doing. Sometimes the excuse is a tragic backstory, or an unrequited love, or a fear that they just don’t seem to deal with very well, or to gain power over another being/beings or even keep power they already have, in some cases mental illness is even villainized in the media (which sucks since it’s not always portrayed in a realistic manner when it’s used as a reason for someone being "villainous" and ends up stigmatizing an entire group of people who suffer from the illness in ways that aren’t dramatized for the entertainment of the masses.).... But all of these reasons tend to be on the list of the reasons the villain, and the audience, try to justify whatever messed up shit they’re doing…. But here’s the thing, sometimes a person doesn’t have a reason to be an absolute fucked up beyond repair, horrible person, they just like being that way. That’s what we see with Stella.
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See, Stella doesn’t have a horrible tragic past to blame her cruelty on. Stolas never abused her, if anything he did his best to try to make their marriage work despite the abuse she put him through for what seems to be the entirety of their relationship. And it seems she’s never even had to smell poverty or what fear would smell like when it’s her own. As of right now, there is no reason for her cruelty that we can see except for pure enjoyment, with her even at one point telling Stolas "I like tormenting you!" when asked why she's still in his house despite having moved out pretty much completely at that point. She enjoys making Stolas’ life miserable and she hates the man enough that she tells her brother that she’d laugh when he dies and even has to be convinced to keep him alive to figure out how to get money from him since she’d likely get nothing when he dies. The woman has no regard for anyone’s life but hers unless she’s making someone else feel beyond miserable.... And, as much as I love Stolas, I love the cruelty Stella processes and how she seems to aim it all toward him, especially because she doesn’t in anyway try to hide the fact that she’s an evil bitch and she doesn't even try to. Whether she’s telling her husband that she likes making him miserable or badmouthing him to friends and family with him standing a few feet away, or even giddily admitting to her brother that she’s hired the assassin that kidnapped and off her husband, the woman has zero shame and as easy as it is to dislike her for actively hurting a fan favorite character, the sheer size of Stella’s metaphorical balls makes me love her. Despite being a ditzy, bitchy ex-wife and a bad mother from what most of us believe, and her literally torturing one of my favorite characters for sheer pleasure, Stella has earned a spot as one of my favorite villains, and moved up in the ranking of my favorite Helluva Boss antagonists. 
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The woman is a horrible, cold hearted, monster on the levels she’s been placed on within the show and it's literally shown that it's been that way since she was a child…. And I think that’s what makes her such a good character despite her being written very flatly otherwise. Viv made Stella a character that’s so easy to love to hate, which is something I believe every show needs. I think that’s awesome considering so many people still think that a villain needs to be made; forged in tragedy, warped by trauma, and bathed in fear and heartbreak when in reality, cruelty isn’t always something people are gifted through bad experiences. As much as we hate to admit it, some people just enjoy the way cruelty tastes and hate the way happiness looks on someone who isn’t them. Stella is a wonderful example of a villain who chose to be the way they are just because they find amusement in it. Nothing else. And call me crazy, but I love that for her and I want to see more scenes like in “Western Energy” where you can see that she knows what she’s doing isn’t just cruel, but villainous and she enjoys it. But like every post I make ranting and over analyzing the fictional world of imps and hellhounds and all of this, this is just a Fizzie take on things I probably spend too much time thinking about. But let me know what you think about Stella, and villains in general. It’s always a topic I’m down to see different perspectives and opinions on.
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bob-mirum · 8 months
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hey man this ‘mental asylum’ au of yours is like... almost cartoonishly offensive and insensitive. I’d appreciate if you thought a little more about how seriously hurtful a caricature of mental illness like that can be.
people are horrendously abused in facilities like that, and portraying the mentally ill as delusional, babbling crazies that need to be locked away for their own good further stigmatizes those of us that do deal with delusions and illnesses such as psychosis and schizophrenia. it’s just as bad as drawing a caricature of any other marginalized group, and I really hope you’ll rethink how you portray the mentally ill in the future.
Oh, yes, it's time to talk about what many people will probably hate me for. Sorry not sorry.
First: I am not the author of this AU.
Second: And I think you need to take some things easier. For some reason, I have several friends who were in psychiatric hospitals, I have a friend with schizophrenia who was not treated in the best way. Do you know what they were doing? They joked about it in a caricature form, because they have a healthy self-irony. People who were on the verge of su*c*de joke about it because they have a healthy self-irony. I can give an infinite number of examples.
