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alostlittleriverlotus · 28 days

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what also gets me about people being so adamant about using the word "narcissist" or some form of it to describe shitty people is...there are other words. I was just watching a drew gooden video and he said "If you knowingly take part in something that has the potential to put other people in harm's way and you still do it cause it's kind of fun for you, you are selfish and you suck." (It's the gender reveal party.)

Just seeing how many commentary YouTubers, especially more leftist ones that talk about the heavier side of things like misogynists and seeing them use the term narcissistic or delusional is just. We HAVE other words we can use! We HAVE USED other words for years before narcissistic became a big trend to say and narcissistic abuse really ramped up as a pop psychology trend.

It is literally SO easy to use other words. You can Google similar words. Selfish, self centered, self righteous, egotistical, arrogant, entitled. One of the best words I find is probably entitled. Because a lot of bigots and misogynists and shit that usually get delusional and narcissistic thrown at them are really more self centered, arrogant, and entitled. Self interested, self obsessed. Especially since for abusers, misogynists, other shitty people, the entitled comes from the fact it is NORMALIZED!!!!! It is not a bunch of narcissists harming people, it is a society, a world, that has normalized this behaviour. They are entitled, they are abusive, they are selfish, they are cruel. There are so many OTHER WORDS to describe your abuse, to describe shitty people. Just call them abusers or bigots for fucks sake. And even if some delusional people may get roped into it cause they're vulnerable, typically it is a lot of people who are INTENTIONALLY doing it. It is normalized, it is allowed!

All we narcissists ask is that you not use a word that demonizes us. "There's a difference" yet other people say there isn't, other people say NPD isn't even fucking real, other people say pwNPD ARE abusive. If we used any kind of other word for the more "talked about" disorders, there would be a problem. We ask that you change it, we ask that you use other words, we ask that you not further add to the stigma. The same stigma that BPD deals with, that autistic people deal with, that any neurodivergent person deals with. The stigma and demonization is something ALL neurodivergencies have fucking faced!!! It may have moved away from demonization for a lot of disorders, but there ARE people that DO still believe it.

We fucking ask you literally use any other word. And you refuse to. You refuse to listen to us. You refuse to believe us when we tell you the harm it has and how it actually prevents us from finding resources. You say "of course a narcissist would want that." You see it as an attack on you and your trauma. You are throwing trauma victims at risk of abuse under the bus because you want to feel vindicated in your own trauma. You completely ignore any critical thinking of what we say to turn it against us, to ignore us, to bring up your own trauma as a defense point. Yes, you were abused by someone and it is terrible that happened. So were we!!! My abusive mom probably has NPD, but it did not affect the abuse I faced, it only add strains in our relationship outside of the abuse that still affect us to this day.

It is SO easy to find another word, to literally just listen to us, to not throw us under the same fucking bus. To not group us in with abusers and rapists and child sex offenders and murderers. Would you fucking like to be compared to your abuser? Pretty sure you fucking wouldn't. So why is it okay to do to us?

Some people will never listen. No matter what I say, it does not matter. As with any kind of thinking along these lines. But for those that are still reachable, please. Listen to us. And what would you even do if you found yourself having NPD traits? Wouldn't it be terrifying to see that in yourself? Because I sure as hell thought it was. It made me hate myself and further believe that I could NEVER do any wrong because I wasn't like my narcissistic abusers and worsened my relationship difficulties. A fair bit of narcissists on here had also fallen into that same hole. It doesn't heal you. It keeps you angry, scared, upset. It makes you want to hurt them back. And that will not heal you. It'll keep you defensive. It's keeping you in a victim mentality and preventing healing.

To the ones that ARE reachable, I hope you can learn something from my posts, from posts I reblog, or from any other posts. It starts with narcissists and "psychopaths" (antisocials), but it is the same place the stigma of every neurodivergency and mental disorder stems from. It's why other disorders may still get demonization from some ableists. That a lot of autistic experiences were based around how it affected OTHER PEOPLE like "think of their mom having that autistic kid :(" it is not anything new. It is the same ableism and stigma. It is less demonized for other disorders now, focusing more on treating it as no big deal, ignoring the actual difficult symptoms of such disorders (like if you have poor hygiene, people will judge you regardless), or even infantilization. There IS still stigma, but the stigma was once the same as us, demonization. It comes from the same place. It's things said about other disorders still today even if it is rarer. It's just more well known for the "scary" personality and psychotic disorders since there is a big push to destigmatize things like depression, anxiety, OCD, autism.

