#normal vs disordered
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normal vs not normal: pain edition
normal: your knees/hips starting to twinge after climbing a big set of stairs
not normal: climbing stairs is hard for you, and you start to feel pain after a couple steps
normal: you wake up feeling pain after doing a lot of exercise the day before
not normal: you wake up feeling pain regardless of your activities the day before
normal: you are usually a zero on the pain scale
not normal: you cannot imagine what a pain scale zero would feel like
normal: when you experience pain, there is a direct reason for it, and it is able to be fixed with over-the-counter drugs (such as paracetamol)
not normal: you can’t figure out why you’re in pain, and taking over-the-counter painkillers doesn’t always work to fix it
normal: you do not spend most of your time in pain
not normal: you’ve spent most of your time in pain for over three months
if you experience pain regularly and for seemingly no reason, go to the doctor! you are not supposed to be in pain, and you deserve to find out what’s going on with your body!
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Hate that dissociation makes symptoms look different than the classic presentations
#m/cc#there's a reason I didn't know I was having panic attacks for years#severe ones actually#if you're so dissociated from your body and emotions AND from 'normal experiences'#you just figure everyone gets sudden severe flu symptoms for 20 minutes at a time with no warning#and that's how you go through years of life without realizing you have a severe anxiety disorder#relearning how to feel is a really long process and if you're dissociated enough it's very easy to just kind of shrug off symptoms#even if you notice stuff or learn most people don't experience it it's just kind of 'whatever. what else is new I guess'#you start hallucinating? 'oh well.' don't eat all day? lose chunks of time? 'fine.' learn people don't always have headaches? 'figures'#I dunno. this post brought to you by an infographic explaining anxiety vs panic attacks. it did not apply to me. that's all
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I hate stress related stomach issues SO MUCH
#I'm so frustrated#the constant battle of needing food to function vs random nausea lack of appetite and various other forms of gastrointestinal distress#i have been hangry for most of this weekend which is just rude#stomach issues#food tw#out of abundant caution#I'm tempted to warn for#disordered eating#as well. not sure if it counts but this is not normal.
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i'm feeling a bit of a personal crisis right now, uh
kind of feeling that early 20's crisis where. i'm looking at where i am and i think. i think i should be way past where i am right now. i should be way better at my art at this point. i should be pursuing all these projects that i've been wanting to start for ages. i should start coding in my free time. instead i'm just here watching commentary and gaming videos on youtube and listening to music and reading news articles and playing video games and drawing at a snail's pace. which should be fine, right? it's summer vacation - but it's almost two months now since that's started. i should be doing something, right? something that accelerates my post-secondary education or something to help me when i inevitably graduate. but i'm not? i don't feel like it, honestly - and it's making me feel extremely guilty and left out because - people are doing amazing things right now, and i feel like i should be taking advantage of this time because i'm free. but i think about two months from now, and how my time will be completely taken up by university things, and i just don't want to. 8 months of the year i'm working towards a qualification that will help me get a job. eventually there will come a point where i won't have a summer vacation, where i need to work every day of the week. i'm so scared of giving up that free time - but i have to use it, i have to work on these projects to push myself as a hardworking, dedicated, passionate person, but i still feel like a kid who can afford to spend all their time playing video games and not worrying about school but i'm so scared of falling behind and am i going to fail for not spending all this time being productive for my career? is my time at university not enough? do i have to spend all my time working towards a lifestyle i never really felt that strongly about in the first place? am i severely underestimating myself or am i just setting myself up for inevitable failure because i didn't put in the expected amount of work i was supposed to? am i not getting the help i need? am i overthinking everything? what the hell am i supposed to do? where the hell am i supposed to be?
