#And also my extreme crippling anxiety that makes me almost mute- | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hollowsart · 2 years

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I have added a mention of this to my description, but here’s an FAQ post for anyone on mobile, I will leave this up and update it if I ever get anymore frequently asked questions that aren’t listed here.

As well, this is almost exactly a copypaste of what is on the page itself:

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Some frequently asked questions or just any questions you might wanna know about me and how I make my art and stuff. Hope this helps!

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A. I do not and can not take commissions. I did for a short time, but since then I have lost any way of being able to accept any money given to me. On top of that I have received many suggestions and recommendations on how to get around that and take commissions. Unfortunately, I am still unable to do anything and I do not know when I will ever be able to take commissions again.

Q. Do you take commissions?

My deepest apologies, but it does mean a lot that people want to commission me.

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Q. Do you take requests/suggestions?

A. Not quite. Occasionally I may ask for possible suggestions or ideas on what or who to draw as I have occasional bouts of artblock due to how bad my brain is.

Additionally: I do not do art trades due to some past people simply bailing on me and never getting their part done as soon as I had finished my part. I have become a bit distrustful of art trades so it's very rare if I may actually take anyone up on the offer.

I do love questions tho, so if you want to see me draw more of a character you can drop me a question about them and I may (not 'will') draw something, although I may take some time to get to it.

Q. Do you draw n/s//f/w?

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Q. What are your thoughts on the 2017 Spiderman cartoon's versions of Mysterio & Doc Ock // the MCU's version of Mysterio?

A. I have not seen either of those two pieces of media. However, personally, I'm not really a fan. The cartoon has a style I'm not fond of, and the designs of the characters also don't appeal to me.

As for the MCU.. I am not a fan at all of that version of Mysterio. It has nothing to do with his appearance, though, as I'm actually quite neutral on that, but the choice of actor visually isn't for me and doesn't feel right at all for the character. On top of that, I also don't care for how he was characterized. It strays too much from his origins in pretty much every other media that includes him.

..That, and I just find him everywhere even if I filter out ffh mcu and the actor's name. Be it on Google images, tumblr, or ao3. It can be a bit annoying seeing him and only him when trying to find classic comic or other general types of Mysterio.

tl;dr I'm not really a fan..

A. Absolutely not. I have drawn suggestive things before, but it’s not a lot. It’s certainly not what you’re thinking of, either. If I did draw something more than just simple neck kisses or an implication of something else, I will never post it. (ie, anything “heavily” implying a séxual act..)

My art is always extremely tame. I am uncomfortable with drawing certain things myself, so I do have some respect to give to people who can draw such things haha

update: I made a sideblog but haven’t done anything with it just yet, it is private and I am still deciding on what I want to do with it and how I want to go about it.

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Q. Do you have a twïtter or plan on making one?

A. I do not. to have a twïtter would make me uncomfortable and be horrible for my mental health due to a lot of reasons that I’m sure are obvious if you are aware of what twïtter is like. You understand, I hope?

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Q. Do you have any other places you post art or that people can follow or join?

A. Sadly I don’t. All I have is tumblr. I do have a discord, but I usually only reserve sharing that with friends. And speaking of I’ve got pretty horrible social anxiety, it’s borderline crippling for me.. I don’t join any servers because of this as I have a horrible habit of getting overwhelmed and just muting the server altogether.. So I’ve just stopped joining them entirely.. I’m sorry!

I do have a few sideblogs connected to this one, however, but only 1 I have been semi-somewhat consistent in posting to every now and again, that blog being my [Wikstrom dedicated selfship blog] (update: this blog is like.. kinda dead, I'm sorry, but I still think of him from time to time.. hubband.....)

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Q. Can we make fanart of your sona or oc’s or concepts?

A. Absolutely!! I love and appreciate any and all fanart I get, if you wanna draw something of mine, go for it! Just remember to @ me so I can see it cuz I would love to see whatever you make! ;v;

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Q. What programs do you use to make your art?

A. I use an old outdated kindle and my phone. On my kindle I use Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, and on my phone I use Medibang Paint. I only have defaults and no custom brushes. I also use GIMP on my laptop for pixel art, sprite animations, and tweaking my art to the final product! All 3 programs are free to install!

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Q. What is your orientation and identification?

