google search how to get people in your life to take your suspicions of inattentive adhd seriously when you’ve been an anxiety-ridden overachiever your entire life

Hi… I wanted to ask this on anon so I didn’t ask on your personal, idk if this is too personal or anything to ask but

Do you have a problem with people saying they have a mental disorder if they don’t have a diagnosis? Like for me so… I have been diagnosed with anxiety but I am like 99% sure I have bipolar disorder. And like I know you can’t diagnose me so I’m not going to go into depth with my symptoms but ever since I was like, 11, I used to get very depressed to the point where I contemplated ending it but then i would snap out of it and I think for me my manic phase are hypomanic bc ive never experienced like the full range of those symptoms but my depressive phases get very rough esp if I have external stressors but it will go through what I assume to be these phases like sometimes within the day esp if I have a stressor.

I am in nursing school and I work at a psych hospital so like this isn’t coming out of nowhere, I am very familiar with all mental disorders and it was actually during my psych nursing class and learning about bipolar disorder that I was like… hm… why does this feel like a mirror right now. I am aware I should get to a therapist and get an actual diagnosis (if I had money I would lol) but like idk. Idk if it’s worth going to my doctor at my physical and being like “hey I think I have this” I am lucky enough now that I am in a good place and can manage my symptoms but I am terrified I will go through a stressor again and lose it so idk. I mean I feel like I already know the answer but I wanted to ask anyway to see your take :/

Anyway idk as a future medical professional I think self diagnosis got a bad rep and it’s like idk I think for mental disorders esp you can tell if you have anxiety and it’s a persistent problem. You can tell if you have depression. I know bipolar disorder is harder to diagnose but idk I think since I’m in the field it’s easier? Idk I felt like a sense of relief with learning about it and finding similarities and being like “well maybe that’s why I’m like that”. But idk now I’m feeling uneasy bc I don’t have a diagnosis and I don’t want to be like, stepping over people who were diagnosed. Thank you in advance if you read all this and yeah I’m sorry I know it’s a lot and this is controversial

ok this is a long post so im putting it under a cut but tldr, no i dont have a problem with it. it doesnt matter if you actually have an illness, it matters if you find a solution to your problem. if treating yourself like you have a certain condition makes it easier to go through life, then keep doing what works for you, you are doing nothing wrong. this all goes for physical and mental illnesses.

im a firm proponent of self diagnosis. i wouldnt be here if i didnt have the confidence to research mental illnesses and advocate for myself. as someone who is extremely familiar with the medical profession on account of being the daughter of a doctor and a nurse and spending my childhood running around a hospital, im extremely privileged to even have the knowledge and ability to do so, and i try to bear in mind the understandable hesitancy of people without this advantage. i know that you are well within your right to refuse medication that makes you sick, i know that you can complain about a doctor that isnt listening to you, i know that you are allowed and encouraged to be adamant about things you are told dont matter, and in addition to that, i have a VERY well known doctor and a nurse in my corner, and i am STILL treated as though i do not understand my own experiences enough to have any authority more often than i am not.

the reason self diagnosis gets a bad rep imo is because people have constructed this boogeyman of the worst case scenario, people collecting mental illnesses they dont have for attention as opposed to what it is, people doing research into their experiences and making theories on what they have so they can manage it. youll often see the take of "i dont hate self dxd i just hate people who do it for attention" and i think thats very irresponsible considering a symptom of many mental illnesses is thinking youre faking it and doing it for attention, nevermind the fact that attention seeking behaviour is literally a symptom of many mental illnesses people often dont want to empathize with. gatekeeping whos illness is real just keeps people who need help out. i could go into an anarchist screed about democratizing health, but basically, as someone whos life has been saved by my insistence on self diagnosis, and whos life has been made significantly easier by treating myself as though i have the conditions that i theorize i have, self diagnosis saves lives, and i, as an advocate for disabled people of all kinds on my island, will never put any conditionals on self diagnosis. it doesnt matter if you find the right name for your problem, it matters if you find a solution that works. i have yet to meet any of these fabled people who never try to receive a professional opinion, only people who literally cant.

as for feeling guilty, ill repeat how i opened this answer: it does not matter what exactly your problem is, it matters that you find a solution that works. in medicine generally, there will be a wide spectrum of problems with overlapping treatments, things which are similar but distinct, things which look identical but are completely different and at different levels of concern. it doesnt really matter which grab bag of bullshit your brain is reaching from, it matters that you know how to deal with what it throws at you, whatever that may be. dont worry about getting it right, worry about getting it working. okay?

for advice on how to deal with doctors, its helpful to pose it as a hypothetical as opposed to an absolute. when i bring up things im dealing with that i have a theory about i say "i think i have x" or "i think i might have x" or "i have a lot of symptoms of x". doctors are often egotistical and are easily challenged so it helps to pose it at a problem they can solve as opposed to one youve solved for them otherwise they get spooked. in my experience posing it this way leads them to actually interrogate this line of symptoms, and theyll ask you why you think that, and you can bring up symptoms that led you to that conclusion, and ones that give you trouble especially. for example, ive said "i think i may have autism or adhd? or both" to several doctors, and they either agree with me (i believe its been put in my file as a possibility now although i cant get an official test done due to financial and resource restrictions) or they ask why i think so, and i detail what i believe is due to my autism. its small, but this reframing helps a lot.

i think this covers all you said but my head is empty as hell.