#memes talks#personal#just me talking about where i am vs where i think i should be vs where everyone else is#or where i perceive everyone else is#also i'm wondering if like. i genuinely have an anxiety disorder or if its normal to feel this overwhelmingly anxious about the future#or.#literally anything relating to school
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So I go to the dentist and the appointment I had was not the appointment that I thought I was going to have (normal maintenance vs deep clean) so i warned the dentist "hey heads up I burn through dental anesthetics super quick and also I'd like to use as little as possible because putting the dental anesthetics in my body is the most painful part of the process unless I'm having a root canal or something" and she's like "Hmm. Okay. Is it just the injection site?" and I was like "no, it will feel like burning on the opposite side of my face and in my nose and eyes and stuff." And she was like "Hmm. Do you turn really red when this happens?" And I was like "I don't know, I can't really see myself when it happens." And she was like "are you willing to experiment with this a little?" And I was like "sure, no worries" and she injected me with one anesthetic and it hurt like a motherfucker and she and the assistant both went "OOOH" and she was like "Yeah you got really red right away let's try the other," and it was the same thing and then she was like "okay I think this is the one that will work" and it hurt a little bit but it was fucking NOTHING compared to the comprehensive full stabbing burning facial pain from the others and long story short the dentist was like "You're reacting to the epinephrine in these other anesthetics," which I guess is fairly common for people who have autoimmune disorders.
So I guess this is to say: If you get spreading, burning, stabbing pain when you are being injected with local anesthetics it's not supposed to do that and you should say something.
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frustrated? surely being destructive will help this
#disorder feels#on my idiot shit#this is about mbti vs astrology and im trying to be so normal about it but if this friend tries 2 tellme astrology is more real its#really over.#im not a mbti nerd in the slightest bt dont tell me astrology is more sound than a whole branch of science#the thing that differentiates astrology and psychology is that when psychology finds out it is wrong it gets CORRECTED. the understanding#changes as more information is presented! that is what separates science from belief systems like religions and astrology Thank You.
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Yo, ma è la prima volta in tutta la mia vita in cui sto riuscendo a gestire l'ansia.
Cioè, volete dirmi che le persone possono vivere così tranquillamente e non morire ad ogni singolo problema/imprevisto???
Ma che cos'è questo nuovo mondo di pace?
Mi sembra di essere passato da essere un reduce del Vietnam al semplice atto di lavorare e studiare. Volete dirmi che è così che si vive?
Oh, mio Dio, il mio cervello mi ha mentito da quando sono nato.
#shout out to my therapist#I'm sorry Im a lot of work babe#oh mio dio ma che significa che posso respirare senza sentirmi in colpa???#hello???#this is how yall are feeling every normal day?#general anxiety disorder#ansia#italian things#ray vs gad#My neurons are all cheering bc it's the first time I scored since forever#like it's being 100 years meme in here
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NPD Resources Masterlist
[BPD]
The official resources masterlist for NPD. Includes all the links I've shared in the past and stuff I haven't.
Any posts I've linked about supporting those with NPD have been put in the misc section because I do not want to take away from what this post is really about, which is helping people with NPD, not the people around them.
Diagnostic criteria
NPD diagnostic criteria, rewritten by someone who has it
Official diagnostic criteria
An explanation of the diagnostic criteria
Recovery resources FOR the narcissist
NPD recovery resources
How to find therapy for NPD, common types of therapy and signs of an abusive/toxic therapist
Narcissist supply
What is narc supply?
Things that can give a narcissist supply
NPD stigma
The perception of NPD symptoms vs. how a narcissist might actually experience them
Why those with NPD have a hard time seeking help (spoiler alert: it's not because they're unaware)
A plea from someone with NPD (and some resources debunking common misconceptions)
Narcissism is not abusive / abuse is abusive
Debunking common myths on NPD
Common disproven myths about NPD
Miscellaneous
How to support someone with NPD
NPD Carrd (What is NPD, dpt skills and self-help)
Unravelling the connection: npd as a trauma response
NPD terminology (do's and dont's)
NPD safe blogs
@empath-abuse-awareness
@enigma-in-reality
@loverofmirage
@the-npd-culture-is
@nicepersondisorder
@theegosystem
@mischiefmanifold
NPD positivity so you don't have to go looking
Reblog to kiss a narcissist on the forehead
Reblog to tell your local narcissist that they're the best ever
Happy NPD appreciation day
Positivity for systems with NPD
Be normal about narcissists unless it's to give them love
NPD should be EPD (Epic Personality Disorder)
Of course I have a praise kink, I have NPD
Narcissists are so beautiful and handsome and wonderful
Positivity for narcissists who like sex
I love my narcissists
Aromantic narcissists are amazing
Narcissists I love you
Easy ways to spot a narcissist (it's not what you think <;3)
Narcissists deserve to be loved
As usual, if something needs to be deleted because it's wrong/comes from a toxic author/etc. please let me know. I tried to look on Google but all I found was ableist shit, so these are all found by your fellow narcissists on tumblr :)
Edit: If you have any resources, please send them to me through an ask or DM and i'll check it out/add it!
