suffer endlessly

But the answer, it turns out, is I was doing something. Riding in a car jars your body in many directions and requires constant microadjustments of your muscles just to stay in place and hold your normal posture. Because you're inside the car, inside the situation, it's easy not to notice all the extra work you're doing just to maintain the status quo.

There's all sorts of work that we think of as "free" that require spending energy: concentrating, making decisions, managing anxiety, maintaining hypervigilance in an unfriendly environment, dealing with stereotype threat, processing a lot of sensory input, repairing skin cells damaged by sun exposure, trying to stay warm in a cold room.

- having bpd does not make you abusive

- having bpd does not make you manipulative

- having bpd does not make you a bad person

- having bpd does not make you a bad partner

- having bpd does not make you a bad friend

- having bpd does not mean that you’re over-dramatic

So apparently it’s time for another self dx info post because people are gross

INFO:

basics

self diagnosis isn’t looking at one post and going “hey thats me, im autistic”

self diagnosis includes research and introspection

self diagnosis of multiple disorders is reasonable - comorbidity is common (see: autism and ADHD, ADHD and SPD, many personality disorders with each other, though more than one is rarely diagnosed due to overlapping traits)

self diagnosis doesn’t take away resources from anyone

the only people who don’t take a disorder seriously “because of” self diagnosis don’t take it seriously anyway

the DSM is available online

it doesn’t matter if they’re wrong - if they’re self diagnosing it’s because they had a problem and the resources and coping mechanisms within ____ community helped them. 

re: doctors

many doctors refuse to diagnose

a lot of these reasons are racism and sexism

some traits/symptoms are internal and are therefore not seen by doctors

doctors diagnose based on behavior. people self-dx based on.. behavior.

re: racism, classism, sexism

many poc (especially black people) are diagnosed with “being {race}”

many people who are perceived as girls won’t be diagnosed because {sexist reason such as ‘girls cant get autism’ - yes thats a real reason people have been denied diagnosis}

me: *gets good at being invisible to the point where people actually don’t seem to notice me or remember me a lot of the time*

avpd brain: oh :( guess we just suck :( guess we’re just so awful and unlikeable that we’re not worth anyone’s time :( if only someone would notice us like they notice everyone else :(