How long have you known you have ADD and what clued you in that you have it?

MMM, this is kind of a tough question.

First, as a disclaimer: This is one of two disorders I’m 99% sure I have but haven’t been officially diagnosed with, the other being delayed sleep phase disorder. I’ve been officially diagnosed with C-PTSD, chronic severe depression, an anxiety disorder, and a learning disability in math, but I have not been officially diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or delayed sleep phase disorder (the former of which because I’ve never brought it up with a doctor, and the latter of which because I’ve yet to find a doctor who believes me). That said, though, I was very sure that I had C-PTSD, chronic severe depression, an anxiety disorder, and a learning disability in math before I was ever diagnosed with any of those, so while I’m not officially diagnosed with ADD or DSPD at this point in time, the fact that I hit pretty much every symptom checkbox for both makes me feel just as sure about those two as I do all the rest. (And honestly, I would have a diagnosis for DSPD if only anyone would BELIEVE ME, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Anyway, to answer your question . . .

I honestly first started suspecting it back when I was in high school. There were commercials on TV for medication to help with “adult ADD,” and the symptoms described in those commercials (difficulty focusing, difficulty keeping track of time, procrastinating, etc) all sounded like me. Of course I wasn’t an adult at the time, but I also wasn’t a young child, like the typical person you see diagnosed with ADHD. Furthermore, the symptoms sounded very different from what I’d always been led to believe ADHD was (hyperactive, bouncing off the walls, et cetera), so I thought that I might have “adult ADD,” as was described in the commercials. That said, I never brought it up with my parents because they didn’t even believe me when I said was burnt out junior year and that was why I failed math, and instead just decided that I was lazy and unwilling to try, so. I figured there was no point in bringing it up with them.

I kind of forgot about it in the years that followed until, funnily enough, I saw some posts on tumblr where people talked about some less commonly known symptoms that fit me perfectly. I think the one that stood out to me the most (though I can’t find it now) was a post about being unable to sit in a chair properly. I’m going to level with you: I cannot sit in a chair with both feet on the floor for more than two or three minutes to save my life. It is so uncomfortable. Ever since I was a kid I always pulled my feet up onto my chair, and I never sit in one position for too long. Sometimes I sit cross-legged, other times it’s with both feet on the chair and my knees drawn up, sometimes it’s one knee up and the other cross-legged, and so on and so forth. I shift position and squirm around constantly, not because I’m hyper, but because I just can’t sit in one position for too long without feeling massively uncomfortable. There was a post here on tumblr about how that inability to sit still and properly in chairs is a lesser known symptom of ADD in women, and that made me start wondering if perhaps my high school curiosity about whether I could have ADD or not had some merit to it after all. (Of course, no online symptom sites list “can’t sit in chairs properly” as a symptom, but you know. These things happen.)

So I started to do more research online, going to different websites to see what I could find. And what I found is that Inattentive-Type ADD fits me perfectly. As a brief rundown:

Missing details and becoming distracted easily: I can be detail oriented if it’s something I’m very interested in (or something I’m trying very hard to focus on), but otherwise I do have a tendency to blaze through and skim things, taking shortcuts because I assume I already know the thing even if I actually don’t. As for distractions? Oh boy. At my old job in particular I had to have headphones and music on if I was to focus on work orders / e-mails because otherwise the noise around me was so much of a distraction I couldn’t focus on any one thing. But even then, it could not be any music with lyrics, because the lyrics would distract me and send me into daydreams before I realized what was happening! I also tend to get distracted in the sense that I can be doing one task and get distracted by another task, or can have my thoughts jump around a lot as I leap from tangent to tangent . . . that’s less noticeable in writing, but that’s part of why I prefer to communicate in writing. It’s easier to keep my thoughts organized if I have time to sort them out first.

Trouble focusing on the task at hand: Talked about this above, but yeah, unless it’s something super interesting to me, keeping my focus on one thing can feel like an insurmountable task. Like I said before, at my previous job the only way I could knock out a bunch of work orders or support e-mails at once was if I had headphones on. Otherwise? My attention would flit from conversation to conversation while I mindlessly played with my phone or went from tab to tab (without really looking at anything) on my laptop, because my attention just could not hold because it was pulled in too many different directions. It was hell. (My new job is much quieter, which is a big relief.)