A. Identification: I am a cis woman. I don’t necessarily like to conform to gender roles, however. I don’t like to perform and present myself with a lot of highly feminine things like makeup or dresses and skirts and heels. My preference is in suits and pants as they are the most comfortable for me.

Orientation: This is something I have been figuring out for years since I joined tumblr and became aware of a lot of terms that exist that fit me far better than the orientations I was given from birth and believed.

I am asexual, aegosexual specifically as a micro-label, as well I am a demi-panromantic with a main lean on preferring men. I may be Borearomantic tho, as in “Gay, but only for you” and I rarely find a woman that gives me that feeling, I have had 2 past crushes that sorta fit with this (one was purely just infatuation and nothing more (also not entirely sure if they identify as such), and the other is a trans man I don’t talk to anymore, I am very happy for him realizing himself tho)

It’s been a wild ride trying to figure myself out over the years.

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Q. Are you aware of the whole Jynx thing–

A. YES. yes I am. I am VERY aware of the Jynx controversy and everything. Please.. I just think Jynx is neat and I fully acknowledge the old Jynx design is garbage and ugly and all that. However, I will not change my Jynx gijinka and have fixed that old concept drawing of her from 2017 that people had a problem with. I am still an amateur artist and I am honestly trying my best to get better at drawing!

I acknowledge and learn from my past mistakes.

I am.. very tired. I just wanna appreciate a cute thicc psychic ice princess Pokemon.. I think the design and concept is very unique and deserves more love and respect. I have been doing my best to try and give the world some actually good and respectful Jynx fanart.

“I’d rather be cringe than offensive” -- Something I've been thinking to myself.

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#Ghostie mumbles #faq #//long post

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dartmythcollege-blog · 5 years

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TW: SA

Dear President Hanlon (and also, To Whom It May Concern),

As a sophomore at Dartmouth, I was sexually assaulted after a fraternity party. This experience has impacted my life physically, emotionally, and financially in ways I could never imagine. The alienation I faced from 2005 to 2007 at Dartmouth as a sexual assault victim who reported the attack was harrowing and demoralizing in many ways. Once full of hopes and dreams that I would be a graduate of a prestigious Ivy League college, my experience completely took the wind out of my sails as a young adult preparing to forge my way in the world.

After my sexual assault, which was reported to police but not ultimately prosecuted, my Dartmouth peers wrote horrible things on the Internet about wishing I was dead. I faced regular shame and ridicule which I have internalized for years. At one point toward the end of my time at Dartmouth, I honestly feared for my safety and had to seek refuge in a safe dorm on campus. On graduation day, I barely walked across the stage, teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Part of the reason it took so long for me to come to terms with the level of abuse I accepted at Dartmouth was that I left college during stressful times in late 2007 when it was very difficult for young graduates to find work. It was arguably even harder for a young graduate like me who suffered sexual and emotional trauma and was effectively “cast out” from the Dartmouth network. Ever since, I have had extreme financial challenges for most of the time (and while at school I was on a scholarship and came from a bankrupt family with very limited income). Dealing with this reality while working to recover from abuse has been difficult to bear.

Willing myself to do the typical Ivy League career-building things to land a solid job after graduation proved nearly impossible. On top of it, I was suffering from crippling anxiety and depression stemming from experiencing severe trauma without a safety net. I felt— for good reason, I might add— that it was completely unsafe to speak about my past experiences. When it came time to network and schmooze under these extreme circumstances, I couldn’t bring myself to lie to people’s faces when they asked me about my time at Dartmouth. Many times after a job interview I would be reduced to tears, after having to keep a straight face with an interviewer while simultaneously ruminating about the difficult experiences which scarred my psyche.

People would enviously remark on my Dartmouth education during a job interview, about what a great experience it must have been. I wanted them to know the whole story, about how much suffering and sacrifice was required to ultimately hold that fancy parchment diploma. But it was a story that stayed buried for many years, hidden by shame and a desire to pick myself up by my bootstraps so to speak, to turn the other cheek and find steady work and succeed in spite of the things that happened to me.

To this day I have yet to find a permanent job that has offered me health insurance benefits— my English degree is just as unmarketable as everyone warned me it would be when I was working to obtain it. And on top of it all, I have learned that the very English degree I worked so hard to earn is not even of much use when it comes to speaking truth about all of these painful and terrible things now that the time has come for revelation and reckoning, which is long overdue.