Do not throw us under the bus. It will do nothing. It is the same fucking stigma, the same fucking arguments. Like gay people throwing trans people under the bus, they're called the same things even if it seems like they aren't. It comes from the same bigotry, the same place of hatred.

It is not new, it is not different, it just is more common for personality disorders, psychotic disorders, and schizospec disorders. So when we bring up these things, mention how using the term directly associated with a disorder in the DSM V and how it prevents us getting help, how using the term narcissistic DOES correlate to NPD, please fucking listen.

Cause nothing will ultimately benefit you for continuing down that rabbit hole. Narcissistic abuse believers don't help victims of abuse, those articles and questions don't help you heal. It keeps you angry how anyone could do that, it takes advantage of your vulnerability and desire to find meaning and logic out of it. The reality is, you may never know why or at least not until you are away from the abuse.

We are trauma victims as well. We are still at risk of abuse because of our disorder. I would genuinely stay with an abuser just for the sake of narc supply regardless of how they hurt me if I did not have a good support system. For our "toxic" traits, we cannot work on them without help and the idea of narcissistic abuse pushes stigma further which prevents us from even finding free online resources, let alone if we actually tried to seek any fucking help.

Narcissistic abuse is not real and it will never be. Please fucking include us in "mental health matters" and the push for destigmatizing disorders. We are fucking humans that need help. And even if we were all toxic and selfish hypothetically, removing the ability to find resources or get help is NOT the way to go.

Even when I believed in narcissistic abuse, I would search to find answers on why I aligned with NPD if I wasn't an abuser or a bad person. I was terrified to even suspect it despite how much attention and love and supply I needed and how that applied to the very essence of my being. Even when I examined my own actions, all I found was treating it as if they're the utter worst of humanity. Even with my toxic and unhealthy acts because I was a fucking traumatized teen with no experience for relationships of any kind especially not healthy ones, I could not find answers or help. And all that did was reassure me that I WAS the good person, that I was JUSTIFIED in my toxic desires because I was traumatized. It did not help me with my emotional regulation, it worsened it.

Even if narcissists WERE all abusers or toxic and bad, they deserve fucking help and a chance to be able to see their actions in a better light. Some people may never change, but plenty will if given resources and actual professional help. The idea of narcissistic abuse refuses that and just demonizes it and NOBODY wants to be demonized, NOBODY wants to believe they're a bad person. The term narcissistic abuse and the environment and community surrounding it is toxic. It always will be. That is inherently what it is about. It kept me terrified that someone might call me an abusive narcissist because of my emotional difficulties, that someone would take me out of context and turn me into a monster like my family had done my entire fucking life. It keeps you defensive, it keeps you scared, it keeps you mistrustful, it keeps you in those trauma responses. It does not fucking help victims find peace of mind or heal. It keeps you triggered.

Also NPD isn't just a single disorder on its own. It's comorbid or the person could be ND in other ways. BPD + NPD, it has some genetic factors so a narcissistic parent may increase likelihood you have it, there are DID systems with it. You are not just throwing people with purely ONLY NPD under the bus, but whoever else may have it that may also fall under many other categories. I'm autistic and have NPD, I'm a system with NPD, I'm schizospec and psychotic with NPD. I have ADHD and NPD. They may not be directly related and comorbid, but I do still fall under these other categories. So autistics throwing people with NPD under the bus does nothing for the narcissists that are also fucking autistic. So by throwing narcissists under the bus, you are throwing a LOT of people with that disorder that also have other forms of neurodivergency under the bus as well. And the stigma all comes from the same place anyway.

