getting back in contact with people after a depressive episode is so wild because it's like hey sorry i dropped off the face of the earth and never responded to your attempts to reach out for months i was six feet deep in a grave of my own making when i suddenly realized i didn't want to die down there and had to claw my way to the surface inch by inch on my belly like a worm until i felt the sunlight on my face again. anyway how have you been? how are things? but you can't SAY that so you're just like. um. hi. do you still like me 👉👈

ppl will be like ‘i support people w mental health issues!!1!!!’ until it’s about a societally demonised disorder. ppl will be “allies” until they’re asked to stop using psychotic as an insult, to stop equating low empathy with being inherently evil, to stop calling anyone they don’t like a sociopathic narcissist. it’s so telling how people will immediately resort to the exact same ableist language the second they’re not talking about a ‘sympathetic’ disorder like depression or anxiety.

if ur respect for people w mental health issues is conditional on what sort of issue they have, it’s not respect at all.

I found this as someone else's post but they tagged it as c///oquette so i'm reposting!!Credit to selfcareexpress on instagram♡

can I ask what a harm reduction self harm plan is? I saw you mention that and I've never heard of it before.

Sure! I'm going to put a trigger warning on this post for in depth discussion of self harm and self harm methods--please approach with caution!

A harm reduction plan for dealing with self-harm can look like many different things, but it's basically any plan for coping with self-harm where completely stopping self-harm is not the main goal. A harm reduction approach to self-harm recognizes that self-harm is a coping skill that people start using because it does meet some need, even if it also causes other problems or the benefit begins to get outweighed by the harms. Harm reduction can help you slowly start to work to understand what that underlying need is and work to meet it in other ways, without demonizing you for doing what you need to survive. Harm reduction can be an important way to take care of yourself and make some less risky choices, even if you're in a situation where you're not ready or not capable of stopping self-harming. Everyone's individual needs will look different, but there's several categories that can be good to consider if you're wanting to make a change in how you approach your self-harm.

One category is frequency. When you're actively struggling with self-harm, it can become really addictive. A harm reduction self-harm goal around frequency might look like making a goal for reducing how many times you self-harm per day, week, or month. Instead of traditional coping plans for self-harm where any instance of self-harm is seen as a relapse and might bring up feelings of failure, goals about reducing the frequency of self-harm might allow you to achieve positive changes that you feel good about, even if you're not stopping completely. For some people, it might help ease into doing healing work that requires a lot of emotional energy and processing, as you will still know that you have access to old coping skills and might not feel as bad about still being in a position where you're using them. It also might help you continue to feel committed to healing when relapses do happen, instead of seeing relapses as a catastrophic moment where if you're going to break your streak of days clean, you get into a "fuck everything" mindset and use riskier behaviors.

Another category is severity. We might not be ready to give up self-harm completely, but reducing the severity of the self-harm method we use might feel like a more accessible way to reduce the risk and take care of ourselves. This can look like making the effort to make more shallow cuts instead of deeper ones, less severe burns, or banging our heads on a surface that is softer. This can also look like switching from a more dangerous method of self-harm to a less dangerous form of self-harm. Even things like snapping a rubber band against your wrist instead of cutting could be considered a harm reduction approach to self-harm!

Another category that I like to focus on is environment. This is sort of a broader category that I like to use to focus on what other types of risk-reducing behaviors you can take. This can look like making sure that you always clean and sanitize your blades, that you have appropriate first aid materials and take care of wounds, that you only self-harm while sober, that you make sure the physical space you self harm in is clean and sanitized, that you tell a support person when you self harm or let someone else help with wound care--any of these things are things that could reduce some of the harms of self-harm. This could also look like setting up intentional self-care practices to use after you self-harm, whether it's sensory items, journalling, cuddling with an animal, using therapy coping skills, or distracting yourself.

A harm reduction approach to self-harm doesn't have to be restricted to the things I've listed above, and also can include goals about completely stopping self-harm! If you're in a place where you feel ready to stop completely, harm reduction might still be an helpful framework for considering how you want to engage with your self-harm urges and help you understand what path towards stopping self-harm feels most easily accessible.

I'll share what my personal harm reduction plan looks like. At different times during my life, my harm reduction plans used to be a lot more focused on reducing frequency and severity while still leaving room for regular self-harm. Now, my plan is with the goal of not using self-harm. However, if I do end up in a situation where I am using self-harm, my harm reduction informed goals are that: I use clean supplies. I self-harm indoors while sober. If I'm getting urges for a much more dangerous form of self-harm, I will let myself use cutting as a less risky form of self-harm. I practice safe wound care and leave a certain amount of time for those wounds to heal before self-harming in the same place again. If I self-harm more than once in a week, I let a support person know and ask for help with accountability.