I cannot even use my English degree to define what happened to me as “sexual assault” and “rape” without encountering significant legal risk. Whether I am allowed to identify my attacker as a rapist who committed sexual assault is currently up for debate in federal court. Even though those definitions are clear and defined by the FBI, and even though the crimes I reported to the police fall well within those definitional guidelines.

My prestigious degree should at the very least render me capable and competent to define subjects on clearly defined and cited terms. What was the point of me earning a degree in Creative Writing if I cannot even use it to write about something deeply personal of extreme importance, which seems to be increasingly relevant to the shared experiences of many other victims? What power does my degree have if my very attacker can use the power his own Dartmouth degree has afforded him to effectively render me mute?

As victims we are damned in silence and anonymity, and damned in speaking and emerging from the shadows. We are damned as we are shamed into pretending everything is OK, and damned as we are implicitly asked to hold our lips and make nice anytime anyone asks about Dartmouth. Rather than take this significant moment to truly engage with the victims of the community, Dartmouth has acted to create policies to encourage people to move on and stop talking about the problem, long before it has truly been solved. Dartmouth has explicitly stated that the class action against them should be divided, and to me the strategy for dividing the voices of victims to me seems clear. If we are divided, we cannot stand together. Things can get settled and agreements can be signed to keep quiet. Things can easily get buried once again.

It seems there is no fair path forward for victims to seek reconciliation, as victims seem to be judged more harshly by the community than those who committed heinous acts of sexual abuse in the first place. This demonization comes no matter how we behave as victims, which is why it is no surprise that some victims would choose to remain anonymous in the face of such retraumatizing tactics.

The moment I began speaking out again, I began to face the threat of a very expensive lawsuit. As a result of the limited ways I began writing publicly about my experiences, I am accused in a court of law of being a lying, defaming, and gold digging opportunist, among other things. Members of the homegrown terrorist “incel” community have made statements about how I need “to be raped and burned alive.” One said he wanted to find me and “slit [my] throat,” and fantasized about hurting my family. All because I now face the challenge of my assailant accusing me of defamation, and attempting to put all of my speech and my life on trial as the price to pay for uttering forbidden words shielded under a veil of omertà. I sometimes wonder if the stakes would be lower if I’d joined the Mafia instead of attending Dartmouth.

Back when I was at Dartmouth in the aftermath of my assault, I was unable to receive psychological care at the college because there was an emergency shortage of therapists and psychiatrists available. There was an impossibly long waiting list, and ultimately I was unable to receive the care that I needed and deserved. Which is why the accusations being leveled against the Psychological and Brain Sciences department are, to me, beyond the pale. Abusers were sanctioned and paid by the college to continue academic research in the field of psychology, and meanwhile victims were being swept under the rug and denied psychological care.

To say this is a lost opportunity in the field of psychology is an understatement. For me, poverty and governmental policy kept me from accessing necessary therapy after graduation for several years. It was only years later under the care of many therapists that I ultimately began to fully accept and come to terms with the truth about Dartmouth, which is something I ran from in early adulthood and tried unsuccessfully to forget. I sometimes wonder what my healing process would have looked like if I had been afforded community support and an adequate safety net.

I fear a generation of future female leaders has been lost to the reality of scapegoating and re-victimization. These people could change the world if allowed to come together and given the space and resources to fully heal. We have not been given that opportunity, and we have been divided and silenced to weaken our cause. We have not been treated as stakeholders nor have we been given a seat at the table to foment change.

We are the voices that are needed to find lasting solutions which honor and rectify the lives of victims. Dartmouth can do much more to provide a platform and support to build a strong future for its victims in spite of the wrongs that happened to us at the college. Dartmouth needs to step up to recognize this festering wound at the core of its institution, and recognize the harmful experiences inflicted on its own community members. Professing ignorance, as the administrators do, seems to me almost like a cruel joke.

The first time I went to the mental hospital seeking treatment for a psychological breakdown, I met another troubled former Dartmouth student, Alix LeClair, in the women’s wing with me. She was having similar visions as I was about a resurgence of divine feminine energy, and the need for women to step forward and reclaim the sexual power they had relinquished to society and to others. We bonded over these ideals and compelling dreams and visions of an enlightened future, which the medical community was all too quick to label as sheer madness.

