#my mom is a chronic depressive so i know the symptoms i know the signs i have a pretty good arsenal of healthy coping mechanisms | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lilguiguinevere · 5 months

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uh the ask game thingy ♿🌻⚕️🏳️‍🌈 for literally everyone in charisma house. go crazy go insane

smile. Under the cut cuz there's so fucking much

iori - bpd . Looks both ways. yeah that's about it. displays every symptom ever. i dont hc him with any specific phys disability but there is definitely one. WAIT I LIED chronic back pain. points at barometric pressure episode

♿️ What is their disability/disabilities? What are the symptoms that they show?

terra - to go along with my jokes about her being an old woman. joint pain. prolly arthritis but she hasn't looked into it cuz she doesn't think she needs to. also npd obviously. prolly some other shit who knows

rikai - legally blind i think. hoh also and she doesnt realize how fucking annoying her whistle is.

saru - fibromyalgia. once again not diagnosed but he knows it's there. his legs go numb often and when they're not numb they just hurt

ohse - forgive me for projecting here Smile. some sort of chronic pain disorder (knees mostly), anemia (frequently faints cuz of it ) . bpd (obv), chronic depression & anxiety . not projecting on this one but i think he has a missing toe cuz he dropped his knife on it and had to get rushed to the er by rikai once. also bad pain in wrists cuz Yk. Artist.

amahiko - ok getting his hypersexuality out of the way. there's that thing with his dick hurting when it rains. man. I dont know.

fumiya - she's diabetic to me & is also an osdd1b system ^_^ the silliest

torahime since u said he counts - also diabetic. Following getting hit by fumiyas motorcycle twice. I think he'd have some sort of chronic pain but idk. ALSO BPD WHICH IS AGAIN OBVIOUS and dpd.

and everyone is autistic.

🌻 Do they do anything that helps manage their disability? (Ie medication, hot and/or cold patches, set sleeping times, ect)

ohse Has depression and anxiety meds but he doesn't take them. torahime and fumiya take insulin. the house always has at least two bottles of different painkillers at all times courtesy of amahikos mother

(doing phys disabilities)

⚕️ How did they find out they were disabled?

iori - he overworked himself so bad and it started raining once and he just. Died.

terra - she still doesnt know

rikai - her parents were both legally blind so he got glasses at a young age and his eyesight deteriorated . with hoh she still doesn't know she just thinks.its like that for everyone

saru - one day in a gang fight he nearly collapsed and the pain never really went away so he hooked himself up wkth crutches. shrug

ohse - he just kinda. knew. he got mocked for walking weirdly so. it wadnt really a revelation

amahiko - his family is entirely doctors. next question

fumiya - i Dont Know. tbh.

torahime - well i would assume he found out when he got hit by the motorcycle ,

iori - never really complains unless prompted and will work through the pain til he drops cuz he's like that !

🏳️‍🌈 A random headcanon about them and their disability

terra - amahiko's mom is the first person she told about anything .

rikai - doesn't realize the whistle is loud cuz she can't hear anything clearly .

saru - SWAG ASS CRUTCHES. USED AS WEAPONS. FUCKJNG DECKED OUT.

ohse - customized wrist brace, signed by all of the charismas and he cried so hard over it. they signed it when he was sleeping snd he woke up to it

amahiko - all of his stuff is hereditary i think

fumiya - sometimes sits there and talks to a headmate but will ONLY do it when terra is around and it creeps her tf out. also everyone can pry his sweets out of his cold dead hands

torahime - i dont have anything for him. but he cried after that call with the fucking idiot of all time cuz he was so embarrassed and nearly split

oh my fucking god.

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fuck-abled-people · 2 years

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I've been feeling a little petty lately so here's the story of my ablest mother discovering she's disabled! This one's a little bit weird so bear with me here.

Over the past year I've been trying a lot harder to get actual help and diagnoses for a variety of disabilities I've dealt with basically my whole life. I have chronic pain and fatigue and deal with a variety of mental illnesses/neuro divergence but despite the tons of signs literally no one in my family seemed to notice.

And it was a huge struggle trying to get my parents to understand at first. My dad more often than not just couldn't get why "normal" tasks were so hard for me. But my mom and I got into it a lot once I started pushing more for accommodations. She kept getting pissed that I wouldn't just get over my roadblocks and then I'd get pissed that she was treating circumventing my disabilities like a chance to make them "go away".

Well lo and behold, after I started this whole thing of researching my symptoms, my younger sibling started doing it too. And once they started suspecting they were autistic, my mom started asking questions. And wouldn't you know it, guess who else in our family is most likely autistic and didn't know depression and anxiety disorders are in fact disabilities?

My mom!

Tbh, I'm not that mad at her anymore. I know she dealt with a lot of ableism growing up that made her think the way she did and that she really does try. Parents are people too and they're gonna make mistakes. It just gives me whiplash sometimes thinking about it. I had to fight tooth and nail to leave school when the stress was practically killing me only for her to put the pieces together like two years later.

We are making progress now though, and I'm doing a lot better! Simply very tired thinking about the roller coaster of the past couple years and wanted somewhere to complain.

Her internalized ableism might be a great explanation for the way that she's treated you, but it sure as hell ain't an excuse.

#answered ask #anonymous #internalized ableism

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lonely-lesbian-dumbass · 2 years

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So I show a lot of signs of ehler’s-danlos syndrome, but I don’t know how to bring it up to my doctor. I don’t know if they’ll believe me. I have a history of anxiety and depression, and I don’t want them to think I’m a “google doctor” or whatever. I score a 7/9 on the Beighton hyper mobility scale, I’ve had chronic back pain for over 5 years, chronic shoulder pain for over 2 years, knee pain for over 7 years, and hip pain for over a year. My shoulder subluxes often, I can’t move my hands over my head or it will happen. I have stretchy, extremely soft skin, etc. I am in so much pain all the time and my mom and grandmother have the same symptoms. I’m plus sized, so I’ve had doctors dismiss my concerns before due to weight or anxiety. I’m really scared to make an appointment and talk to my doctor about it. If anyone has any advice, please comment, rb, message, or send me an ask.

#eds #heds #hypermobile eds #hypermobility #ehlers danlos syndrome #hypermobile ehlers danlos #ehlers danlos problems #chronic illness #chronic pain #spoon theory #spoonie #spoons #back pain

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pitiless-achilles-wept · 3 years

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Not dead yet!: Marking my 2-year anniversaries

On Sunday I marked my two-year “cancerversary” of my diagnosis and on Tuesday a member of the support group I co-founded (for young women who are stage 4) died. Like me, she had triple-negative breast cancer. Like me, she was diagnosed stage 4 two years ago. Like me, she had exhausted several types of treatment (because triple-negative is a beast) and was looking for the one that would work. She asked me about Saci (Sassy!) and proposed trying it to her doctor less than a week before she died. Nine days before she passed she joined our Sunday cancer yoga group from bed at the hospital to join our meditation exercises. Like me, she remained confident and positive and absolutely refused to give up hope. (Like me, she also wore her hair purple sometimes.)

There were many things that are unlike about us too. She had two teenage children who now don’t have their mother. She was twelve years older than me and had had Hodgkin’s before she had breast cancer--even worse luck than mine, to triumph over one cancer only to get this diagnosis. Unlike me, she wasn’t strong enough for Saci, the only targeted triple-negative line of treatment, because her body had reacted badly to immunotherapy. She was in the hospital for two weeks with somewhat mysterious symptoms all of which added up to her body shutting down. On Saturday she went home with her family in hospice care. 2 days later she was gone.

It’s not usual for things to go so fast. Typically, doctors, patients, and family members all have some advance warning and patients spend a solid amount of time in hospice care. I am sure that people will ask me why it went that way for her. I’m asking myself why too, since it is so shocking and so entirely unfair. The fact that it can happen that way at all is frightening to me as a fellow patient since it’s the scenario of nightmares. That really could someday be me. No one ever wants to think that--and I cannot live my life focused on it either--but it has to be acknowledged as a possibility.

[More below the cut about memories from 2 years ago today and hopes for the future. Also, an invitation to contribute to some writing if you want.]

