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#still think my BPD is genetic tho
twsthc · 9 months
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pomefiore headcanons and projections 🔱
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⚠️ warnings: self destructive behavior, unsafe binding, restrictive eating disorders
big thank you to @onemunchyboi for helping me with this, basically all of these hcs are pulled directly from him/his art because hes the pomefiore CEO
last updated: december 17, 2023
VIL SCHOENHEIT !! 👑
🇩🇪🇺🇸🇮🇳 QUEER POLYAM + GENDERQUEER TRANSFEM (she/her)
APPEARANCE HCS:
i base a lot of vils looks off of marilyn monroe and 1920-1950 trends
slightly pudgy because back then being bigger was the beauty standard
has a few moles here and there teehee
medium length hair she doesn't style much, she just keeps it neat
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RANDOM HCS:
when laughing genuinely she snorts and gets really embarrassed about it
random, but i hc vils mom is divorced and one of those "rich evil unwed women," but instead of flirting with the pool boy she flirts with maids (lesbian)
vil doesnt talk about her mom because she's no longer in contact with her
both parents are successful actors that got together for PR and convenience
╰ got mannerisms/habits from her mother, gets advice and doted on by her father
used to dye her hair a lot but realized it wasn't healthy and just touches up the purple tint occasionally now. she's a natural blonde.
he has naturally long nails and prefers clear or slightly translucent nail polish
extremely picky eater. if it looks or smells a certain way, she wont eat it
especially sensitive to mushy pudding-like textures (hates bananas)
VERY EXPRESSIVE. rolls her eyes so far back and scoffs SO aggressively
BPD, HPD, autism. her BPD and HPD are genetic!
her special interests include film and film history, as well as cosmetics history
triggering content below!
has anxiety and self-image issues as well as paranoid delusions. she had an ED her freshman-sophomore years and are still in recovery!
one delusion is that she's actually a villain due to her consistent casting as one
╰ why she gets aggressive with neige, fine with reality checks from rook EXCLUSIVELY.
ROOK HUNT !! 🏹
🇨🇦🇿🇦🇨🇮 PANSEXUAL POLYAM + AGENDER (they/them)
APPEARANCE HCS:
i think theyre extremely racially ambiguous, it's also hard to tell their gender
I DO NOT BELIEVE IN ROOK HUNT FUCKASS BOB. IT'S SHAGGY AND CURLY.
bangs constantly cover their eyebrows so its hard to ever tell their expression
in the summer they get really dark and stay tan in the winter
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theatre kid
after vil introduced them to dressing "neater," they've been obsessed with shopping for clothes, perfume, hair products, etc.
despite being a pomefiore rich kid they're still a grimy savanaclaw member at heart who crouches to look at cool bugs once and a while
used to have a LOT of acne, especially on their back and face
had braces their sophomore year, they used to have little buckteeth
because they're a hunter they're scarily good at being super quiet
atp no one notices when they enter a room and it scares the shit out of people
when they're upset they go quiet. absolute master of silent treatment.
can be really competitive (because they have so many siblings)
never lost the tan from their savanaclaw days, still has freckles here and there
absolutely insane preposterous eyebags
triggering content below!
they are bulimic. thats it
EPEL FELMIER !! 🍎
🇹🇷🇺🇸 GAY TRANS MAN (he/him)
APPEARANCE HCS:
fat + apple body shape and kinda muscular idc
the middle photo below is my faceclaim for him :3 his skin is darker tho
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vil teases him for his southern accent which gets worse when hes upset
has/had extremely crooked teeth and has been wearing braces for a while
has a slight stutter and lisp (mostly from the braces)
constantly biting the side of his cheek or tongue on accident
wears those colorful star-shaped pimple patches
likes baggy clothes for when he can't bind, vil only accommodates to his southern grunge style when he's dysphoric, needs comfort, or is feeling homesick
used to chew with his mouth slightly open until vil looked at him with such disgust his body learned how to correct it himself
triggering content below!
extreme body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria
he actively avoids mirrors (i think im so clever for this hc. do you get it... snow white... mirror mirror on the wall...? im so fucking smart...)
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ang30l · 5 months
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My tnt Duo au. Based on my own mind and a 2 year rp.
These are all c! Not cc!!
Their both trans just like- Wilbur got bottom surgery Q did not, Wilbur is autistic and q has BPD. Wilbur is also really fat 👌
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Enjoy :)
Wilbur and quackity have had it rough yes and when Wilbur was revived wuackity wasn’t all that happy,leading up to slimes death,quackity and Wilbur start to make these hook ups basically to prove who’s more stronger? Idk man. But Wilbur won everyone of them if yk what I mean.
After a while, of these hook ups and slimes death brings us to probably the funniest part of the au for me
One night quackity wakes up to a load bang at his door,it’s Wilbur knocking and asking for a place to stay. Quackity agrees and he sleeps on a air matress because as quackity puts it he is to disgusting and a virus haver to share beds. Wilbur gets a nightmare tho and sneaks into qs bed while he’s sleeping,cuddling him and all that shit.
Q goes crazy when he wakes up. Then Wilbur just doesn’t leave? They get more and more close and share their first real kiss while fighting each other. A little while after they start dating and Wilbur moves in..
Then something happens
The guitar incident.
One night wikbur is reallll drunk and completely out of his head..q is cleaning out their attic and finds wilburs guitar and accidentally breaks it. He attempts to show Wilbur,not knowing he was drunk and Wilbur,loving his guitar dearly. Takes his anger and guilt out on quackity using a glass bottle…
Quackity is left with a huge scar on the back of his head from this and this scar still has never healed up.
Then somehow quackity finds out he’s pregnant,miscarries.(DISCLAIMER THERES A LOT OF MISCARRIAGES.)
But he didn’t tell Wilbur. Still scared of him after the guitar and forever will be.
Around 2 years later wilbur proposed in their bedroom,but only a few days before the wedding WILBUR BASICALLYS BLOWS UP QUACKITY SO HES ON CRUTCHES FOR HIS WEDDING?!? Anyways :3
Like only a few months into their marriage q gets pregnant again,actually telling Wilbur and just around the 8 month mark MISSCARRIAGES.. so he’s real depressed and they decide to adopt
They adopted a little girl named tallulah,calling her lulah for short.