Becoming bored quickly: Hahaaaa, oh my god. You might have noticed, but I’m “in” about ten different fandoms at once, usually. And this is because it’s so, so hard to hold my interest on any one thing! Like I do have some life-long interests, such as Pokémon, but even then I also have so many other things that I’m like and that I find to entertain myself with because I cannot handle boredom, and that includes being unable to handle doing the same thing over, and over, and over. Believe it or not, that was the worst part of retail for me. It wasn’t dealing with the coworkers that I hated the most, oh no. It was the sheer monotony of having to do the same goddamn thing over and over again for eight bloody hours in a row. I distinctly remember at my last retail job feeling like my brain was actually, physically rotting, and like it would have been a mercy to scrape it out with a windshield ice scraper than to continue doing that job. At least when customers screamed at me it gave me something new to say and do. When it was just another routine day at the Barnes & Noble? That’s when I wished for sweet, merciful death (and a swift one, unlike the slow one that boredom inflicts). I should also mention that at this point I have gotten up from my seat no less than five times purely because I felt distracted and wanted to walk around a bit.

Daydreaming frequently: I have trouble with long movies because I will get distracted by something inane in the movie, get taken away on a daydream trip, and then come back sometime later only to realize I no longer have any idea what’s going on in the movie. I daydream while I’m driving (though don’t worry, I can still pay attention to the road; when it comes to driving I can multitask this). I daydream in the shower, I daydream at work, I daydream while falling asleep, I’m almost never not goddamn daydreaming. Ffs, I will be having a conversation with someone and as they’re talking to me my attention will snap to something else and I’ll go off on a thought tangent / daydream. I guess that could also fit under “easily distracted” but you get the gist. My whole life has been nothing but daydreams. There are baby pictures of me where I look like I was sedated by my parents, but actually I was probably just daydreaming even then. It’s been my perpetual state as long as I can remember.

Executive dysfunction: I have trouble keeping organized, and I procrastinate everything, even things I want to do. I will want to play a video game, but instead of turning on the game I will sit here and flip mindlessly through different internet tabs because I just cannot bring myself to start the task. And again, I do this with everything! Writing, doing chores, eating, going to bed, waking up---you name it, I procrastinate it, and this is on top of not being able to keep things organized despite how much I vastly prefer it when things are neat and tidy. I had to buy myself a schedule book just so I could try to remember when my bills are due and when my appointments are (and it does help, when I remember to use it). But honestly, I could have a terrible headache, and yet actually getting up to take medicine---or just reaching over to grab the bottle that’s conveniently within reach---feels like a task I just cannot start. It’s absurd, and yet I’ve always been like this. (Ofc if you ask my parents I’m just lazy, but again, this is even with things I want to do, like video games, or getting out of my car when I get home instead of messing with my phone for ten minutes first. It’s like the gears of my brain get stuck and I just cannot get them to move.)

 Hyperfocusing: While I am incredibly easily distracted at times, at the same time when I get into something, I get really into it, and sometimes this kicks my brain into a hyperfocused state (which I didn’t even realize until recently was a hyperfocused state) where I cannot do anything else other than that task, including sleeping, eating, or otherwise taking care of myself. This usually happens with cleaning, but it can also happen with video games, with show binging, or other similar activities. Once I’m in the zone, I’m in the zone and I don’t come out of that zone until my brain has decided it has had enough / the thing is done. (Similarly, I get hyperfixations where I’m SUPER INTO one thing for a while, often churning out tons of content and such for it until it runs its course through my system. This is also when my attention to detail actually returns to me and I can remember minute details of things I love.)

And so on and so forth, you get the idea. I’ve taken a few different online tests as well, such as one I just now took that said a score of 51% or higher means that you should see a mental health professional for a diagnosis, and I scored 75%. Of course, online checklists and self-tests aren’t surefire diagnoses, but at the same time these are often very similar to the worksheets that doctors hand you in their offices. It’s not a diagnosis, but it’s something that indicates that there is something going on that you (or in this case, I) should probably have checked out.

So all in all, researching ADD and reading about the different types and how different symptoms present in different people makes me think I have it. It’s not something I thought about or fully realized until well into my adult years, but hey, at least I’ve got an idea now. (And tbh I think I have sort of a combined type going on due to the chair and fidgeting thing, as well as how fast I talk and how my mouth often has trouble keeping up with my thoughts, but still.) It also explains a lot about my childhood, adolescence, and even adult years, just like the mathematics learning disability did. It’s a missing piece to help me understand why my brain has always been like . . . this. 