#npd#npd safe#cluster b safe#actually narcissistic#narcissistic personality disorder#narcissism#npd positivity#npd stigma#npd resources#npd things
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Also one more disability vs. art post - I get the...distinct impression that a lot of people do not know how much nerve entrapment such as carpal tunnel syndrome can fuck you up.
Sure, every artist knows what carpal tunnel syndrome IS, of course, and all these lovely infographics about exercises to help prevent it or slow its progression pop up on my dash from time to time and it's great to see, but...the way people talk about it aside from that often makes it sound like it begins and ends at, oh, your hand will get tingly and your wrist will get sore and it'll suck :((((
And that is absolutely not the case.
Carpal tunnel syndrome can cause SEVERE pain that lasts long after you stop doing the activity that caused it, permanent nerve damage, and even partial to total paralysis of some parts of the hand. Cubital tunnel syndrome, caused by a similar nerve entrapment in the elbow, can cause the same thing but even further up, potentially leading to total paralysis of the entire hand. Severe cases often require surgery - and orthopedic surgery has a high rate of complications that cause new or worsened chronic pain.
Oh, and if you have EDS or another hypermobility spectrum disorder? You're more likely to get it, AND have it be more severe than our less bendy counterparts, AND some of the exercises recommended for most people to prevent, slow, or relieve it may only make it worse because they're conceived with a normal range of motion in mind.
So what is the point of me saying this?
1: If you work intensely with your hands, PROTECT YOUR WRISTS AND EVEN YOUR ELBOWS, THE CONSEQUENCES ARE WORSE THAN YOU PROBABLY THINK
2: Believe people when they say carpal tunnel syndrome prevents them from doing things. Yes, it CAN be that bad.
#disability#sincerely - someone who has it in both wrists and elbows#severe enough that surgery is on the table
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normal vs disordered: fatigue edition
normal: feeling tired at the end of a long day
not normal: feeling tired regardless of what you’ve done that day
normal: waking up tired every now and then due to stress or lack of sleep
not normal: waking up tired most mornings
normal: getting a little tired after standing for long periods of time
not normal: not being able to stand for very long without tiring out. being stood up drains your energy
normal: being tired more often during times of peak stress and lack of sleep, but otherwise fine
not normal: being tired/exhausted consistently for over 6 months
normal: melting into the sofa after a long day, and then struggling a little to get up
not normal: being too exhausted to move, to eat, to talk, or to do anything a person might be expected to do in an evening
normal: not liking to get out of bed in the morning
not normal: having mornings where you physically cannot get out of bed, or struggle greatly to get out of bed
the key thing is that it is not normal for you to spend most of your time being too tired to do daily tasks, and it is not normal to exist in a constant state of exhaustion. if possible, you should seek help if you’ve been experiencing fatigue for a while
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able-bodied neurotypical people want quiet disability. invisible disability. they love it when we don’t complain and don’t shove our needs in their face. they love it when we stay home and die quietly instead of trying to live (but they don’t like it when we stay home and need caregivers).
