#tldr: i need anxiety medication or therapy LOL

[sentimental-apathy]

For the first time in a year and a few months, I seem to be slightly manic and unable to sleep... I’ve been emotionally tumultuous for several days with crying spells and random bouts of just pure rage and/or anxiety. I am severely depressed. I’m hoping I am able to sleep tonight cuz I just cannot deal with a whole downward spiral where I end up hospitalized again... I just. I can’t. I feel so stuck. Like I know I need therapy but yet I’m not in the right environment for coming home from therapy because when I come home, lol I’m gonna come home to what I went to therapy FOR in the first place so like this part of me has been putting off real therapy with a certified therapist for literal years cuz I’m like discouraged at the thought of discussing my trauma from childhood only to have to deal with the emotional impact of those discussions when I go home and am face to face with the very parental units that I know caused this trauma and this ptsd... so I told myself I’ll get therapy once I’ve moved out my parents house... but then I find it impossible to succeed financially because I’m SICK lol.... I find it physically, emotionally and mentally impossible to manage working 40+ hours per week for $10-13/hour only to take home less than 1700/month after taxes and to rent a halfway decent one bedroom apartment around my area is like 700-1000 plus utilities, on top of health insurance, on top of car insurance on top of a car payment on top of gasoline on top of cost of food and credit card debt, etc.... like 🤬 . And that’s considered a GOOD wage because it’s not minimum wage but like I still cannot live sustainablely or comfortably on that budget... I’ve tried. I think my issues mentally and emotionally are stunting my ability to sleep, sometimes even bathe, and eat right and the nerve pain, arthritis, and neuropathy and IBS just adds on to the misery since I am forced to work a job on my feet for hours. And I’ve been denied disability 3 times now. I’ve given up. So I’m doomed to just trying to bust my ass and grit my teeth and bear the physical pain which is FINE lol I can do that but the mental and emotional gymnastics going on in my head every day is enough to exhaust alone. I’ve also been considering taking out loans for a degree BUT... I might not be functioning well enough to actually engage in, commit to, and complete the courses so I can’t help but feel extremely anxious about signing a legal obligation to pay for classes that even if I finish will not absolutely garauntee me a stable steady job after... nonetheless I am set on taking medical billing and coding at some point but I can’t help but feel that even if NOTHING was wrong with me mentally or physically, even if I had NEVER been traumatized or won the genetic lottery for mental disorders.... the mere reality that in order to simply EXIST somewhat comfortably for the rest of this life I have to work 8+ hour shifts 5+ days per week for basically the rest of my life just so I can live in a house that belongs to a fucking bank not me lol... and that at any moment any place I work at can follow the “at will employment” stance of being able to fire my ass whenever... so that financial “stability” is always in jeopardy from an unstable, unbridled, unregulated capitalist society in which I’m brainwashed throughout all of childhood is actually a free market where all your dreams and goals are possible as long as you work hard!!! 🙄

TLDR: Am I ill and disfunctional??? Ooooor is the society I’m stuck in ill and disfunctional and just all around ridiculous???? And I’m one of many who are just like surrounded by TRUE insanity in this world while being deemed the “insane” one because I find it hard to navigate an economic landscape that is so perverse in nature that 44% of employed workers only make an average of $18k per year... and people still go to the polls and vote for candidates who WONT CHANGE ANYTHING OR CREATE POLICIES THAT WILL ACTUALLY HARM THE WORKING CLASS...

#my post #existence #depressed #depression #bipolar disorder #manic depression #anxiety #work class struggle #rant #disabled girl #disability #mental illness

[bloodthirstymoonstone]

Square One (ooc ramble)

So I thought I’d make a quick post talking about my continued journey into getting my Spicy Mental Health™ treated and how all that’s going. TLDR, I may have isolated the problem as to my noticeable decline with attention span over the past year or year and a half, but the good thing is that there’s probably a very easy way to fix it! Which is definitely good to know!

It gets pretty long winded and vent-y, too, though, so be warned. This is just a Real Ass Scoot Moment With Scoot Being Real, so keep that in mind.