I came to find out she had also been abused at Dartmouth, and during her time there had protested and banged on the President’s door to his mansion late at night, to urgently give her message about honoring the feminine and dismantling the toxic patriarchy within the institution. At the time, I did not grasp it all and was focused on my own recovery. She and I went our separate ways after I was discharged and I never came back to see her at the hospital. I wish I had, because she died suddenly and unexpectedly a few months after we met. My good friend and sex educator Anna Zelinsky ‘06 still has a watch that Alix gave to me in the hospital, which reminds me that the time is always now and that I can no longer afford to avoid doing the difficult work of confronting the scary and difficult truth about Dartmouth College.

I have spent the past thirteen years of my life unpacking everything that happened to me during my time at Dartmouth. This unpacking has sent me several places including the federal court in the Eastern District of New York, cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars along with countless hours, and introduced me to dozens of other women who have suffered in ways all too similar to the ways I have suffered. Unraveling all of this has come at a great price, but it has also brought me closer to finding meaningful connections in the face of a lot of pain.

The time has come for Dartmouth to come to terms with the very real lives of the people who have been harmed by sexual violence and grotesque harassment on its campus. Because none of those costs are ever referenced in the marketing materials or the financial aid paperwork— and even with a scholarship, for me the price of losing my sexual autonomy as well as my voice has proven to be far too great of a price to bear.

At the very least, Dartmouth’s victims need representation and support. At the most, actions should be taken in a good faith effort to bring us closer to wholeness. Covering up the past and marching forward with new policy band-aids is not going to solve the problem of institutional rot, nor will it address the plight victims have faced and ultimately still face to this day. Dartmouth needs to take the opportunity to rise to the occasion of this “Call to Lead” they have foisted upon the community, take heed of this “red letter day,” and do better.

Monica Morrison, ‘07

#dartmyth250

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oddersounds · 7 years

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Today was World Mental Health Day, and this month is apparently also Selective Mutism Awareness Month, from what I hear, so this seems like a good time to make a post about it.

Selective mutism (SM) is a mental disorder that basically shuts down your voice whenever you get too anxious, and as far as I know, it's pretty much always accompanied by severe social anxiety. People with SM are incapable of speech in (mostly social) situations that make them highly anxious. SM typically occurs in children, but if left untreated, it can persist into adulthood. I'm 24, and I didn't even know I had this condition until I was diagnosed last December.

The situations that trigger it can vary from person to person. It's pretty common for someone with SM to lose their voice around total strangers, though in my case, I've been capable of talking to new people if I'm in extremely familiar and comfortable settings with people I know and trust, provided that it's just, like, one stranger, and not a group of them. Conversely, even if I'm with someone I'm perfectly comfortable with, I'll still be unable to speak in most public settings, like grocery stores or busy restaurants. Sometimes I can speak, but only up to a certain volume, usually an inconveniently low volume. But like I said, it's a little different for each person with SM.

Keep in mind, it's not a conscious refusal to speak; the brain literally shuts down the voice. The whole time someone with SM is in a highly anxious situation, they're actually mute. But people from the outside usually don't know that, and that's what makes it such a difficult condition. If someone you're comfortable with hears you speak in one situation but then sees you lose your voice in a different situation, they'll often think you're being rude, stubborn, and/or just plain shy -- in nearly every case, this makes them frustrated with you. Even people who haven't heard you speak tend to get frustrated about it, probably because it doesn't even occur to them that other people in real life might be mute. A good 90% of people who meet me irl assume I'm deaf at first.

One major side effect of SM that I haven't seen discussed much (tho maybe it's just me) is crippling self-doubt. A lot of that comes from the fact that SM is often mistaken for shyness. Like I said earlier, I didn't even realize I had an actual disability until I was 23. My parents always just said I was shy, and I believed them. And even now, I have trouble really thinking of myself as disabled. It almost feels like I don't deserve that kind of label, like I haven't really suffered hard enough, like I'm not mute enough. But that's the thing, it's not that simple, it's not just being "half-mute," it's a different beast altogether. I can speak in some situations, yeah, but when I am mute, I'm also experiencing overwhelming anxiety, so even though I could be really good at nonverbal communication, my brain gets too scrambled by anxiety for that to matter most of the time. I've started learning ASL, which does help, but half the time, I'm too anxious to utilize it properly. I usually just freeze up. Which is partly why most people with SM don't even really bother with sign language. The other reason is that most people with SM can learn to lower their anxiety enough to overcome it altogether (much better chance of recovery if it's caught in childhood), so sign language isn't generally seen as a good solution. But if you're like me and just can't seem to stop going mute no matter how hard you work, sign language is probably a good alternative. I mean it never hurts to learn another language.