Today, January 28th, is the 2-year anniversary of my stage 4 diagnosis. In a way, it feels more significant than my initial cancer news. I had four days being horrified, but thinking that I would get through this as a phase in my life. It would be terrible--I’d have a double mastectomy, scorched-earth chemo, radiation, anything to get rid of the cancer--but then it would be done. On the Monday following my first set of CT scans I learned that that was not true. My lungs were full of tumors. (Later, after lots of waiting, MRIs and biopsies, I'd find that my lymph nodes, spine, and liver were affected too. I still have tumors in all those locations, but no new ones.) I wrote a description of getting that news in an email to a friend over the summer, after I had read Anne Boyer’s "The Undying”:

“The worst part about the lung tumors for me was that my dad had gotten a very early flight and I learned the news while he was in the air. My mom told me we could not text or tell him on the phone, that he would need to be with us both. So I drove to Newark straight from the doctor's office. It was in the teens outside and windy as we slogged to the baggage area where we were to meet. I saw my dad in his warmest and ugliest puffy orange down jacket, looking small in it, forlorn and horribly vulnerable. I fell into his arms, thinking at least that airports were such horrible places, so impersonal and banal, that no one would look twice. 'It's in my lungs,' I said into his shoulder so that I would not have to see his face. I was crying into the jacket that somehow smelled of winter cold even though he had been inside for hours. 'Please, Daddy. Fix it, please.' I spoke like a child because, on some very deep level, I think I really did still believe that my father could fix anything. I was embarrassed, though, and so I tried to stem my tears as he put his big hand on the back of my head and said, 'Oh sweetie, we'll get through this. We will.' I knew that really he could do nothing--and that this was his nightmare of powerlessness--and so I sniffed and blinked and I did not let myself cry again until June.”

Two years later this moment seems as if it just happened. The impact of my diagnosis on everyone dear to me, and especially my parents, is one of the worst things about it for me. We all know that there’s only so much “better” I can get, with the current science, and we’re all playing for time while the research moves forward towards something better, something that would make this a treatable chronic condition. I go back and forth, emotionally, on how likely I think that is and how good my position is for the future. Right now, comparing myself to the group member who died, I feel relatively fortunate, even as chemo exhausts me, I lose every scrap of hair that was ever on my body, and I spend half of my days being almost unable to eat from nausea and loss of taste. I feel glad that I was able to get Saci, that my body has so far stood up to the ceaseless trials I have put it through, with four treatments and surgery (and full-time work and living alone etc. etc.). I feel strong, not scared, even as I feel the emotional toll of terrible loneliness from covid isolation, winter, and carrying a sick body through my days alone.

I do not love the “fight” metaphor because so much of having an illness is completely out of your control and I never want to take myself (or anyone else) to task for “losing.” And so instead I will praise my body for enduring. I will praise myself for my enduring also, in both an emotional and physical way. I checked back in on how I was feeling as this anniversary approached last year and was pleased to see how much better I feel about it now, partly as a function of being in a treatment that is (likely) keeping me stable rather than in the midst of choosing another new one. Here is what I wrote back to my group of friends in November 2019, the run up to the one-year mark:

“I’m feeling like I can’t plan and don’t want to celebrate, like I can’t perform “fine” for the people in my life to spare them from the pain I’m causing by not doing better and feeling horrible about it. Perhaps it would help if I let them know that they didn’t need to perform “fine” for me? I understand the desire to protect me from the obligation to take care of them and appreciate it. But sometimes it can feel like I’m the only one experiencing anger or grief or pain, though I know I’m not. Feeling so isolated in my emotional response provides no catharsis for it. Compassion and sympathy function on the notion of “fellow feeling.” If you’re just out here, feeling by yourself, you can’t expect any comfort. As always, I think of the moment in the Iliad when Priam and Achilles cry together over dead Hector. Grief (and you can grieve for many things aside from a death) is something explicitly to be shared.” So I guess I’ve shared it here. I can do that. And I can do another thing, which is to tell you I love you. People don’t really say it enough and reserve it too entirely for romantic contexts. It’s weird--it’s not like we are wartime rationing love! And every time anyone says it to me it helps. It’s an affirmation that I am integral in some way to people’s lives which, in a society that so greatly valorizes marriage/partnership and children, is something I can be in doubt about.”

There are some things I like here, though, and that I would now like to reiterate and invite you, my far-flung friends, to do for my 2-year milestone. Never has the notion of “fellow feeling” in times of grief and depression hit harder or been more important than during covid. In a way, the nation (or even world) was forced into much the same position, emotionally and practically, that my cancer put me in. People are isolated, unable to perform “fine” and wondering if other people feel the same way, or even if any of us can take care of each other at all. I am here to tell you that you can. Maybe not immediately but--sooner than you think--you can. Emotional reserves may be low but reaching out to support someone else can actually replenish them. You do not have to feel alone, or to feel, alone.

And for me, for this milestone and for the cancer-related depression that I certainly do have, I’d like to invite you to help me, so that I can do the same for you. I invite you to write something about how this milestone feels for you (either about me or not), how it relates to all the other insane things going on in the world or with you (not about me at all), how you felt on the original day when I shared my stage 4 diagnosis (definitely about me)--really anything that is on your mind or in your heart.

“Oh great,” you may think, “the English PhD has asked us to do homework!”. But no! It's up to you what you do. Write in whatever form you want, however long, even anonymously. And if you do I will write you back! Not with grades or comments, but with something to connect to what you shared. It is a way to create fellow-feeling; to open up, connect, heal. With me, yes, but also as the group of extraordinary people who have gone with me so far on this hard road. It’s a very different proposition to support someone through time-limited treatment with a good outcome than it is to sign on for whatever comes next. You are all, truly, pretty extraordinary.

Anyone who wants to send a note or reflection can email me or drop a file or post in this Google drive folder. Like I said, feel free to share whatever and do it anonymously if you’d rather. You can also askbox me here (better than DMS) or submit a post to this blog. (I'm taking a chance with open DMs for now...we'll see if that needs to change.)

I am grateful for all of you every day, but especially today.

Love, Bex

p.s. The title of this post refers to the cinematic classic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," a film my high school self and friends loved. They, along with other wonderful folks. gave me a "cancerversary" cake with "Not dead yet, motherfucker!" on it this Sunday. p.p.s. The average life expectancy for people who get this diagnosis is 18 months to 3 years. Hitting 5 years would be extraordinary. Starting Year 3 is a huge deal and I have every intention of being extraordinary. (Never been average at anything in my life...I either succeed spectacularly or fail epically!)

#my life as a cancer patient #cancerversary #stage 4 #mbc #metastatic breast cancer #personal #memories #bex writes #writing invitation #quarantine life

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jpegjade · 4 years

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If I Believe You - Spencer

Welcome to another fluffy story! This is the unplanned story I mentioned bc I was feeling down last night and I needed to just write something.

Warnings: It’s a lot of fluff but it does deal with a few signs of depression. There’s nothing graphic and it’s mainly talking. so if you’re not up for that, i have other fluffy stuff that might fit better! don’t push yourself!

____________________________

“Y/n, I’m home. I got groceries!” Spencer called.

You spent the weekend in bed. What else was there to do? Spencer was gone and you had a complete loss of interest in the world, especially your world. It was just better to be in bed all day, whether or not you were able to sleep.

“Hey.” You said, half heartedly. Your voice felt like it didn’t work.

“You turned over!” He said, smiling.

He was right. Earlier in the day, you turned over from being on your right side, which gave you the best view of staring at Spencer, to your left side, where you could charge your phone and use it at the same time while it was connected to your nightstand.

“Stop smiling. I didn’t do anything.” You said, putting your phone down on the nightstand.

Spencer walked over and kissed you on the forehead before going to change into his pajamas. You still didn’t move. Everything inside hurt, you were so heavy, and all you wanted to do was be anywhere but alive.

When Spencer came back, he climbed into bed and scooted himself all the way to you. You rolled back over, feeling like it took all of your energy just to move that much. You groaned the whole time and made Spencer smile.

“You turned over again. I’m so proud of you.” Spencer said, tapping your nose.

“You’re such a nerd, you know that?” You smiled just enough to bring out his full smile. It makes him so happy that in the middle of your worst depression symptoms, he could make you smile.

“Yes, I have been told by you, repeatedly.” He smiled.

Spencer just stared at you, watching you breathe. Your heart rate was steady and he was just thinking about you. You were so quiet and it was hard for him to watch. He was used to you talking, asking him about his day, wondering what was on his mind. But right now? All he could wonder was what he could do to help, what he could do to lift your spirits in the slightest.

“Have you eaten today?” He whispered as if it was against the rules to speak normally.

When you struggled like this, it just seemed like it was easier to stay close, keep things intimate.

“I’m not hungry.” You said, voice barely audible.

“Come on, y/n. You have to eat today. I let you slide with a granola bar yesterday but I need you to eat today. Real food.” He pleaded with you just a little bit.

“Spencer, I don’t want to eat. I’m so tired.” You sighed. Of course he was going to try to do this.

“I know, sweetie. But you have to eat.” He said, still quiet.

There was a patient silence between you, almost like a standoff. You were determined to hold out and Spencer was determined to not give in. You didn’t mind the silence, you didn’t have to talk. Meanwhile, Spencer just wanted to talk to you. You lit up his day and all he wanted was to take a moment to brighten yours.

