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simptasia · 4 years

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neurodivergence in abc’s lost

i’m gonna be listing off and talking about the canon neurodivergent characters in lost. i won’t be adding characters that i personally headcanon as neurodivergent in some way, what i’m writing here is elaboration upon what has been given to me by the show. please note that none of these people’s conditions or disorders were named in the show, so such diagnoses being named here are me taking that extra step based upon their symptoms

first of all i wanna point out that based on what i’ve seen the show, that the island’s healing powers applies to conditions inflicted upon the mind, not ones inherent to the mind. thats why daniel’s brain damage heals, but people like hurley and locke will always continue to have depression

hugo “hurley” reyes

schizophrenia and depression

our most prominently featured mentally ill character. it might seem bold to label him with schizophrenia when it’s never said that that’s what he has. but during his time on lost, he displays many of the symptoms: paranoia, pathological self loathing, delusions and hallucinations. now, it’s a fictionalized depiction of schizophrenia and that’s probably not even what the writers had in mind but it’s none the less a really, really good and respectful portrayal of it

it would take too long to list off all the times when hurley displays paranoia (heck, it’s easy not to notice how much its a part of his character) and self loathing. delusions? the situations regarding the numbers and his bad luck (canon never ever Proves what hurley believes to be true regarding that stuff)

they did an episode dedicated to hurley having hallucinations. a man named dave who drives him to self destructive behaviour, self hatred and attempted suicide. fun fact: when people with schizophrenia in real life have hallucinations, they tend towards just auditory. hurley gets visual as well as per Rule Of Drama. this is not a bad thing, just a narrative tool

(steering slightly into headcanon for a bit here but i personally ignore the dharma made Hurley Bird they revealed in the epilogue and just take hurley hearing that bird say his name as an auditory hallucination. for two reasons: one, hurley hearing/seeing things that don’t exist is already consistent with his mental state. and two, that bird literally, genuinely did not fucking say hurley)

extra notes

to be clear, in case there's confusion, hurley really does have magical powers. he can talk to dead people. that isn’t a delusion or hallucination. you can understand how confusing and distressing this must be for hurley

he's had a compulsive eating disorder since he was ten due to the pain of his father abandoning him. his struggle with this is well documented

at several points during the show he’s shown to have trouble spelling. he especially confuses his “y(s)” and “ies”. it’s not clear if this is due to poor education or a learning issue. or both, really. it’s safe to assume with him being poor, mexican and mentally ill, that school wasn’t easy for hurley

hurley has unjustifiably lived at mental health institutions on at least two occasions (the first time was against his will, second was volunteer)

john locke

depression

locke suffers from severe self esteem issues, and i know most lost characters do, but i mean to the point of irrational and destructive behaviour. he has an obsession with being deemed special in order to justify his existence. he also suffers jarring mood swings. (he can switch from calm and jovial to angry and defensive at the drop of a hat). when he was wheelchair bound, this threw him into a depression. when he failed to convince anybody to come back to the island, he attempted suicide. he would have gone thru with it too. he will go to extremes to make sure things stay the way he wants them to (killing an innocent woman so they can stay on the island, tying up and drugging boone so he won’t tell anybody about the hatch), and will fall into despair if he fails

also note that the things im saying about locke are not a comment on people with depression. i don’t think all depressed people kill and drug people. those were statements on locke’s character that i believe are a part of his mental state. my point is: he’s emotionally unstable and he tried to kill himself. and i think his extreme need for validation (from people and the universe in general) is especially concerning

to me, this all says to me that locke has clinical depression

locke isn’t as easy as the other people on this list to classify as Canon Neurodivergent but at least to me, i think it’s very obvious. like i feel bad being so vague but like, basically, watch any locke episode

daniel faraday

acquired brain damage, severe memory degradation as well as other neurodivergent behaviours (i’ll go into it)

he’s played by jeremy davies. enough said

okay, jokes aside. at some point in the past daniel and his assistant theresa were involved in some vaguely referred to time based experiments. while she was catatonicized, the accident left daniel severely brain damaged (also daniel spent years doing radioactive experiments without head protection, which would not have helped and indeed that is foreshadowing of this whole debacle)

apparently this left him in a state where he can no longer take care of himself, having been assigned a carer. his most outstanding symptom is that his ability to process short AND long term memory has been impaired