Anyway, that's selective mutism. Oh, and a quick thing for any other selective mute buddies out there: Being mute doesn't make you any less valuable or capable as a person. You don’t have to “overcome” SM to make a difference. And you already know that, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Hope this was helpful! If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer 'em. Thanks for takin the time to read this.

#selective mutism #actuallymute #selective mutism awareness month

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hoodlessmads · 5 years

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Bloom Into You Series Personal Thoughts (Whoops It’s Way Too Personal)

When I discover a new series that I really like, I tend to become obsessive. I have an obsessive personality, or something almost bordering on ADD where I can find it extremely difficult to even pay attention to people talking to me or to focus on or care about just about anything, but when the one thing comes along, it’s all I think about for like 72 hours straight. So that happened with Bloom Into You, and I want to wait a while until the initial honeymoon phase wears off, maybe even until post-series, before I really sit down and write a detailed analysis of it. I only sat down to watch the first episode of the anime like two weeks ago.

But the stories that I obsess over rarely have nothing to do with what’s going on in my real life at the time, and Bloom Into You is no exception.

I sat down and started watching it because I had heard it was one of the standout anime of the season, because I wanted a cute innocent romance, and because it was notable as one of the only positively represented queer anime I had seen in a while. As a huge advocate for LGBTQ characters and stories in media, I was highly intrigued. And it’s true that the love story at the core of it all is incredibly precious and adorable and it turns my heart to mush.

But what I got out of it was much deeper and more personally affecting than I signed up for. And to be honest I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Most people are freaking out about Bloom into You because lesbians, and I don’t blame them. Lesbians in anime, positively represented, with wholesome and non-fetishized relationships. That’s huge and it more than deserves to be celebrated. Loudly. But for me, it wasn’t really that, persay. I’ve never identified as a lesbian or even as someone who likes girls. I’ve always said I was straight, because it’s easy, but I’m not convinced that’s the whole truth either. For me, Bloom Into You hits close to home because of the aromanticism of its main character and the inner torment that she faces because of it.

Speaking with complete transparency, I don’t think I’ve ever had romantic feelings for anyone. And any sexual feelings I’ve ever had towards anyone were limited at best. I just really don’t know. On top of that, I took an SSRI for over four years while I was in college, which managed to mute both my emotions and my sex drive even more than they already were. And having recently finally gone off them, I still can’t tell what’s the meds and what’s me.

At some points in the last four years, and even now, I finally got to a place of inner peace about it. I was like Maki. I accepted that I didn’t experience those feelings and I was totally fine with that—I mean, sure, it sucked a little, but think of all the bullshit I would never have to deal with. I wasn’t interested in anyone like that or in relationships like that and that suited me just fine.

At other points, I wasn’t like Maki at all. I distinctly remember one point early on in my college experience where I realized that I just wasn’t feeling it in general, any of it, and found myself curled up on the floor of my dorm, alone, sobbing over the fact that I would never experience romantic or sexual attraction. I did all sorts of research on asexuality and aromanticism. Is this normal? I would ask myself. Is it normal to be ace and aro and for it to still hurt this much?

In chapter 39, Bloom Into You posits that, perhaps, the distinction between truly ace people like Maki and people like Yuu is that, unlike Maki, Yuu wants to participate. Maybe that is true. It’s just an idea the manga suggests, not a statement. But since I want to participate, does that automatically mean I’m not aro? Am I like Yuu? I’m still not convinced that reality is so clear cut.