[paragraph about self then next ones on more general and important things] i recently realized that i make many people uncomfortable irl because i talk about my symptoms. i wasn’t aware it was wrong, because i’m autistic and struggle a lot with notions of public vs private space, and what can be said to whom. i’m very open about my disabilities and struggles, both because i don’t realize i’m saying something i shouldn’t, and because i don’t have a choice and often can’t mask (i am not high masking. not low masking either tho). i don’t wear unnoticeable noise cancelling headphones, they’re not good enough for me at all, i wear big obvious ear defenders with a fluorescent part. i sit down on the floor of a store if my legs hurt. i don’t sit normally anywhere, including at school, because i can’t, i can’t sit correctly and not move, it’s painful. i don’t hesitate to tell people i have terrible executive dysfunction. i openly say i am in pain and need to rest, even if it’s abnormal for a teenager to not have a healthy strong body. when it seems relevant to the conversation, i share the fact that i struggled with an eating disorder and self harm and that i recovered/am recovering. when someone asks me how i am doing, i tell them i’m feeling terrible because i am in pain or because i am suicidal or because i am overwhelmed— this is partly a choice to be open about my disability, partly the fact that i don’t notice until it’s too late that they don’t want me to be honest, and party the fact that there are many things i cannot hide. i tell people that i am not independent, can’t cook, can’t go to new places alone, can’t shop, can’t maintain hygiene and that i don’t shower enough or brush my teeth regularly. when someone asks if i plan on learning how to drive i say that i don’t want to right now because my processing issues would be dangerous and i would get in an accident. i tell people i have meltdowns and shutdowns at school. i hit myself in public sometimes.
yet i am not visibly disabled. i’m very lucky and privileged within the disabled community. i am visibly weird and there is visibly something wrong with me but i am only visibly disabled to someone who spends some time with me and sees me unable to process informations or unable to do IADLs. strangers don’t know i’m disabled until i tell them— they mock a symptom or ask why i can’t do something and i say i’m autistic, i’m disabled, i’m in pain. and they already hate that i tell them. they say it’s private. they say my struggles are something personal. something to talk about with doctors but that no one else should have to know about.
some people are way more disabled than me, visibly disabled, disabled at first glance. some use mobility aids, full time or not. some have intellectual disabilities, some use an AAC device, some have a physical disability that cannot be concealed or an intellectual/developmental/mental disability that very obviously affects the way they move or communicate. some people don’t have a choice to mask or not to mask, don’t have a choice to be visibly disabled or not. strangers will immediately notice that these people are disabled, even without engaging in a conversation with them. and they hate it ! disabled people are supposed to be quiet and invisible and going outside with ear defenders or a mobility aid or anything, no matter if it is a small or a huge accommodation, is too much. but the bigger it is or the more you need help to do a ‘basic, easy’ thing, the worse it is. they stare at me in the street because of my ear defenders, but they don’t just stare when someone is in a wheelchair, they touch and break and don’t have any respect.
ableists think disabled people shouldn’t be in their way because they think we shouldn’t exist or that we are worthless. having an accommodation or an aid in public is already activism for them, already disturbing, already forcing them to see that they are privileged and that the world is not accessible.
to exist as a disabled person is beautiful. it’s brave. it’s something to be proud of. not because it’s inspiring that you are strong enough to live with your disability, not because "someone else would have killed themselves already in your situation," not because "i could never be like that ! you’re so courageous !", but because ableism is everywhere and it’s so hard to live in this world where they don’t want us to exist. it’s so hard to advocate for ourselves.
and for those who are not visibly disabled (like me), or at least not always ; for those who have low support needs ; for those who know how to mask : point out inaccessibility. force people to see their own ableism. make them uncomfortable. it’s also our job, our responsibility. if someone mocks me and calls me useless because i can’t do IADLs i say i’m disabled, stay very calm and inform them that many people are unable to perform BADLs without help and that they deserve just as much help and respect as anyone else. if someone points out how annoying my ear defenders are i ask why the place isn’t accessible for people in a wheelchair. etc etc. listen to people with higher support needs than you and amplify their voices. but also act irl.
we can all do better and force society to be better to.
and remember that accessibility for you doesn’t mean accessibility for everyone.
a place that accommodates sensory issues might not have accessible toilets. so it’s not good enough. an autism support group meeting has stim toys and ear defenders and happens in a quiet place ? that’s wonderful ! can a nonverbal person participate ? are caregivers welcome ? we can’t just think that "something is better than nothing." yes it is, but it’s not good enough. if a place or an event is accessible for one thing but not for something else, then it’s not accessible. and we need to be loud about it.
