#destigmatization

May is Mental Health Awareness Month...

i implore you to imagine this for a second: you can't trust ANYTHING. you don't know what's real or fake. there are a bunch of different people and things shouting different ideas and opinions at you at all times all day every day and you dont know what to believe. it's like having a blindfold put on while people spin you rapidly in a chair and then let you go to stumble towards a moving goalpost.

it's not just opinions, either. it's people, and yourself. but let's focus on the former for a second. you don't know who to trust anymore. this black and white way of thinking makes you suspicious of everybody, because in your mind, you HAVE to be. otherwise you trust the wrong person and get hurt. it's like BPD in that way.

and you can't trust yourself, either.

so eventually, something comes along that, to you, feels like Undeniable Truth. in the case of delusions, it's not actually True, but you can't (fully) convince your mind of that, regardless of who or what tells you it isn't real. your mind has clutched to that truth like a vice because it's the first truth you could actually rely on in a while. it's security in a world that doesn't otherwise have it, regardless of how unpleasant the delusion is. a little part of you, conscious or subconscious, takes comfort in it.

Shy wearing diapers in public?

What if my diaper peeks out of clothes?

What will strangers think? 🫣

The only important person is you.

Be comfortable wearing whenever, wherever.

Quick toxic rundown: People with AsPD are generally characterized as emotionless, violent, manipulative abusers who kill animals and like to make other people their bitches. The biggest pet peeve we have is the emotionless, sadistic and abusive generalization.

Personally, we are highly neurotic, with highs and lows of: depression, frantic drive, self abuse tactics, chronic fear, lapses of rejection, overwhelming over-analyzation, grey area thinking, false goods and false bads, ultimatums, obsessive compulsive behavior, harsh self demands, and irritability.

AsPD is a disorder that is caused primarily (according to current research) by trauma and abuse in childhood; most notably being emotional neglect and absent caregivers that cause a child to have emotional shutdowns and repression episodes in an attempt to self soothe. Primary caregivers who do not bond with their children are also a factor. Children learn how to behave from those around them. If a primary caregiver is emotionally distant and unavailable, children will learn that is normal behavior and that’s how people are. If a primary caregiver does not provide empathy and sympathy during moments of distress and fear, children will learn that aloofness and disregard of others feelings is normal behavior. If a primary caregiver does not keep a child safe, children will learn that they should not prioritize their own safety or the safety of others. You can find my follow up post regarding this here.

Neglected and abused children often act out trying to get attention and help, often acting out in bad ways because they lack the ability to articulate what they’re feeling and what is happening to them. The pipeline for AsPD typically is: Oppositional Defiance Disorder as a child, Conduct Disorder as a teen, AsPD as an adult. There are a lot of warning signs cueing that AsPD is becoming a risk for development, but often kids do not have a support system to help negate it as it’s their support system that is usually a factor in its creation.

Being AsPD is like being an emotional La Croix 70% of the time. If you’re depressed, then it’s like someone in the other room has depression and is telling you about it. The other 30% of the time, if you’re depressed, your brain doesn’t understand how to handle it so it’s an ultimatum between doing something drastic to remove the Trigger or ignoring and dissociating for days on end.

People with AsPD are very good at ignoring things. Honestly it’s problematic as fuck but it’s not hard to ignore major issues when you just, don’t care. It’s not in the terms of being cruel or making ourselves not care, but the fact that finding the emotional willpower is so far out of our feasible reach we don’t do it. This causes us to piss people off because we don’t have the capacity to care as much as they want us to, even if we can and do to an extent.

Think of it this way: empathy/sympathy is a deep tub of water that everyone has. They can easily fill their measuring cup for the needed amount of empathy without any issues and it’s easy for them. People with AsPD don’t have a tub of water. We have shallow skillet. When we try to dip our cup to fill it, we can’t, it always comes up short and it is difficult to get any water in it as there is no room for the cup to dive. Our ability to care is limited because we do not have the same emotional resources everyone else does.