Bloom Into You is an incredibly emotional journey for me because it sees Yuu, someone who is either on the ace spectrum or emotionally repressed or a late bloomer or what have you, gradually fall in love in spite of it all. And getting to watch that process play out for her is so incredibly satisfying. Everyone experiences love differently and at a different pace—in many ways that is the inspiring message of Bloom. On the one hand, for Sayaka, love hits her like lightning. We see this at multiple points, whether it’s getting sucked in by that she-demon of a senpai or when she sees Touko for the first time at her opening ceremony and Sayaka reaffirms that she’s gay as shit. Then there’s Touko, who has never experienced attraction before, and again it may be due to lying somewhere on the ace spectrum or perhaps (I find this more likely) due to her crippling fear of getting emotionally involved with others or accepting affection from anyone. But when she meets Yuu, who she instantly recognizes she can open up to and has no reason to fear, it hits her quick. She has all the symptoms of infatuation.

Yuu’s love is different, though no less lovely. In chapter 40, Yuu explains to us and to Touko that she was always waiting for a love that wasn’t her own to just drop in on her, but that her own personal experience of falling in love was much different. She reached out and Touko was there. She chose her, because she was the one that she wanted to love. And that’s how love blossomed between them. It wasn’t instantaneous. It was slow, gradual, touch by touch, moment by moment, oftentimes painfully so. But Yuu’s love for Touko is just as real as Touko’s love for Yuu. It is so moving. It presents a concept of love that is active rather than passive, as something that the heart chooses rather than something that chooses the heart. (Touko even says this to Sayaka while sobbing in chapter 38.) It shows that love can come from anywhere, even from nothing. It makes me wonder, could I do the same? Could I, too, choose love?

Yuu goes on a journey from feeling nothing to feeling something, from apathy to heightened emotion, and watching that lately has forced me to confront the emptiness in my own life. Not just in terms of romance, but on all fronts. My reading of Yuu is that she is depressed…my reading of Touko is that she (is also very much depressed) has severe anxiety, among other things. Both of them struggle with crippling loneliness. But in this touching love story slash coming of age classic, they find and support each other.

I wish that for me the issue was something like, I’ve actually been gay this whole time, and I just didn’t want to admit it, so I convinced myself that I felt no emotions. And once I liberate myself I can go be freely gay and experience love at last. Problem solved. I wish I could just meet someone like Yuu meets Touko, be it a guy or a girl or whomever, and finally feel something. I wish sexuality was all it was.

But what terrifies me is that the reality is much more complicated.

That my issues run much deeper. Maybe all of the shit that’s happened to me over the course of my life has stunted my emotional and sexual development to the point that now it would be a miracle if I ever felt anything again. Maybe it was always there, it just needs to be unearthed from all of my crippling trust issues and emotional repression. Or maybe I really am bisexual and I just need to open myself up to the possibility of romance with women (though I’m not convinced that would be any more successful at making me feel something than my forays into romance with men). Or maybe it just plain isn’t there. Maybe I am truly asexual and aromantic and I have to learn how to live with how much it hurts, how lonely it feels.

At the end of the day, Yuu may lament that she’s never experienced love before, but she really is only like sixteen years old. And as the story goes, she does end up experiencing it.

But me, I’m already twenty-two, and it’s starting to look like it’ll never happen.

Alas, for all of these deep ass themes as well as in spite of them, Bloom into You is an utterly adorable love story that I deeply enjoy and that has touched my heart. Stolen my heart, rather. It is a feat of storytelling and character writing pulled off in a succinct 8-volume, 23 episode (I assume) run. It’s already notable for how well and how normalized it pulls off a wlw romance for an anime of its genre, and it could have stopped there and just given us typical cuteness and fluff and still been great.

Instead, it goes a step (or a mile) farther. Everything about it packs an emotional punch. It grips you and doesn’t let go. It presents a much more complicated view of romantic love between two people than one you expected or probably asked for. What even is love? What is love for you and what is love for me? What is love for Yuu and what is love for Touko? What is the concept of the self, anyway? How do you even begin to process and move beyond the painful past? How do you become you? It begs all of these questions but never quite provides solid answers, because there really aren’t any. All we know is that Yuu and Touko love each other, and it doesn’t matter how or why, and it’s beautiful.