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crippleprophet · 7 months

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rules of engagement before we begin: do not seek the original post out to interact with it negatively or harass op in any way. if i find out about anybody doing that sort of shit i’ll block them so quick it’ll be the fastest i’ve moved all year. ok thx here we go

[image description: three screenshots of a post with the username blacked out. the introductory & closing paragraphs are as follows, & the bullet points will be listed within the body of this post. the introduction reads:

nobody warns you this but addiction happens without you noticing and one of the first things that it attacks is your ability to care. if you find yourself using recreational drugs every day, stop and take one day a week sober. if you struggle with this or if you don't see the point of the exercise, you are likely already addicted and you need help.

nobody ever taught me the warning signs for drug addiction, only that "it costs lots of money and destroys your life!!!1" which is not helpful if you can't recognize a developing addiction in yourself. so here's some things to watch out for with recreational drug use.

the conclusion reads: yes this applies to weed. weed is a drug and you can get addicted to it like any other substance. addiction is not the same as physical dependence; it is psychological and it can happen to anyone. you are not immune to addiction. end image description.]

now! fundamentally why i will never align with this kind of perspective is that i affirm addiction as a social construct, like all so-called mental illnesses, & the psychiatric institution which invents & reifies them as a fucking sham.

answer quickly:

what substances is it possible for one to become addicted to? does this include caffeine? why or why not?

is the claim of sugar addiction legitimate or anti-fat pseudoscience? what, if anything, differentiates this from other addiction science?

what is the harm of the so-called opioid epidemic: access to a safe supply of narcotics, or the lack thereof?

can an autistic person who eats the same dinner every night, for example, be said to be “psychologically addicted” to it if they have a meltdown & subsequent ongoing distress + disinterest in food when it is discontinued?

can you be addicted to psychiatric medication? immunosuppressants? why or why not?

my point is less that these behaviors are not indicative of addiction but rather that that wouldn’t inherently make them harmful. fuck it, let’s take it point by point!

planning your day around drugs e.g "i'll give myself an extra half hour before heading out so i can get high first"

this whole post had me asking “literally what is the problem with this,” starting with this first bullet! why does someone need to leave for the grocery store at 5:30 instead of 6, or whatever? and the other recurring theme: what happens if you replace “drugs” with “pain management”? (chronic pain is not the only valid reason to get high—all reasons for drug use are equally value-neutral—but it certainly still is one.) “i’ll give myself an extra half hour before heading out for my pain management to start working” is the kind of calculation familiar to most people with chronic pain. “stop and take one day a week without pain management” is not a test of whether you “need help,” it’s torture.

now, disregarding one’s priorities or commitments to other people in favor of drugs can happen, & in many circumstances it’s harmful to the other people impacted. that’s not what was said here, & stopping that behavior does not require getting sober.

rapidly switching emotions around drugs. you love them but you hate that you love them so much. you hate the way you feel on them but you hate being sober. feeling guilty after using even when you didn't give a crap beforehand.

do you know what else i love but hate that i love, what else i hate using? my fucking bed. three years ago, my mobility scooter. this is not a logical argument, this is a bullshit argument. my feelings about something do not inherently reflect its harm to others – or to myself, even, though i firmly argue for the right to make “self-harmful” decisions regardless.

you know what people hate being on but hate worse being off? the vast fucking majority of medications.

why might a drug user start to feel guilty when they previously didn’t? being shamed by friends, family, or a fucking tumblr post; surpassing a constructed threshold of “acceptable” use they didn’t know they’d internalized; experiencing new or greater access issues; beginning to probe their morality around drugs & unpack things they were taught; experiencing consequences of criminalization; getting triggered.

caring less about spending money. if you are budgeting for drugs like they are food, you are likely prioritizing them more than is healthy.

“if you are budgeting for pain management like it’s as important as food, you are likely prioritizing it more than is healthy.” health is absolutely useless as a value for me anyway, but: the food’s no good if i’m too nauseous or too dead to eat it.

prioritizing drugs over other people’s financial needs is harmful! this wouldn’t happen if food & drugs were provided to people; some people wouldn’t need as many drugs if their needs were met otherwise; people’s needs being met shouldn’t be dependent on their parent / partner / self not using drugs; this harm is not what the bullet says.

getting high to do household chores and other unpleasant things because it would suck less and be more bearable on drugs

“things should suck. because god wills it i said so.”

feeling anxious or restless while sober, not knowing what to do with oneself, feeling lost or ungrounded.

again just. what’s the problem with that. so what if being sober sucks or is boring or stressful or demanding. so what if someone decides to deal with that sober or decides to use more because of that. who gives a shit.

thinking about doing drugs constantly even while sober. maybe it's the first thing you think of when you wake up. maybe when you're bored or otherwise have free time, drugs are one of the first things you can think of to occupy yourself with.