short term: he’s shown to have issues retaining memories from day to day. he wasn’t sure if he had met charles widmore already (he hadn’t). charles lays some exposition on him and when daniel asks why he’s telling him this, charles says, with sureness, that “because by tomorrow you won’t remember this”. counting on that to be an absolute fact seems silly to me but that does seem to the case. again, Rule Of Drama is in play here

long term: he can no longer access memories he formed many years ago, famously the memories he formed with desmond in 1996. all in all, this condition is highly plot convenient. can’t argue with results, really

no, i can keep going, i got more, this is daniel fucking faraday we’re talking about: his ability to remember 3 playing cards has been impaired (note that this is a skill most 4 year olds master), he forgot the secret code the science team were all taught and when he introduces himself to jack there is a long pause, in hindsight implying that daniel forgot his own name

like real life memory conditions, theres varying level to how much he does and doesn’t remember. he’s thankfully not in a 50 first dates situation and doesn’t forget everything day to day. clearly he remembers people if they’re around enough, like during his time on the boat. charlotte, miles, frank, naomi...

upon landing on the island, his memory slowly gets better (considering his condition beforehand, the fact that nobody comments on this is staggering)

when dan is fully healed? i could not say, i could theorize, but such things are nebulous. but still, the times we see dan without his brain damage, he still behaves like a neurodivergent person. just not like he was when he was brain damaged. he stims near constantly, has a tendency to repeat names and words (echolalia) and it’s shown that dan compulsively counts in his head. he counted up to 864 beats, if i remember correctly, which is about 10 minutes of counting in his head. by no stretch of the imagination is that neurotypical behaviour

(im not trying to sound defensive. and i don’t think anybody, anywhere, is arguing that daniel faraday is a neurotypical. unfathomable)

going into headcanon territory again, his ND traits, when not brain damaged, say to me that he’s autistic and/or has OCD and possibly anxiety. thats all theorizing on my part tho. but the fact of the matter is, damage or no, he’s neurodivergent

notes

his apparent need for tactile sensory input is legendary in the lost fandom. in layman’s terms: him pet pet. not just people but objects too. humans, overall, tend to touch things to process input better. many ND people do it more, and it seems daniel is a case of that (i am not making a solid statement on jeremy davies’ neuro state. that’s his business)

he shows an inability to properly process grief

he also shows shocking indifference to his own safety, resulting in reckless behaviour. how much of this is a result of his mental state or his upbringing is up for debate. i think it’s a combo of both

without his brain damage, he appears to have an eidetic memory

danielle rousseau

trauma induced mental illness

pretty self explanatory. the loss of her expedition, husband and daughter, as well as 16 years of loneliness (on THIS island) has resulted in emotional instability for danielle. she’s prone to paranoia, trust issues, irrational behaviour

she’s just not well. she’s right most of the time but she’s not well

libby smith

indeterminate mental state

libby was institutionalized (the same place hurley was sent to) and placed on medication (which seemed like sedatives to me, based on her expressions). in the show it’s not what clear what put her there, but having just done some research, i’ve discovered that Word Of God says that libby became mentally unstable after the death of her husband dave smith. so this is probably another case of trauma induced mental illness. she must have had a pretty extreme episode to cause her to be sent to a place like that. something to think about

but alas, it’s libby, so not much info. moving on

benjamin linus

anti social behaviour disorder (is my best guess)

oof. depictions of mental illness with characters who are immoral are depictions of mental illness nonetheless. i feel almost silly saying this but: ben is not... okay

ben displays issues (at best) with empathy, compassion and morality. how much he cares about other people is highly debatable but one thing that's certain is that he does genuinely love his daughter. everybody else is ????

but the loving alex thing rules out him being a sociopath or having narcissistic personality disorder. and it is genuine because when he loses it with grief, it’s not a performance, because the only audience is us...

he’s a compulsive liar, lying even when it doesn’t benefit him. lying just because. ben is highly unpredictable, which isn’t inherently a neurodivergent thing, but when a person goes from a calm discussion to strangling somebody, all roads point to Uh Oh (i don’t know the technical terms for Uh Oh). many of his outward emotions are performed (the difference between his fake smiles and few real smiles is noticeable). he’s manipulative, he treats people like objects for his benefit/plans, he’s self absorbed, he has zero issues with murder unless it’s a child. he does have some moral standards. but overall, uh, [just gestures at ben]

also ben is repeatedly offended when other people don’t trust him, which is HILARIOUS, but also shows a cognitive dissonance on his part

hmm i need more here, im gonna break out the big guns

that’s some basic info there and doesn’t that line up with ben?