So here’s a realization I made quite recently about my medication. For the longest time (I’m talking nearly 10 years or so) I assumed I didn’t have ADD, I just had anxiety and depression which was mimicking those symptoms. I believed this strongly, and for years despite getting legitimately diagnosed back in middle school (I think I was 13), before my anxiety diagnosis when I was 16. I think this is due in part to a REALLY BAD reaction to the drug Ritalin, which is notorious for making you feel like you’ve drank 10 coffees all at once. I honestly think that experience traumatized me so badly I truly thought I just didn’t have ADD at all.

I also probably believed this, in part, due to the anxiety medication I was on later, which did a great deal more to helping my condition. I won’t say which ones I was on because that would be TMI, but when I moved to Boston in 2016, I was on three different medications to treat my anxiety and depression. One was ancient and I’d been on it since I was first diagnosed back in 2009. One that was prescribed later when my Rock Bottom™ years started (I’m guessing 2011-2012). And then one I got at the tail end of my Rock Bottom™ years, in March of 2014. That last one might have been the one that Defeated The Evil and go the monkey of rampant, unchecked depression off my back for good, as well as a few key lifestyle changes.

Sometime when I moved here, I got a psychiatrist that, in retrospect, was fucking terrible for me. She barely listened to me at all, would shut me down when I came up with solutions she didn’t like, and ultimately discouraged me so much that I stopped doing anything more than going to her to get refills, and totally stopped going to therapy all together. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about my problems anymore, including her, because it was just so discouraging going to her about anything that she tainted the whole process for me. She shamed me for my weight, for not being social and making friends in a city and a part of the country I was totally unfamiliar with, and just never ever seemed to listen to me.

The most egregious case of this is when she fucked with my medication. Remember that list I just gave on the three types of meds I was on when I moved up here? Yeah, now I’m just on the last one. She took me off of the first two in 2016 (I think? Maybe it was 2017 -- my memory is shit), completely against my wishes, and she went totally cold turkey with it, too. I went to her, telling her that I ran out of those two maybe 10 days or so ago and though I wasn’t experiencing any withdrawal symptoms yet, but I’d really like to get back on the combination that had already taken me so far, and she literally refused. Saying “Oh, well, you’ve been off them both for so long already, so let’s see how it goes. I really don’t think you need to be on that much.”

It struck me as weird and panic inducing, even then, but she was adamant about it, saying that she didn’t want to risk me getting Serotonin Syndrome from taking so much medication for depression at once. Which, alright, fair enough, but she didn’t even try to ween me off of them. She just cut me off. But I trusted her judgement as a professional and certainly didn’t want to get sick or even die from taking too much medication, so I listened to her. And I never had a huge, unprompted depressive episode, so hey, maybe things were alright! 

There’s a catch though. The second drug I was introduced to, approximately in 2011? Remember that? Yeah, guess what. I did my own research recently and came to find out that it’s also been known to aid significantly in patients that have ADD but don’t want to be put on stimulants like Ritalin. Because if you have anxiety as well as ADD, it makes you painfully aware of that racing heart sensation. For the past 2+ years, I’ve felt my attention span slipping in ways I couldn’t understand or control, all because someone who didn’t really know me (remember, I’d only moved to this region a few short months before I even saw her) decided to play God with my life and not listen to my totally justifiable fears. 

I feel like all that time, all those abandoned threads and plot ideas, all the shit that I blamed myself for because I just couldn’t understand why it was so hard to pay attention suddenly!!! Is all her fault. I listened to everything she told me to do and then got so conditioned to never questioning her or talking to her about my problems anymore, that I didn’t even raise the difficulties I was having that were adversely affecting my life for what seemed at the time to be no reason at all. I feel cheated and angry. I might have cried a little bit when I realized it. 

The good news in this is that, 1) I don’t have her as a psychiatrist anymore THANK GOD. Last I heard, I think she was leaving the practice (probably because she was treating other patients as terribly as she was treating me), but she’s definitely no longer with the business I frequent. I’ve only met with my new psychiatrist once, and he already seems so much more kind than her, and I’m grateful for him. And 2) getting back on the medication that I was yanked off of should be an easy enough process. I really just have to talk to my new guy and tell him what I want. I’m not interested in going back on the first, because afaik, it wasn’t doing much for me anyways, and maybe serotonin syndrome actually is a problem I should be worried about taking all three at once. But at least I’ll have the two that helped get me through Job Corps and the most stressful move of my life helping me out again.