“thinking about getting better pain management constantly when you’re in pain”

i feel like you’re gonna tell me the only thing that can really take my pain away is jesus

again like. what is the problem with doing drugs because you’re bored. why do i need to occupy myself, what, fucking productively?

going to work or school while under the influence, especially if it happens regularly and if you're seeing your performance suffer as a result.

what’s wrong with going to school high. derailing a class discussion is a dick move, maybe, but that’s not inherent to being high. work & performance are both very broad terms – a surgeon or someone operating heavy machinery not being sober is putting others at risk of harm in a way a cashier is not.

the idea of taking a 'tolerance break' sounds good to you until it's actually break time, at which point you can come up with 20 very reasonable sounding points to explain why it wouldn't benefit you actually and you should just keep doing drugs regardless.

y’all think this is incredibly circular logic too right? “drugs are bad, so telling yourself drugs are not bad is proof that they’re bad.” took me right back to the sunday school classroom and i wish i was fucking exaggerating. it’s an argument founded upon the inherent wrongness of trusting yourself – what you want to do must be wrong because you want it. this is one of the points that’s a more solid indicator of, like, “congrats! you’re now in circumstances doctors are salivating to psychiatrize as XYZ Use Disorder,” but that doesn’t make it any less nonsense as a moral argument.

even if you succeed at quitting the drug, you keep your dealer's number on your phone "just in case"

so what. what’s wrong with giving yourself the continual autonomy to choose whether or not to do drugs. what’s wrong with quitting drugs for a while and starting using again.

you pretend to be sober when you aren't. you worry about other people noticing how much time you spend high. you make efforts to hide your drug use or minimize how much other people think you're using. you're scared of other people's judgement if they were to find out.

this one might be the most ludicrous to me, which is really saying something. “if other people being bigoted towards drug users makes you pretend to use less than you do, that’s your fault & not theirs.” cool! thanks for the quick heads up to not believe a word you say!

you have mood swings laced with self-hatred, regret, financial worries, and guilt. these mood swings are then very quickly wiped away by feelings of "but it doesn't matter, i can do what i want, and clearly i'm doing just fine while using drugs frequently". news flash, if you are rapidly switching between feeling numb-ok and hating yourself more than anything because of your drug use, you are mentally ill.

again, “the norm knows you better than you know yourself, you can’t listen to yourself, the body is wrong, wanting is wrong, pleasure is wrong, you are wrong wrong wrong.” but god, what a beautiful example of how oppression is psychiatrized: it’s not enough for the oppression to have worked, the system must then convince us that the effects of it working are our own fault. it’s not enough to just kill us with us fully aware of the knife, it’s gotta convince us we’re bleeding out for no reason. if you want any moments of pleasure during your miserable godforsaken little life you’d better put your nose back on the goddamn grindstone and repent. everything around you for your entire life has told you to hate yourself for your drug use but if the combined force of that violence works you are mentally ill, and that is the worst crime of all.

according to this post, when is it okay to use drugs, then? well, not planned into your day, and not at work or school, but not when you’re bored or have been thinking about it too much, and not if anyone who’d judge you or you don’t trust knowing you’re high or you just don’t want knowing is around, and not if you don’t want to quit, but also not if you’ve quit already. you have to hate your drug use otherwise that’s proof it’s attacked your ability to care but hating your drug use is proof you should stop. #JustSayNo

#& yes i wrote this stoned #substance use #drug use #addiction #drugs #long post #stigma #mac.txt

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stillfuckingtired · 2 months

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Wish it was acceptable to whimper in public. Mind out of the gutter—I mean that I’m always in pain and I’m bad at vocalizing it around other people (bc stigma) and it would be nice to feel like I could express my pain in public more like the way I do when I’m alone.

#chronic pain #chronic illness #fibromyalgia #chronic fatigue #disabled #ouchies #stigma

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biologist4ever · 9 days

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liberaljane · 5 months

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💜 Let’s talk about young parent stigma - the idea that those expecting or parenting under the age of 25 are inferior or unworthy of our support & resources. Pregnant & parenting young people are often seen as society’s “failures,” or “unfit caregivers” - which is just not true.