Over these years tho q distanced himself from his family,over come with grief and thinking he wasn’t a good partner for not being able to keep a child and not trusting himself near lulah.. all these built up feelings cause him to relapse,in a endless spiral of this pain. Wilbur and foolish help him out of this tho,as q is brought back to a more healthy mental state.
HE GETS PREGNANT AGAIN..SOMEHOW.
And actually keeps it this time! So everyone’s happy! Expect..Wilbur
Wilbur isn’t happy because it was so sudden..and just after such a stressful time..he also wasn’t happy because when the baby was born..he looked nothing like him and started to think quackitu cheated. They named this baby Tilin.
Something happens tho
When tilin was just around 6 months old..because of genetics and shit when Wilbur was revived his genetics were mutated and his left side of his jaw was completely destroyed. This carrying on to tilin who suffered a infection witch led to his 1st life being taken away. Everyone was sad
EXPECT WILBUR.
Wilbur was only happy because now! He would have white streaks like him! He didn’t even care that the poor boy died! He definitely had a favourite child.
Nkw a lot happend but nothing important so we fast forward,lulah pursuers a career in muisic and tilin is in college.
Q and will are all alone and around in the 60s now. They have their nice little ending and yeah :)
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sk1nn1anar3ss1c · 1 year
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so yesterday i spoke with my mum bc app i have to be more open ab my mental illnesses and health even tho she doesnt do anything. i have to tell her when i want to/have selfhrm again and when im feeling suicidal literally every day jf you must know mum. anyway were kind of open in the mental health department just not illnesses she thinks that diagnoses is just an excuse and something for attention but she told me she thinks i have bpd bc she does too and yes i have trauma its genetic etc and i am showing practically all the symptoms so cahms and mental health services are ‘helping’ (theyre really not) but yesterday i decided to tell her ive relapsed in my ed bc i told her 2 years ago about it bc i started crying infront of her after eating a slice of pizza 💀 anyway i told her ab it when it gor bad AGAIN like a year ago she just brushed it off even though i was erm quite underweight. but i told her yesterday and she said yeah ive been eating lots of pastries and cream and loads of shit so i might go back to eating veg soups and not as much pastry..? i said no mum its not like that i havent eaten ‘pastries and cream’ ive been eating practically next to nothing for weeks i told her while im getting help with bpd i might speak about ana with them and she said to me ‘no **** youre not ano****c youd be getting fed through tubes and dying in a hospital bed you would weigh half as much. i was just sat there with tears in my eyes like ok mum im still talking to them about it you narcissistic fck
rant over.
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mars-ipan · 3 years
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is there a mental illness where you just acquire the symptoms of other mental illnesses
#like. i become friends with depressed people in middle school#i start showing depressive tendencies (although my dad has depression so this could be genetic)#i learn about did and other dissociative disorders#i start dissociating (or maybe i start noticing dissociation? i’ve always been good at zoning out)#i learn about adhd and how it’s more than just ‘oh squirrel’#i start having trouble focusing and keeping track of things (maybe i’ve always been like this? can’t tell bad memory)#like. are these things i’ve only just started noticing or am i picking these up???#am i learning to put names to these symptoms or is this just advanced human mimicry#i am. so confused#bc it doesn’t feel fake? like it feels 100% real. i don’t know how i’d fake this#but it’s... weird. and according to the people around me i’m fine#my mother is an exception. she has always suspected that there are no nts in this household and that there is actually something up with me#which is actually very validating thank you mom for reminding me that i’m not the only one who sees this#it’s funny tho my mom has suspected i had something since elementary school#like i had been talking about maybe going to therapy for years before i actually did#she thinks i either inhereted her anxiety my dad’s depression or (MAYBE) i have bpd#which. idk if it’s any of those but she looked at me and thought ‘oh she’s mentally ill’#i think part of why my mom is so supportive is bc she wasn’t diagnosed until her 30s. and she wants me to get all the help i need asap#whereas my dad is still undiagnosed (he doesn’t trust psychiatrists) and thinks i’m fine bc it’s normal#vent#i suppose#pls don’t reblog this lol#feel free to reply tho :)
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genderfuck-demon · 3 years
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1 Month on T
ok so, technically im 1 month and 11 days on T bc i missed my mark and kept procrastinating on doing this thing dklfsjhg but here we are finally ok so, changes...
face:
ACNE. there is so much acne. not a whooole lot like i expected, but i do have some really annoying zits here and there and they're itchy and bleh
my eyebrows are filling in pretty nicely i think
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i have no photos to compare, but i think my jaw looks a bit sharper, less roundish. i have like. a lot of baby fat on my cheeks (which is apparently due to asian genetics) which makes me look super young and i hate that bc everyone thinks im a teenage boy, so im hoping that's gonna change
my skin feels thicker? like. idk how to explain it but it just feels slightly less soft
torso & arms:
acne acne acne acne everywheeeeere pls help. ive been using a bunch of stuff to try to control it, and some of it seems to work, but for the most part, im covered in acne T-T i look like i have chicken pox. if anyone has any tips on how to deal w this, pls tell me
like i said before, my skin feels thicker. and (tw: sh mention) i have a lot of scars and now they feel a bit harder and some of them have cracked and look nasty, so im using a hydrating gel thing to try to keep them soft.
ive been working out, so im starting to see some muscle growth 💪 not a lot tho. still got a long way to go.