At any rate, hope this sates your curiosity, anon. And if you’re looking into this for yourself, I wish you the best of luck!

Survey #175

“imagine living like a king someday, a single night without a ghost in the walls.”

Have you ever had a teacher hit on you? Not to my recollection. Have you ever seen your ex’s new partner? If so, what do you think of them? I don't know or care if he currently has one. Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months? Done it twice now, it's not difficult if you're picky and serious with who you date. Does anybody know about your sex life other than your partners? Well my mom was somewhat aware of things that were happening. What was the last piece of candy you ate? Good question. I got my tongue re-pierced because of a bar length issue with swelling, and now this one is just shy of long enough to disable me from biting down entirely (they're snake eyes, so across the tip). I'm only just getting back into eating soft things very slowly unless I want pain, so candy's a no. I have to wait no less than three weeks to get a correctly-sized bar, and it's only been just over one aaaahhh. Have you ever been dared to do something you totally regretted? No. Is your room painted or wallpapered? Painted. What is the best kind of pizza in your opinion? I'm an American I stan them meat lovers. Is there something that someone has done to you that you cannot forgive? No. Well actually idk, I still don't know for *sure* if I forgive him. Like I'm completely over it and it no longer affects me, but I could never ever ever ever look at him even remotely the same or even consider trusting him. I don't think that's supposed to happen when you forgive someone. Have you ever broken a plate/bowl? Accidentally by dropping. What is your favorite restaurant? Olive Garden. Has anyone ever drunk called/texted you? I don't think so. Do you know anyone who has a homosexual parent? No. What type of music could this world live without? Pure screamo (no, not as a carpet term for metal). Are any of your pets “overweight”? No. Who’s the last person you cried over? Does myself count? Did the house you grew up in have a fence? Yeah, but not all around. What’s your YouTube channel name? 0zzkat. Who of your FB friends has the cutest toddler(s)? Uhhhh idk. Anastasia's baby girl is pretty cute, I guess. Did you decorate pumpkins this year? No. :/ They were totally gone the day we were gonna get one (the day before Halloween so no, we weren't that surprised lmao). What’s the craziest color you’d dye your hair? More like what color WOULDN'T I dye it? What’s the coolest hobby one of your friends has? Uhhh. Idk. Name a video game you can play over and over again? Shadow of the Colossus. I've beaten it around 30 times. Would be more if I didn't lose the disc, buuut it's actually coming in the mail now! What is something that will make you laugh instantly? Don't show me that fucking Linkin Park "crawling in my crawl" worm video. Name a movie you wouldn’t watch solely based on its name? None come to mind. What’s your dearest souvenir? *shrugs* What was the last strong scent you smelled? Probably coffee bc of Mom. Have you ever been in an unconventional relationship (long distance, polyamorous, same gender, age gap, etc)? If so, what challenges did this relationship present, and were they worth overcoming? Long instance + same-sex simultaneously. Distance is fucking hard when you really want each other's company, especially for emotional support. Being same-sex makes me nervous due to potential violent homophobics, especiiiiaaaally living where I do. I do it regardless, but even just holding hands leaves me worrying some asshole is going to cause a problem. I know my sister's husband isn't at all fond of it either and I'm 99% sure he's why Sara's never met the kids. But anyway, all those things are absolutely worth it. Would you ever consider something like a poly relationship, assuming everyone involved was alright with it? What are some things you think you would or wouldn’t like about it? Absolutely not, because I strictly believe in the exclusiveness of love. What is the most unhealthy relationship (whether friendship or romantic) you’ve ever had? What made it so unhealthy? Do you still talk to each other? Colleen, probably. We are just about the antitheses of each other, yet we were "best friends." We disagreed too frequently, she was drama-ravenous, we kept leaving and coming back, etc. No, we don't talk now, and I refuse to ever do so again as friends. Have you ever been abusive in any way? Were you able to change or make amends, or, in general, what do you think people should do to make amends in that situation? No. I absolutely do not believe in "making amends" with your abuser. Keep them the fuck out of your life. Have you ever forgiven someone for being abusive or allowed someone toxic back into your life? Did this person change for the better or not? Toxic... you mean Colleen? Did it too many times, and no, she didn't. Do you feel like your age matches your emotional development? If not, what age level or maturity level do you feel best represents where you’re at? Part of me says no, another says yes. I guess it depends on the subject. What is one thing about your personality that embarrasses you, but you can’t seem to change it no matter how hard you try? Have other people called you out on this embarrassing thing? Being socially awkward as all hell, and yes. When was the last time you did something “meant” for children? Do you think it’s okay