“Tell you what, sweetheart.” He started. “You eat some food and I’ll eat you.”

“Smartass.” You smiled at him, a small smile but a smile.

“I got you to smile. I love you.” He kissed your forehead and scooted even closer to you.

“But you have to eat. Severe depression has decreased your appetite significantly and it’s going to lead to malnutrition soon if I can’t get something in you that gives you enough nutrients to sustain your body. Malnutrition can lead to a multitude of additional health problems, if you would like to hear about them.”

“Spencer, just because I’m not hungry, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be malnourished. It just means I’m sad today. And yesterday. And the day before. Need I go on?” You asked, followed by a sigh.

“Why are you sighing?” He asked, knowing it was related to something.

“I’m so tired of being this way. I’m tired of knowing that in the end, I will always be this way. It will always come back to being down and I don’t want the cycle to continue. If I could, I would make it stop.” A tear escaped and you angrily wiped it off.

Spencer was speechless. He didn’t know what to say because you were right. It was chronic and while manageable, it wasn’t going to be fixed. He wanted so badly to fix it, to help you. But this isn’t a case. He can’t help you like he couldn’t help his mom for all of those years. But he has gotten better, he built a better relationship with his mom. He has gotten better at caring for you because he became more attentive to you rather than the statistics and numbers.

“I can’t say that it will get better soon. I can’t say that you’ll feel better. But I can say that you will eventually feel better, a little bit at a time, okay? I can say that I will be right here when you are ready to do the smallest things, like eat some orange slices. Or apple slices. Or some kind of easily edible, nutrient filled food. I can say that I won’t stop talking, whether or not you end up hating the sound of my voice or me or love the sound of my voice and me. I can say that you will see the sun again, loving it as if these tough times never happened. I can say…”

“Spencer, shut up and get me the damn orange slices.” You said, rolling your eyes.

He knew the eye roll was sarcastic but he also saw the smile you tried to fight. You failed and ended up giving him what you could manage. Spencer hopped out of the bed, nearly skipping to the kitchen area. He was so happy that you were going to eat something.

You groaned because it was freezing cold in the apartment and Spencer getting up meant that you lost another body of warmth. You sighed, preparing yourself to sit up by the time Spencer came back. If you did it before he got there, he would be really proud of you. You liked when he was proud of you, no matter how down you were. It made the smallest difference in your day because you loved him.

But, at the same time, it can be hard to love someone when you don’t want to be alive. It can be difficult to love anything when you don’t want to be awake. But no matter how much you had to fight to keep your eyes open, Spencer was there when he could be. He volunteered to work cases with Garcia as much as he could so he could make sure you were alright, he didn’t spend late nights at the office anymore, and of course, he spent more time caring for you. And this made you feel even more horrible.

“Y/n? I got the orange slices!” He was still upbeat. You liked that he could be so… Optimistic yet realistic at the same time. He was optimistic that you would get better but realistic about it taking a lot of time and effort.

“Thank you, baby.” You smiled as much as you could but it felt so empty, forced.

He was staring at you with such adoration as you as you ate your half of the orange while he ate his half.

“I’m so proud of you right now.” Spencer scooted over to sit right next to you, leaning his head over so you touched shoulders and his head was on top of yours. “You did it. You ate something today. We’ll try again later but do you want to cuddle? If not, that’s okay. We can nap. Or not nap. We can… Oh, I can read to you. You don’t have to listen.”

“Spencer, can you kiss me, please?” You asked, watching his eyes light up.

It had been a while since you wanted a real kiss. He had settled for giving you kisses on the face and your hand and wherever else he had access to because you just weren’t up for making out or anything that might lead to it.

This kiss was special, gentle. He was hesitant but it was okay because that was what you needed. You just wanted to show him that you appreciate him and everything he does in his love language, which was touch. He loved touching any body part possible, just knowing that you’re there with him. Sometimes, it’s what kept him from falling apart. You may not know it but you kept him from falling apart.

“Why did you do that?” He asked, face still close to yours. Your noses were touching and he was whispering again. The moment was so fragile, he didn’t want to pull away.

“Because I just wanted to remind you I love you. You do a lot for me, I figured I could do something for you. You like kisses so… Just thought I would give you one.” You said, wanting so badly to lay down but you didn’t want to disconnect from Spencer. Not right now. You needed this little thing, whatever it was.

“I love you. And nothing will change that. If I could, I would…” Spencer stopped. He knew how you felt about when he said he would take it onto his own shoulders if he could.

“It’s okay.” You said, quietly. A tear ran down your cheek, followed by a tear down his face as well.

“Can you read to me? I’m tired again and I just want to hear your voice.” You said, breaking away from Spencer to wiggle back down, completely under the blanket.

“I’ll go get a couple books.” Spencer started to move but you stopped him.

“No. From your memory, just pick a book and read. I don’t really care about following along. I just...Need you right now.” You said, followed by a yawn.

“Okay.” Spencer got back under the blanket completely, holding his arm out for you to come closer.

“If I believe it will get better, will that make the emptiness stop? I want to believe you so badly. And I need to believe in something because I can’t just believe in nothing...” You whispered, another tear rolling down your face.

“The emptiness won’t go away, y/n. It will always be there. And I’m sorry I have to say it but it’s true. My emptiness doesn’t go away, either. But it gets easier, you can fill it with some things to make it easier to handle. You can feel it less at some moments and more at other moments. The emptiness will be there but the loneliness won’t always be there. The feelings of despair won’t always be there. The hatred for being alive won't always be there. You know why? Because you won’t always think that way. You won’t always be down. You won’t always feel the worst feelings you can possibly imagine. If you believe me, then you’ll see we’ve got a lot of joy to find. And happiness. My mom would say we’ve got ‘adventures’ to go on.”

And with a few more tears running down your face, you smiled what you could manage before closing your eyes and letting spencer talking send you back to sleep for the day.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff

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newmom94 · 2 years

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Here’s my I beat PCOS post! I was told at the beginning of 2020 that I would never be able to have kids and that I was infertile even with treatment (by a bad obgyn dr.) and I was DEVASTATED. I truly believed this doctor was right and she put me on a list of medications that were all wrong for me. My husband and I had always talked about wanting to have children. In the 9 years we’ve been together we only used the “pull out” method as birth control and I assumed that had nothing to do with my fertility that we never had an “accident”.

Anyway, all the signs of PCOS were always there since I was 15 years old, periods would be missing and when I got them they would last 2 weeks and be very painful and heavy and my belly got unusually bloated. I was hospitalized numerous times for ovarian cysts rupturing and causing me to blackout in pain. I was told it was an ovarian cysts but never told that it was PCOS! I didn’t know what it was so I just accepted that I kept getting ovarian cysts that would burst. I even went to an obgyn who saw a large cyst on my ovary in an ultrasound and diagnosed it as an unborn dead twin from when my mother was pregnant (wtf?!) and they wanted to remove my entire ovary (and my mom even tried pressuring me to go through with surgery).

It seemed like I wasn’t ever going to get an answer as to why I felt so crappy all the time. It took until I was 26 years old and my immune system was being beaten down by pcos for me to finally get a diagnosis. I had always gone to different obgyn’s searching for answers for my irregular periods. My weight has always fluctuated up and down and I began to notice that my hair was thinning drastically, facial hair popping up, and large cystic acne popping up on my thighs that would become so infected that I need antibiotics (a total of 6X in a year) also began getting gastrointestinal issues such as SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) which can be linked to inflammation from PCOS beating down my immune system. I became very sick in 2019, even causing me to lose my job because of too many sick days.

I began searching for answers online and finally got a diagnosis at another new OBGYN. This doctor was horrible even though I finally got a real diagnosis. This doctor didn’t understand that there are FOUR types of PCOS all with different ways to treat and prevent symptoms. In case you want to know these they are:

Insulin resistance PCOS. According to the nutritionist, it occurs in 70 per cent of the cases. ...

Adrenal PCOS. This occurs during a massive stressful period. ...

Inflammatory PCOS. This type of PCOS occurs due to chronic inflammation. ...

Post-pill PCOS.

I have Inflammatory PCOS and after being on all the wrong medications for a few months that were meant for blood sugar, I was also told by this horrible doctor that I was depressed when I was only upset about being told I was infertile. And yes it had an effect on me but not anything near actual depression. The doctor put me on an anti depressant which I was actually told was an anti anxiety medication and I reluctantly agreed to it. I was so sick at home after taking it for a week that I called the office to tell them I felt like my heart was racing and felt like I was hazy feeling and they were so rude they told me to check myself into the ER because they were worried I would hurt myself! WTF. I could make a whole post about how often mental health is misdiagnosed and mistreated and often made worse by doctors. Anyway, PCOS can cause anxiety and depression and by treating PCOS you may even start feeling better mentally.