the article goes on to say that people with this can put on superficial charm. that is, behave friendly and “normal” when they have to. which ben is shown to be able to do

and this

“Serious problems with interpersonal relationships are often seen in those with the disorder. Attachments and emotional bonds are weak, and interpersonal relationships often revolve around the manipulation, exploitation, and abuse of others.”

reminds me of his situation with juliet. and locke. and his “friendships” in general

i snipped the wikipedia article for this because unlike the rest i felt,,, underequipped to talk about this sort of thing

ben being mentally unwell is clear enough in canon and i think this disorder is what lines up best with it. please note that ben is capable of change and growth (like people in real life who have such issues) and like the show i’m not gonna paint him 100% evil or irredeemable. i’m just saying what’s true

notes

ben says at one point that he doesn’t dream anymore. it’s highly probably that this is a lie, but if it isn’t, well that's not good. it’d mean his brain isn’t entering into REM sleep properly, which can lead to emotional problems

ben doesn’t blink as much as most people do, something michael emerson did on purpose. this can apply to some neurodivergent people

it’s shown that he was quite nonverbal as a kid. in the flashbacks in “man behind the curtain” little ben barely speaks

honourable mentions

pretty much all the survivors suffer from PTSD due the trauma of the crash

a great deal of the characters suffer from PTSD from trauma in general due to their awful lifes. like, abusive parents, war, loss of loved ones, etc

and i must note that ben, daniel and locke suffering from parental abuse, ranging from emotional to physical, is something to factor into their cases

claire, similar to danielle, also suffered trauma induced mental illness due to the loss of her baby and feeling like she was abandoned

sayid is depicted as dead inside during season 6 due to The Sickness, so thats like a magical form of depression. and one could argue that he already had regular depression beforehand

boone joked about shannon having bulimia. (whether or not it’s true, boone is an asshole) if it’s true, shannon has an eating disorder, which is considered a form of mental illness. espech one so self image based

self harm

self harm is not an inherent part of mental illness but such concepts are often linked so i felt i should mention some of these, it’ll be quick

hurley’s aforementioned eating disorder

charlie takes heroin as a form of self harm (that isn’t a theory on my part, it’s clear as day that charlie started taking it because his sense of self worth was so low that the drugs felt like the only option)

locke, hurley, (both as mentioned above), jack, desmond, michael and richard have all attempted/nearly commited suicide

so what can we conclude from this? well that's up to you, really. that i love lost a fuck ton? that the actors and writing in lost is amazing? that all the neurodivergent based depth got saved for the boys? yeah

but i wanna conclude with this: a part of what makes lost really special to me is that these people i’ve talked out here? they’ve suffered, and oh boy it was tasty suffering, but all of them, yes even libby, were more than suffering

these people have nuance. one way or another, these people (to varying degrees) were happy at times. silly. funny. angry. opinionated. they loved. they were loved. they lived and breathed as human beings. that means a lot to me

lost is a story of broken people given a second chance. take that as you will

thank you for your time

#lost #charthann #missinglost #(i don't wanna lose this so i tagged you guys)#i've made a list like this before but i wanna go into detail #and before i knew it i made an incredible essay #lost headcanons #most of this is based on canon but as i said there is extrapolation at play #and i mention some headcanons along the way when i felt it was needed #gosh this became a whole Thing #i hope y'all enjoy it!#and this isn't counting ppl i headcanon as ND #like jack being autistic or charlie having HPD #i could go into that too

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gaiatheorist · 6 years

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Guns.