My advice for anyone who's interested in taking a harm reduction approach to their self-harm is to embrace education and self-inquiry. Education about things like safer cutting and burning, anatomy, and wound care are really important so that you can actually know the risks and know what steps you can take to make things safer. I think self inquiry is also a good step to take when you're making any sort of coping plan. Really looking at your individual situation and figuring out what things seem the most achievable, what role self-harm is playing in your life, what triggers are connected to your self-harm, how you feel before and after you self-harm, how you want to feel, what parts of self-harm feel helpful and what parts you don't like. This can be a great thing to do with a support person if you have someone who you feel like can help you process this and give their perspective.

Here's a link to a google drive folder full of zines and workbooks about self-harm harm reduction. Trigger warning for continued discussion of self-harm, self-harm methods, anatomy, some mentions of suicidal ideation, and a photo of self-harm scars in the Icarus project zine.

Last thing I'll say is that it's okay to start small and give yourself the compassion to embrace where you're at. If reducing the frequency seems too hard right now, trying to always use clean blades is an amazing step! If changing anything about the way you self harm doesn't feel achievable, adding emotional self care into your self harm routine is still a win. If you never get to a place where you feel ready to stop completely, that's okay too--any and all steps you're taking to reduce the risk are so important and are worthy of celebrating.

Feel free to ask any other questions!

Writing isn't always gonna be fun.

Sometimes its like pulling teeth. Sometimes its boring, even. [I dunno about you guys but I hate filling out profiles and forms, even though I know I won't remember anything if I don't.] Sometimes what you're writing hurts, and not in a good way. Sometimes what you write makes you anxious, or terrified, because you don't know what people will say when they see it.

But writing should have some kind of satisfaction to it. Even if you aren't happy with what you're doing, even if you don't like it, you should be able to look at what you've done and say "I have created and that is a good thing."

What I'm trying to say here is, writing should not make you feel worse. Writing should not make your mental illness worse. Writing probably shouldn't make your physical illness worse either. The archetype of the suffering artist is a myth. There's a difference between catharsis and making yourself suffer. And you should not be suffering for your art.

If what you're doing is causing you pain in a bad way - in a way that isn't a release, but an attack - then you need to reevaluate what you're doing and why.

And btw, if you haven't heard this today from anyone, I'm so proud of you.

I wish the pjo/hoo books focused more on the mental health stuff. Like, they bring up parental trauma a bit, but the rest of it?? Leo and Piper went to wilderness school!!! Coach Hedge TAUGHT AT a wilderness school!!! And they just brush past that?? Multiple of the kids were homeless for extensive amounts of time. All of that death they barely get to mourn? And dealing with time dilation???? No way they're just gonna get through that as quickly as they did

Idk it's wild

FR FR IT'S BECAUSE RICK CAN'T WRITE LITERALLY HALF THE TIME

hey this is a friend of mine who really needs help

there's more information on their go fund me page.

Theyre struggling alot and need a service animal, as suggested by a therapist

I turned 30 in February and honestly it's made me so happy.

My teens and 20s were filled with trauma and turmoil.

My 30s are going to be amazing. This will be the best decade of my life. I'm absolutely sure of it - I have so many dreams to achieve. :3

summer is approaching you know what that means….

please don’t make comments about people’s scars. please don’t question why your friend is wearing long sleeves even when it’s super hot out. please don’t stare or make us feel any more uncomfortable than we already do. for anyone who’s struggled with self harm and has scars from it, the decision whether or not to wear clothing that reveals them is an incredibly stressful and personal one. so please don’t add any additional pressure to that.

and to anyone who does have self harm scars: i love you and you are allowed to wear whatever makes you most comfortable. you are wonderful ♥️

one of the craziest things about mental illness is when you know you're mentally ill and that this causes you to Experience Symptoms but then when you're Experiencing those Symptoms you're like "what could possibly be causing this... the mental illness? no... that can't be it... there must just be something wrong with me..." and then it turns out it was in fact the mental illness

Happy bipolar awareness day <3 :)

YOU'RE TELLING ME THERE'S A BIPOLAR AWARENESS DAY AND I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT IT??? this is incredible thank you so much for this. happy bipolar awareness day to you too my friend 🦁💖

Jason Todd is so real for being a Bad But Sad White Boy who's a merciless villain but instead of being an abuser or a bigot,he's a mentally ill man who's disorders are potrayed realistically and not romanticized,grew up poor,actively respects minorities-especially women-and openly admits he's not a Pure Hero AckstuallyTM.Kylo Ren and Luke Castellan and those snake house mfs from the t*rf wizard series could never be him

Gentle reminder that any time past 9pm you shouldn't listen to yourself. Past 9pm is when the brain goblin wakes up and eats all your nice thoughts and farts out shitty thoughts.

If you have a shitty thoughts just remember it came from the brain goblins ass and nobody should take ass noises seriously.

I want to remind my followers that it's okay to wallow. It's okay to grieve. You have to let yourself feel these feelings because only then will you fully let them go. What matters is getting up after that period of sadness is done and saying "I will find joy again. I will hold life with both hands and adore it. I will love this life again".

adhd is so fucking annoying because the choices are “stare at your phone and stress about things you’re not doing” OR “do the things that are stressing you out so you can feel accomplished and relaxed”. seems like an obvious choice, and yet for some fucking reason