❌ False Positives & False Negatives ❌

I operate on what I’ve learned are called false positives and false negatives. These are things that are trained into the brain from an early age based off of childhood trauma and other factors. False positives are a distorted version of why we do something to help ourself and for our own good, meanwhile a false negative is something we do because it’s a threat, or based out of fear.

❌ Some of my false positives:

- It is good to be afraid of nothing

- It is good to adapt to someone’s personality if they are stronger than you

- It is good to isolate yourself

- It is good to be a silver tongue because you can get into any place you want

- It is good to become a social chameleon and shape yourself to whatever those around you need/want most, because then you have no chance of being abandoned

❌ Some of my false negatives, which can explain the false positives as well as core beliefs:

- it is bad to be afraid, if I am afraid then I am vulnerable and it can be used against me

- It is bad to be emotional or show concern for others emotions because they do not care for mine

- It is bad to be able to be exploited, because I believe it is everywhere

- It is bad to allow myself to be bored, because boredom begets bad thoughts and no one can or wants to help me when I spiral

- It is bad to not shape yourself to the social circle, because people quickly grow tired of those who do not match them perfectly and being discarded means I failed

My core beliefs can be viewed as the root for the false positives and negatives, because they are based on the core of trauma, abuse and neglect. They come from patterns and instances that make someone with AsPD become the opposite of what they experienced:

- eat or be eaten

- If I don’t show that my bite is worse than my bark, I will be taken advantage of and I must remain on top because the ones on top are safe

- I must look out for myself because nobody will do it for me

- It doesn’t matter what happens to me, therefore it doesn’t matter what people think of me

- If I cannot do something well, then I should not do it at all

- If you are dependent on others for emotional and mental well being, you are weak, therefore I must isolate myself to avoid becoming codependent and a burden and useless

- If I can handle the stress of a situation better than everyone else, therefore I will keep the problem (financial, emotional, mental, etc) to myself to reduce chances of being abandoned due to failure of perfection

People with AsPD are hard to get along with. We often:

- are always anticipating a fight

- lack respect for authority

- ignore social structures to an extent

- tendency to lie if it’ll lessen punishment or if we feel the lie is more acceptable than our actions

- limit social support because it’s wrong to be dependent on others

- have an inflated view of our own importance — which turns into a self ridicule for believing someome like me could be found important to others —

- can be rude and inconsiderate of others feelings somewhat unintentionally

- are unable to read the correct social cues in relation to empathy towards people and animals

- am constantly confused by others dependence upon empathy and inability to make desicions from logic based standpoints

We can’t speak for everyone who has AsPD, nor are we saying that no one with AsPD is capable of being a murderer/abuser etc. but we are saying that y’all need to stop automatically classifying someone as a certain “type” as soon as you know about their disorder.

One last thing I do want to point out is that it is not uncommon for people with AsPD to derive some sort of enjoyment in causing harm, doing something illegal, hurting someone or animals, etc. This entirely stems from lack of environmental control as a child. Being able to control what happens to others or being able to control the things you say or do that hurts someone else is a hefty high to get addicted to; it soothes the underlying itch of not being able to control your own trauma and abuse, so in turn you push these behaviors onto others and enjoy it because it gives you a sense of power and control. Some people with AsPD do genuinely love hurting others, and some enjoy hurting others when they believe it’s deserved or their ire has been stoked. Some enjoy causing pain to those they think deserve it, and others don’t care who they hurt as long as they feel like they’re in control of the situation.

Please do your research. I'm serious. The media has downplayed both of these disorders to simply autism being passionate about something and ADHD as having a low attention span or being insanely hyper

These are just common traits. You can have traits of a disorder without actually having it. I repeat, you can have traits of something without actually having it.

All forms of neurodivergency (yes, autism/adhd aren't the only ones. Get it through your damn head.) are disabilities. It needs to disable you from being a fully functional human being. I understand there's people with low support needs, but this is directed towards the people who claim to have medium/high support needs.