After joining many online groups about PCOS and getting as much information as I could, I decided to see an endocrinologist to try to get pregnant. I did my own research online and stuck to a diet and supplement regimen to help regulate my hormones naturally. *please read my next post for PCOS diet and supplements*

My endocrinologist knew so much about PCOS, and informed me that all the symptoms I listed above made sense. She told me it was not possible to get pregnant naturally, but with treatment I had a slim chance of it working. She told me that my chances were 20% of it working, but also that it may never work no matter how many times I went through the treatment. I stated the treatment and she had me on medroxyprogesterone to induce a period and build the uterine lining, and femara to force ovulation. I did this for a few months and was getting very discouraged while feeling very ill trying also to cope with the hormonal side effects of the medication. Meanwhile we are in the middle of a pandemic and needless to say I was stressed tf out lol. After multiple ovulation tests coming up negative, I called to tell my doctor that I had given up but the nurse actually yelled at me not to and I listened to her. Then a miracle happened and I got a positive pregnancy test, and when I called the doctor’s office they didn’t believe it and told me it was most likely a false positive and to come in a week later for a blood draw. I wound up in the ER 3X that week before my appointment because of SIBO. I was so scared of losing the possible pregnancy due to being so sick. But somehow the ER ultrasound technician was able to confirm my pregnancy even though it was so early. I was in disbelief! I I was still so worried about the health of my pregnancy while treating the SIBO and having to take so many meds during the first month.

On top of all of that was the fear of complications due to PCOS and all the stories I had heard about pregnancy loss. You are at risk of developing gestational diabetes and high blood pressure if you are pregnant with PCOS. At my 20 week appointment there was a bit of a scare and saw a perinatal doctor. Everything turned out fine and I had a induced labor at 40 weeks and 4 days (it was a bit traumatic but that’s another story).

It was a wild ride and I can finally say that I made it and I have my miracle baby! 💖 In all seriousness I hope the best for anyone reading this and f*** PCOS! I know my fight against it isn’t over but I beat the odds of having a baby. If you’re dealing with the ups and downs of TTC or pregnancy anxiety, don’t give up you got this !! You are so much stronger than you know. I wanted to share my pregnancy journey to shed some light on PCOS and if any of this sounds like what you are going through then please see an endocrinologist to be checked for PCOS. It took me forever to get a real diagnosis. #PCOSawareness

#pcoslifestyle #PCOS #pcoswarrior #pcos treatment #pcos symptoms #pcoscommunity #pcosinfertility #pcos women #ttccommunity #ttcsupport #trying to conceive #pregnancy #pregnancy story #womens health #pcosawareness

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dredshirtroberts · 2 years

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It is....infinitely frustrating to learn more about myself, apply it to my childhood, learn more about my parents and other family members because of it and not be able to communicate to them that they don't have to be the way they are. (long family rant under the cut, probably incoherent because it's a lot of vagaries and hedging details, and also because emotions are high rn)

I'm very clearly neurodivergent. What flavor of that is unclear but it's looking like something akin to either ADHD or Autism (or in a fun twist, probably both!). Learning more about these developmental disorders has made me reflective on how my family does things, what patterns they have, and why they probably missed any early signs i might have shown before my impeccable masking skills kicked in at a young age.

Of course not only do they not believe either of these disorders is real but they also believe that they're all completely normal. Everyone is like them! except everyone which they complain about all the time.

I think if my mom's vision hadn't been as bad as it was, if she hadn't been checked early on for myopia, I wouldn't have known how bad my vision was until it was impossible for me to move around my space without running into stuff, or incapable of reading. It might not have been caught until I was 16. Though that seems improbable considering how absolutely shitballs my vision is, it's unfortunately not as unlikely as I'd like to imagine.

I have a chronic pain issue and have been tired since i was a tyke. No one has ever noticed that anything was wrong with me and since i learned that complaining only gets you ignored and told to suck it up (either from experience or by watching it happen to my much squeakier wheel of a sister) so I just...dealt with it quietly. I figured everyone woke up in pain and exhausted every morning and was just much better at dealing with it than I was. My mom has always complained of similar issues, but I'm guessing she too assumed it was just normal and that she was not dealing with it as well as everyone else in the world, and thus never mentioned it to a doctor.

So mine never got checked, either.

Mom is sensitive to gluten. A few other people are in my family I think. I actually took steps to try and start eliminating it (to an extent, I'm a weak man, I enjoy my bready carbs too much and it's hard to cook for myself/find gluten-free foods that i don't have to make) and since then my symptoms have gotten worse every time i eat it again. So I have to be very careful and aware of when I'm eating it and if it happens accidentally it's worse because I wasn't expecting the attack. But if I had just kept going with it, hadn't stopped eating it regularly, I'd be like my mom, putting myself through hell daily just because i refuse to give up beer, or bread, or whatever on a daily basis.

My family suffers from sleep issues. From pain. From incredible social awkwardness that no amount of being around people can fix. From meltdowns. From anxiety and depression. From chronic procrastination. From people pleasing. From alcoholism and self-medication.

But we function in society as best we can and it goes under the radar and as I learn that this is not normal. That there are ways of dealing with this stuff that are healthier, better, easier than what we've been doing, that it doesn't have to be like this I keep trying to find ways to tell them that they don't have to keep on suffering. Struggling. Hurting.

But what do I know? I'm just a confused girl who thinks she's a boy, who is a hypochondriac, who just can't accept that she's a little quirky and needs to be Special And Different because I'm a millennial. Who is being brainwashed into Leftist Thinking and will come around again eventually, when she grows up finally. Sure I'm almost thirty and these things are just getting stronger/harder to ignore than they were, but if I just find jesus again it'll be fine!

So I have to suffer every time I interact with them because they won't listen and look at themselves and learn from what i'm learning and trying to share. I have to deal with the forgetfulness, with the extreme reactions to minor things, with my dietary needs being forgotten, with being considered dramatic or a liar when i bring up my very serious pain and exhaustion issues, with being dismissed when i try to talk about ways i've worked around my neurodivergencies in daily life to try and make shit work, with being invited last minute to meals where I don't know if I'm going to be able to actually consume any of the food.

And the worst part is, I don't think any of it is intentionally malicious. They don't mean to be like this. So if I lash out, if I try to put up boundaries about it, I am the heel. I'm the bad guy. Because i'm being mean to my mother out of nowhere, I'm forcing all of them to call me a new name, use new words to describe me and how dare I, forcing them to be mindful of their dinner menus and making them feel guilty for not providing me any options to eat—but god forbid i bring a dish specifically for me to eat that no one else can touch just in case they cross contaminate it. It has to be to share. Even if they have a whole meal to eat and I only have one dish that I can consume safely.

They're thoughtless. And selfish. And they have no idea. And it shouldn't be my job, as eldest child (since they won't ever call me son...), to correct them. To point it out.

I probably won't get a birthday this year either, third year in a row running. But let's guilt me about not attending other people's birthday things we celebrate. Yeah.

Yeah.

#was contacted by my mom and i can never be sure if it's just to say hi #or to invite me to something #or because there's bad news in the family and i might need to be on alert in case there's a memorial or service i need to attend #because every message starts out the same #so i never know #the captain rambles #the captain's bio family #the captain's got symptoms syndrome

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lonely-business · 3 years

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So, I had a bit of an odd chronic illness that disrupted my life to extreme levels, but since it was related to my hormones, specifically my ovaries, almost no one took it seriously. Like, I started menstruating at 11 years old and it was all down hill from there.

My periods were always completely unpredictable, extremely painful, and messed with my mental health to the point were I was diagnosed with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. I tried 11 different birth controls to help with my various symptoms, all of them fucked up my brain, causing extreme anxiety and depression symptoms, which I was already dealing with because my body was basically allergic to my estrogen.

I was able to make it through college before my my mental symptoms became too much for me to handle on my own. I had to move back home. I was able to do an online master’s program, but at the same time was helping my mom who was bed ridden for almost a year. My dad is also emotionally abusive and likes to make shitty comments about all my faults.

The symptoms from my illness became even worse. I eventually gave up on my dreams of being a counselor for LGBT youth. My illness made me too unreliable. I never knew what my mind would be like from day to day, much less hour to hour.

Throughout this processes I had been advocating for a hysterectomy since I was 14. I knew my hormones were the major source of my problems and if they were removed then my doctors and I could regulate it and know exactly the amount of hormones my body was getting. Totally reasonable. My GP was on board, but I needed an OBGYN and insurance to sign off on it.

