#avrilisback

I Fell In Love With The Devil ✪

It’s possible! There’s been a lot of times in my life that I only understand what was happening months or years later. Like, oh, that was autistic burnout and not just a depressive episode, or oh, that was a manic episode and not actually Getting Better. And a lot of times they interact in weird ways, like sensory overload being caused or exacerbated by hallucinations, or vice-versa. It can be really hard to suss out exactly what’s going on with multiple co-occurring disorders, especially in the moment.

It could be helpful to keep track of how you feel from day to day, ways you responded to stress, certain strong beliefs and feelings about yourself and people around you, sudden interests and ambitions, etc. Then come back to them a few months later and try to put names to things - I was feeling this way because I was in sensory overwhelm, these beliefs were likely psychotic delusions, these sudden ambitions I picked up and dropped were probably due to a manic episode (but these other ones I’ve kept are likely true interests I can continue to build on).

Over time you’ll get better at recognising these patterns and know how to handle them better as well!