Hello, I’m mentally unstable, and I have access to a gun. Don’t hit the panic button, my ‘condition’, whatever it is, is broadly manageable, and I’m in the UK, we don’t have assault rifles. (I have fired an assault rifle, it was an SA-80, on a school trip to Strensall army barracks.) I genuinely don’t know the make or model of ‘my’ air rifle, I haven’t touched it in years, I doubt I’d be able to load it now, with the hand-thing, and the eyes-thing. I’d consider selling it, to buy more beans, but I don’t really know the legalities of selling-on an air rifle. It was bought second-hand, I think the ex paid about £100 for it, from some bloke who knew some other bloke on the allotments. Always the status-things with him, one birthday, he bought me night-sights for it “So we can stay on the allotment later, you won’t have to pack up when it gets dark.” Who says romance is dead, when the man in your life buys you a gadget so you can stand for even longer in a freezing cold mud-bath, shooting rats? The sights/scope/whatever never came out of the box, my fingers aren’t particularly obedient at the best of times, fiddling tiny metal pellets into the slide-thingy of the rifle in the cold, and the dark was never going to happen. We’ll file that one under ‘I married a gibbon.’

It’s the ‘status’ thing that’s really messing with my head. The gibbon started off with someone else’s old air rifle, then upgraded to a ludicrously expensive one, and added all the gadgets, so he could pretend to be GI Joe. Watching someone else shoot rats isn’t really much of a hobby, and the kid and I would be repeatedly ‘shushed’, and told to keep still. It’s genuinely a miracle that he never shot the dog, because the dog didn’t keep quiet or still, the dog chased rats, and barked at fence-posts. The dog is an idiot, but he did kill a lot of rats. Eventually realising that the kid and I were bored senseless standing still, and being quiet, GI Gibbon, complete with his red headlight (rats can’t see red light, apparently, I don’t know whether that’s true?) decided we should ALL shoot rats. (Poison was iffy, with the idiot-dog, and free-ranging hens, ducks, and geese, we did set traps, but one trap only kills one rat, and it’s pretty grim emptying the trap the following day, when the other rats have eaten the trapped rat, leaving a weird rat-suit in the trap.)

Splendid, a ‘family hobby’, except it wasn’t, it was pest control, we were spending upwards of £20 a week on bird-food, and, even with enclosed feeders, the rats were still swarming in for the spillage. Some nights there was a veritable carpet-of-rats, it’s a good thing I’m not squeamish. (I’m actually less squeamish than the gibbon, I’d batter a rat to death with anything that came to hand, he preferred the clean-distance of the rifles.) Every single evening, for a fair few years. In from work, check whether the kid has any homework, buzz around the house tidying up and making dinner, eat dinner, clean up after dinner while the gibbon ‘relaxes’ on the sofa, and then out to the mud-bath to collect eggs, and shoot rats. That’s why we had guns. (I did once earn massive kudos from a gang of ne’er-do-wells on the next allotment, I’d rolled and lit a cigarette, nonchalantly shot a rat clean through the eye-socket, flicked the dead rat over the fence with some old barbecue tongs, paused for a drag on the cigarette, and then re-loaded. NOBODY is used to women-like-me.)

Shooting rats is boring, you’d manage to pick off a couple, and then the rest would smell the fear-blood, and bugger off to raid an allotment where people weren’t shooting at them. The gibbon actually wanted to build a gun-tower, and do overnight rat-shooting. No, thank you, see previous point, once the rats can smell the death, it doesn’t matter how much food is spilled, or how many fancy gadgets you have on your rifle, they’re not going to come back until the blood of their former comrade cools down, and stops smelling of “Oh, shit, I’m dead.” (Once it cools, they think it’s food, they’re opportunistic scavengers.) I was an OK shot, I hit more than I missed, and I ALWAYS hit the head, there’s nothing quite like a squealing gut-shot rat dragging entrails all over the place, while you try to stop your idiot-dog making it into an intestines-and-fur jigsaw.

(Oh dear, I’ve just remembered ‘pancake rat.’ The kid had shot a rat, in the head, as I’d taught him, and, when he approached the mostly-dead rodent, I assumed he was going to throw it over the fence. The allotment backed onto a farmer’s field, and the ditch between the allotment fences and the field was our only ‘security’ against the regular break-ins. We had 8ft chicken-wire fences, with barbed wire on top on all sides, realistically, all the smack-heads would have needed was wire-cutters, and a bit of patience, but smack-heads don’t think straight, on more than one occasion they’d spent time breaking through the heavily fortified gate, when the chicken-wire at the side of it would have gone through with a couple of good kicks. The open field was a weak-point security-wise, even before the reprobates managed to get themselves trapped in a fenced-in area with three geese. It appeared to be accepted practice on the allotments to throw ‘stuff’ in the metre-gap between the back fences and the ditch, to act as obstacles for thieves. ‘Stuff’ included broken glass, rusty barbed wire, anything broken, bagged-up dog-shit, and dead rats. The kid didn’t pick up the rat and throw it over the fence, he re-loaded, and shot it again. I assumed he’d aimed badly the first time, and was finishing off the job. Then he re-loaded, and shot it again. He was literally on top of the rat, he couldn’t miss from that range, so I approached, to see what he was up to.