for adults to do these things (ie. watch cartoons, have stuffed animals, dress in cute clothing, etc), or do you think there’s an age beyond which it becomes unacceptable - and if so, why? I was playing Spyro just earlier today lmao. In almost all cases, no. I do believe that something like a full-grown adult playing pretend with dolls or something may be questionable, but even then there's not a real reason I can give you. What was the last thing to “trigger” you (as in, in a true mental health sense, I’m being serious here) and how did you cope with it? What kinds of things do you tend to find triggering? What do you do either avoid or face your triggers? Something PTSD-related, but I can't remember exactly what it was, I guess because I got past it pretty quickly. There are certain songs I should avoid, I canNOT look at the medicine I ODed on, I don't like seeing or being near large knives at all... If you’re diagnosed with anything, do you feel that it accurately represents what you’re experiencing? All of them, yeah. What is a complaint you have about the mental health industry or about the type of treatment you’ve received from a mental health service? Have you ever had any particularly bad therapy experiences? I feel that too many people working in the field care far more about the pay than the people. I can't guarantee a professional truly cared about what I was dealing with until Holly Hill. I've had one particularly horrible psychiatrist that threw diagnoses and pills around like they were nothing (the most ridiculous being ADHD, which I in no way exhibited), and a long-time therapist I had was pretty bad, something I realized only after I started with my current one. She was strict about that "you've got an hour, you're staying an hour, you're leaving no later" shit, and we always ran out of things to talk about so I'd just be sitting there super uncomfortably and numerous times start crying because I felt so awkward, and she'd just take it as a sign that I wasn't telling her something. She drove "and how does that make you feel" and "what're you thinking of" into the goddamn ground. Yeesh, having been a mental health patient for so long, I could really write a novel here. When was the last time you realized you might be the source of a problem and NOT someone else? Hm, idk. I'm so uninvolved with others that that's a hard question to answer. What are some minor physical discomforts that really bug you (eyelash in your eye, a wedgie, rumpled socks, etc)? HAVING THE BOTTOMS OF YOUR PANTS GET WET. I hate chapped lips, too. Do you prefer vertical or horizontal stripes? Horizontal. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? No. Are you ticklish? YEAH. Have you ever tried to make your own alcohol? No. If you were to join one of the armed forces, which would it be? I wouldn’t. Have you ever been in a submarine? No. Have you ever been in a hot tub or sauna? Only hot tubs. Do you believe there used to be dragons? No. What was your first alcoholic drink? A Mike's hard lemonade. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? Idk, I was a baby. What was your first detention for? Too many tardies. Did you ever have a treehouse as a kid? No. Have you ever been on radio? No. How long has your longest ever phone call been? A few hours. What is a meal you eat extremely often? Or do your meals & food choices vary a lot? Ummm I guess some kind of chicken is common? When was the last time you felt unable or unwilling to speak your mind to someone? Idk. What was the last thing you changed your mind about? Uhhhh how am I blanking, I change my mind on things every five minutes. Who was the last friend you saw, and what did you do together? Sara's both my girlfriend but also the only "friend" I ever hang with now even tho we live several states apart lmao. I was there two weeks, so we did an array of stuff. Who tends to show up in your dreams? Do you ever wonder if you appear in anyone else’s dreams? Hell, I barely ever remember my dreams. Jason still shows up maybe ehhhh around or maybe less than once a month, and I have no clue why other than maybe there's some PTSD effects I don't actually detect or something? It's not like I think about him much, so I really don't see why he shows up, but the theme is constant: awkwardness seeing each other again, and he sometimes tries to get back with me (thank FUCKING GOD even in my dreams, I don't). Sara's in some dreams that I remember. Mom, maybe. What is something you wish you could say to someone who is no longer in your life, or something you wish they could know? Nothing. What is something you do to feel better when you’re scared? I'll usually turn to YouTube for a distraction. Who do you feel you can count on the most in life? Is there anyone you wish you could count on more? Mom. What is the strangest book you have ever read? How did you find out about it? Probably Bite Me by idr-who. I actually don't remember. What was the last thing you broke? How about fixed? Another sensor came off the keyboard. :') I dunno about fixed. Is there a sign or symbol that means a lot to you for whatever reason (eg. seeing certain animals or birds, 11:11 or other repeating numbers, syncs, butterflies, hearts in nature, etc)? Butterflies and semicolons. Hence my semicolon butterfly tattoo. Do you have any personal ghost stories or paranormal experiences? Yeah. What do you get complimented on the most? My hair. What is something unusual that you find attractive? why does?????? everyone hate fedoras tbh?????????? What