(TW: SH SCARS)
here's a picture of my arm flexed and unflexed:
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and here's my abs so far. i have -6 pack T-T
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stomach:
HUNGRY 24/7
crotch:
there's a liiittle bit of growth but not much. also it kinda hurts sometimes so that's uncomfortable
legs:
i have a bit more leg hair, but thats about it. i used to have like. none on my thighs and now i do so yay
voice:
as of now, my vocal range is Bb2-A5. iirc pre-T it was C3-A5
EMOTIONAL CHANGES:
ohhhh boyyyyyy. im HORNY all the time. im CRYING all the time. im ANGRY all the time. i have a very Fun combination of bp, bpd, and an inner hormone war going on in there fighting for dominance. Think of it like. being on your period while being pregnant and also going through menopause all at once but also like reversed. it's. all very complicated. it's all very A LOT. and like. im a person who cries quite often bc im highly sensitive, but now ive been like. crying every day. im usually dramatic, but now im over the top extra overdramatic. i asked my doctor hey wtf?? bc isn't T supposed to. yknow. do the opposite??? and he said it's fine and it's bc estrogen levels are pretty high rn bc of the ongoing hormone war. this whole emotional dysregulation should calm it's tits eventually.
okay hhhhhhhhhhhh i thiiink that's it for my 1 month changes. if i forgot anything i'll update this.
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sunsetsover · 5 years
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I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on Ben having BPD
ok WHEW you just opened a fucking can of worms this about to be the longest post i’ve ever made i hope you have your seatbelt on
let me just preface this by saying nearly everything i talk abt in this post will be based off of my personal experiences w bpd. some people experience it differently, some people might not agree w some of the things i say, but i can only talk abt my own pov. therefore, this just my own personal opinions on ben having bpd. so yh lmao
and disclaimer!! i’m not a doctor!! don’t take anything i say in this post as diagnostic criteria! i’m not an expert or mental health professional!! when it comes to your own mental health or the mental health of ppl in your life, do not consider me a source to reference like ‘oh well lauren sunsetsover said xyz’ like pls just don’t do that. do your own research. and most importantly consult a doctor!!!!!! i am not one!!!!!!!!!
also there are very few sources in this post bc most of this is just shit i’ve absorbed over the years from doctors and doing my own research lmao
now that’s out of the way let’s go! (this became part character study, part informational masterpost on bpd. also it got really fuckin long, hence the read more, so be warned lmao)
warning for potentially triggering content (abuse/mentions of suicide and self harm - nothin too bad but i do touch on ben’s behaviour and history, and this is a p serious mental health issue we’re talking abt here so! take care of yourselves!!)
ok so! some things to keep in mind before we even get to ben:
i believe (at least in the uk) borderline personality disorder is considered to be an outdated name, and one that essentially isn’t appropriate or fit for purpose anymore, so in my experience, a lot of the time now it’s referred to as eupd (emotionally unstable personality disorder) in medical settings. which is way more apt name imo, and tells you more abt what bpd actually is (but i still call it bpd bc it’s easier and ppl know what that is lmao). so like. emotionally unstable personality disorder. i bet that conjures up a way more vivid idea in ur head than borderline  personality disorder does.
no one 100% knows what causes bpd, though it’s thought to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors, like most things. but the general consensus is that bpd develops when something (usually traumatic, but not always in an extreme sense. ppl w bpd have often been victims of some type of abuse in their childhood, but that’s not necessarily always the case) happens in your childhood that impacts the development of your personality. kind of a bizarre metaphor but hopefully it will help u understand: u know how in finding nemo, the egg nemo was in got damaged by the shark? and even tho the damage looked minor, it actually meant that one of his fins was permanently damaged - it was malformed, it didn’t grow right, he couldn’t use it properly? well imagine the fin = the personality; that’s what happens to a person w bpd’s personality. smth happens to us in our childhood that permanently damages our personality, and so it doesn’t grow and develop properly as the rest of us does, making it less functional than an average person’s. u can imagine how that can lead to all sorts of problem (we’ll get to them later)
but bc it’s a mental disorder that affects the personality, you can’t be diagnosed w bpd until you’re 18, when your personality is basically developed fully (i believe it can be diagnosed slightly younger, but those are rare and extreme cases). however, symptoms can start to present themselves earlier, as ur personality begins to develop and mature. (mine started presenting in my early teens)
bpd doesn’t really go away, and treatment with medication generally isn’t effective for long periods of time. however symptoms can be treated with continued therapy, and symptoms sometimes can start to ease as you get older!!
bpd also gets misdiagnosed a lot bc a lot of the symptoms are similar to that of other mental health problems. the biggest one it gets misdiagnosed as seems to be bipolar disorder, which i get tbh. i’ve always considered bpd very similar to bipolar, just like… quicker cycles. there are even memes about it. also bpd has a tendency to coexist w other mental health issues, which makes it harder to recognise and diagnose.
so now lets look at this from a diagnostic perspective
in order to be diagnosed w bpd you basically have to deemed, by a medical professional, to be meet certain criteria, and to have been meeting these certain criteria for a significant amount of time. there are some variations to this criteria, and proposed subtypes and basically different flavours of borderlines but i’m not even gonna go there. i’m just gonna talk abt what i’m most familiar w and how i think that applies to ben.
i’m copying and pasting the diagnostic criteria part from here bc as far as i’m aware this is the criteria doctors use for diagnosis. there are 9 different ‘indicators’/’criteria’, and you have to display or meet at least 5 of them in order to be considered for a bpd diagnosis:
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
this is one of, if not the biggest part of bpd. that trauma i mentioned earlier? often stems from or is related to abandonment, or perceived abandonment, in childhood, be it physical or emotional. for example, a child that’s being abused by one parent might feel abandoned by the other parent if they don’t do anything about it, even if the second parent has no idea the abuse is going on. sound familiar? a similar thing happened to ben, with stella. phil not doing anything about the abuse ben was facing at the hands of stella - even though he didn’t know it was happening, even though phil did do something once he found out - was an abandonment to ben. and that’s just the tip of the abandonment iceberg for ben - kathy faking her death and leaving him was an abandonment (even when he thought she was actually dead), phil’s own abuse was an abandonment, as was his reaction when ben came out, and so on. and abandonment like that skews your thinking so you believe that everyone is going to abandon you, sooner or later, that they must be abandoning you for a reason, you must be a terrible person, you must be unworthy of people’s effort/time/love etc etc.