A special interest isn't just something you're super passionate about, it's a coping mechanism that can take over your life. I hate to admit that I have spent hundreds of dollars on useless things that have made me think of any of my special interests.

Hyperfixations are the same where they take over your entire thought process. For many, their hyperfixes come to mind even in situations it shouldn't. Some people have said that it happens during tests, essays, funerals even. I've had trouble sleeping often because of my own hyperfixations.

If you're 16 or older, I highly recommend that you take the RAADS-R test since it's widely accepted by many psychologists world wide. If you're under 16, I recommend you still take it and then take it again when you're 16 to see if you get the same score. I also highly recommend talking to people who are diagnosed and listing to them your symptoms. I have 3 friends who have been diagnosed tell me that I cover more than enough symptoms to qualify for a diagnosis.

Addition to this (because i got a bit of feedback): No online test will be completely reliable. I highly recommend keeping all of your symptoms somewhere to show a psychiatrist. The main reason I recommend the RAADS-R test is because you can download a PDF that shows not only your score but also your answer to all 80 questions. Psychiatrists are a lot more likely to believe you if you can give a list of your symptoms and how long they've been occurring. I keep a notebook for every time I show an autistic trait (since I struggle most with social situations as an autist, many of mine are moments where I can't tell apart the tone in what people say and I take things way too literally...)

Also, if you mask or used to mask, jotting down your experience with masking is important. Keeping a journal of how things affected you when masking, writing down how things affected you when you started to unmask. I started to mask (quite horribly...) when I was 13 and had a bunch of social norms shoved on me. Due to heavy burnout, I'm 17 now and don't mask anymore because I can't take it any longer. Since unmasking, I've noticed how much my autistic traits have hightened. It's like I've been bottling everything up for so long, and the river doesn't stop flowing.

Also, another thing to add on top of all of that, OCD isn't the same as being super neat either. Compulsive disorders like OCD are consuming. As someone with a compulsive disorder, in my experience, basically the thought does not leave your mind until you act out the thought. It's like having a huge pile of intrusive thoughts that only get bigger the longer you hold them back. It causes immense distress that will constantly bother you until something is done about it.

I also feel the need to point out some ableist language that has somehow become normalized.

1) using "narcissist" to describe someone who's egotistical and selfish. Also, the term "narc abuse" to describe a person with NPD traits who are abusive. Go talk to people with NPD. Go to blogs that educate on NPD. Seriously. You will find that NPD isn't just appearing selfish and egotistical. Sometimes it's the complete opposite.

My partner has NPD, and they actually get their validation often from being nice. (this post they reblogged can help clarify a bit more)

NPD (or any disorder for that matter), aren't inheritly abusive. I had to snap at one of my friends for calling her brother a narcissist when he's just a little asshole.

2) the terms "sociopath" and "psychopath". These terms have typically been used against people with ASPD/ASPD traits. My partner also has ASPD and reclaimed the term "sociopath".

3) "yandere". There are many mixed feelings about this term in the BPD community, ranging from people saying they have no issue with it, some considering it a slur (key word: consider. It's not an actual slur, but some people consider it one. I've had some asshole harass me for saying this, and I don't want any more drama about it.) because it romanticizes the trait in BPD and OLD (Obsessive Love Disorder) of having unhealthy relationships, some saying the term gives them comfort because it describes their symptoms as someone with BPD (which would be like reclaiming the term).

I personally fall under the group of people who consider it a slur, and I will be blocking people who use the term who aren't reclaiming it for their personal selves. I am heavily uncomfortable with the term and ask that anyone who uses the term on any character or person (unless it's someone with bpd headcannoning a character with bpd) a big fat serious DNI.

4) "psychotic", "delusional"/"delulu", and "schizo". I hate that I feel the need to say this, but schizophrenia and psychosis are serious mental disorders. Can we stop using fucking mental disorders as insults or as some quirky label. I experience psychosis, and it has ruined my life. As a polytheist, I often struggle to tell the difference between psychosis or one of my deities talking to me. As a plural system, I sometimes struggle to tell the difference between psychosis and an alter talking to me. As an enjoyer of EPIC: The Musical, psychosis makes it hard to tell if we have a new fictive, if it's psychosis, or a deity.