I'm not saying that people who have experienced a negative experience should be persecuted for the sake of humor and other things, but if people who don't have their own heads to not joke about it in the presence of those who don't like it and do it anyway - these are people with low moral responsibility. It's not the fault of the artists who draw such content. And let's think, maybe, for example, I, as a person who could lie in a hospital, want to draw this because it gives me an emotional release? And people take and forbid me to do things that help me feel better. This can be tied to a lot of things, and I hope that you guys are smart, and I don't have to explain the small details about what is accepted by moral norms in society and what is censured.
Unsubscribe from a blog that does something you don't like. I also advise you to unsubscribe from me if you don't like my opinion, because I won't change it and I'm not going to argue with anyone further.
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darwinsflock · 5 months
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it might just be 3am brain mush sappy thoughts but it is really kind of depressing how heavily osddid is stigmatized and how it seems like a lot of stories that do try and depict it make it out as some terrible thing (granted, i haven't looked into many and don't plan to because i don't expect to find any good rep) (ill take recs though)
because like. i love being a system. i won't lie and say it doesn't sometimes fucking suck, and the trauma is definitely terrible, but i like having a friend group in my brain. its fucking fascinating to me how my brain just made a support system! literally! i'm still learning to coexist with them and be more comfortable and everything, but it's still just a delight. i've been brought to tears laughing a lot of times because of something someone said inworld that i overheard. frankly, without discovering them, i'd have potentially way worse mental health if i had to manage all of this mental illness shit by myself! it's nice having someone else take the steering wheel!
and look like i said it comes with it's issues and every system looks different. we have had arguments quite a few times. people have gone dormant. it sucks. but it's still great, yknow?
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maemaybe · 1 year
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I'm going to say something that is possibly controversial, but it feels important for me to say it.
I think that it is important to allow abuse survivors who were abused by mentally ill parents space to talk about that abuse without shaming them or calling them ableist.
At this point I think most of us know why using terms like "narcissistic abuse" is harmful and unnecessary, but I think we need to allow space for survivors to say things like "I was abused by my bipolar parent."
That is an actual (paraphrased) quote from an abuse survivors group that I'm in, and I don't think the OP deserves to be shamed or called ableist for saying it. Including that their parent was bipolar adds context to the story. It helps us understand some nuance of their experience. Most importantly, it helps the OP connect with other survivors who have similar experiences.
Adult children of (untreated/undertreated) mentally ill parents have unique experiences that were often extremely isolating in childhood. Please allow us the healing experience of connecting with each other in adulthood. Yes we can share common experiences with all abuse survivors, but there are unique experiences to being abused by someone who's actions were influenced by a mental illness.
I'm absolutely not advocating for tolerating demeaning and stigmatizing language like "narc abuse", "nmom", "bpd abuse" or anything maliciously stigmatizing.
What I am advocating for is some nuance. Let survivors talk about the fact that their abusers were mentally ill.
Sometimes when people talk about their abuse experiences they do talk about it in a way that stigmatizes that mental illness, but sometimes people are just talking about their abuse and their abuser happens to be mentally ill.
Please use view this issue with some nuance and compassion for both abuse survivors and mentally ill people.
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biracy · 6 months
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Hi,
You left a really thoughtful set of tags on the post about how vole the Ace community on tumblr used to be. Just in case, please know that the OP has a lot of directly anti-asexual material on their blog. It is very unlikely the post was made in good faith. Nonetheless thank you for good tag reading.
That post was a Long time ago but I think I remember what you mean! Yeahhhh at the time I figured op was coming from a not entirely good-faith place, as any "well maybe those losers/those freaks/whatever had it all coming"-type of post (think, idk, "megapope was right actually"). If I'm remembering correctly, I mentioned that a lot of the most actively homophobic "asexuals" were, in fact, non-asexual people running "asexual tucute troll blogs" bc it was like 2016. While I don't deny that there are homophobic asexual people, I really want people to stop and ask themselves if they really believe "I'm so smol and pure uwu not like u dirty sinnerz that's why u die of aids >w<" is really something anyone would ever genuinely say. It's the gay equivalent of "the woke left is forcing our children to call vaginas a 'bonus hole' to appease the transgender mob!" So little of the homophobia that people used to "excuse" continuing for YEARS to call asexuality a mental illness that doesn't deserve a community, but also that it was never stigmatized as a mental illness the way homosexuality was, was actually anything someone said in earnest. Just like how I think it's important for lesbians and bisexual women* to be able to critique each other's "communities", I think it's important for asexual and non-asexual LGBT people to critique each other sometimes, but that's really not what Any of that was lmao. All 2017-ish discourse is so difficult to look at in hindsight because so much of it was like this. People STILL have this kind of hatred for an entire group of people based entirely on like, some fourteen-year-olds who had just discovered social justice language and a bunch of people running "troll blogs" over half a decade ago. That is an insight that Needs to be there when people try to start talking about "homophobia among asexuals" or whatever
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