I finally got my hysterectomy August 5th at the age of 33 after developing a 16cm (6in) cyst on my right ovary. Two months later I actually began to think about my future again. Something I gave up on 10 years ago. I had a mind again. When I mentioned my tentative plans to my parents, my dad said that I was still “too crazy” to think about going back to school.

#long post #personal #menstruation mention #hysterectomy #uterus and ovary hate blog

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atypicalbipolar · 3 years

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MHM Social Media Post 1

Spring is in bloom and soon I won't be able to see the most interesting part of the nature center. I don’t know which came first, the pillar or the brick. But eventually the green takes over.

This time last year the Nature Center was closed and slowly reopened, but our access to it remained a mystery. This time last year I had plenty of old photos to use for #MentalHealthMonth but with Covid I'll have to be more creative.

So much has changed from last May to this May. I'm writing and sharing more online, I started a mental health twitter account in January, and I present my story for NAMI's In Our Own Voice. I'd trained February right before covid and we started zooming 6 months later. One of the best things I did for my mental health was allow myself to talk about my bipolar outside of therapy.

But I'm not universally out. I still fear repercussions if I were to tell work, Work, where I was in the hospital twice my first year and needed a note from partial to clear my return. Or post on a public social media like twitter, which is why I started atypicalbipolar. I had only just discovered the overlapping Neurodiverse, Mental + Chronic Illness and Disabled communities on twitter last year and felt restrained interacting on my main account.

I know I've come far since last May, but at the same time the stigma is still there and it just feels like baby steps.

It's always been so quick for me. The insomnia turns into incoherence and there’s no stopping it once it starts. The only thing we can do is go to the ER. I was admitted Five times. Two years.

The first time they just chalked it up to steroids. Which mania and psychosis are rare side effects. NWH just put me on lamictal and I was able to fall asleep with melatonin. To this day I don't know if the lamictal does anything, but that's a story for another post.

But it happened again several months after I was off steroids. This time they put me on a medical floor because my heart rate was high. Really just a physical symptom of my state of mind. MGH withheld my meds until they were sure I didn't double dose. Nothing was solved and I ended up inpatient again the same month.

Mom says by the third time the doctors at McLean wanted to investigate and have me stay longer, but I was so unsettled and worried about work I wanted out. I could not stay at McLean, I wasn't comfortable.

At least I went to partial at triangle but as nothing had been fixed the last 18 months I was on borrowed time. Fourth time's the charm and the doctors at MGH told me I was Bipolar pretty quickly once I was admitted. Finally things seemed to settle in place.

These trees are unique in the nature center as the sign points out that they were here on the hospital campus. I believe it's the only place the nature center actually mentions Boston State Hospital. If the brick houses along the entryway and the pillar in the tree don't remind you of the hospital then this sign explicitly points it out.

This land was left fallow after that hospital was emptied out, closed and demolished. Mass Audubon bought their lot from the state and took four years to turn it into the nature center. I don't think a lot of people who haven't been in the area 30+ years really know what used to be here. For now I think of the pillar in the tree as more of a memorial than the allée.

It's traumatic when you end up in the *psych* hospital. When I was a junior in high school dealing with this new depression, I started writing. It was a coping skill that helped me process when I was wrapped up in shame and isolation and unable to really talk about what had happened outside therapy.

I called it Memories of an Odyssey and I went back to it a couple times over the years. It wasn't until 10 years later that I completely revised it - Retitled it Self Preservation. I was brave enough to share on fb in April 2016, the 10th anniversary.

It's just as traumatic if not more so when I went in for the first time as an adult in Jan 2017. No idea what was going on or what had happened to me. When I had finished partial I started working on another poem. I used T. S. Eliot's "Not with a bang, but with a whimper" line as a beginning and ending.

I am not a poet, I barely know free verse and that's it. But writing mental health poems is a coping skill. After my last hospitalization I wrote about my rediagnosis to bipolar. I went back and tackled my delusions. It's something I'm proud of even if sharing the poems themselves is hard.

April 17th (or 18th) 2006 is when I was admitted to Franciscan's at 17. It's my original mental health anniversary. I collected all my poems starting with Self Preservation and made an anthology for myself as a belated anniversary present to myself.

#mental health awareness month #mental health month #mental health #bipolar #Mass Audubon Society #every month should be mental health month #and pride month

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cookinguptales · 4 years

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A long post about having undiagnosed ADHD as a little girl. And how we all need to talk a hell of a lot more about Reaction Sensitive Dysphoria.

(cw: mental illness, childhood punishment, discussions of childhood self-harm & suicidal ideation)

When I was a little girl, I was a crybaby. I didn’t know why I’d cry all the time. I just did. Everything always felt catastrophic, even if it was just a disagreement over what to play with my friends. People called me manipulative. I got made fun of at school. I was sent to the school therapist. Hell, the only time I ever had to go to the principal’s office, I was in kindergarten and would not. stop. crying. I was literally sent to the principal’s office for crying too much.

(Note. How did I respond to that? I cried. A lot.)

Here are a few examples of things that made me feel like the world was ending:

Once I came home sobbing and my parents asked me what was wrong. Why was I crying? Because the other kids had called me a crybaby.

Once at daycare (around age six), some older boys were making effigies of their teachers out of play-doh and then smushing them and convinced me to join in. The minute I did, they told me that they were telling my teacher, which made me about lose my damn mind.

I was a voracious reader and often ran out of reading material. Once I sneaked some of my mother’s romance novels that she’d left in the bathroom for light reading. They were Very Adult. I was so scared she’d find out and scold me for reading sexually explicit books.

Now, my parents think these are kind of funny stories. They say that I was very cute. But in truth, I was a nervous wreck. My life was pretty good in most ways, but I’d have these moments that just felt like cascading catastrophes. Anytime someone criticized me or my work or my ideas, the sky would just come crashing down. I’d cry so hard I couldn’t breathe. I’d cry so hard I threw up. I grew out of the crying by about age nine, but that sickening feeling of failure never really left.

About 8 years ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Severe ADHD. I believe the doctor’s exact words were “I don’t even know how you graduated from high school”. They tried me on ADHD medicine but it made my heart go dokidoki so I just had to live with being unmedicated. I wasn’t told a lot about ADHD at that point, or how ADHD symptoms differ for women, so I just kind of assumed that it was just focus and that’s it. Brain fog wasn’t exactly new to me, what with my other illnesses, so I figured I’d just live with it.

But about a year ago, I learned about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is a fairly common symptom of ADHD that no one ever told me about in my goddamn life! It essentially means that when you are criticized (or perceive something as criticism) by others or by yourself, your brain goes into absolute hyperdrive. You go from zero to “everyone hates me and I deserve that and probably don’t deserve to live too because I am just the worst” over like. literally nothing. And it’s not just like a mental thing you can train yourself out of. It’s characterized by actual physical pain. Y’all, I have anxiety and depression and this is not the same thing. This is your whole body seizing up and your brain going into a maelstrom that’s fairly similar to a panic attack.

Here’s the less cute side to all of those stories:

I had very few friends, and the friends I did have thought I was annoying and manipulative. The more I cried, the more kids stayed away from me.

After the Play-Doh incident, I cried for days. Days. And I was scared of my teacher for weeks. My parents laughed it off as a cute child thing, but none of it was cute for me. The older boys forgot about it by the next day, but it haunted my interactions with that teacher for weeks. It interfered with my education. I was a nervous wreck at school. I was so scared that she would hate me. That I’d be singled out in class. That I’d fail and my whole education would be upended and I’d fail out of school and my parents would hate me too and my life would be over. That’s... a lot for a six year old.

Those romance novels? That was a closely guarded secret that I kept for years. For literal years, I was afraid she’d somehow find out that I’d read those books. I would think of it when I was nine, ten, eleven years old and my whole body would stiffen up. I’d occasionally throw up. I cried about what might happen if my parents ever found out. Would they hate me forever? Yes, probably. They’d never love me again. I was a bad child. I finally told my mom about it a few months ago. I was 29. A small part of me was still scared I’d get in trouble. (My mom laughed about it; she was just like ‘wow, I should have put those books up higher’.)

When I was six, I went to an aftercare at a neighbor’s house for a while. (This predated the other daycare.) One day, one of the kids at aftercare didn’t get off the bus. The lady asked if anyone knew where he was. Trying to be helpful, I said I thought I’d seen him on the bus. (And like -- I really did think I did. But I was six and six year olds are uhhh not smart.) Surprise! He’d actually left school early for a dr’s appt. But she thought he’d missed his bus stop and spent like an hour on the phone figuring out what happened. And y’all. When she realized he hadn’t been on that bus, she was furious. When my other neighbor picked me up for my mom that evening, the lady told her that I was a bad child who’d purposefully lied to scare her. She said I wasn’t allowed to come back. And ohhh guys. I begged my neighbor not to tell my mom. (She did.) And then I begged my mom not to tell my dad. She was honestly kind of alarmed at how vehement I was about dad not knowing. (I was like a shaking, sobbing mess.) She asked me what I thought would happen. idk. Maybe he’d hit me. (My parents never hit me.) Maybe he’d throw me out of the house. Maybe he’d never talk to me again. He’d definitely stop loving me. I was so bad. So, so bad. I was a bad child. No one would ever love me. I was a worthless, bad child.

