Smells like Rain

this bread tiny

I’ve noticed that when posts about mental illness and chronic illness get reblogged and removed from the context of their original blog, they sort of take on a life of their own. 

I had it happen to one of my own posts. Within the context of my own blog, where I talk daily about the realistic struggles of living with Dissociative Identity Disorder, my post was just me venting about one of those little minor struggles. But when that post got reblogged by hundreds of people and somehow spread outside of the DID community, it became a relatable post and people started reading this one single symptom of DID and reacting to it by saying, “I do this too, do I have DID?” 

I experienced this the other way around a few days ago. I saw a post about hyperflexibility and EDS on my dash and immediately found it extremely relatable. I read the list of “Just EDS things” and thought to myself “Aren’t all those things normal? I experience all those things!” The next thing I knew, I was on Google looking up the Brighton Diagnostic Criteria. As it turns out, the things in that relatable post weren’t really symptoms or anything close to the diagnostic criteria for EDS. They were more like minor daily annoyances that someone with EDS might have, but typical people could theoretically experience too. Removed from the context of a blog about living with EDS, and viewed by someone who doesn’t know much about EDS, they gave me the wrong impression of what the symptoms of EDS looked like. This wasn’t OPs fault at all! It’s just sort of how tumblr works. Anyway, as it turns out I’m definitely not hypermobile. 

Tumblr is chocked full of “relatable” content, and I think that’s one of the things that makes this place great. People crave connection and to feel less alone in their life experiences. 

But I’m begging you, please be cautious about how you interact with “relatable” posts and memes about mental illness and chronic illness. Just because something seems to describe your experience, doesn’t mean that is the best description of your experience. 

Relating really strongly to a post about dealing with a specific mental illness is not a sign that you have that mental illness. Many mental health symptoms overlap. While the OP could be experiencing that because they have bipolar, you could be experiencing it because you have PTSD. 

Take relatable posts as a sign that you need help, not as a sign that you have that specific diagnosis. 

Obviously the same holds true about physical illnesses too. I’m probably not hypermobile, but I should probably bring up my joint pain and fatigue with my doctor at my next appointment. The fact that I related so strongly to a post about living with a chronic illness is a good sign that I’m living with too much pain and I should talk to someone about it. 

“just saw a tweet calling AAVE ‘gen z language’ and idk who needs to hear this but in i know why the caged bird sings, published in 1969, maya angelou wrote ‘it’s be like that sometimes’ - you aren’t coming up with anything. you don’t own it. this language isn’t yours”

My old boss’s sister didn’t think we should be paid enough to afford smart phones because (her words) “You peasants work for us, peasants don’t deserve enough money for those things.”

I was once invited to a dinner event. Turns out there was a raffle. I mentioned that if I had known I’d have stopped at the bank for some cash. Nothing was said, but the “You don’t carry a minimum $200 everywhere?” was felt in the body language of everyone within 50 feet. Old boss would get KFC every day. He was hospitalized and had to have bits of intestine removed. First day back he was eating KFC because “Well the doctor fixed everything, so why not?”

If old boss didn’t take home a million dollars in a month the company was “Having a bad time of things.” That’s not sales, or total gain, that’s his paycheck. He owned the building so the company he owned that operated inside the building paid him $33,000 a month, and that didn’t count towards his paycheck. Monthly, his company would pay him rent greater than what he was paying me yearly, and it was so little to him that he didn’t count it as income.

To a rich person, something punishable by a fine is just a thing you have to pay for permission to do. You want to go to the movies? Sure that’s $8 a person. You want to park in the fire zone? Sure, that’s $750 for parking. No big deal.

I don’t have kids & probably never will. I support universal childcare & paid maternal leave.

I’m never going back to college. I support free college.

I don’t make min wage. I support increasing it above the cost of living.

This is called, “Wanting a better life for people.”

Every single time you do something good, you’ve made a decision to make the world a little brighter.

not nonbinary as in “add a third X gender marker to licenses” but nonbinary as in “remove all genders from licenses, holy shit why would you want a cop to know you’re trans”

Tweet was posted at 9:27 AM on 14 July 2020 via TweetDeck.