#bloom into you #in which i accidentally come out as ace in a tumblr text post rant about anime lesbians #whoops #meh #this is kinda embarrassing #but i wanted to post this not because of my personal issues but because i wanted to talk about bloom into you specifically #and how fucking good it is #and why i think it's so fucking good #well one of the reasons why #yagate kimi ni naru #this isn't the end either #there's way too much to delve into with this series #i'll probably talk about some OTHER aspect of the series later #btw i hate labels

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shadowedmiracles-blog · 7 years

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Anxiety misunderstandings

First off, if you believe that anxiety is not a mental disorder, then I highly suggest you don’t even read this. Everything I say will probably irritate you and cause you to come to my ask box with things that will just piss me off further. Honestly, I don’t want to deal with it so I’d love it if you didn’t.

Second, yes, this will sound very aggressive and I can’t help it. I had a situation at work this week that caused a climax in my anxiety that I haven’t experienced since high school and caused me to spend an entire lunch break trying to convince myself that I am worth the air I breathe and definitely should not end my life.

Third, I am fully aware that there are probably a shit ton of grammar mistakes and that it probably doesn’t make sense and I’ve more than likely over simplified certain things. Keep in mind that this is based on my experience in dealing with Anxiety and watching the people in my life do the same. You don’t have to agree with me, and if you have some clarification, by all means, add it. I would love to know more. Anxiety is something that in equal parts destroys me and fascinates me. But again, this is MY thought dump, based on MY life. I tried to avoid generalizing, but I’m also too tired to be constantly vigilante enough to recognize every time I did; again, just let me know.

So without further ado, here is my ramble about anxiety based on some bullshit I have seen and experienced over the years while I have dealt with my anxiety.

1.) Anxiety is not a mental illness.

“Mental Illness: any of a broad range of medical conditions [...] that are marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, or emotions to impair normal psychological functioning and cause marked distress or disability and that are typically associated with a disruption in normal thinking, feeling, mood, behavior, interpersonal interactions, or daily functioning.” (x)

With that out of the way, if you have this argument, odds are you don’t live with anxiety.

Now, when I speak of anxiety, I’m not talking about nerves before a life changing event, or the fear of telling your parents you don’t fit society norm. While these things can be something that a person with Anxiety deals with, they are also things that people without anxiety deal with often and without being crippled by them. If you do not deal with Anxiety, you experience these situations, handle them, and move on.

For a person with Anxiety, these situations seem life and death. When faced with a life changing event, their mind creates every possible scenario that could go wrong and then makes them believe every single possibility with every fiber of their being. When faced with fears, every basic sense is in overdrive to the point that a person with Anxiety swears they can taste something in the air they’re breathing, and feel every ounce of blood rushing through their veins. However, these are just small examples of the vast universe that is Anxiety.

There are many different kinds of Anxiety, and each is just as exhausting and crippling as the next.

2.) Anxiety doesn’t kill people.

Except that it can.

Again, there are many different types of anxiety, and some can cause suicide or even homicide.

For example: One of my Anxieties makes me believe I am the world’s biggest screw up. That all I have to do is breathe and I am inconveniencing someone’s life. No matter what situation I’m in, when given a quiet moment to breathe, I will always reflect on my actions and suddenly I will have myself convinced that I did something wrong and that I should be ashamed of it, even if I don’t know what that thing is that I did wrong. There have been two times in my life where my Anxiety had me convinced that I could only make people happy if I didn’t exist in their life and lead me to the conclusion that I just shouldn’t exist at all. Luckily, I was able to pull myself out of those situations, sometimes by recognizing that I needed help instead of fighting by myself. Not everyone is so lucky, or is able to reach out to their support system the way I am.

Another of my Anxieties is a fear based one. I have an incredible phobia of anything going into my skin, and this includes needles to draw blood or get shots. Now, let me preface by saying, I want to get blood tests done. There is so much fucked up shit in my family’s medical history and I want to know what I inherited. However, no matter how much courage I bolster to get myself to sit in the chair, while the nurse is preparing everything, my mind creates scenarios of everything that could go wrong and (again) makes me believe that they all will happen if I don’t stop the nurse from taking my blood. I was able to hold myself together once, and I almost made it, until I lashed out at the nurse and actually slapped the needle from her hand. I had not made the conscious decision to do so, but my Anxiety told me that if I didn’t, I would probably die, and my body reacted accordingly.

So yes, Anxiety can hurt people, and potentially kill. However, I am just one case. I am not every person with anxiety and these are just my own experiences, so don’t be afraid to be around someone when they are coping with their Anxiety. Be cautious for certain, be aware of what they need and try to fill those needs.