Digital illustration of a large diverse group of young people with their children and pets. Among the crowd is a father wearing a shirt that reads, 'we deserve to thrive and not just survive' with his child on his shoulders. In the center is a young person and their baby holding a sign that reads, 'Center the voices of expectant and parenting youth.'

#art #feminism #feminist #illustration #young parents #stigma #reproductive health #reproductive rights #parents #new parents #young parent stigma

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wishcamper · 3 months

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Nesta, Interrupted: gendered perceptions of alcoholism in ACOSF

CW: addiction, sexual assault, gendered violence.

Creds: I’m a licensed counselor with a degree specialization in treating addiction. I have career experience with multiple modes of mental health, trauma, and substance use treatment in women-specific carceral, institutional, and healthcare settings. And I know anyone can come on the internet and say that, but I pinky promise.

The short version:

ACOSF stigmatizes alcoholism in line with cultural standards.

Western culture feels differently about female and male alcoholics due to systemic sexism, and thus treats them differently.

Women’s experience of alcoholism is often compounded by or even a result of systemic factors and intersectional identity.

Nesta’s treatment in ACOSF, while repugnant, is in many ways very accurate of attitudes today.

(I’ll be using “women/men” and “male/female” to denote cis afab and amab people. Little research exists on the experiences of queer, nonbinary and gender expansive considerations in addiction and recovery, which is a fuckin’ shame. Studies are also largely conducted with white participants due to enormous barriers to treatment for Black, Indigenous, and people of color, so this convo is inherently incomplete where it neglects those intersections.)

Okay, first things first: ACOSF is a book that stigmatizes alcoholism. I will not be taking questions.

The number one thing to understand is that in America, land of Miss Sarah, we are very bad at addiction treatment (tx). Why? Because our culture hates addicts has as stigma around addiction. And female alcoholics bear a very specific set of stigmas based in their identity.

In Susanna Kaysen’s memoir Girl, Interrupted , Kaysen’s character is institutionalized following a non-fatal suicide attempt. When evaluated, she’s diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, that bastion of diagnoses perfect for people (75% of whom are female-identified) who don’t fit into our polite definition of functioning. As the book unfolds, she reflects on how (white) women are often pathologized when they buck against systems of oppression that create the dysfunction in them in the first place. That is not to say other women in the institution are not genuinely in need of help, nor that mental illness in women is always from a systemic wound. But it’s crucial in the treatment of female addiction and mental health disorders to considered the systemic factors of gendered violence and patriarchy, and the attitudes we hold about women who struggle with drinking.

Think about female alcoholics in media. If she’s young, she’s a loose, reckless sl*t looking for trouble and deserving of the reality check when she finds it (Amy Schumer in Trainwreck, Lindsay Lohan in general). Or if the woman are older, they are discarded, or gross, or pathetic, or evil like anyone Faye Dunaway played or Eminem’s mom in 8 Mile (deep cut lol). Men are afforded a much larger spectrum of experiences and struggles - Ernest Hemingway, Leaving Las Vegas, Sideways, the dude from A Star is Born, Frank from Shameless (brilliant), frat boys, blue collar workers, introspective tortured artists, fucking IRON MAN. I could go on forever, but I hope that illustrates the depth and diversity of male-centric stories of alcoholism not often afforded to women.

One of the most empathetic and accurate portrayals of female alcoholism, in my opinion, is in the show Sharp Objects (the book, too, but actually witnessing it makes a difference). We see Amy Adams’ Camille swig vodka from an Evian bottle while fending off vicious, veiled attacks from her verbally and emotionally abusive mother and experiencing flashbacks of teenage sexual assault. We watch her struggle to find emotional safety in her conservative hometown, both wanting to fit in and get out in order to survive. We GET why she drinks and I have trouble blaming her for it even as she wreaks havoc on herself and others. We can see her clawing just to make it out alive, and alcohol is the tool she’s using to do it, for better or worse.