even when paul died, that was an abandonment to ben! like logically we know - and ben probably knows too - that paul didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to leave ben, he didn’t deliberately leave ben. but that doesn’t matter. mental illness is illogical, bpd is illogical, esp when it comes to abandonment. e.g. my therapist had to cancel a few of our appointments once bc she was ill, and it felt like an abandonment. like it was personal somehow, like she wasn’t coming into work bc of me, bc i was too much work, too hard to handle. ofc that wasn’t true, but that’s how it felt. it’s illogical. so ofc my solution was to just not go to my appointments even when she came back, bc like what other response is there lmao. it’s just that everything a person does feels personal, like it’s because of/about you, even when it isn’t. even when it has nothing to do w you. that’s probably why ben can come across at selfish at times, like he’s making everything about him. because it is all about him, in his mind. everything is because of him, is his doing, his fault etc. his way of thinking is skewed into thinking like that, bc shit keeps happening to him and ppl keep leaving him, so it must be his fault.
and!! ‘frantic efforts’ isn’t necessarily what u think it is!! it can be desperate begging ‘i’ll do anything to keep you in my life’ type actions, but it just as equally can be lashing out and abandoning someone in order to prevent them from abandoning u first - a ‘get them before they get me’ mentality  (the whole scene where phil was in the hospital comes to mind - the ‘why doesn’t he love me back?’ was the more desperate part of him, tho it wasn’t necessarily an ‘effort’ per se, but then him trying to kill his dad basically in order to have the abandonment be at least on his own terms? that’s lashing out, and def qualifies as a ‘frantic effort’ lmao). and how often do we see that in ben? lashing out at jay in the hospital because he knew he was mad at him, and he’d rather hurt jay physically before he could hurt him emotionally? ben trying to support callum and showing him kindness, only to turn around and threaten to out him when he finds out callum asked stuart to sort him out? everything that happened w his dad, trying to fuck him over before his dad can get there first, trying to get rid of keanu so he can’t be abandoned in favour of him (although that didn’t really work, but it rarely does work the way u want it to lmao). and the biggest one to me, though probably one that people have already forgotten, is him breaking up w that guy he was seeing in newcastle even tho they were into each other bc he ‘had to, otherwise [he] would have ruined his life’. even tho we don’t really get details, that says it all to me. it’s v much a pattern that’s present in ben.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation (also known as “splitting”)
i feel like this one doesn’t need much explaining lmao
here is a definition of splitting from here (which is a very good article on splitting imo if u wanna read more abt it): ‘Splitting is a term used in psychiatry to describe the inability to hold opposing thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. Some might say that a person who splits sees the world in terms of black or white, all or nothing. It’s a distorted way of thinking in which the positive or negative attributes of a person or event are neither weighed nor cohesive.’
a little explanation of it from me: ppl w bpd can sometimes have very simplistic, all or nothing views on things. and splitting is basically when ur opinion on something or someone changes very quickly (sometimes instantly), often to an extreme (e.g. going from loving and idolizing someone, to absolutely fucking hating them, or from having a neutral opinion on something to suddenly becoming extremely angry abt it) sometimes without even having an identifiable trigger. it links into black and white thinking, which u may have heard of before - u either love someone and they can do no wrong, or u hate them and they disgust you. either something is amazing or it’s terrible. there is no grey area, no in between. it goes back into the whole ‘not being able to regulate ur emotions properly’ thing lmao there’s rarely nuances to our emotions or feelings, we’re all or nothing a lot of the time. so splitting is when ur opinion rapidly changes to one of these extremes. sometimes u can even go back and forth, splitting over and over on the same person/thing which is super fun.
ben splits on his dad all the time. all the fucking time. he doesn’t care about phil at all and wants to ruin him, then he wants phil’s approval and to be welcomed back into the family fold and the business. then ben hates him and wants him dead, then 5 minutes later he wants his love, wants to be a good son again. that’s splitting. u can also see it w jay, too, but no where near as extreme as w his dad. and i’ve seen it a couple of times w callum too, but again, it’s way more subtle. u probably wouldn’t notice it if u weren’t looking for it, whereas w phil it’s obvious.
but like i don’t need to explain ‘unstable and intense interpersonal relationships’, do i? just look at the relationships w phil, w jay, w lola, w callum, even w paul - they were unstable back when they first got together, and were arguably kind of intense too. (he settled a bit w paul, but his death/perceived abandonment fucked him up a lot beyond the expected ways). he’s always arguing w the ppl he loves. he tried to get poor billy killed, and yet since then he’s had no problem w him!! none of his relationships - apart from maybe his mum and ian (i don’t include lexi bc she’s a child) - are stable. and i would definitely describe his relationships as intense lmao
3. Identity disturbance: Markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self
u can see this most - as most things - in his relationship w his dad. he fluctuates between seeming to know his worth (and demanding other people know it too), knowing he deserves his dad’s love and approval (why else would he be so mad abt the fact hes not getting it, if not bc he knows he’s worthy of it? if he didn’t think so, he wouldn’t be so angry abt not getting it - he’d be accepting/understanding, wouldn’t he?) and being desperate to do anything to get his dad’s love/approval, even things that are below him, turning into a child, begging to know why his dad doesn’t love him, why he’s never been enough. that scene where phil had found out abt ben trying to frame keanu and leaving him for dead is the epitome of this. u can see ben fluctuate between a hurt, traumatized little boy, begging his dad for some answers, some explanation as to why he’s not enough, begging him not to start drinking again, and a man who is angry, angry at his dad, angry at himself for crumbling like this, bc he should be stronger than this. u see him change multiple times in that one single scene. go watch it again. you’ll see it too.
some more examples: his absolute certainty that he is better and more qualified than the likes of shirley and keanu for working with his dad, and then being like ‘my dad was right, i’m good for no one’ - they don’t line up. does he have self esteem and know his worth or not? also his entire relationship w callum is an example of this - all those changes in his attitude towards cal and their situation? he often treats callum like they’re equals who understand each other, yet sometimes it seems like he thinks he’s superior to callum (e.g. the scene outside the cafe), and others he behaves (keyword) as though he thinks he’s not good enough for callum (why else would he just take all that shit from whitney and not say anything in retaliation? why, if not because he deems it more important that callum has an easier time of it than he does; that he regards cal’s comfort more important than his own? and why would he do that, if he held himself in such high regards? i mean he certainly acts like it sometimes, so why not then?)
also like……. who is ben? is he the bastard who cares about no one but himself, who’s always causing trouble not only for himself but for the people he cares about? is he the guy who just completely folds when people he knows hurtle abuse at him, accepting it lying down, who thinks he’s no good for anyone? the guy who goes out all night and drinks himself silly and purposefully gets himself into fights? the guy who shows callum so much empathy even tho it brings him nothing but pain, who loves jay unconditionally, who tried so hard to help bobby when he came back from prison? which one is he? which one does he want to be? does he even know?