I'm going to add the stuff said in this reblog since I find it really important:

Stop with lobotomy jokes people. It's a tragic case of medical abuse, and was used many many times on vulnerable people (they'd lobotomize psychotic/schizophrenic people to make them more docile and easier to handle. It's horrific. If they didn't like what a woman was doing, they'd label her psychotic and do it to her too.) The jokes I see are all so tasteless and almost feel mocking to me about it. You didn't go through lobotomies, why are you making it so quirky and downplaying how horrible it is? Schizophrenic and psychotic people (among others but I'm focusing on the group I'm apart of) are still not being taken seriously and left in the dust even after disability activism is on the rise. I don't understand why people will be so understanding with some but then just completely turn off that empathy whenever someone has psychosis. Stop joking about lobotomies, they're not even funny and your sanism is showing.

Taking a bit of another system's post (link) for this lengthy ass post (but I still find it really important to add)

plus, it seems to be entirely ignoring the fact that you can have a symptom of a disorder without having the disorder / being disordered... lets use ADHD as an example here since its the first thing to come to mind LOL, someone can have a short attention span or be distracted easily without inherently having ADHD. it would depend on the presence of other symptoms as well as degree of life impairment. this logic also applies to any other disorder ever... so why dont we apply the same logic to DID / OSDD-1?

I completely agree with this, and it's a big reason why I support endogenic systems (like in the linked post, I'm using endogenic as an umbrella term). The brain is complex. It's as simple as that. So what if a system or alter formed from some other silly way? Who are you to dictate how somebody's brain works? Even before we found out our system was more than just traumagenic, we still got fakeclaimed over the dumbest shit ever and well... for a 13 year old body and newly discovered system, that fakeclaiming was actually really harmful and worsened our trauma. Because of that, we'll always support all systems under the endogenic umbrella or any system that's been deemed "different than others". We don't need to understand how your system works to know that fakeclaiming is harmful and wouldn't wish it on anybody else.

If anyone would like to pitch in, I highly encourage it. I would also appreciate it if anyone could give us some blogs to tag that help educate people on disorders that are downplayed or aren't talked about enough. Some YouTube channels that are informative will be appreciated, too!!

I'm gonna tag my partner's blog ( @zerasocial )if anyone wants to ask them about their experience with ASPD or NPD.

I'd prefer no discourse at all in the notes of this post. If you feel the need to correct me on anything, you're free to DM me and I'll fix anything if needed. (Image IDs are encouraged!! I struggle to make image IDs due to alexithymia, making it extremely hard to describe things in detail (at least i think its alexithymia causing this.. correct me if i'm wrong))

My favorite reblogs of this post so far:

kaleidoscope collective:

I ADORE this post because of how informative it is. We have adhd as a system. our adhd disables us so badly that we have a hard time LIVING in GENERAL. Sometimes our procrastination and self doubt about our ability to actually get things done is so bad that we sit in bed all day scrolling because we just physically cannot get things done. They are disabilities and mental disorders for a REASON, they arent silly traits, stereotypes, quirky little things we deal with. I think everyone has certain traits that are common symptoms to many types of disorders and such, but the difference between the TRAITS you see such as "oh my god im so forgetful" and the SYMPTOMS that tell you "I have adhd" is drastic. I have forgotten to turn off my stove and oven for HOURS at a time, which is a DANGER to my own health if one day something catches fire due to me forgetting to turn things off. My forgetfulness could cost me my LIFE if im not careful. And its not just a once in a while thing, sometimes this happens every DAY. Forgetfulness is not claimed by adhd, forgetfulness is literally a common thing with humans, such as procrastination, and bad impulse control, and quick thoughts, and other symptoms. but when they group together in a long term, high impact way, and when it causes DISORDER in your life, THATS when you can call it ADHD, not when its a once in a while thing.