Which is where Nesta enters the chat. When we get our first glimpse of her alcohol use is ACOFAS, it’s portrayed as something everyone knows about but that she’s still mostly keeping it together - her dress is clean, her hair is neatly braided, she doesn’t need a chaperone to show up to a family event. The deterioration between ACOFAS and ACOSF is alarming, and we know that alcoholism is a progressive condition so that tends to happen. Was there a particular trigger? That’s hard to say. Solstice certainly didn’t help, especially with the pressures to perform and conform to the standards of the Inner Circle aka the people in power. I imagine seeing her sisters bouncey and reveling in the world that stole them and killed their father was probably.. tough, to say the least. The barge party seems to be a turning point as well, though this one is more confusing to me. But given the child abuse, extreme poverty, sexual assault, kidnapping, bodily violation, witnessing her father’s murder, almost dying, WAR - and that’s not even to mention essentially becoming a refugee - it would be amazing if she DIDN’T drink. She 100% has complex trauma, and is looking for ways to cope.

No one with full capacity dreams of becoming an addict when they grow up. Addiction, in my professional and personal experience, is largely a strategy for coping with a deeper wound. People don’t drink to feel bad. They drink to feel good, and to survive. Nesta herself is drinking to survive, but it’s having the unfortunate side effect of killing her at the same time. As she slides into active addiction, the thought of her own death may even be comforting, and alcohol in that way is her friend. (There's some interesting research right now framing addiction as an attachment disorder, but I don't know enough to speak on it much.)

So she obviously needs help. That’s not a debate. What is a debate is how the IC should best go about intervening. A variation on the Johnson method is used in ACOSF (the one from the show Intervention) and appears to be successful only because they threaten her if she doesn’t comply. This method has mixed data to support it, and while it’s very good at getting people into tx, there is a higher relapse rate for those who receive it (1). The “family” gathers and tells her the ways she’s hurt them and tell her the consequences if she doesn’t seek the help they’re offering. And again, so many of their reason are the effects on THEM, how she’s making THEM look, not her pain.

The IC’s ignorance and dismissal of her alcoholism in ACOSF is frankly mystifying. Why do they intervene on all the drinking and sexing, anyway? It seems like they’ve been fine enough with it up to this point. But now it's gone too far, not because of her illness but because she is embarrassing them. And I don’t know about you, but between Cassian apparently fucking half of Velaris and Mor’s heavily documented emotional drinking, that’s hard to square. It makes it feel much more likely that they don’t like the way she is coping, that she is not fitting into their picture of who she’s supposed to be. This picture is inherently gendered, because Prythian society and those who live in it have explicit and implicit expectations of gender roles, whether they’ll admit it or not. Cassian and Mor are playing their roles well; Nesta is not.

That leads me to believe it is NOT all about her, but the systemic and internal factors influencing their perception of her and the ways she’s struggling. It’s distasteful to them for her, a female, to be deteriorating this publicly, despite the fact that her very identity makes it harder for her to function in the patriarchy of Prythian. We hear almost exclusively about sexual violence against women, aside from 2 male characters. Past or present assault of women is a major plot point on multiple occasions (Mor, Gwyn, Nesta, Emerie, Rhysands mom and sister, the lady of autumn, Cassians mom, Azriels mom, I could go on). But something about the way Nesta is contending with that is unacceptable, and I believe it’s because she’s not trying to cover up her dysfunction. In prythian, we keep these things hidden- Mor’s assault is never processed in full, Azriel’s mom seems to be alone at Rosehall, priestesses are literally hidden inside a mountain for centuries. Women process trauma alone and in the dark, but Nesta is in the light and she is loud. She is refusing to hide her problems, and the IC don’t like that, whether they realize it or not.

So why don’t the IC understand this? Like I said earlier, as a culture we hate addicts, or what they stand for, in very much the same way I think we hate people experiencing homelessness. We convince ourselves it was a series of bad choices that led someone where they are, choices we would never make because we are smart, smarter than them. We believe are more in control than that. We can prevent bad things from happening to us because we are good, because we are better than whoever it’s happening to. But the reality is almost ALL of us are one hospital stay away from homelessness, just as all of us are one trauma away from addiction. And with female addicts, we have another layer of expecting women to only struggle nicely and quietly, or to go away. Intersectional factors are at play here, too: white women are much more likely to have alcoholism attributed to mental health and trauma factors, where people of color often suffer the same addiction being more associated with crime. You can imagine how that plays out differently.