#disability#disabled#disability community#support needs#ableism#internalized ableism#fuck ableists#disabled tumblr#disability advice#autism#actually autistic#autistic#chronic pain#mentally disabled people support physically disabled folks#low support needs#middle support needs#high support needs#physical disability#disability advocacy#disability accommodations#disability accessibility#disability awareness#disability acceptance#disability activism#neuropunk#madpunk#disabled punk
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I made it to 31 days migraine-free until last night my neck adjusted and pinched a nerve. It’s not too bad. I took a Tylenol to take the edge off, something which was previously unheard of for me. Normally no amount of otc painkillers helped.
There’s also likely a hormonal fluctuation at play. My menstrual cycle is due, and that monthly spike in hormones always makes my hEDS so much worse. Hence my neck adjusting by itself and cronching the nerve. Which was honestly more painful than the migraine itself has been.
Part of having binocular vision disorder is constantly tilting your head from side to side to try and keep your eyes in focus.
Since getting my glasses, I’ve been “weirdly still.” I still fidget and move because ADHD, but I’m no longer doing a constant “confused puppy” impersonation as I tilt my head from side to side to keep my eyes in focus.
I’m realizing now that this has likely greatly helped my craniocervical instability, and I’ve not been pinching the nerves in my neck so much.
If this is true, and my hormones become my main trigger—both for the migraine itself but also contributing to other factors like joint laxity and worsening my craniocervical instability—then that means I can better target my physical therapy, but also take preemptive precautions in the week running up to my monthly cycle and brace my neck to prevent the joints from moving around as much and pinching the nerves.
This is another potentially life altering revelation and I’m not even mad my 31 day streak got interrupted. Because I had 31 days migraine-free and that’s something I haven’t been able to say in over a decade, and if it comes to it, I’ll gladly take 1 migraine a month vs 20.
Anyway. I’m going back to sleep for a bit. I just had to jot this thought down in case the migraine gets worse and I forget.
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Hi! On anon for my safety, but I saw the ISSTD tweeted smth on the etiology of DID and I wanted to know your thoughts on it? Mostly for processing’s sake as well, as I can struggle with understanding studies now and then
The link to the paper! http://ow.ly/r40x30mZF79
The paper is Revisiting the etiological aspects of dissociative
identity disorder: a biopsychosocial perspective. A very good one that I recommend to anyone interested in the causation of DID! I don't think I can do it justice if I tried to summarize the entire thing, so I'll just write down some bullet points of things I found interesting:
What is DID?:
DID is a complex, posttraumatic, developmental disorder that is caused by trauma in childhood (usually very early childhood).
What causes DID?:
DID arises when a child’s ability to develop an ordinary sense of self in relation to others is impeded by unintegrated trauma.
Emotional neglect by parents and/or siblings is the strongest predictor of DID (and any other dissociative disorder).
More covert trauma such as dysfunctional communication in families or subtle emotional neglect can lead to milder presentations DID.
DID VS PTSD:
Switching between alters is considered to be a more elaborated version of PTSD intrusions & avoidance.
People with PTSD & DID generally experience the same amount of feeling shame, betrayal, self-blame, anger and fear.
People with DID tend to experience more feelings of alienation, loneliness, and disconnection than people with PTSD.
DID VS normal experiences:
The human mind is naturally made up of multiple interconnected “modes” that make up their whole self.
Trauma & dissociation causes modes to become decoupled and start existing in smaller, isolated pockets.
In DID, the modes have become so disconnected that individual modes start functioning as if they, independently from each other, are the whole self.
In a non-DID brain, new modes are always being created and old modes are always being updated.
In DID, this process is impaired. New modes are created in a disjointed way, and old modes don't get updated correctly if at all.
#mod robo#actuallydid#actuallydissociative#actuallytraumagenic#did#osdd#dissociative identity disorder
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A fandom friend is convinced there's something wrong with me and I must have self-worth issues because normal people with healthy self-esteem and self-image wrote OCs as a kid that were self-inserts. I didn't, I wrote characters who were basically whatever I thought was cool at the time (which changed a lot over the years) and into something weird to add flavor to them. So instead of my Arab, ADHD AFAB self writing Arab ADHD AFAB OCs who shared my interests, I'd have a white autistic guy whose special interest was geology and who also loved basketball (I hate sports), or a black agender kid who had some symptoms of schizoaffective disorder, was really into art and art history and loved sweets. One character would be cool like my dad, always witty and ready to say a cool one liner, and another would be cool like my mom, calm, controlled and never responding to haters. None of them share much in common with me. And my friend is convinced this is a mental health red flag, because normal people and even abnormal people always write OCs who are like themselves, idealized versions of themselves, or otherwise are some degree of self-insert.