3.) Anxiety is just a bunch of emotions, so control them.

I really wish that were the case. I wish it was just emotions that I could mask with another emotion until the Anxiety emotion was muted enough that I could control it. Honestly though, more often, Anxiety is more like a thought process that you don’t get to decide where it goes. It’s a multi-plot book and simultaneously you are the hero, the villain, the jester, the victim, and the village crazy lady.

Anxiety starts out as one innocent thought that could be a statement, a question, a general wonder, or just something. That thought leads to another thought, and then that thought leads to another thought, and then you mail that thought to yourself, and when it arrives, you get smashed with a thousand pound thought train (x) that leaves you crippled and numb for an awful length of time until someone pokes me back to life and you’re trying to figure out if you figured out a solution to the first thought while that person is asking you if you want to do something that’s probably fun but sounds like a lot of work because you are suddenly exhausted and want to do nothing but curl up in the closest dark space with the hope that your mind is done torturing you enough to let you sleep off the exhaustion.

I’ve just simplified something that is extremely complicated. Just know that Anxiety is not simply emotions, and you can’t just get over it. It takes more effort to pull yourself out of it, than it did to fall down the rabbit hole in the first place.

4.) People with Anxiety are over-dramatic.

Thank you, they are probably very much aware of this, and often times it just further feeds into the Anxiety because they are aware of this and hate themselves for it.

Unfortunately, people with Anxiety are hyper aware that what is going on is illogical, and often times because of that they act illogical. That’s why many people with Anxiety will seek out logic to cope with their Anxiety. I, for example, solve math equations and riddles to cope. To me, that is the very definition of logic; 2+2 is always 4 and my Anxiety cannot convince me otherwise. However, there are times that, before I can get to that blissful paradise of logic, I react very dramatically.

Anxiety is not an excuse for being over-dramatic, but it is a cause, and most people with Anxiety would really love it if you could refrain from pointing out that they are being over-dramatic. Not just because it’s irritating, but chances are high that the person with Anxiety is already ashamed of how they’re acting and their Anxiety is already telling them that they will now go to jail for screaming that you’re an asshole who deserves to choke on a fly.

5.) People with Anxiety only care about themselves.

Quite the opposite actually. People with anxiety tend to care too much. They care about the people around them, they care what others think of them, they care about how they effect the world, and they care about how they are inconveniencing a store owner by only going in to use the store bathroom without buying something because they have no money to spend and just really need to go poop.

People with Anxiety care a lot, and more often than not, that is a trigger for Anxiety. They are probably the people that you see sacrificing their time or money when they really have none to sacrifice, and all because their Anxiety has told them that if they don’t, the world will end and it will be their fault and all the survivors will come after them with pitchforks and torches.

Or they’re just a really amazing person and you should buy them a bouquet of flowers...as long as their not allergic to flowers, then you should buy them chocolates...if they like chocolates, if not then hug them...but maybe they don’t like being touched...you know what, just cherish them.

P.S. Because we do care a lot, please know that we really don’t want to share that facebook post that says, “Only the people who truly care about me will share this”, but we just spent ten minutes crying because if we don’t share it, that means we don’t care about you, so we have to share it to prove that we care about you, but if we do share it then someone else might get offended and we just offended that person, but if we don’t then we’re offending you...get it?

6.) But (insert socially accepted mental illness) is much worse than Anxiety.

Every mental illness is awful in its own way. Each effects people differently, and even if two people are diagnosed with the same mental illness, they can experience it differently.

There is no mental illness that is the worst. They are all horrible and should be treated with love and caring in equal amounts as every other mental illness.

Honestly, I could go on for longer about this, and maybe some day I will. But right now, I am super exhausted and I still need to get a shower before heading to bed so I wont have to get up any earlier to get ready for work because I’m going to a funeral and I feel the need to put on makeup because I don’t want the people at the funeral to feel like I don’t care about my great-aunt.

So, I’m going to leave this here. Feel free to message me. I can take critique, but I’m not in the mood to handle hate, so I’m seriously begging that you just don’t.

I hope you all are doing well.

#anxiety #anxiety problems #I'm rambling again #my thoughts #long post

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