So what is the effect of all this? Gendered expectations lead to not only external stigma around addiction and tx, but also to internalized stigma which can limit willingness to seek tx. (2) Many social forces encourage women to drink and discourage them from telling anyone. Factors such as poverty, family planning, access to education, racial discrimination, and location can make services harder to access. Internally, women are more likely to enter treatment with less confidence in their ability to succeed, but report more strengths and more potential to grow recovery strengths during and following tx. For men, the pattern is reversed (3). And women have more successful tx episodes overall when gendered considerations are a part of the design and implementation of services (4). For Nesta, the effect is that she’s forced into treatment and copes by having hate sex with her ex and changing herself to conform to her family’s expectations while the House and the Valkyrie’s actually take care of her. I do not see how Sarah drew the line from there to recovery, I truly don’t. If anything, she recovers in spite of the ICs intervention, not because of it.

In summary, Nesta Archeron deserved better. Nesta deserved the same compassion the book gives to men who are struggling, and it’s a reflection of not just the book’s culture but the author’s culture that she doesn’t get it. Female alcoholics are worthy of treatment that integrates their identities, as those identities are often essential factors contributing to their addiction. What's shown in ACOSF is a reality many women live, and they shouldn't have to.

Barry Loneck, James A. Garrett & Steven M Banks (1996) The Johnson Intervention and Relapse During Outpatient Treatment, The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 22:3, 363-375, DOI: 10.3109/00952999609001665

Groshkova T, Best D, White W. The Assessment of Recovery Capital: Properties and psychometrics of a measure of addiction recovery strengths. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2013;32(2):187–94.

Best D, Vanderplasschen W, Nisic M. Measuring capital in active addiction and recovery: the development of the strengths and barriers recovery scale (SABRS). Subst Abuse Treat, Prev Policy. 2020;15(1):1–8.

Polak, K., Haug, N.A., Drachenberg, H.E. et al. Gender Considerations in Addiction: Implications for Treatment. Curr Treat Options Psych 2, 326–338 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40501-015-0054-5

#nesta archeron #pro nesta #alcoholism #mental health #sexism #acotar #acosf #stigma #rehabilitation #prythian university #sjm critical

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221bluescarf · 5 months

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I just don't understand some people

By far I'm not the only one

An online friend of mine who has schizoaffective received a note at his home telling him "I'm watching you". I've seen the note. it's suspected to be a neighbor.

It just makes no sense

it's hard enough to know what's real. Now we have to worry about people purposely triggering paranoia because why?

is it funny?

Maybe we can overlook the troll messages. But some people are worse than that —more sinister even. They use our illness against us, manipulate us, "gaslight" us. I've seen it many times. I have stories.

I think it's wrong to bully or manipulate *anyone* with *any* mental illness. But with schizophrenia in particular we already struggle to know what's real, to know what's true and what's paranoia, struggle to remember correctly, to think clearly… It's totally unfair and hateful to take advantage of that.

I hope none of you have to experience this behavior, but if you do you're not alone... in a good way <3

#anons #stigma #mental illness #schizospec #schizophrenia #schizoaffective #schizophrenia awareness #mental health awareness #advocacy #ableism #psychosis #actually psychotic #actually schizophrenic #bullying #cyber bullying

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scretladyspider · 5 months

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No, ADHD isn’t caused by iPads and screen time. We’re seeing a rise in diagnosis because professionals are recognizing that it’s not just hyperactive, white, middle and upper class little boys with bad grades. Not because of more access to the internet.

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#adhd #actually adhd #adhd problems #adhd brain #adhd things #adult adhd #living with adhd #adhd stuff #adhd struggles #adhd stigma #stigma #tiktok #ableism #mental health #attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

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moonlit-positivity · 1 month

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Please stop pathologizing yourself. You're a human being at the end of the day. Getting so hung up over how you handle your symptoms & whether or not you're "right" or "wrong" to act that way? This only induces more shame, guilt, humiliation, and fosters more resentment for your inner self talk.