time do you tend to eat your first meal of the day? And your last? BOY this varies so much like fuck. Sometimes I don't eat breakfast at all, sometimes I do right when I get outta bed. Dinner can be at like almost 10:00 with Mom's schedule, or I may have it like five hours earlier. What was the subject of the last video you watched? I'm getting into a horror LPer and I'm binging her Silent Hill playthroughs. How would you describe your overall aesthetic? I like pink but bloody guts and brains are cool 2. What is the most challenging meal you have ever cooked? N/A What was your favorite thing to do as a little kid? Play video/computer games. Have you ever been close to drowning? No. Do you watch any Japanese anime? Not currently, but I've kinda had the urge to pick an interesting one up? Do you have someone who is protective of you (father, brother, etc.)? Mom and Sara above anyone else. Where was the last place you went, that you hadn’t been to before? Uhhhhh good question. I don't exactly go to new places often. Do you have any bad habits you aren’t working on changing? If so, do you ever think you’ll try to break them? I don't believe so off the top of my head? Then again I think everyone has little bad habits they don't try to improve upon, but I can't think of anything serious. When was the last time someone surprised you with their reaction or behaviors? I'm sure something with Mom, but idk what. Are you good at committing to things like Nanowrimo or Inktober? Nope. What is your preferred method of expressing yourself? Writing. Or drawing if I'm in the mood. Have you ever reached out to a crisis center for mental health support? If so, how was the experience? I tried to reach the suicide hotline via their online one-on-one chatroom because I was too afraid to actually call, but I ended up waiting I think 45 minutes before the OD happened. When was the last time you did something you were afraid to do, and how was the outcome? I drove at night and ordered food at a drive-thru myself. It went well. What is one positive thing you believe about yourself? I have a strong sense of right and wrong. What is something you have been through that has made you stronger? Depression as a whole. Other than money, what is something you wish you had more of in your life? Social life, success, and motivation to name a few. Is there anything that you tend to ignore for the sake of your sanity? Sure. Mental health stuff flares up sometimes if I think about some things too deeply. What was the last thing you argued or debated about? Did you eventually agree, or did you have to agree to disagree? Getting rid of Bentley, and neither, really. Mom knows we shouldn't have him for a world of reasons, yet she refuses to try to find a far more suitable home for him or at least talk to Nicole about it (he's her dog, but she doesn't live here), who's never even paid him almost any attention. I could rant about this for hours. What is something you wish was different about your family? THAT WE WERE CLOSER. What is your main struggle or focus in life right now? Getting out of the house/becoming more of a functioning adult. Are you more dramatic or stoic? I'm neither extreme, really, but I'd say I'm much further from stoic. Are you on medication for anything? If so, do you feel like it helps? Have you ever been afraid to take medication or had a particularly bad experience with it? A lot, but the only ones I feel don't work are the ones for my tremors and knees. I was on one med for a while that I was scared to take because it made me vomit (safe to say I wasn't on it long), and even my life-saver med made me sick at first, but I took prescription nausea pills to ride that out as my body adjusted. Do you prefer having long or short nails? Short, but not too short. When was the last time you had an argument with one of your parents? Idr. Do you tend to eat the same few things all the time or do you vary your intake? Would you consider yourself to be a picky eater? Are there any commonly enjoyed foods that you don’t like? I'm picky and definitely have a limited palate. Some foods I can think of for the last question include fried chicken, BBQ, watermelon, tacos, all cheeses but American, aaaand I'm blanking again in an area I should have a book about. Do you have good body image? Do you feel more confident about your body or your personality? What is one thing about yourself about which you do feel particularly confident? Ha, as if, so personality. I like how open-minded I am. How likely are you to compliment other people? How do you react or respond when you receive a compliment? What are your favorite types to receive? It depends on the person, the atmosphere, and my anxiety level. I sometimes fear complimenting people because I don't want someone to be like "um why is she talking to me?"/"is she flirting with me?"/"why did she notice that?", etc. I become so giddy (at the very least internally) when people compliment me because of how my self-esteem is, and I really appreciate them. The compliments that mean most to me are regarding my photography. With how badly I want to be a successful photographer, people seeming to genuinely like what I do has actually made me smile like an idiot and giggle publicly. It just means a lot to me. Describe the last thing you reblogged? How many posts do you tend to reblog during a day? A clip of Mark having a fit over a dog in RDR2. How much I reblog varies greatly; depends on how much I get on Tumblr that day, what I feel like sharing at that moment, what I queue... Have you ever lost your cool at work or somewhere else important? What happened as a result? No. Do you listen to your friends’ advice when they give it to you? Depends. If it's Sara, I usually do. What’s the last kind of soup you ate? Vegetable. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced? It is pierced. The most memorable time that you skipped school, what did you do? I don't recall. Did you ever have a favorite teacher in high school? What made them your favorite? Coach Collie. He was very friendly, wise, his sense of humor was great, he cared deeply for his students, was super chill, shared life advice all the time, etc. etc. Can you think of a time when you were really obviously judged by your appearance? What happened? Not that I recall. What’s something your mother told you growing up that you actually listened to? Mind your manners. What are three emotions you experience regularly? Stress, content, but also discontent. What is your favorite Halloween candy? Reese's. Is there anyone who refuses to communicate with you? *shrugs* What was the last lengthy packet you filled out? Something for vocational rehab. Is there something you still can’t do even though you’re an adult or might be expected to do this thing? I don't have a job or drive. When was the last time you congratulated someone? Were you happy for them, indifferent, jealous? When I found out one of my closest high school friends is pregnant. I was obviously happy for her. What would you say is your STRONGEST emotion? Maybe not the most frequent, but the most intense? And what emotion do you feel most weakly, even if you might feel it more often? Anger; envy (but it's not often). Have you ever gone somewhere in your pajamas? What makes this acceptable or unacceptable to you? Plenty times, but it depends on my level of shits given and the location. Honestly wish pjs were more acceptable in public places cuz like why not, you've got clothes on, just don't go around where everyone can totally see your dick, ass, or tits. Other than the usual things like IDs, etc, what do you always carry with you when you go out? My phone. What type of photography do you enjoy looking at? Do you take any photos yourself, and if so, what types of things do you prefer to photograph? LOTS!!!! I particularly love fantasy-styled portraiture or macabre work, and omg give me soft lighting. I'm a sucker for emotive or conceptual portraits and the like. I like to photograph an array of things, but my faves are nature and animals. Have you ever gone out for the Black Friday shopping rush? Did you enjoy it, or not so much? Or, what’s the busiest shopping day you’ve ever experienced? Nope. Busiest shopping day I indirectly experienced was when I worked at GameStop during the holiday season... nope. It's a small store and it was flooded. I hated it. Idk about one where I/my family was the shopper. Do you enjoy reading diaries or stories you wrote from when you were younger, or does it embarrass you? If you’ve kept them, was there a particular reason for hanging on to them so long? No. No. No. NO. I can't stomach going any further back than '15 at the RP forum because fucking cringe. All old stuff like physical journals and such, they're long gone because I never want to see them again lmao. What would you say was your first true hobby? What about your most recently developed one? Hmmm, probably video games were the first things I was *really* deep into. Recently developed... good question. Is there one thing that throws off your mood more than others, whether it be lack of sleep, lack of food, heat/cold, etc? I'M FUCKING /CRANKY/ IF I'M HOT. Serious lack of sleep makes me moodier. What is one common area of life in which you feel you have little to no experience (college, children, marriage, etc)? Work and independence. What kinds of things are you likely to complain about? HEAT. If it's hot to me, you're gonna know. I'll complain if my stomach especially hurts, sometimes with other pain. Do you like to put any extra effort into your food in terms of presentation, or do you prefer to just put it on a plate and eat it as it is, no frills? I don't cook, so. But I'd definitely be the latter. When was the last time you were mean or rude to someone else? How about the last time someone acted that way toward you? I hung up on this insurance agency or whatever they are that call me every other goddamn day. I dunno about the second question. What kinds of things are most likely to make you lose your temper? Have you ever done something regrettable or embarrassing while angry? I fucking dare you to ridicule the mentally ill in front of me. Goddamn dare you. For the second part, not to my recollection. Do you have a large dog? No, both our dogs are medium-sized. If not, are you afraid of them? Not at all. Do your parents know that/if you smoke? I don't. What is the reason you last received money? Mom borrowed some from me so she was paying me back. Is anyone in your family sick? Not to my knowledge. Are you very upfront about things or do you "beat around the bush"? The latter, typically. Do you ever write poetry just to get your feelings out? Not really anymore. Middle and high school? I was all about it. I wrote only one poem this year. How many bones have you broken? None. Whose house did you visit last? My sister Ashley's. Have you ever bought a fragrance by a celeb because you liked who it was? No. Do you have a gazebo at your house? No. What’s your favorite brand of bottled water? Essentia.