(and you could argue that people are just multi-dimensional, but there’s just such a vast gap between these different facets of ben’s character and he can flip through them so fast it’s jarring, which is why i think it’s more like he straight up doesn’t have a consistent sense of self. which is a big part of bpd)
4. Impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)
again, does this need explaining?
doing illegal shit, excessively drinking, becoming unnecessarily violent, fucking up his relationships, just generally doing reckless things regardless of the consequences - this has always been a part of ben’s character.
(his constant hook ups could be another one, but the jury’s still out on that one. if anything it’s less the sex that worries me and more the flippant attitude he has when meeting up w ppl - they could be anyone and do all sorts, at the end of the day)
it became most obvious recently around the anniversary of paul’s death - drinking himself sick, gambling all his money away, deliberately starting fights. but even before that and since then it’s been there.
it’s basically just a way to self sabotage.
i feel like this one isn’t a consistent part of ben’s behaviour like the others are, but it is undeniably there, so.
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-harming behavior
although ben (to my knowledge) hasn’t displayed any suicidal behaviour, he has at times spoken in ways that could kind of sway that way. (i’m no good for anyone, i’m not worth it, why do you care etc)
also self harming!!! just because he doesn’t hurt himself in a direct way doesn’t mean he doesn’t deliberately put himself in situations where he’ll get hurt, and that is self harm!! letting stuart beat him at pride was self harm!! picking that fight w those homophobes at e20 was self harm!!! drinking to excess is a form of self harm!!! putting himself in harm’s way, even if he doesn’t get hurt, is self harm!!!! just bc he might not be self harming in the traditional sense doesn’t mean he’s not hurting himself!!! this one has been on my mind for so long!!!! oh my god!!!!! he absolutely has a pattern of self harming/self destructive behaviours, and just a general disregard for his own safety and well being!!!! the fact that it doesn’t worry more ppl in his life is so upsetting to me!!!!!!
6. Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events (e.g., intense episodic sadness, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
aka the biggest part of bpd: pt 2
i feel like this definition doesn’t really do justice to this aspect of bpd. this is basically you literally having no control of your emotions. ‘day-to-day events’ have fuck all to do with it half the time. u could be sitting there minding ur business and all of a sudden you wanna smash up the entire room, for seemingly no reason. one time i was crying - like uncontrollably sobbing, a complete mess - and had been for maybe half an hour? and then all of a sudden, literally mid sob, it stopped. like it just stopped. i was done, i wasn’t sad anymore. i went from inconsolably crying to perfectly fine in a split second. can you even imagine that? it’s fucking crazy. that’s what having bpd is like. it’s like mood swings x1000 (that’s why i describe it like bipolar on a smaller scale - their mood swings last days/weeks/months, ours last minutes/hours, sometimes days but not often). you can be fine, then all of a sudden you’re not. or you can be not fine, and then all of a sudden you are. you can be ecstatic, then all of a sudden all the joy gets sucked out of ur body n u wanna die. then 5 mins later ur fine again. u can cycle thru every single human emotion in the space of a few hours with no warning whatsoever. u can go from feeling so many emotions u don’t know which one to focus on to feeling none at all. it’s exhausting. so yes ‘day-to-day events’ (this can be as minor as the way someone speaks to you, or not enjoying ur food as much as u thought u would, and it can make u terrifyingly sad or spark uncontrollable rage in u) can trigger it, but it’s like… at least that’s kind of justifiable. most of the time u just cannot regulate, control or predict ur emotions whatsoever. and often the emotions u do feel are not appropriate for the situation at hand lmao
on top of that, ppl w bpd have massive problems processing their emotions. while most ppl have the capacity to identify what they’re feeling and why, ppl w bpd often can’t. and bc they can’t identify it properly, they don’t know how to process it. that’s why emotions and feelings are so often black and white - we might develop the ability to recognise Big Emotions, like love and hate, happiness and sadness etc, but we can’t figure out the smaller, nuanced emotions. it becomes or, not and.
this is also why our emotions feel so big and all encompassing!! we can’t ignore our emotions!! they are our focus in a lot of ways. when ur sad, it feels like the world is ending, every single time. when ur happy, ur euphoric and nothing else matters, and so on. every emotion has the volume turned up to 100. that’s why our emotions sometimes come out in extreme or unhealthy ways - our emotions often feel so big we have such a hard time handling them. so we go to drastic lengths, whatever they may be, to cope.
(also bc most ppl w bpd are victims of abuse, we’re often hyperaware of other people’s moods, which can impact ours. someone can be annoyed for some innocuous, innocent reason, and yet bc we can sense it, we become scared or defensive and may lash out.)
and ben… little old ben, have u ever seen him have a rational reaction to anything in his life? how often have we seen him have an appropriate response to smth? my dad is shit, so i have to destroy him. failing that, i have to kill him. oh, my brother isn’t gonna let kill him? time to punch him in the face. my daughter ate all my cereal? it’s Overreaction Time. (this one in particular is Very Me like yes lexi is a child and he was unfair but my 7 year old cousin once drank all my j2os and i almost had a breakdown so i Get It) i’m feeling like shit? time to antagonise these homophobes until they beat me in the middle of the street. i sleep with this man once? time to get overly involved. he shows me a little bit of love and kindness? time to develop feelings for him despite him insisting he’s straight, the fact that he’s with a woman and i have been harassed and beaten by his homophobic family multiple times. but it isn’t going the way i wanted it to? time to impulsively hit him for not knowing what he wants, then immediately regret it.
and like. he went from crying his eyes out in his dad’s kitchen to threatening kat slater within the span of what, 10 minutes? he went from trying to kill his dad, to falling tf apart w jay, to trying to manipulate his dad - who had just woken up from a coma - for his own gain again, in the span of maybe an hour. if that doesn’t say rapid cycling, inconsistent emotions idk what does.
like idk enough about the old bens to say if this is a consistent characteristic of his or not (although based on the fact he killed a woman bc he was angry w his dad, i’d say it’s fairly safe to assume lmao) but ever since he came back his reactions and emotions have been pretty much never once been rational, stable or consistent.