“Have you killed it?”

“Yes, but I didn’t think it had quite enough holes in its face, so I added some more, for ventilation.”

“Right, you know we pay for the pellets, don’t you?”

“Yes. Do you think it’s dead enough now?”

I crushed the rat’s skull under the heel of my boot.

“It is, it’s flat.”

The gibbon couldn’t stand to feel left out of anything, and came over, to see what we were doing.

“Have you killed one, son? Well done!”

“Yes, I shot it, and then I decided it wasn’t holey enough, then Mum made a pancake-rat.”

I wonder how many years he’ll spend in therapy for that?)

So, we had a rifle each, for vermin control. The crossbows weren’t vermin control, they were part of the ex’s ‘Apocalypse prep’ paranoia, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I suppose he’ll be sorted if we do end up with a ‘Mad Max’ Brexit, they’re no good to me, I can’t load them. I don’t know what sort of ID he had to provide to buy crossbows, that’s really quite worrying, because he doesn’t really HAVE any ID, he bought the big crossbow before photo driving licences, and I think he ordered the ‘compact’ one online. That’s more than ‘quite worrying’, it’s terrifying, he’s generally inept, but not ‘really’ dangerous, and he could just stroll into a sporting-goods shop somewhere, and come out with a crossbow.

What I’m waffling around the edges of here is that once he had ‘a gun’, he wanted a ‘better’ gun, and when he had the ‘better’ gun, he spent an awful lot of time researching the various ways to have that gun made more powerful. He wanted me to have my rifle ‘tuned’ or ‘gassed’, or whatever it was, to make it more powerful, I refused, because all I needed the rifle to be able to do was penetrate rat-skull quickly and cleanly. There aren’t that many guns knocking about in the UK, and, as far as I am aware, there is stringent licencing and regulation around ‘real’ guns, as opposed to piffly air-rifles like mine. I remember the ex, and the old next-door neighbour chatting shit about paying half each to buy a ‘Rhino Hunter’ crossbow. I’m not going to look up the draw-weight or any other statistics for it, I’m probably on enough lists as it is. ‘Rhino Hunter.’, we don’t have wild rhinoceros in the UK, aren’t they endangered, anyway? My delusional ex, and the next door neighbour, who was under the care of various psychiatric teams were planning to buy a ludicrously high-powered crossbow. They didn’t, in the end.

There is no reason for a person living in Yorkshire to have a crossbow that may or may not be capable of taking down a rhino. To my mind, there’s no reason for citizens of the USA to own machine guns. Contentious? I don’t think so, I can’t think of any real-life situation where an automatic, or semi-automatic weapon is ‘needed.’ A teenage girl caught the world’s attention, Emma Gonzales, pointing out links between the president, and the National Rifle Association, then the ‘official’ response being “Let’s not be too hasty!”, before blaming ‘the mental’, not the fact that anyone over the age of 18 can go out and buy a machine gun. (There may be caveats to that, I don’t know much about US gun-law.)

The issue for me, about the particular kind of mentally disturbed individual who would choose to open fire in a school is that most of them don’t walk around with a big placard stating “I am mentally disturbed, and I’m going to murder people.” With this one, there were notes of concern, that weren’t investigated thoroughly, but, for every potential murderer with ‘flags’, there will be many more undetected. The ones that ‘just snapped’, the ones that took great pains to conceal their intent and plans, the ones that the neighbours say ‘seemed so normal.’ The issue isn’t all about the mental illness, there are millions of people, all around the world, with varying degrees of different kinds of mental illness, the distinction between US gun-mentality and the rest of the world is the issue, not the individual’s mental state. (Side-line, but I read a news article this morning about a UK Member of Parliament being the victim of a street robbery. The weapon? A carton of milk. I’m sure it was distressing and painful to be attacked with a carton of milk, but it’s not a gun, is it?) “The guns are not the problem!” “It is our right to bear arms!” “Prise it from my cold, dead fingers!” etc. The guns, in my opinion, are the problem.