More than that, I’ve started going to therapy again, and that’s a huge relief as well. I miss my old therapist, but she seems to have moved to another office of the same company that’s slightly further away, but I love the new woman I go to see. She’s so friendly and easy to talk to, and she’s also from out of town, so we get to crack jokes about New England Drivers™, which is always fun, lol. More than that, she’s helped me see that there are good qualities to me instead of All The Things I Want To Fix, like my creativity, sense of humor, and passion for caring about and defending my friends and those I care deeply about. 

If we’re being honest, when I look back at these past years, it still kind of hurts. I can see quite clearly the break where my dwindling attention span started impacting my life and my presence in the RP community (technically it happened before I went indie, which means you guys have been dealing with 2 Braincell Scoot this whole time... My deepest apologies), and how it just kept getting worse and how frustrated I was with myself and things I couldn’t change about it. 

But that’s also the good thing about all this. I can and will get better, hopefully sooner rather than later, and I hope you guys will be around to reap the benefits. I love you guys, and hopefully I’ll be able to get to some replies soon! Either on this blog or any of the three others. 

#long post #ooc #ramblings #tw: medication #lmk if it needs any other tags idk #tw: vent

[bpd-black]

hey guys, so this is gonna be a long ass post, but here’s the tldr version: i love you and i hope you continue to learn about yourselves, and advocate for your mental wellbeing cause y'all are literally so beautiful and important and an integral part of our universe, the world literally wouldn’t be the same without you ✊🏾💕

SO, i just wanted to let y'all know that if you’ve ever messaged me (and this is for my black followers, btw, the rest of y'all … i don’t know why tf you’re here, but none of this is for you so ✌🏾bye, you can leave lol) please please know that i almost always read whatever’s in my inbox right away, and that i do care about your questions and what you have to say, even when i don’t answer right away or at all. you guys reaching out to me is NEVER bothersome. NEVER dumb. NEVER ridiculous. and tbh, it’s always flattering to think anyone would come to me w/ mental health concerns, considering that this blog literally started as a place for me to just vent out into the void & that i used to block anyone that followed me, lol.

(i jus didn’t want people to follow my blog ??? idk, i just felt like i had no other outlet to scream, and i was in a really bad place back then, idek, it made sense at the time. anyway, NOW this blog is a place for me to store information, affirmations and links to resources that i find informative or helpful. and i actually really love getting feedback (cough and validation cough) from you guys 💖 so pls, just know that you mean a lot to me.)

THE THING IS, though: i’m still not a professional. and when it comes to something as serious as mental health (especially in the black community) i just feel like i still have too much learning to do and too much healing to do before i’m qualified to offer any real advice. rn, all i have to say to most of y'all is ‘damn, thas unfortunate, me too’ and i really don’t want to give anyone a half assed answer like that, lol. it might take me a while to research what you wanna know, so yeah. bls be patient with me.

also i kinda wanted to introduce myself, since i don’t think i’ve ever posted an intro on this blog lol:

in summary, i’m a twenty one year old black girl, gay as hell, still living at home, still unemployed, still on leave from college, and still struggling just to shower and get out of bed every day :)) which sucks and i hate my life rn and i battle with like, intense self hatred cause a lot of my family is very disappointed in me and, quite frankly, i’m very disappointed with myself.

moving on, lol, more about my mental state: i’ve only ever been professionally diagnosed with depression and gad, though i personally believe i experience too many bpd symptoms to rule out the possibility that i am, in fact, borderline, and so i consider myself as such.

(( a small rant about that real quick: imo, and tbh, labels are just terms that researchers make up to help organize studies, keep track of patterns, and come up with plans and solutions to help large groups of people. so, basically, i am a strong advocate of NOT beating yourself up too much when it comes to finding the ‘right’ label for you and NOT attacking someone else that you don’t think ‘fits’ the description for a disorder or illness according to your research. like, yeah, fake ass neurotypicals are annoying as hell and they can all choke but ! the only person who really knows what’s going on in someone’s brain is that person themselves. and NO ONE owes you a dissertation on their mental struggles just to ‘prove’ they’re in pain. so, imo !!! it’s just a lot more important to recognize and identify what SYMPTOMS you struggle with, and the severity of said symptoms, and worry about umbrella terms later !! cause that insight will make it easier to look for help and advice and !! mental illness and personality disorders are all on a spectrum. so yeah. go easy on yourselves 💕 anyway, i struggled a lot with that concept, and for far too long, SO just wanted to get that out of the way before i continue (hope that made any sense) but i digress!!! ))