(and like i wanna say i am saying all of this from the perspective of the bad days. so if you’re thinking ‘well, ben isn’t like that all the time’ ur right. neither am i. some days i’m fine, some days it’s not that bad, sometimes i can cope. but i still have bpd, even on those days. and imo, so does ben.)
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness
this is one i don’t really see in ben. we maybe see moments of emptiness, but certainly not enough to call it ‘chronic’.
also a lot of the moments we do see emptiness in ben, i feel like it’s forced emptiness, more for his own benefit or for the benefit of others rather than actual genuine emptiness. it’s not that he’s not feeling anything, it’s that what he is feeling he’s not showing. that’s very different from actually feeling empty.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
this! is! such! a! massive! part! of! having! bpd! and it’s a part that no one ever fucking talks about either!!!
and again, does this one need explaining?
ben is anger. he’s a ball of it, and he has been for a very, very long time. he’s angry at his dad, at the world, at himself. for all sorts of reasons, both complex and simple. if i sat here and tried to get into all of it this post would be twice as long as it already is. and i don’t think i really need to, anyway. it’s not as if any of us need to dig very deep to see it, is it?
‘frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights’ like i really don’t need to elaborate do i? bc what does ben do when he’s angry? his temper flairs up, he gets physical, lashes out, makes threats.
and he’s so often angry in response to emotional pain, which is the saddest (and for me, most relatable) part. just look at paul’s anniversary, how angry he was just in general, to everyone - even his mum, who is like the only exception to his anger since he’s been back - when he was just hurting and sad. how angry he got when he found out keanu had replaced him in phil’s will, when really he was just hurt. he gets angry and violent so people don’t see him as weak bc he’s hurting. he has been conditioned to get angry instead of getting sad. it’s not healthy at all.
there is so much more but i feel like it’s unnecessary for me to get into it. bc u know. ben’s not exactly subtle in his anger is he lmao
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
this is the only other one that i don’t see in ben at all, and it’s one that i don’t really experience myself either so i don’t even have any insight to offer lmao
so!! more or less 7/9!! that’s a passing grade for diagnosis!!! welcome to the club, mr mitchell!!!!
all of this, of course, has been purely from a medical, diagnostic standpoint (w some of my personal experiences sprinkled in lmao). there’s so much more to say from like a ‘living w bpd day to day’ standpoint but like, this post is already way too fuckin long so i’m just gonna hit on a few that i feel are important in regards to ben, and ones i have’t spoken abt yet
most ppl w bpd have a ‘fp’ or ‘favourite person’ (tho it can be multiple people), which sounds nice but it’s kind of a really complicated and difficult thing tbqh. here’s the best definition i could find: ‘When someone with BPD uses the term “favorite person” to describe someone else, they are typically insinuating that this is a person they cannot survive without. For BPD sufferers, the favorite person is the person who is a source of emotional support and dependence. This individual has the ability to truly impact the BPD sufferer’s day in either a positive or negative manner. The favorite person to someone with BPD holds a critical role in their lives by holding the power to ‘make or break’ the successful navigation of daily tasks and struggles.’ it’s a difficult thing to explain/understand (so please feel free to google ‘favourite person bpd’ to get a better understanding), and is not always as dramatic as it sounds, but it’s like… even if they aren’t a source of ‘emotion support’, ur mental wellbeing can hang on this person’s every move. (which is not healthy, i know, but it’s just a thing that happens w bpd!) and phil is absolutely ben’s fp. ben hates phil, and yet is still so desperate to be in his good graces, in his life no matter what that costs him… and ben’s self esteem, his actions, his moods are so dependant on phil. it just?? makes so much sense to me. i realize it may not make much sense to someone who doesn’t have any understanding of what a fp is, but like if u do, i’m sure u see what i see.
i think maybe jay was another fp of ben for a while in the past. i don’t think he is as much since ben has come back, but in the past?? maybe. like less in the ‘my happiness is dependant on u’ way and more in like a ‘i’m very very attached to u and need u in my life and would maybe go crazy if anything or anyone got in the way of that’ way.
and i think callum might be sneaking into territory now too tbqh. it would explain why callum’s actions and words have such an impact on ben’s moods despite not much really happening between them. and like i wanna say: someone becoming ur fp is not a choice. it just happens. it’s not like ben is going ‘oh im going to get overly attached to u just for a laugh’, no. this would be completely out of his control. and when it happens, it fucking SUCKS. so if that is what’s happening, it’s going to have a massive impact on ben - and it seems like it already is.
and like taking the whole fp thing out of it (bc i know it’s complicated and hard to grasp) bpd would explain why ben seems to be so attached to callum even tho very little has actually happened between them!!! like bpd will have u falling in love w someone who just shows you basic human kindness and decency, and i mean that very literally!!! bc like i said when you have bpd, you struggle to navigate and handle basic emotions, so all the nuances of romance and love? jesus christ. it goes back into black and white thinking - i either love this person or i hate this person, there is no in between. so callum, showing ben kindness? showing him support with what’s going on w louise and what happened w phil? not hating him and thinking he’s despicable and evil and all those things people say about him? and ben, having bpd? he probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend that maybe cal’s just being friendly, esp not after they slept together. so ofc he would latch tf on to that. i would latch tf on to that. his behaviour towards callum just seems very on brand for having bpd to me, genuinely.