In short, I was hysterical.

When my parents finally talked to me about it, it was less of a talk about consequences and more talking me off the fucking ledge. They weren’t that concerned about the actual incident; they figured out pretty quickly that I’d just made a mistake. A temporarily scary one, but a mistake all the same. (I basically never misbehaved, so they were kind of confused by the whole situation, honestly.) But they were very concerned about my reaction to it. I knew they loved me, right? I knew that they wouldn’t hurt me, right? Why did I think that was a possibility?

I didn’t know. I still don’t know. It wasn’t rational. It was just my brain exploding into a thousand tiny pieces.

This is not a memory my mom laughs about. I think it really genuinely disturbed her. She’s still angry at that aftercare neighbor for doing that to me. As an adult, I realize that the person who actually fucked up in that scenario was the boy’s mother, who didn’t call to alert aftercare that he wouldn’t be coming. (Funnily enough, that boy’s mother was my first grade teacher -- the one I was so terrified of. Small town. I guess I was scared of her hating me, too.) But as a child, this wasn’t just bad. It was catastrophic. I genuinely considered hurting myself. I was six years old and I considered hurting myself. Suicidal ideation is often part and parcel with RSD. I’ve had to deal with that since elementary school.

RSD is real and it’s terrifying and it’s not unusual in children with ADHD. It’s still a problem that I struggle with. I’ve had friends not answer texts for a while and my brain just. assumes that I said something wrong. And now they hate me. Because I’m a bad person. And my whole body will shake. I’ll sweat. My stomach will roll. My chest will literally hurt like I’m having a heart attack. I still have to blink back those tears. Sometimes I’ll go for a walk to distract myself and burn off all that energy. Sometimes I’ll write a post like this. Sometimes I’ll just lie in bed. Shaking. Trying very hard not to think about doing Bad Things. It’s hard to say how it’ll go until it goes.

(Note: I’m okay right now! I was just talking about this with dad yesterday so I’ve been thinking about it.)

And this is not my friends’ fault! Or my family’s fault. This is no one’s fault. It’s just... mental illness, I guess. It’s hard to predict. Sometimes I can have a calm and reasonable discussion about my faults (which I fully admit exist) and sometimes someone disagrees with me on whether a tv show is good and my brain shits itself. (I’m dumb and stupid and this person probably hates me now! Because I didn’t love Avatar! Why did I open my big mouth? Now our whole relationship is ruined and I ruined it because I am a dumb relationship-ruiner!) Obviously, it gets worse when my physical and mental state is already fragile. I have a lot of chronic physical and mental illnesses, so like... it happens. But it’s very hard to predict, very hard to control, and all you can do is really talk yourself through it when it happens. Breathe. Focus on what’s real and what’s not. Distract yourself. Be as kind to your brain as you can because it will not be kind back.

Talk to people who love you. Try, whenever possible, to be one of those people.

idk. I wish I had concrete advice to finish this off. But it’s more just like... please learn to see the signs, especially in small children. I had far too many strong emotions for a child to figure out on her own. I really could have used some help. It’s too late for my childhood, but not for the other kids who are struggling with similar issues right now.

And if you read this and see yourself in it, do me a solid and talk to your doctor? Your brain might thank you one day.

#adhd #reaction sensitive dysphoria #RSD #just me #long post

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1sagesparrow · 5 years

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Daring to Dream: The Only Thing I Ever Wanted

What do you want to be when you grow up? “A single mom survivor of domestic abuse,” said no little girl ever. One of the reasons I stayed in my abusive marriage so long is because I’m a dreamer. I had a huge dream that involved love, laughter, and life built around a family of faith. A man after God’s own heart who would build a family with me. I would love him and he would love me and we would love our children. Whatever we did, our lives would be guided by our faith in the Lord. There would be years of joy and love and more dreaming along the way. I was naive, not that I could ever have that dream, but that it would be with the first man who said he wanted to be with me. Just because a man pursues a relationship with you does not mean it is healthy.

I was naive. I didn’t understand how devastating a pornography addiction could be to a marriage. We were still dating the first time I walked in on him masturbating at the computer. He told me it was only because my very presence aroused him so much that he had to help himself. I actually felt guilt. I was naive when I saw how badly he treated his mother, yelling and criticizing her, calling her stupid. I didn’t understand that it was more than an isolated damaged relationship. Over the years, I would often recall the first time I saw him verbally tear down his mother as he would tear me down in a similar way. I was naive when I visited his family home and overheard his father berating his mother and dismissed the thought that the man who said he loved me could ever sound as hateful as his father did. I was naive to not see how he drank himself into a stupor when something depressing happened in his life, naive to think that this wouldn’t continue into our marriage. I was naive to think I could love him out of his addiction, depression, anger, and destructive behaviors. That him simply saying he didn’t want to be like his abusive father meant that he wouldn’t simply because he knew what it was like.

Habits die hard. I’ve heard it takes thirty days of consistency to start a new behavior pattern or break an old one. Changing behavior can be very difficult even when you genuinely want to change. How many of your new year’s resolutions ever make it past January? Have you ever tried to support someone through their new year’s resolution? Did those make it to February any easier? Have you ever assumed that someone in jogging clothes must be a well-seasoned runner, disciplined and making progress?

Expecting an abusive, controlling person to change because you love them unconditionally is like expecting someone to lose weight because you bought them a pair of jogging shorts. I figuratively bankrupted myself buying him an entire jogging wardrobe. He was like one of those people who take selfies of their apparent workout, but they’re not sweating and their water bottle hasn’t been opened. Any time he put on the clothes of loving, Christian husband and father, it was for show. Just like any well photographed social media post, he made sure the rest of the world saw his best imitation of someone running the Christian race, and could be overly doting to the kids and I in church, gaining ‘likes’ along the way.

Seeing the truth of the masquerade was painful, but it was sometimes less painful to believe the delusion, to hope his latest performance meant he was finally becoming the man he had the potential to be. So I lied. He has to work over the holidays [on his hobbies]. We can’t come for Christmas [because I’m afraid if I ask again, he’ll get worse]. He just has had a long day; he’s not normally so rude [usually, he’s worse]. He’s a good father [in his own mind]; but he just doesn’t like the baby stage [or any other stage that might inconvenience him]. Yes, the kids love to play with him [until he loses his temper]. I lied to church members. I lied to my family. I lied to my own children. I thought I was building him up like wives in a healthy marriage should, but really I was covering up his sin and enabling him to be abusive by not standing against the abuse sooner. Abuse is like cancer. Left untreated, it grows and festers until there are more cancerous cells than healthy cells. Symptoms are similar. Chronic fatigue, pain, your normal activities are replaced by the demands of the cancer. It ends up controlling your life. At some point, family and friends become concerned. But when they ask how you’re doing, you lie. The cancer isn’t that bad. I can live with this cancer. I’m confident this cancer won’t kill me. You think I have cancer? I couldn’t possibly.

Eventually something else happens that shakes your world and you decide to get an expert opinion. Turns out, it is indeed cancer and the only option is surgery. Getting the cancer out requires a severe no tolerance policy. Surgery leaves deep, painful scars that can take a long time to heal, especially if you aren’t intentional to let yourself heal. You still remember the cancer. It’s impossible to forget. There’s always a lingering fear it will return to claim your life one day.

But you can’t live your life in fear of the cancer returning and have any kind of quality life. I had to make a choice. Do I focus on preventing a reoccurrence of the cancer to the point where I think about nothing else and those thoughts consume my life? Or do I bravely walk into my new cancer-free life, daring to dream again? For me, not dreaming is a sign I’m not trusting God to make my life beautiful. I know his best for me wasn’t abuse. God is a God who blesses with abundance and I know only he has the power to restore the years taken, years I know I missed opportunities to serve, years I missed the opportunity to be the mom my kids need, one who makes decisions based on God’s will, not the abuser’s will.

I am ready to truly live. God created me for a purpose. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10). I’m walking into that new life day by day. I can’t live in regret of not stepping out sooner or in fear of stepping out at all. I simply must take a step, like a toddler learning to walk. There are days I feel like an absolute failure. There are days I’m still filled with intense fear. Those days are fewer and further between. Replacing them are the days filled with a deeper purpose. Praying before making a decision and being able to have peace, knowing it’s of God.

