Shout Out To The Ten Year Old Who Just Got Diagnosed. Shout Out To The Housebound Fourteen Year Old.

Thinking about the dichotomy of "I feel uncomfortable/triggered in the presence of x/y/z environments I would like to be someplace without that" that I constantly see online and when I tell my therapist I really get uncomfortable when people raise their voices around me even if they aren't actually mad and her response of "you can only control your own reactions and emotions, it's not really fair to police others on how they should exist in your presence" and honestly it sucks to hear but she's right.. it's good to have people be conscientious of what triggers you but really it's up to us to do the hard work of building that emotional resilience. The idea of people around me having to be hypervigilant of what they say and do lest I start getting dysregulated does not sound fun at all, I want people to feel comfortable being themselves around me and that means training my dumb lizard brain to chill tf out. Living in a constant state of avoidance sucks ass for everyone involved.

this disability pride month, i ask that you include OCD on your mental illness positivity posts. for some reason we are rarely included in those. much love to all my OCD homies

dear fellow career driven spoonie,

you’re not a failure, you’re sick.

you were putting just as much effort forward before you were sick as you are now, you just have less energy to use so the results aren’t as exciting. it’s not complacency if you’re putting forward an effort.

it’s normal for your work life to suffer when your personal life does. you’re not a robot, you’re still a person, it’s unrealistic of you to expect yourself to be able to compartmentalize your symptoms at work. your body doesn’t care where you are or who’s time you’re on and it’s okay.

if all you can do is maintain your responsibilities, that is enough. you are probably not going to get fired if all you’re doing is what’s on your job description. it’s okay that you can’t put anything extra forward to grow. you’re growing in other ways right now.

even if you lose your job, you’re still not a failure. you’re not defined by the fruits of your labor, but by the substance of your heart and you are still that same career driven person who worked so hard in that position in the first place.

the reason why you’re successful isn’t because of what you’ve done, but who you are. take pride in your talent, motivation, knowledge, intelligence, and grit. that’s where your value lies.

I think the most fucked up thing about intrusive thoughts is it's really difficult to discuss them without discussing their content, because without a discussion of their content it's impossible to get across just how distressing and debilitating they are. "Oh, you have unpleasant thoughts sometimes? Yeah we all have that, I guess."

But if you discuss their content there's this huge risk of people just pulling away in disgust. "Oh god, you have THOSE sorts of thoughts? They should lock freaks like you the fuck up!" As if they think people act on every single thought they have.

Sometimes being disabled feels like you’re surrounded by people with superpowers, and you’re the only regular human.

Because I don’t really feel like I can do less—I feel normal. I’m so in tune with my own body, my own abilities, my own experience. I’ve lived this way for so long.

But then I look at other people, and see how much more they can do, their stamina, their resiliency, and I’m…baffled. Befuddled. Astonished. They seem downright superhuman compared to me. They seem like goddamn superheroes.

Trauma is the response, not the event.

And when we talk about how DID is formed from severe childhood trauma, what is not meant is that what happened to you needs to have been objectively "severe". If you have severe trauma responses (such as DID), then you have severe trauma.

Your trauma is enough regardless of what happened to you.

Trauma is incredibly subjective; what was incredibly traumatizing for one person may not be for another. How we become traumatized is related to a complex web of factors. No case of traumatization will look the exact same.

Trauma is not a competition. What matters is that it affects you. It's enough.

Medical condition: gets worse without sleep

Medical condition: makes it harder to sleep

yall are pro mental illness until they hallucinate

yall are pro mental illness until they dissociate

yall are pro mental illness until they self-isolate

yall are pro mental illness until they're paranoid

yall are pro mental illness until they split

yall are pro mental illness until it's too Scary for your comparatively neurotypical brain to handle

When I say “school should be disability accessible”, I don’t just mean we need handicap rails and EAs. Kids should be able to miss a day without failing out of school. You shouldn’t be dismissed from clubs because your attendance record is “spotty” (true story). I once missed an entire week of school because of a terrible, unending migraine. I was expected to keep up with my studies despite the blinding pain that came with working on my computer. When I heard my teachers say that you couldn’t miss exams, I asked what I would have to do to be excused from them. Their response? “Either get a doctor’s note an hour before the exam or death of an immediate family member.”

I cannot express how rigid this expectation was. First of all, with my condition, I wouldn’t have enough warning about my sickness to go to the doctor and request a note. For many people, this is exceptionally difficult, especially with the current shortage of medical professionals. Next, it ignores the fact that my schedule may not line with theirs because of my medical needs. Once, I had to visit a hospital a province away (which I was on the waiting list of for over a year) on the same day as an exam. I begged my mother not to take me because I was so nervous that I would be marked as an automatic fail. I was lucky enough to make it work, but that’s only because of my spectacular support system consisting of family members and wonderful doctors.

Disabilities aren’t always about needing a bus that can accommodate wheelchairs. It’s already difficult enough for many of us to maintain school attendance without the harsh punishments involved for skipping a day. We need to be able to miss school without being punished. Only than can you claim that the school is “accessible”