and !! all those things whitney said the other night !! people complained about him not arguing back, but like… she’s almost saying what ben wants to hear, when it comes to callum. bc i touched on it before but like the thing is when, you have bpd ur thought process is like ‘i care about this person, they are good, i don’t deserve them, i am bad, i am going to ruin them, i’m probably manipulating them into spending time with me and caring about me, but i can’t let them go, i need them, i bet they don’t even like me, i don’t deserve them, i don’t want them to get hurt, i don’t want to hurt them, i am going to hurt them, in the end.’ (and eventually it spirals into ‘actually they’re probably going to hurt me first bc everyone always does so let me completely destroy this relationship so it’s unrecoverable and hurt them now so they can’t hurt me later’ but that’s another story) and whitney more or less confirms that for him!!! in essence, what she says to him is ‘you’re bad, he didn’t want anything to do with you but you manipulated him into it. you don’t deserve him, you’ve hurt him, you’ve hurt me, how could you do this?’ so like… ofc he’s not gonna argue w her. he’s already had a shit day, all of the fight is gone from him, and he agrees w her!! i’m sure he was thinking that he deserved what whit was throwing at him - not necessarily for what he’d done to her, but because he is Bad and callum is Good and he needs to stay away from him, otherwise he’ll ruin him. bc that’s just what bpd brain tells u, even when u’ve got no basis to believe it. (unless ur splitting or experiencing a big emotional high, but again, that’s a different story)
and that kind of makes sense as to why he’d go to the wedding. going back to the anger instead of sadness thing - he’s hurting, so he’s going to get angry and vengeful. he has been hurt, so now he is going to hurt in return. esp considering both callum and whitney have seen him in such a vulnerable state. it’s probably a pride thing, too.
also just to expand a little more on the ‘unstable sense of self’ thing - ppl w bpd (and also victims of abuse, but sometimes that particular venn diagram is a circle) tend to change the personality based on who they’re with. which is what most people do, yes, but i mean the Extreme version. it’s a trauma response thing - u’ll reflect parts of a person’s personality back at them, or even take bits from personalities of ppl u know they like in the hopes that they’ll like u more like that, as opposed to ur real personality (if u even know what that is). and sometimes those parts stick (esp when you idolize the person u stole them from/they’re your fp), and it’s like u all of a sudden realize ur entire personality is built of parts of other ppls personalities that you’ve stolen. so it makes sense to me that ben seems to have so many differing personalities/sides to his personality, bc he’s learned which parts to show to who, and in what situations - in response to his abuse as a kid, if nothing else.
(and before anyone can even go there: that is not an act of manipulation. it’s a trauma response. it’s something that happens without us consciously having any say in it, as a way of self-preservation. it’s like if i make myself likeable and appealing to u, you’re less likely to hurt me, physically or emotionally. and yes ben has a habit of manipulation, but this is not a part of it. none of ben’s manipulation is directly bc of his hypothetical bpd, it’s bc that’s just who he is. i don’t ever want to see the two equated, or see anyone say any shit like ‘ben must have bpd bc he’s manipulative’, ever.)
just for the hell of it, here are some spicy bpd memes, bc that’s how we communicate on the internet. (here are two in particular seem quite relevant to ben rn lmao + bonus one for phil!!)
so! there we are!!! i’m sure there’s some important stuff i overlooked and that this is not what u expected when u sent me this question, but there are so many misconceptions and stigmas out there surrounding bpd that i wouldn’t have felt right half assing it. and i hope, if nothing else, u learned something abt bpd that u didn’t know before :-)
if u read this far ur a trooper lmao but if anyone has any questions, be they abt ben having bpd or bpd in general please feel free to ask!! i’ll do my best to answer them to the best of my ability 💖💖
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hauntedarbys · 5 years
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hi! i’m anon from mamoru (asking here cus asks aren’t on on ur sims blog) i’m really interested in your thoughts about incorporating disabilities into the sims, i’m trying to develop my own sims game cus fuck ea lol, and i’d really like to be as incorporating of disability as possible. thanks!
damn, my asks weren’t on? that sucks. i think i fixed it now, but i swear i already had them on...
anyway!!!
i’m looking at this more from a perspective of “how to make the sims 4 better” than like “how to make my own video game” and i don’t know much about coding or game development so idk how helpful some of this will be but hopefully some will?? infodump incoming!!! sorry if it’s not that coherent. i’ve bolded some keywords in case you want to only read sections pertaining to certain disabilities.
starting with canes, bc i use one and i wish my simself did: sims 3 had canes, but for some reason they were coded weird so only elders could use them (iirc modders weren’t even able to fix it?? wtf ea). plus ts4 has custom walkstyles, and your sim can hold things like umbrellas while walking, so it’s almost definitely possible to add canes and crutches.
adding walkers would probably be a very similar process, tho i can imagine there might be some issues w clipping? not that ea has ever given a single fuck about that lmao
i’m a little bit less sure how wheelchairs would work, but the best reference i can think of is the strollers from ts3, or maaaybe some of the smaller vehicles. i have a vague memory of like a bike or a hoverpad or something that you could ride everywhere and not just on the road, but idk. the main issue i can see is that certain animations and interactions would need to be a lot more flexible--eg, sims would need to be able to do things like cook or paint or give hugs while sitting down. i can also see it being a little tricky to animate “transfers” from like, a wheelchair to a desk chair or w/e. honestly i think this would be easier to implement in sims 4 than it would have been in sims 3, because ts4 at least allows you to multitask some things. idk, it would probably be on the harder side, but holy shit it would be so worth it.
and then for some reason when i think about wheelchair users in the sims i start to wonder how feasible it would be to include little people (i hope that’s the right term?). simmers have been wanting height sliders since at least ts3, but any time a modder tries to add one the animations start getting kinda wonky, and i don’t think anyone’s really considered a height slider that goes low enough to make sims with dwarfism. i KNOW there are non-sim games out there that use height sliders, but idk how tf they do it without giving everyone telekinesis.