Heya. Recently saw a post of yours going around regarding mental illness and not having to censor your own experience, be constantly positive, offer up your success story ect. I suffer from clinical depression and anxiety myself and I was kind of interested in your referring to yourself as an "old crazy" and what not. A lot of times I feel like depression is more like a... comparatively "pretty" MI and like it's barely even valid to talk about having a MI in certain ways you know? 1/?

But you're confident enough with it that you'll say things like "old crazy" and just generally... treat it with the seriousness it deserves? I feel like there's almost two sides of it. When talking to nurotypicals yeah, depression is obviously a MI and our experience is way different from theirs, but when talking with other folk with MI's it feels almost like... whining? Maybe a bit like being a "small fat" in regards to fatphobia vs someone who is much bigger and receives more scorn for it? 2/?

Anywho, if there was a question in there I supposed it was going to be"is depression the only mental illness you suffer from? And what's your opinion on "reclaiming", I guess, stigmatized words like "crazy" when one suffers from comparatively less stigmatized MI's?" I mean I've got best friends who deal with hallucinations, family with bipolar disorder, in laws with disassociative identity disorder and I guess I low key feel like I cant even call myself someone with an MI by comparison. Idk. 3/3

So...okay.  Let me start by saying, I’m really trying not to be an asshole about this.  If I come off sounding like a jerk, it’s not intentional, and I’m mad at the ideas and social forces behind them, not you for giving voice to them in my inbox.  

That said...fuck that noise.

My specific diagnoses are honestly nobody’s business but mine and my doctor’s.  I’m pretty open about them here, but it does rub me a bit the wrong way to be asked, basically, “what are your Crazy Credentials?”  

I’ve been formally diagnosed with chronic major depression and social anxiety.  My therapist has made noises about C-PTSD a few times but never anything official, more just letting me know that some of the things I thought were shitty personality quirks actually fit the diagnostic criteria for C-PTSD and may be less my own fault than I think.  And I’m about 99% sure I have ADHD, to the point where I’m about ready to seek out official diagnosis to see if I can get treatment for that in addition to my depression, bc I think it would really help me.  

Short answer re my thoughts on reclaiming “crazy” as someone with...I can’t even bring myself to say “less severe” tbh considering that my depression has tried really hard to kill me several times over the past 20 years and has almost succeeded more than once, but someone who doesn’t have psychotic or personality disorders, is that if people use it against me I have a right to reclaim it for myself.  And that has happened enough times that I’m feeling pretty confident in my Earned Right to call myself a bitter old crazy fucker.

I also suuuuuper object to the classification of depression as a “pretty” MI, even comparatively.  Like.  That shit made me drop out of college, cost me the first ten years of my adult life, I have literal physical scars from the self-harm I used to do because of my depression, I’d have died years ago if not for the family and loved ones who took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself.  None of that shit is fucking “pretty”.  I hear you say it’s a comparatively “pretty” MI (and like I said, I’m not mad *at you* so much as the ableist cultural attitudes that make people think that about it) and all I can think of is the nights when I would be curled up as tight as I could get, sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe, hating myself so intensely that if I could’ve spontaneously wished myself out of existence I would have.  I think of the emotional neglect I perpetuated against the man I love, the way that him trying to take care of me left him with scars and issues of his own, and all I can do is offer my experience in how to cope with those kinds of things, I can’t undo it for him, I can just ironically use my experience of the depression that harmed him to help him learn to cope with his own.  I think of the fact that I’m 32, but I’m a mere 4 years into my career, basically the point where someone in their mid-20s would be, because of the way my depression crippled my ability to work for so long. I think of the fact that I only stopped stashing razor blades around my living space “just in case” I needed to self-harm about a year or two ago, and even now I know without having to even pause that if I suddenly decided to go back to that, the exacto knife in my little home toolkit under the kitchen sink upstairs has a box of extra blades that I could use.  

That’s...not...pretty.

But I think you’ve actually hit on a pretty perfect comparison in the “small fat” thing, tbh.  I’m fat, undeniably so, but I’m a smaller fat, only a size 18.  So there are parts of the “fat experience” I’ve never had to deal with, like having to use seatbelt extenders on an airplane or buy a second seat or get kicked off a flight.  

But that doesn’t mean I’m insulated from fatphobia, including the deadly kinds like medical neglect.  It doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t call myself fat.  

If you can look at someone who’s a size 16 or 18 and simultaneously acknowledge that said person is fat and faces fatphobia for it, and that they’re a small fat and that bigger fat people face unique issues that the smaller fat person doesn’t...can you do the same with MIs?  If you have depression, or mood disorders or anxiety disorders in general, you are mentally ill and you face ableism and stuff because of it; at the same time, there are types of ableism that you aren’t targeted by since you don’t have a personality or psychotic disorder.  Those things can be true at the same time.  And it really sounds like you’re struggling with some internalized ableism around this, that you’ve picked up some of the general cultural attitudes around Real and Bad MIs like psychosis vs meh MIs like depression.  

It’s okay, and entirely possible, to both understand that someone with a mood disorder faces a different level/type of ableism than someone with a personality disorder - and still understand that both of those people are still mentally ill, both of those mental illnesses “count”.  There’s no mental illness olympics.  Having different types of MIs results in different experiences, sure, but that doesn’t make people with mood disorders not *really* mentally ill.

We need to stand together, all of us, in fighting stigma and ableism around mental illness.  Those of us with less-stigmatized disorders need to stand with those who have more-stigmatized disorders - but doing that doesn’t require that we minimize or dismiss our own illnesses or experiences.

Don’t let mundanes divide us against ourselves.