The more I think about it, the weirder I feel for not doing this. It feels like I didn't do fandom correctly, but also, maybe she's right? Maybe there is something wrong with not putting myself into my narratives. Why wouldn't I put myself in my fics if I liked myself? It's really unsettling to think about but I think I've realized she might have a point.
Then I thought of you. You've been in fandom way longer than either of us (we're both teenagers, for context) and you know a lot about fandom and psychology. So I figured if anyone could tell me what this says about me, it'd be you. What does it mean if you never wrote any OCs with self-insertion components and just kind of wrote random things instead? Does it mean anything bad?
--
Your friend is a moron.
'Fantasies about self' vs. 'no fantasies about self' is a major division among people. It's not just a page on the asexuality wiki about sex fantasies but an entire axis of interest. Hang around slash/BL fandom in particular and you will find a metric fuckton of people who never self-inserted.
Self inserts make my skin crawl.
It is a feeling of visceral disgust that was always there. How can anyone like that? Don't ask me to. Don't tell me about it. Ew, ew, ew, ew. It's like a mild form of dysphoria it's that bad sometimes.
Tell your friend to stop using Wattpad as the litmus test for normalcy.
Some of us were always more AO3.
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Oh boy, lets open that can of worms
There's a LOT of discourse with endo vs anti-endo stuff (endogenic system=plural system not formed by trauma if you don't know 🙂). Like, death threats coming from both sides kinda thing. We try to stay out of it. But it's easy to accidentally stumble into it if you're not familiar with some of the nuance. So we want to share some observations as like, a crash course. (And apparently we had a lot to say lol.)
This post isn't really to debate how plurality forms. Just to give some context as to why so much hate is flying between these two groups.
Basically, you have 2 extremes. (And everyone in between obviously)
On one side you have people making up extra rules on top of the diagnostic criteria to exclude and gatekeep anyone who doesn't meet "their level" of disordered. (I've literally heard people say "you can't be a system, you're not as traumatized as me"). A lot of accusations of faking come from this bunch. Too much internal communication? Faker. Too many non-human alters? Faker. Too many or not enough alters? Faker. You can't win with them even if you have a diagnosis.
We've noticed a lot of parallels between this group and transmeds. You need to have x level of dysphoria to ride this ride. You can't be trans if you don't want xyz treatment. You need to reach my arbitrary bar of "trans enough". Enbys and everyone else are fakers. That kind of bs.
But on this side you also have a lot of people who just want to be taken seriously. They want to be validated by their diagnosis and feel hurt when people say or do things that they think will compromise that validity. They, at least initially, come from a place of sincerity not malice. But they fall into the trap of trying to be "one of the good ones".
On the other extreme you have the wild west. Things people treat as fact aren't codified with the same scrutiny as the DSM-5 or ICD-11. This breeds its own confusion and misinformation. We've seen people conflate plurality with things like maladaptive day dreaming, lucid dreaming, adhd, and (applying it to other people with ferocity to the point of harassment) metaphors of all things.
They have a spaghetti at the wall approach that reminds me of a less extreme MOGII (an attempt to define just about every possible form of gender and sexuality). It's a messy patchwork of ideas. We've seen 8 different labels that all mean the same thing and are being used by exactly no one. Redundancy and hyperspcificity, that's the name of the game. But frankly we like this if for no other reason than we want to see what sticks, what becomes mainstream.
We've seen people from this group attack people as badly as the anti-endo group. Openly mocking people for having trauma or saying vile shit like "traumagenics kys". They feel threatened by the exclusionary nature of diagnoses. But instead of taking their frustration out on the systems of power they take them out on normal people. After all if you're diagnosed, you "represent the system"... I guess. Equally bull shit.