The UK is very different to the USA on many levels. We don’t keep guns in our bedside tables or handbags ‘just in case’. That would be against the law, several laws, actually. We don’t carry anything that could be construed as an offensive weapon. (Pretty much anything can be an offensive weapon, depending on intent, and manner of use, the kid and I used to play ‘How would you kill a zombie with that?’, there is very little in this room that I couldn’t use to disable/disarm an assailant, but I’m not likely to be attacked, both of my doors are locked, it’s 5am, pretty much everybody would be too tired to make a very good job of attacking me.) In 1996, the Dunblane primary school shooting led rapidly to an almost-complete ban on the personal ownership of handguns in the mainland UK, we just don’t ‘have’ guns, in general. (Yes, OK, some people DO have guns, but for specific purposes, and stored securely, as well as fewer ‘rampage killings’, we also have fewer toddlers accidentally shooting family members.)

I don’t agree with the US government’s suggestion that arming teachers, or school staff is the solution. I cannot accept the argument of “The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”, if the ‘bad guy’ didn’t have the gun in the first place, there would be no cause to arm the ‘good guy’. (It’s a good thing we don’t ‘have’ guns, UK schools are struggling to afford textbooks and pens, there’s nothing left in the kitty for guns.) How many guns? One in each classroom, because if they’re centrally held somewhere, you’re factoring in a delay? If that scheme went ahead, surely the ‘bad guy’ would kill the teacher/adult first, potentially leaving a gun on the classroom floor? The fact that ‘some’ Americans are comfortable with firearms doesn’t mean that ‘all’ would be, I saw a tweet the other day, where a teacher had said they wouldn’t trust some colleagues to hold their favourite mug, never mind a gun. I’ve worked with people in schools where I’d have to think twice about letting them use one of my better pens, they’re educators, not the SAS/Marines. Putting guns into schools is not a workable solution. The logistics alone would be a nightmare, especially factoring-in that this gunman was a disgruntled former student, I’ve seen my fair share of disgruntled students, they’re bad enough when they’re throwing chairs, I don’t want to think of the potential consequences of them gaining access to a firearm.

I wasn’t ‘at’ work if or when any ‘incident response’ drills were done, so I didn’t have to deal with traumatised children imagining-the-worst. On ‘my’ school site, I can’t think of a single classroom that didn’t have floor-to-ceiling glass on the corridor-side, and almost all of the classrooms only had one door. Fish in a barrel, it’s a good thing we don’t have guns. It has been heartbreaking to read testimonies from teachers and education support staff all around the world, about ‘drilling’ children, in some cases very young children, on the expected response to an armed intruder. That shouldn’t be ‘expected’, children shouldn’t have to process that, what the USA is doing, in pandering to ‘the right to bear arms’ is normalising in children all around the world that they ‘could’ be shot in their classrooms. That’s profoundly unhealthy, and deeply unbalanced. Nobody, in civilian life, needs an automatic, or semi-automatic weapon, for anything, the vast majority of people don’t need any kind of gun at all.

In amongst the adults-explaining, and the adults-deflecting-and-denying, we have the nearly-adults. Some of those adolescents have just buried their friends, and they’re still making more sense than a lot of the adults calling them ‘reactive’ or ‘hysterical.’ If the USA doesn’t address the fact that ‘anyone’ can buy and even upgrade an assault-rifle, all they’re likely to see is more blood, more lives needlessly cut short, as more people will decide to ‘fight fire with fire’. If the government doesn’t step in, and legislate, some people will decide to arm themselves, there will be more accidental shootings, more suicides, and, potentially more ‘rampages’. These bright, brave children are right, the old men in suits are wrong, the world can see that.

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self-doom-blog · 7 years

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Chapter 1. "Doom"

noun. Death, destruction, or some other terrible fate.

verb. Condemn to certain destruction or death.

First of all, I’d like to say that most of the times I will not use my own words for what I’m about write on this blog, I have a really hard time trying to express myself and since I’ve never ever written or wrote before, I’ll be using a little help from quotes, songs, books, etc… -A

It’s so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself sometimes. I’m a mentally ill person, I’m suicidal, although it’s been years that I haven’t tried to kill myself, but you know… I'ts always on my mind, like a “plan B” if things ever go wrong. I’m considering suicide like ‘this is normal’.