I am ready to dream again. If and when God chooses to send a man into my life who will love me and my children as his own, I will cherish him. Not from any selfish motive to fulfill my dream of love, life and laughter, but rather, I know he would be sent straight from God. I’ll know it’s him when the same peace I have in choosing God’s will for my life is the answer to my prayers asking for confirmation. There would also be no other way to explain a man with enough love for me and my children, who would accept us for who we are in spite of the trauma we’ve endured.

Only God knows if and when he will fulfill that particular dream, but God has stirred up more dreams in my heart and I am thankful for those as they develop. A dream to advocate for survivors. A dream to live free for my children and me. A dream to write, to let God use my voice to help someone else. I no longer dream naively. My dreams are founded in a secure hope that rests in the Lord, that if I allow him to lead me, I will walk confidently into my future filled with the good plans he’s prepared for me and the good dreams he will gift me as a blessing.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

I dare to dream.

https://1sagesparrow.wordpress.com/2019/10/21/daring-to-dream-the-only-thing-i-ever-wanted/

#domestic abuse #dreaming #hope #encouragement #dreamer #future #share

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hippiemikelove-blog · 2 years

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#AllCannabinoids #CannabisBlogs #Cannabiscommunity #CannabisEducation #CannabisExtracts #CannabisHeals #CannabisLoveStory #CannabisPatient #CannabisRecovery #CarouselChallenge #CBD #CBG #CBN #LymeDisease #Terpenes #THC

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heterophobicpride · 5 years

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@genderdysphagia yeah i feel!! its hard for me to tell the difference between mania and just having a good mental health day, or mania and just being excited about something. i think i was looking for more dramatic signs bc my mom is bipolar and had a HUGE manic episode that was super dramatic and lasted several months. my mania symptoms so far would be talking too fast, racing thoughts, restlessness, unable to sleep or sit still, etc. usually this ends up as a late night creative project or research project for me so i guess i just wrote it off, but looking back i do have symptoms. my problem is that it really only usually lasts for a single day or night, whereas i know manic episodes tend to last longer. i think if anything i would be bipolar II as well bc hypomania sounds more like what i do. hopefully i can talk to a psychiatrist soon and get this figured out 🤷🏼‍♀️ my last psychiatrist just assumed chronic depression bc thats way more obvious for me and its been going on for three years now, but he did mention to watch out for mania, knowing my family history. im on antidepressants rn but ive been wondering for a bit if i should see if i can switch to a more bipolar centered med? who knows. thanks for ur help tho!!!

#replies #sorry im on a sideblog and truly do not understand how tumblr works despite being on here for years

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iglooface · 5 years

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My whole school career, despite how short it may be thus far, I have always been complimented and received positive remarks about how smart I was and how talented I was. They all find it strange that these are not traits I am proud of.

I grew up with depression, anxiety, and insomnia. My three original traits that have come to rule my life. I inherited mild depression from my mother, and anxiety and insomnia from my father. In all of my years in school except for the last I have been bullied mercilessly for everything about my being. It would vary from my hair, my style of clothing, my physical being, calling me ugly, exclusion, death threats, abandonment, being called names and excessively pointing out my mistakes (surprise! I'm human unlike most bastards I meet). I also had chronic nose bleeds, so from the beginning everyone was always grossed out by me for bleeding from my face nearly every day (most of my clothes are stained with my own blood because of this and I'm honestly too broke to afford new clothes very often). Even teachers and my own parents would put me down for nearly everything I did for one reason or the other; nothing I ever did was right. And to add more I'm often put after my sisters' needs and wants. I've never been prioritized.

I was, and still am, a sickly child. I've technically had my heart stopped and been dead twice before and I had a handful of major surgeries before my sophmore year in highschool. My doctors don't ever listen to me and they think I'm dramatic when I bring up actual chronic symptoms I suffer from.

As a child, we moved around a lot and so I switched schools often and was never able to make or keep friends. I come from a long line of verbally and emotionally abusive teachers who went on without consequence whilst I get in trouble for trying to fix myself. In grade school alone I had all but two of my teachers quit their jobs and/or be replaced after that year, if not during the middle.

Children are highly impressionable, and so these kinds of events did lead up to me thinking it was somehow my fault. Logically I know this not to be true, but impressions and mental illnesses are not logical.

In seventh grade alone, I had gone through 12 different prescriptions for pain and different types of birth control to regulate my period and my chronic cramps. It's highly likely that I had, and still have, endometriosis, yet my doctors are always reluctant to perform any blood tests on me simply because I am young, as if being young makes it entirely impossible for me to have health issues.

My periods were unstable to a point that I'd end up having one for thirteen days, or months apart. Given, young girls with periods often experience irregular cycles, but mine kept landing me in the hospital which is never a good sign.

I was bullied that year to a point that I tried to kill myself and failed, and I managed to avoid my parents finding out. This was the beginning of my incredibly high drug tolerance. At the end of that year, my favorite teacher was killed in a car accident.

The following year, it was found out I had massive ovarian cysts that were increasing my insomnia and put me in agonizing pain nearly every moment of my life. But my doctors refused to take action because I was young. That year I was further emotionally abused by a handful of my teachers. One of them, worse than others, was fired during the beginning of the third trimester of the school year. Her replacement, a long term substitute, was even worse. She had bullied and abused the class so hard that kids had killed themselves and I ended up getting conversion disorder.

Conversion disorder is a mental disorder in where my body cannot handle stress. My brain doesn't know how to function and deal with high stress situations, so instead it shuts off my physical body. Symptoms vary from person to person, but mine are on more of the extreme end. It varies from extreme memory loss, seizures, not breathing, choking on white foam produced by my body, screaming unconsciously, blacking out, temporary amnesia, and paralysis. This is a condition that I cannot control under any circumstances, and it truly dictates my life.

Now my mom had gone to the principal (the school cycles through five in a single school year because of a whole lot of drama) to report this teacher and get a new one. And instead of acting reasonably, the principal quite literally told us she wouldn't look into a replacement because it wouldn't change anything.

And, oh, how wrong she was.

I had previously had mild anxiety and depression from previous life experiences, but this year pushed me to be anxious to a fault (granting me a new stutter, hours long panic and anxiety attacks, migraines, etc), and pushed me into such a strong depression I became highly suicidal and went into an emotional shock. And because of this I also gained PTSD, which is a whole trip within itself.

Freshman year was a wreck. Another one of my middle school teachers had died; she died from cancer and was one of very few people who were ever nice to me. I was being bullied on a whole new level of horrid, and I was flunking every class I had been in. My conversion disorder episodes became do frequent and so severe that the school actually kicked me out illegally for about two months before they continued my education on independent study. That year my dog was put down. And normally that wouldn't be such a big deal except for the part she was quite literally my only friend for three years.

Even worse; I was in recovery after one of my more major surgeries to get my ovarian cysts removed to help with my pain and sleeping problems. I was fragile and under the influence of strong drugs when I decided to take my dog on a walk around my property for the first time in a month because I had been on bed rest. She had seen my neighbor, and gotten freaked out by him (he radiates massive pedophile vibes) and so she jumped on him. Now this over privileged scumbag thought the appropriate response was to threaten to shoot my dog if he ever saw her again no matter the circumstance, and proceeded to curse me out profusely all while I tried to apologise and make it right.

My dog had become a liability because of this man and we had to put her down. Take in mind she was an amazing dog, and had never disobeyed me. She was protective of me as she had been since we adopted her and was genuinely the best thing that has ever happened to me. She'd check on me when I cried and lay with me when I was sick, and was there for me more often that my actual parents were.

The next year, I was bullied slightly less, but I had a great ordeal of friend drama and my fair amount of fights with the office staff. One of my friends, who I thought was close to me, had threatened to kill me after I offended her exactly once. I had a bad day after another episode and she had built this reputation of not feeling and being unattached to the real world. I wasn't in the mood to deal with people and when she asked me if I was okay I questioned why she cared. That was it. Later I had apologized because I had come to terms that I was in the wrong for dismantling her emotions, but she decided to take it too far.

One of my teachers was permanently removed from the school for having nudes on a school device, and they brought in a long term substitute. This was about when my PTSD really started to kick me in the nuts, so I went back on independent study to complete the year. My only other friends moved away and my significant other had killed himself after killing himself shortly after telling me he loved me.

I don't expect people to understand the kind of psychological damage this causes to a person, but I can tell you that it hurts.

I was referred to a continuation school in my area for flunking both years of highschool, and this continuation school had a bad reputation of being troubled kids and violent beings.