But this is also where the edge cases go, the exclusions, those that don't fit into a neat little box. The DSM excludes people whose plurality is accepted as part of their culture or religion. These people don't suddenly stop being systems just because they're accepted, but they're distinctly not disordered. They don't meet the clinical definition of DID or OSDD. Same goes for someone whose symptoms are mild enough to not cause "clinically significant distress". You also have people who don't want to be pathologized or have been failed by the medical system.
So lastly, a warning: When dealing with plural stuff, it's very easy to go stumbling into a mine field.
Tldr: I would always rather land on the side of letting too many people in than exclude people who needed the support. However, no matter your in-group, some people take things too far. Like, ffs don't attack people.
-Taylor & Mark
#not giving this any proper tags cause I don't want a fucking maelstrom of hate coming at us lol#long post#this might be a bad idea
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Things I wish more writers understood about PTSD
Traumatic events don't always lead to PTSD. Two people can experience the exact same traumatic event, and one can go to work the next day shaken up but otherwise alright, while the other still has trouble functioning normally two years down the line. This is a fact that's been studied to death in psychology, but we're still no closer to figuring out why this discrepancy exists. So no, that character who experienced a very traumatic event and wasn't traumatized to your liking wasn't actually 'unrealistic'; they just didn't live up to your preconception of how trauma is supposed to effect people.
There is no flaw or 'weakness' in a person's temprament or personality construction that will make them more likely to develop PTSD, and likewise, people who don't develop PTSD are not inherently 'tougher'. PTSD is not the kind of illness you can blame on the person who suffers from it; human beings are more complicated than that. Furthermore, people who don't develop PTSD from a traumatic event exist, in fact they're very common, and while they don't develop that precise, largely arbitrary set of symptoms, they are still likely to be deeply affected by the event/s. Their experiences are no less real than those of their counterparts.
Sometimes, a person who experienced a traumatic even didn't develop PTSD afterwards - because they already had it. There are lots of people who go into therapy following a traumatic event only to discover they've been experiencing the symptoms of PTSD for years, following a previous unrelated traumatic event. This is especially common for people who had C-PTSD beforehand. Since PTSD can often manifest in very subtle ways, and since people are likely to 'mask' symptoms as a way to keep judgement or prying at bay, this scenario is not particularly uncommon.
PTSD doesn't always develop immediately following the traumatic event. PTSD can take any amount of time to develop. For most people, it takes around 3 months for symptoms to appear, but for a lot of people, the symptoms of PTSD do not appear for many months, even years after the event/s. This usually has something to do with the memory issues that can arise after trauma, and also might be affected by how a person conceptualizes the 'threat level' over time.
People with PTSD are not 'broken'; people with PTSD can be treated. Human beings aren't inanimate objects; we're living beings, graced with this incredible ability to adapt, grow and change. While there is no 'cure' for PTSD, there are loads of types of psychotherapy and medications that help to alleviate symptoms, and many people with this disorder are able to live fulfilling lives despite the diagnosis. Recovery is never out of the question, no matter how severe a person's symptoms might be. PTSD or not, I for one have yet to encounter anyone I would ever consider irrevocably 'broken'.
People with PTSD don't all experience the same symptoms. I feel like it needs to be said, because there is a bit of a 'type' in fiction, isn't there? And this can be incredibly disheartening to read for someone whose PTSD doesn't align with the way it is constantly shown to 'normally' manifest. In reality, PTSD is a very complex disorder, which might express itself in a wide breadth of different ways, and people handle their symptoms using a wide breadth of different methods. You'd be hard pressed to find two people who are completely alike in this regard.
Perpetrators of violence are just as likely to develop PTSD as their victims. This is one of those things I learned though my torture research escapades, and I've found it applies to other violent crimes as well, such as violent assault and murder. It's not a particularly nice fact to know if you want to maintain your straightforward good-vs-evil worldview, but alas, the real world is grim and complicated. There is actually a name for this type of PTSD, and it is Participation-Induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PI-PTSD), or perpetrator trauma. PTSD does not discriminate, and you're not safe from it just because you're not on the recieving end.
People with PTSD aren't automatically more violent. I don't know why this myth has to be so prominent with every single mental illness ever, but like, yeah, its not true for this one either.
#correct me if i got sth wrong im no expert. about anything really. this is just some pet peeves#nonfiction#ptsd#trauma#psychology#writing
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