Thinking this again... I'm not suicidal, but if a car came while I was crossing the street, I don't think I would move out of its way. And if someone held a gun to my head, I wouldn't exactly beg for my life. In fact, I'd tell them to go for it. No, I'm not suicidal. But if I had an opportunity to die without having to kill myself, I'd probably take it.

I don’t like being this way, it’s scary. I never choose to be this way but this is how I am. And this is my journey.

I’m 22. Self diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.

I bet that sound crazy. I know I’m no doctor to do so. Sometimes I feel like I have something more, sometimes I feel like having a much more deeper mental illness or maybe I have nothing at all… Who knows? In my life I have only attended to 3 different psychologists in life for behavior and mood problems. Did it help? No… I’m not saying seeking this kind of help is useless, it just didn’t work for me.

For introducing myself, I come from a very average family. Never suffered hunger, money was never a problem and I have always attended to private schools. There’s nothing wrong where I come from, I don’t blame anyone for my situation / condition. Right now I study medicine at a private university. I want to become a surgeon, a plastic surgeon to be more specific, my second option is being a psychiatrist.

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, I live alone. I like that. I’m always on my laptop, doing absolutely nothing but listening to music. I do that 24/7. It’s like a therapy for me, I like rock, I am of those persons who likes ‘classic’ known bands such as Queen, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, David Bowie… I have a very extended taste in music, I enjoy anything that comes from the 60′s to 90′s, from country to heavy metal. I like songs for their lyrics more than for the rhythm. I don’t like today’s music, they only sing about butts, alcohol, women, partying, drugs, cars, money… I find it disgusting, boring and sometimes even repulsive. The point is that I spend a lot of time in iTunes, I don’t do anything else, I sing, I think, I sing, I think, I sing, I think… that’s the routine. Sometimes I isolate myself like ‘how am I going to avoid everyone today’. I have a secret tho. I talk alone. Like a schizophrenic person… but I know that I talk alone, I mean, I know there’s no one there. I do not confuse what’s real and what’s not. I just talk like there’s someone there to talk to, actually is like a group of people in my house. Yeah, like talking to imaginary friends, but I repeat, I know I am talking alone. Do I have real friends? Yes. I have 5 real friends, those kind of friends that are trustworthy. I don’t have ‘’part time friends’’ or ‘’party-only friends’’ or ‘’side friends’’ or whatever, you know… those extra friends. The 5 friends that I mention are beautiful people, they have never showed me disrespect of any kind, they help me with whatever I need, they guide me when I don’t know what to do, they help me with homework and with university stuff and so much more things. I prefer being with real people more than talking with my “extended personalities” (talking alone). When I’m talking alone I create different persons along with their personalities, I like to think that are just extensions of my own personality, like the person I cannot be, or the person I would like to be; for example, some of them are shy, they can be extrovert, they can be sarcastic and rude or they can be clownish and I create an image for each. I have never tell this to any doctor or psychologist and I have never been to a psychiatrist, for fear, like they can make me take pills or stay in a mental ward for sure. I know how it works. But as long as I think I’m sane I will keep it for myself. And does my family know about this ‘’extended personalities’’? No. I think they have heard me talking alone but I don’t think they find it alarming, because some people think out loud or talk to themselves… And I have said this to them, that sometimes I talk to myself… but not in the way I really do, that consist of creating various personas.

And I walk around in a dissociated state, not remember what I've done each day thinking 'it must be Halloween soon' even though its April.

Why am I writing this? The answer is simple. Sometimes I feel like taking out all this emotions in someway and this is it.

I think this was just a little introduction for who I think I am. As the time passes I’ll write about my past, my thoughts, my everyday life, along with memories that comes to my mind at the moments. You’ll get to know me slowly.

You don’t understand? Trying to explain mental illness to someone who's never experienced it is like trying to explain color to a blind person.

If you want to read what Borderline Personality Disorder is like, here you go. This is how I feel, is pretty accurate for me.

***Borderline personality disorder (BPD)***

Pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by impulsivity, unstable affect, inconsistent interpersonal relationships and poor self-image. Some individuals also display uncontrollable anger and depression. Symptoms include intense fears of abandonment, sensitivity to feelings of rejection, and irritability of vague or uncertain origin. They often engage in idealization and devaluation of others, alternating between high positive regard and great disappointment.