there was a mod in sims 3 that added sliders for amputated limbs, but it was a purely cosmetic thing, so like, sims would still walk like they had two legs or write with their “missing” hand or w/e. ideally i’d love to see a way to give sims limb differences that actually affected how they went about their lives + gave them the option to use prosthetics. i found a set of running blades in the “shoe” category for sims 4, but like... if you give them to a sim they’ll still magically grow legs in the shower lol.
deafness i think ties into my desire for sims to be able to speak multiple languages. not all deaf people use sign language, of course, but it would be great if sims had the option. i guess languages would function like any other skills, and if two sims don’t have any languages in common, they won’t be able to communicate beyond very basic things. maybe if you wanted a deaf sim to be able to speak, you could hire a speech therapist, or purchase some sort of object for them to practice with. also, dyou remember the earbuds in ts3 that made it so like, you’d only hear the music when you selected the sim using earbuds? i think you could probably make it so that when a deaf sim is active the game volume is either much lower or completely off. then for things like hearing aids, you could equip them and the volume would get a little bit higher.
blindness could use a similar mechanic, but instead of everything being silent, everything would be very dark and low-contrast. maybe objects that were making noise or places your sim had been before would have more detail. blind sims could also use navigation canes that would like... light up the area immediately in front of them.
invisible disabilities, allergies, and neuropsychiatric conditions would probably be a bit easier to add. sims 4 has a “quirk” system for celebrities where certain actions can trigger your famous sims to develop new traits. 
i think the best example of how you could use this to make, for example, mental illnesses is the “emotion bomb” quirk. famous sims develop it after experiencing intense anger or sadness, and it basically makes them experience that emotion much more intensely. that’s already a symptom of a mental illness called bpd! so what if something like repeatedly being mean to a child sim had a 0.1% chance of causing them to develop bpd? or if having a powerful sad or tense moodlet had a 0.1% chance of causing them to develop depression? 
(side note: i can really easily picture something similar to the “dark form” for ts4 vampires being used for dissociative identity disorder. genetics would be consistent across all personality states, but they could have different traits and voices and clothing,)
certain conditions could also be present at birth, like autism or adhd. i actually have custom traits for these; they’re not perfect, but if you want to google them they might be a good reference. one little thing that i think would be neat is if autistic sims had idle “stimming” animations, like flapping their hands or spinning in a circle. the biggest problem, though, is that autism and adhd are highly variable and i’m not sure how to make it so that not all autistic sims have the same behaviors.
allergies i guess would have to have some sort of severity scale, and be triggered by a sim eating a certain food or petting a certain animal. i’d want the likelihood of a sim developing a particular allergy to be pretty low, but that’s just me lol. maybe sims with allergies could keep meds on hand to deal with the worst of their attacks?
actually, the allergies thing reminds me--diabetic sims! depending on which type, a sim could either be born with it or contract it later in life. i’m not totally familiar with how insulin works, but a sim could have a pump equipped to mitigate their symptoms, or take regular injections.
i have a custom trait in my game for chronically ill sims, which basically makes their energy deplete faster and sometimes gives them moodlets with little blurbs about their illness. this seems like a pretty good system for chronic illnesses, but obv it would vary a lot by which illness your sim has--eg, would you actually animate a sim with ehlers-dahnlos popping a joint out of their socket, or would you just give them an uncomfortable moodlet? in particular, though, i think the mechanic that makes elder sims unable to do most exercise would be great for sims with dysautonomia. 
also, i’ve mentioned some assistive devices already, but i think figuring out how treatment works would be a big deal. do sims have single-payer healthcare, or do they have to pay for everything themselves? can sims crowdfund their medicine? what kind of treatments/cures are available? are their side effects? some conditions don’t have cures irl, but maybe a sim can pay like $30k to a witch to make their fibromyalgia go away!
this is almost definitely more info than you wanted and i’m kinda embarrassed i wrote this much, but uh... here you go, a mostly stream-of-consciousness essay on disabilities in the sims! god i hope it’s readable
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distinctgoldcalling · 7 years
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ahaha I waited as long as I could but it’s the return of WEIRD MESSED UP THOUGHTS …
(tw)
i. I am making an effort to recover from my anorexia, pretty much for the 1st time ever, buuuuut it’s not easy & leads to situations like today where I was super conscious that I was only able to shower nude in the mixed-sex public showers of our hotel spa and wellness suite (lol) because I’m still underweight (even though obviously I feel fat af). Genuinely have no idea how I will cope with being a “healthy” weight when I get there. *eta: haha, not that I'm in the habit of taking so very many nude public showers.
ii. I have to do a small but intensely scary & important performance in Feb & I’m fucking terrified; it’s so triggering and frightening. aaaaaaaaaaaaah.
iii. I know it’s p a t h e t i c, but it’s triggering for me (EUPD/BPD-wise) being back on tumblr even though I am also enjoying it, because (yes I KNOW it sounds crazy) i feel so worthless and terrible over getting defriended. It’s utterly ludicrous (n.b. this is why I actively avoid looking at my follower numbers on any account…), but can I let it go? lmao noooo. Of fucking course I can’t. I know there is a good side to these extreme obsessive tendencies, but they’re so, so painful interpersonally. I feel like total trash much of the time anyway, pretty much, & I guess this was hard because it kind of ratified those feelings. I feel like the actual me, whatever that is - stares into void - is valueless, and except maybe a couple of people irl, like partner, people just put up with me because I … idk, give nice feedback? will listen? wtf is wrong with me tho.
iv. I legitimately feel so so unwell. I won’t get into all the disastrous medical mess of the past 2-3 months but suffice it to say, it has NOT been fun. Now I have to go to a private clinic in London because the area I’m in has such terrible care for my most dominant/problematic medical issue (a genetic condition). Over the next two months I have to make all these changes to my cardiac & nervous system medications which may cause a lot of side effects, but my nervous system just isn’t working properly at all and it’s making me feel absolutely horrible.
On the bright side: I love the mountains & snow. I’m sleeping better up here. Going to Paris and Venice over the next couple of months, I think, so that should provide me with lots of new material and take my mind off everything.
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