I get there, I spend my year being amazed by how nice people are to me. This is the first year of my life I have ever been treated like a human, and it was by the people society had deemed misfits. I had a great year; I made friends and built connections to people. And then my friends left me, and my favorite teacher was fired simply for being a first year. My other teacher left the school year early for maternity leave, and, guess what, was replaced by a long term substitute. I don't think I've ever panicked as hard as I did in those months. Similar timing, same school subject, similar classroom. All of the stressors were right and I nearly fell apart at the seams. I had more frequent and severe migraines and anxiety attacks. My hands would shake in fear so hard I couldn't write, which was bad because the classes I had with that teacher were exclusively note taking and online courses. This substitute wasn't a bad person. He was competent and polite and was always helpful, but my mental illnesses and brain blocks caused me to lose the opportunity to work with them successfully. In the last trimester I tried to kill myself three times, and I accidentally overdosed on drugs about 14 times over the whole year. I almost died a lot by my own doing and it was horrible.

Children need stability to survive and develop normally and I had been deprived of both, as well as emotional stability and positive reinforcement.

Now, during these times I had coping methods. I draw and write professionally to distract myself from the physical pain in my being if not just stress plain and simple. I watched documentaries and studied nearly every subject during my sleepless nights. My coping method was learning, practicing, evolving, and then teaching. My IQ had beat the range of average and I've had a reading level ranked at post college since I was in middle school. And this fall I'm a senior and I've only been ranked higher and higher each year. I've always gotten extra credit on every individual assignment and I've always been too of my class. My teachers love my art, and I had exceeded my professional art teacher within weeks of knowing her. I see, I practice, I perfect, I personalize every trait and skill I want and find intriguing. I study and develop to keep myself from remembering the agony I'm in.

I have a really wide and extensive knowledge on almost every subject and culture I've come across from, because being awake and learning for days on end beats being awake and in agony for days on end.

Along with my severe insomnia, it becomes apparent that I've seen more sunrises than the amount of years most adults have been alive. My walks under the starlight and the moon at odd hours? Amazing. Laying in a field at night and listening to all the little creatures and the coyotes howling in the distance? Perfect. Stargazing in my driveway on a clear night in the winter? Cold to my bones but I'd never trade the memory. Walking home in the rain at 11 a.m.? It's made me wiser. Taking a moment to breathe in and feel nature has sometimes saved me.

My bones definitely creak; mostly because I have juvenile arthritis, but I also feel ancient in my mind.

The wear and tear my body has faced for such a physically young being is unnatural. I can't describe the strange feelings of almost bleeding to death or stomach ulcers brought on by stress.

Those weird feelings of my bones cracking wrong or my knees suddenly giving out.

I've seen more of the Galaxy from here on earth than most adults have ever seen in a poster.

The meteor showers, the shooting stars, the solar flares, the cycles of the moon, the constellations? They accompany me on my walk down to my death.

Even better, looking up daily to love the clouds. I've seen amazing things and infinite days in mere minutes.

The feeling of cool streams and powerful rivers. Almost drowning in the ocean on multiple occasions, feeling the rain on my face. Those are the most powerful moments I've ever experienced.

Hearing the cry of infantile wildlife and mothering it feels like an old friend of mine. I cannot emphasize on how many creatures I've fostered back to health.

I've seen life and I've seen death, and quite too much of it for my age. The wars, the shootings, the stabbings and car accidents. People hanging themselves and people who die clear well before their body does. The births i e witnessed, the blooming of Meadows, the appearance of the new foxes.

Aiding things that normally need help and defending those who have lost their shields. Befriending things considered monsters. Providing a moment of peace for animals searching for the bridge of mortality.

The comfort I bring to people, the therapy I provide from listening and accepting, it was never something I had received myself.

My therapist diagnosed me a sociopath path as an ignorant response to seeing my lack of attachment to people. Technically she's not wrong, I'm a mild sociopath.

And before anyone gets weirded out, sociopaths do have feelings. They are simply harder to reach and read by strangers or common uninvolved people. Psychopaths pretend to care when they don't really. They are violent and unpredictable. Do not confuse us, do your research.

My English teacher this year had made a remark about me being an old soul, and oh, how right she was. I am ancient and people notice.

Life has been forever as I have been forever. My heart is still there, just ground to a fine sand and stored somewhere safer.

I'm tired, of course from my worrying for the human race and how much trouble people are creating these days. The people, they see me and tell me to smile, yet I have nothing to smile for.

My pain killers are border line overdose and all they do is make me a little dizzy. The last time I had pain relief was five years ago in a hospital. I had been in so much pain I hadn't slept in 17 days and they out me on morphine. I was only 12 years old and it was then it had become apparent I'd never be able to truly rest.

Somehow, I rest anyways. I find peace somewhere. Maybe in my hallucinations, maybe in my dreaming and dissociating, maybe in the way the trees speak. Listen to them, the trees, they can tell you more than a life time of science and precision.

I exist, not to overpower someone else's suffering, but instead to offer safety and support. I share so much to emphasize how much I understand. I'm not here as competition to see who can suffer more, but instead I am here to offer a helping hand to keep other people out of the pit of depression I often find myself in.

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cesium-sheep · 5 years

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my appointment actually went pretty well. I was dreading it because mental health professionals don’t exactly have a great track record with me (of the past 11+ I’d seen, I’d actively liked 2 (the second prescriber at scs and a woman who was on staff for a single night at the hospital) and tolerated or disliked the rest, although it is now 3/12+), and because it occurred to me this afternoon that it might be a gamble, because if the psychiatrist decided I was actually mentally ill it’d override what my pcp had to (correctly) say on the matter.

I went to the main building first and thought I was looking for the psychiatry clinic instead of gen int (because I didn’t bother to look at my email again, I still hate how it’s laid out but that one’s on me), so I went to the second building and psychiatry is the same waitroom as the headache clinic. they directed me back to the main building (they were very helpful) and I got stuck on the elevator down (and the elevator up in the main building) with dr. grabs-your-hands. I don’t think she recognized me though, and she tried to be friendly and start a conversation about my sweatshirt. didn’t like that.

anyway the front desk person I always seem to end up with at gen int recognized me, he’s friendly in a not-overbearing way and I like him. they didn’t have any paperwork for me so I’ve got no fucking clue why they wanted me there half an hour early. I brought my ipad so I could color in the waiting room.

the actual psychiatrist was one of those people who seem like they’re energetic because they’re small? they were relatively average size but it felt like they were very lit up. they started off by setting me loose to ramble about whatever I thought was relevant (army, cold, symptoms, what we’d already tried mental-wise) and we circled back to stuff as needed. they seemed to believe me when I acted like I knew my stuff (probably helped that I was using terms like anhedonia and cptsd and the like) and just like. idk they generally felt like they were meeting my energy? psychology really is one of my special interests so I was getting a little spun up and they were just like “yeah alright let’s go!” it felt like I was being met.

they asked for some descriptions of my physical symptoms and of my experience of depression and depersonalization and meltdowns and autism (they even asked about my special interests) and I mentioned that mindfulness can be harmful to people with chronic dissociation which I hope is useful to them, and of mom and all that kinda stuff. I mentioned being there to placate the grownups rather than out of my own concerns and they were like “yeah cool I think your dr mentioned that” and I even showed them the business cards I made and they liked them. said they were a good idea or something to that effect.

they were also happy to sum up at the end that they did not think I was exhibiting signs of any of the major mental disorders they would look for and they suggested fibro and cfs as things that sort of fit the profile if I was looking for ideas (thoughtful! direct! wonderful!)

overall I’d say I had not just a good experience but like. a good time? I love talking about my special interests with someone that’s engaging with me. I’m really glad it worked out well this time.

(they were also willing to defer to me about “nts don’t always understand their own rules”, “I think I’ve got a good handle on things”, “I know my shit to some degree” and just generally cool with letting me off the leash and keeping up with me on their own. I love it when people keep up with me without trying to drag me down. (note: trying to drag me down isn’t synonymous with simply not keeping up with me. it’s a distinctly grownup-y behavior.) (also worth noting: all three of the mental health professionals I liked have had that same feature of keeping up with me without dragging me down. anyone else either didn’t keep up or tried to drag me down.))

(ooh dog park analogy since I already said “off the leash”; mh professionals who didn’t keep up with me would let me off the leash, but they’d just find a bench to chill on instead of putting themselves into the space as well. I’m not gonna run very hard that way because I’m not being met. the ones who dragged me down kept me on the leash. the ones who keep up are actively meeting me in that space, letting me steer without being uninvolved. they’re actually in there with me instead of disengaging or limiting.)

whoops almost forgot to say I specifically let them know that they made me comfortable and it was a positive interaction and stuff, I’d also mentioned a couple of the times mental health professionals had been Pretty Shit since it’d happened to’ve come up. so like it felt reasonable to do.

#long post #ask to tag

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