Self-harm, suicidal behavior, and substance abuse are commonly associated.

.SYMPTOMS.

-Splitting (thinking in extremes) -Chaos in relationships -Markedly disturbed sense of identity -Intense or uncontrollable emotional outbursts -Unstable interpersonal relationships and self-esteem -Concerns about abandonment -Self-damaging behavior -Distorted self-image -Impulsivity -Frequently accompanied by depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse, or rage.

.EMOTIONS.

Feel emotions more easily, more deeply, and longer than others. In addition, emotions may repeatedly resurge and persist a long time. Consequently, it may take more time for people with BPD than others to return to a stable emotional baseline following an intense emotional experience.

The sensitivity, intensity, and duration with which people feel emotions have both positive and negative effects. People with BPD are often exceptionally enthusiastic, idealistic, joyful, and loving. However, they may feel overwhelmed by negative emotions (“anxiety, depression, guilt/shame, worry, anger, etc.”), experiencing intense grief instead of sadness, shame and humiliation instead of mild embarrassment, rage instead of annoyance, and panic instead of nervousness. They are especially sensitive to feelings of rejection, criticism, isolation, and perceived failure. Before learning other coping mechanisms, their efforts to manage or escape from their very negative emotions may lead to self-injury or suicidal behavior. They are often aware of the intensity of their negative emotional reactions and, since they cannot regulate them, they shut them down entirely. This can be harmful to people with BPD, since negative emotions alert people to the presence of a problematic situation and move them to address it which the person would normally be aware of only to cause further distress.

While people with BPD feel joy intensely, they are especially prone to dysphoria, depression, and/or feelings of mental and emotional distress.

There are 4 categories of dysphoria that are typical of this condition:

1.- Extreme emotions

2.- Destructiveness or self-destructiveness

3.- Feeling fragmented or lacking identity

4.- Feelings of victimization

Within these categories, a BPD diagnosis is strongly associated with a combination of three specific states: feeling betrayed, “feeling like hurting myself”, and feeling out of control.

In addition to intense emotions, people with BPD experience emotional lability; or in other words, changeability. Although the term emotional lability suggests rapid changes between depression and elation, the mood swings in people with this condition actually fluctuate more frequently between anger and anxiety and between depression and anxiety.

.BEHAVIOR.

Impulsive behavior is common, including substance or alcohol abuse, eating disorders, unprotected sex or indiscriminate sex with multiple partners, reckless spending, and reckless driving. Impulsive behavior may also include leaving jobs or relationships, running away, and self-injury.

People with BPD act impulsively because it gives them immediate relief from their emotional pain. However, in the long term, people with BPD suffer increased pain from the shame and guilt that follow such actions. A cycle often begins in which people feel emotional pain, engage in impulsive behavior to relieve that pain, feel shame and guilt over their actions, feel emotional pain from the shame and guilt, and then experience stronger urges to engage in impulsive behavior to relieve the new pain.

As time goes on, impulsive behavior may become an automatic response to emotional pain.

.RELATIONSHIPS.

Their feelings about others often shift from admiration or love to anger or dislike after a disappointment, a perceived threat of losing someone, or a perceived loss of esteem in the eyes of someone they value.

This phenomenon, sometimes called splitting, includes a shift from idealizing others to devaluing them. Combined with mood disturbances, idealization and devaluation can undermine relationships with family, friends, and co-workers. Self-image can also change rapidly from healthy to unhealthy.

While strongly desiring intimacy, they tend toward insecure, avoidant or ambivalent, or fearfully preoccupied attachment patterns in relationships, and they often view the world as dangerous and malevolent. BPD, like other personality disorders, is linked to increased levels of chronic stress and conflict in romantic relationships, decreased satisfaction on the part of romantic partners, abuse, and unwanted pregnancy.

.SENSE OF SELF.

Tend to have trouble seeing a clear picture of their identity. In particular, they tend to have difficulty knowing what they value, believe, prefer, and enjoy. They are often unsure about their long-term goals for relationships and jobs. This difficulty with knowing who they are and what they value can cause to experience feeling “empty” and “lost”.

#mental disorder #depressive #diary #mental health #mental illness #bpd #bpd problems #lifestyle

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