There is so much talk in recovery spaces about how to be this perfect idealistic vision of health at every possible stage. But that is not realistic at all. People have trauma. People have mental breakdowns. People have anger and rage and people have to live and go through things before you ever really know what to do with some of this stuff, how to handle it, etc.

At the end of the day, finding solace in your diagnosis can be cathartic, of course. But if you're dragging yourself through the mud because of what you've been handed in life and not knowing how to carry that like the Mona Lisa? Thats causing you more harm & distress than you'd think. Your diagnosis can be helpful for clarifying what's going on up there in the spicy brain noodle shop, but to be completely honest that's about it.

Why?

Well, because you're still you. You're still a human through and through. No matter what you've done on this earth, no matter what you were born with, no matter what you've been through- you deserve to rest easy knowing you're doing the best with what life has given you to work with.

So long as you're not trying to hurt anyone? Or if you're trying to be a little bit better than you were yesterday?

There is no need to further drag yourself down because the spicy brain demons don't dance the way society wants them to.

You don't deserve to suffer for the way society frames this shit. That is one of the best things you can learn how to do, is break free from the constant need to pathologize yourself at every nick and turn. Sometimes you just do stuff because you want to, because you like it, because it's helpful and beneficial to how you live. You don't need to put yourself in a straight jacket for that.

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solsticeivy · 2 years

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#ocd #obsessive compulsive disorder #mental health #stigma

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keezybees · 2 months

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My book is out today!! I wrote about my experiences with bipolar 1, including mania, psychosis, depression, stigma, treatment, and self-acceptance. Silver Sprocket did an incredible job making this a beautiful book, and I'm so happy to share it with you 💛

It's sort of my way of reaching out past the stigma, and to try to connect with people despite it. I hid it for so long, and it still feels both scary and freeing to talk about it publicly, but every time someone says they felt seen, or that they're better able to understand a loved one, I feel joy. Partly because it means I'm not just crazy all by myself, and partly because all most of us want is to be loved and accepted, and I hope this book can help make that dream more real.

You can find Sunflowers at the Silver Sprocket store (here) or you can request it at your local bookstore or comic shop.

#bipolar disorder #bipolar #mental illness #mental health #mania #depression #psychosis #hallucinations #delusions #comics #comic books #comic book art #autobio #autobio comics #autobiographical #mental health stigma #mental illness stigma #stigma

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babypenguinz · 15 days

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observations from someone who went from invisibly to visibly disabled

around a year ago, i noticed i was having a lot of trouble standing in lines and walking for extended periods, i needed to sit down frequently and was experiencing lightheadedness, chest pain, and just generally feeling like shit after the lightest cardio. i suffer from a variety of diagnosed chronic health issues, as well as symptoms still under investigation, but i was nervous that if i started using a mobility aid, people would be more judgmental towards me while i was out and about in public, especially as someone in my early 20's. instead, my experience has been the opposite.

before i started using a cane, people would see me struggling in public, red-faced and exhausted, and look at me like i was nuisance or had done something wrong. cars would honk at me for not crossing the road fast enough, i'd regularly have to jump back from the road after a driver ignored me trying to cross. since i started using a mobility aid, this has turned to doors being held open for me, drivers signalling that i can cross when they have a green light, and being asked if need help by strangers.

while using a mobility aid has helped my stamina and made it easier to get about physically, the social impact has been far more noticeable to me. without a mobility aid, there was a lot of room for strangers to make their own assumptions about me. i could have been drunk, or high, or in withdrawal, things for which it's socially acceptable to judge someone negatively. with a mobility aid, it becomes clear why i'm struggling.

there's a conversation to be had about the perceived helplessness of being visibly disabled, sometimes people can be intrusive or overbearing, but at the same time it comes with an assumption of innocence and virtue that, while potentially patronising, makes it easier to navigate the world without being judged as anti-social.

for anyone who's been struggling with declining physical ability and considering using a mobility aid, i'd highly recommend taking the leap. not only because you deserve the freedom of being able to participate in society, but because people are far more accommodating of your struggles when there's a visual cue that alters how they perceive you. you can always stop using it if you find it doesn't work for you, but you don't know how beneficial it could be until you've tried it for yourself.

#disability #ableism #mobility aid #chronic illness #chronic pain #chronic fatigue #stigma

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