YOINK!

Once again, I come back posting for help, but this time I have a more structured way to go about it.

Me and my best friend of 16+ years are constantly staving off homelessness and are struggling to survive and hold jobs due to disability. They rely on expensive medications for their diabetes and neither of us can do much in the way of physical labor.

I recently lost my job, and the only jobs readily available where I live are physical labor jobs. Also, there are no modes of public transport in my area. My best friend has a car and can drive, but its their car and not mine, so its not my place to use it as much as I might need to when I do eventually learn to drive.

Whats worse is that we are still in that shitty, overpriced apartment that we cannot afford to continue living in and homelessness grows closer and closer every day. We never know when were going to lose this apartment, and being an overpopulated college town, there arent many other opportunities in the way of moving to other apartments. Please consider helping us stay housed even for a little while longer!

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the best advice i can give you is to look at your symptoms and see why you have them. what is the underlying mechanism behind them?

for example, both people with HPD and NPD want attention, but the underlying reason why is different (reassurance of being loved in HPD, bolstering self-esteem in NPD).

so if you have, for example, social anxiety and avoidance of social interactions, you might meet AVPD, STPD and SZPD criteria. but then if the underlying reason is that you're afraid of rejection and criticism, then that's AVPD and not STPD or SZPD.

and, in this example, your social anxiety and avoidance might not be AVPD and might instead be Social Anxiety Disorder, autism, PTSD hypervigilance....

Splitting is defined as a rapid change of emotions, but that’s not very specific. Despite the fact that splitting is an almost universal symptom for BPD individuals nobody really has put out the best description for it. I remember being very confused when I first heard of it and even more confused when my google searches came up without any real answer to what exactly splitting is. Truly the best way to define splitting is to describe it, but it tends to manifest itself in many ways, so I’ll do my best to cover them all.

Rage Split: A sudden anger that courses through the body sometimes without warning. Your chest will tighten and your vision may tunnel. A burning, aching feeling usually blossoms in my rib cage, like my heart is trying to break out and attack. Generally the primary emotion felt is anger. I become downright infuriated at someone or something for what could be no reason at all. This kind of split usually causes me to act impulsively, say things, I shouldn’t say, and lash out violently. It’s almost like catharsis in that it’s a release of emotions, or just this one overwhelming emotion. Sometimes I can’t really remember what I did or said during the split and looking back the memory is usually a blur.

Preparation Split: This is a split that usually isn’t acted on. Usually a scenario is imagined in the head of what somebody might say to you and how you’d respond. You start to gear up for this situation as if it’s actually going to happen. You begin to hate this person in question, despite the fact that what they ‘did/said’ was purely in your head. Then when the time comes and nothing happens you feel almost disappointed. Most importantly however the feelings of imagined anger and betrayal linger.

Isolation split: This is a split brought on by an extreme fear of abandonment and usually blindsides you unexpectedly out of nowhere. You could be at home, in school, at work, or even with friends and have the overwhelming feeling that everybody hates you. Not only that, but you have the desire to prove yourself wrong so you do the most rational (or in this case irrational) thing you can think of in an effort to get somebody to notice you: you cut yourself off. Now, for some borderlines this is just straight up cutting people out of your life aggressively and for no reason and then wondering why nobody is checking up on them. For others this might be withdrawing casually from social groups and conversations, desperately hoping for somebody to notice and ask if their okay. In both cases the borderline is either noticed, which brings on a sort of euphoria, or is unnoticed and will rage split on themselves (self harm, suicide attempts, risky behaviors, etc). 

Those are the main ones that I come across, but here are some little ones!

Sadness split: A sudden feeling that the world had gone cold and empty and that nothing will bring you joy, ever. This could be mistaken as a symptom for depression, but usually these little splits resolve themselves within a matter of days or even hours.

Apathy split: The borderline no longer feels any emotion whatsoever. For borderlines this is a little bit of heaven that quickly turns into hell. We’re so used to experiencing everything at once that we don’t know how to cope with this new numbness, so we try to force ourselves into experiencing something. This may include self harm, dangerous/illegal activities, etc.

Silent split: Like a rage split in that it is anger fueled, but normally the impulsive behaviors are controlled. This is more common in quiet borderlines.

Euphoria split: This is a sudden ‘Everything is good and wonderful! Nothing will ever make me sad again!’ kind of emotion that results from getting the desired attention we crave. Borderlines will then become so wrapped up in this feeling that they neglect their real responsibilities, convinced that they will be okay and not having the permanence to remember the consequences of their actions.

This is my first comic in my new series about understanding NPD! My drawings are based off research and my own experiences with the disorder, but obviously I cannot speak for everyone with NPD.

Thank you if you reblog and please consider learning more about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other stigmatized mental illnesses!

Thank you all for the feedback on my first comic! I hope you enjoy the second installment of “Understanding NPD” just as much. I’m going to keep advocating for us narcs and fingers crossed that these comics will spread so more people can learn about and help de-stigmatize NPD.

schizophrenia is a type of neurodivergence.

it's such a good thing to see more acceptance happening for autism and adhd for example, but what's not good is seeing so many people ignore schizophrenia or act like it's "too scary" to be included.

I make prosthetic feet, none of the costumers know the person who made their prosthetic is schizophrenic.

I go to the grocery store, none of the fellow shoppers or cashiers know I'm schizophrenic.

I take the bus, no one knows I'm schizophrenic.

I go to concerts, no one knows I'm schizophrenic.

I sing karaoke at bars, no one knows I'm schizophrenic.

I pass my neighbors in the stairway, no one knows I'm schizophrenic.

I walk in the park, none of the owners of the dogs I pet know I'm schizophrenic.

Sure, these people may notice that I seem anxious, odd, maybe spaced out at times, but they don't know I'm schizophrenic.

So you don't know that if the strangers around you are schizophrenic either. We are ~0.3-1% of the population. We are everywhere. We are your coworkers, your classmates, your neighbors, the people at the grocery store or on the bus, the people singing at the bars and concerts, the people in your friend group or family. We are part of your community, part of society, part of your life. You wouldn't know unless we told you, and we often don't because of the unfair stigma against us.

Just please consider that we may be close by the next time you choose to make fun of us, or demonize us, or erase us.

And yes, we are also the people speaking to someone that isn't there on the side of the road, or living in a long term psychiatric facility, or locked up in prison, but we are all still part of your community, part of society and part of your life and deserve the same respect that any other human deserves.

I often talk about reality checking and going along with it when helping someone deal with delusions, but I felt as if I didn’t really make it clear to what I meant when I said it.

Sure I'll let this be my first stuilly post

Yknow what aight