Some people I don't think realize just how much disabilities and other mental disorders cost you your life. I have spent most of my life just wasting away because I just couldn't feel normal, years off of my life trying to figure out "why I wasnt the same as others". Even with the diagnostic, I still failed to understand why I was so different, why I couldn't do the same things as others with such ease, why I felt so excluded, why I felt like I was too loud, why I felt like I just couldn't be the same as others. Even after my mom getting me a diagnosis a few years into life, she still thinks that me not being able to do most things is me being "lazy". Being called lazy has been drilled into my brain, me being called "loud and too energetic to handle" has been drilled into my brain. These things are stuff that people without the disorders probably won't have to live with, its a burden we live with forever, not because we remember it, but because every time we make mistakes, when our disorder shines its light harshly on our life, it reminds us, again and again, of what we deal with, of what people think, of what people *don't* understand. After all my life with this disorder, I can honestly say that I'm jealous of people who don't have it, of people that can joke around about "oops, im so forgetful" without it putting a risk to your daily life. I've cried so much over hating having ADHD. Even with medication, it doesn't go again. People also don't realize this factor. Medication doesn't solve the problem, it just makes it manageable. My brain will not be the same, with or without the medication. the medication is only there to make it manageable enough for me to HANDLE. it will still be there, even with the medication it still puts a strain on my life, and I will still struggle, just, I will be able to handle that struggle enough to live through another day. The post they made adds so much perspective to not only how much people downplay the disorders themself, but how disorders box people into stereotypes. People with NPD arent all the same, people with schizo disorders aren't crazy, calling people psychopaths won't suddenly make them feel any better, and ADHD and autism aren't "quirky and funny" little disorders. they're MORE then that. I wish sometimes we can put others in our shoes, for just a day, to show the impact of others words.

People seem to only understand the tip of the iceberg, but sometimes, the parts of the iceberg that makes boats sink, are hidden way below the waters surface. Doing research, doesn't just help you figure out if you have a disorder, it educates you. Educating yourself on something can not only help you understand, but it may help you understand OTHERS. You may be able to understand why this person does this one thing, why that person acts a certain way, why this person struggles, etc etc. Sorry for my big rant. I just thought I would give my own view on how I struggle with my symptoms that others downplay. The impact of words and experiences can go a long way, maybe I got side tracked alot with the main message of the original post, but I hope that this can maybe help :) Good day everyone, PLEASE inform me if I said some things a certain way that seems bad, help me correct myself if I didn't notice stuff.

Ty and have a wonderful day! -Vaquint

skylar collective:

I would like to add to this list mania. Most people are like "oh I'm so manic" while giving themselves a dye job. Or when they're in a good mood. Trust me, you're not. Mania is dangerous to the person experiencing it and sometimes those around them.

Do you wanna know what I'm like when I'm manic? Cause it's not pretty or cute.

Without psychotic symptoms, I'm incredibly impulsive and not rational. This is when I declare that I am above the law and should be allowed to shoplift. That is when I declare that I can write an entire novel about my life that will set me for life in an afternoon. That is when I can go from having the best time in my entire life to crying and feaking out in seconds over my bf saying that he's tired. That is when I sleep a total of 12 hours in 4 days.

With psychotic symptoms? I declare I'm god and need to prove this by getting hit with a car. That is when the entire system is active and sreaming their own wonderful ideas of illegal shit to do while screaming that everyone else's are stupid and dangerous. That is when I declare that Tord is jesus and that he NEEDS to write a Bible about his life and ideologies because people should worship him.

I am completely irrational and need to be babysat.

The only thing that helps with this is medication. I need my medication. Without it, I will end up in the hospital, prison, or dead. Anyone who talks about wishing for the downfall of psychiatry needs to know that many of us can not function without medication. Many of us have no hope in therapy alone managing our symptoms. You need to understand this

Proudly making/wearing things that signify you're psychotic in an attempt to destigmatize psychosis/psychotic disorders

Because psychotic people (whether plural or singlet) deserve to exist in peace, to be treated with respect and not fear/hatred/condescension