i also struggle with both intrusive and suicidal thoughts, a few minor self destructive habits, and i’m currently taking medication for my depression and anxiety. and tbh, though i still have some pretty terrible days, i will say the meds have helped a LOT. and i’m so glad, cause i’m the first in my family to openly take medication for a mental illness (stigma stigma god fucking stigma) and i was so so scared the meds would just make it worse, but they didn’t, so yeah :)

also, and this is a bit personal (but i’m willing to be a bit vulnerable with you guys, if it’ll help anyone at all) but, i planned on killing myself last year. it didn’t happen (evidently lol) but i ended up staying at the hospital for a week and then participating in a two week partial program after that. i’m currently looking for a new partial program or support group that i can join, and i’m trying to get a job and get back to school.

also, i have been seeing a therapist since my senior year of high school (which !!is a bit of a wild tale tbh, but long story short, my parents literally refused to believe mental illness was a real thing for the longest time. and it wasn’t until i told them i literally wouldn’t graduate high school if i didn’t get some help that they believed me.) my first two therapists were awful racist white women (still fuckin hate them btw) but my third therapist was a really cool white woman who actually introduced me to my current therapist who is this really amazing black woman and so far, i feel like she’s been the best fit for me. but i’ve very recently had to put my therapy sessions on pause cause i’m poor as hell and couldn’t pay for them anymore, so yeah. and, tbh, that’s really been stressing me the fuck out as of late, but what i’m trying to do is make the most of whatever other resources are available to me (helplines, textlines, self care strategies, forums, blogs, google, etc.) and i still have a social worker so idk, i should be okay 👌🏾

anyway, that was a lot of oversharing but, now you all know where i am atm ;) and i only share this with you guys cause a lot of asks i receive are about feeling like shit for not knowing what pd you have, or about being too poor to afford good health care, or not knowing how to convince your conservative ass black parents that you’re dying and need help and like !!! all of those topics are so so important to me on a very personal level !!! and i wanna help y'all so bad. but tbqh, i’m still trying to figure this shit out myself 😕 so, what i’m hoping is, just by letting you know more about my experience and being as honest as i can about it, at least one of you readin this might feel a little less lonely dealing with your pain. idk.

anyway, second to last thing: fr tho, i hope y'all know that it is both a rare, and amazing trait to be as insightful as so many of you are. even just trying to figure out ‘god, what is wrong with me’ and taking the time to do the research, is self care. it’s defiance. it’s acknowledging that a better life is possible, and it’s straight up refusing to settle for the pain you’re in now, for a life less fulfilling than what you know you deserve. i feel like the generations before us didn’t do that enough (with good reason, tbh, even today it’s still hard to know who we can trust) but it’s high time black people start healing our minds and our hearts. so power to you ✊🏾

and yeah. that’s all i wanted to say this morning. i’ve been wanting to say all that for a while, but wasn’t sure where the hell to start. i just hope that was all coherent and made sense, lol. don’t ever hesitate to message me guys. i may be an emotional wreck that takes too long to reply, but i do love you. lol.

and please please please continue to research things on your own as well, like. keep up with the latest studies, the TED talks, the blavity articles, the mental health blogs etc. etc. learn as much as you can about how to take the best care of you, even if my executively dysfunctional ass can’t help right away lol.

also !! (last thing, i promise) a quick update about this blog: i edited it a bit, namely my tagging system, to make it a bit more useful. i won’t go through all my tags here (maybe i’ll add an about page and a tag page later) but, for example, there’s my new affirmations tag (full of helpful reminders that i like to think about everyday) my positivity tag (just, yk, positive shit that makes think positive thoughts) and my black tag (whatever content i feel like pertains to just my fellow black + mentally ill peeps, cause lbr a lot of our struggles only happen at the intersection of both identities) 💕

i also have a music tag for music recommendations!! cause i like to believe music is very healing all on its own ;)

AAAAND that’s it lol 😘 stay safe out there guys !! this world is wild but, tbh, we know better than anyone what it means to make the very most out of our lives no matter what. happy black history month 🖤

#bpdblack.txt #ask #about me #blackness is ethereal #recovery #medication #self dx #hospitalization #bpd