Tag: brain stuff

jumpingjacktrash:

the-real-seebs:

wirehead-wannabe:

inkskinned:

elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey:

aloeplantt:

does anyone else have those moments where they just fall in love with being alive? like, maybe you’re in art class with soft music and you realize that this peaceful feeling is a part of life that you love and you want to just keep forever, and there are so many other parts of life too that are so wonderful and maybe existing isnt so bad after all

is this what being not depressed is like

no, this is what recovery is like. this is what being depressed is like, and it’s why we stay. because even when we’re sure this is it, this is the last day we can put up with it, this is the last hour, the last second – some part of us remembers these moments, and thinks – what if tomorrow has one of them. 

i used to joke i have bad days and worse days. i almost never do well. i feel like i keep barely a nose above the water.

but in those rare, rare, rare seconds where the waves stop for one second and i catch sight of something other than dark, i see it. the way a rose looks after a rain. how my mother smiles when she knows it’s my favorite meal that’s cooking. my best friend looking over his shoulder to flip me off again. the bike i rode at 7 and crashed at 17. a little bug struggling with five little legs – but walking, walking.

recovery isn’t smashing into these moments and realizing it’s finally happened, what those people said is true and it “all gets better”. recovery is remembering those moments and deciding – i want them back. it’s looking for them. sometimes it takes hours. sometimes days. sometimes months without any sight of them. but you look, you search even when you’re too tired to keep your eyes open, because you promised yourself … tomorrow. tomorrow will be the day we find one. a four leaf clover we know is our sign, the rainbow, the wishing well – the way out.

and when you find one, they get easier. four leaf clovers always grow in the same patch, after all. and your eyes get sharper. you figure out what makes any small part of you happy. you figure out that you might not be happy, but it’s good enough to stick around to watch the way oil looks in puddles and how she always cries at new year’s. and it might not be blisteringly, soul-crushingly happy in the way other people seem to feel things – in that mind-numbing wordless joy that shines in them, that glow i’m so envious of, that effortlessness – but it will be like this, just quiet, a moment of rest, of the shouts dimming for a minute, a peace.

it’s easy to say “i’m depressed, i’ll never be happy.” maybe. i hope not, because i’m still looking. and in these moments i’ve rediscovered that i am funny, that i like the color pink, that kittens and puppies never fail me. in these moments i’m still depressed, still me, still fighting an illness that wants to end me. but i’m fighting. i seek these moments in every second i get because i’m here and breathing and after all this i’m going to be pissed if this gets the better of me. 

maybe i’ll never figure out how to feel effortless and free. but i know that i feel love when the music is blaring and my hands are out the window and i feel love somewhere on the beach and i feel love watching salamanders wake up in the mornings. it’s not other people’s love, it’s far-off and it’s distant and it might not be “normal”, but it’s goddamn important to me. 

i didn’t wake up better. i forced better to come fight me. i’ve been walking towards recovery since i was 19. five years later and no, i’m not cured, but i see a lot more of these moments. or maybe they were always there, and only now am i realizing what i got in front of me.

and when it’s been bad again? when i’m not even breathing? when it’s been months since i felt anything, when the stress is too much and the sky is dark and the moon in me has fallen silent? i say: hang on. tomorrow might be the day we find it. tomorrow might be worth the fight.

the best part about this? eventually, i’m right.  

Like, I get that you and a lot of people find this helpful, but I don’t see it. I’ve had so many moments where it feels like I’m getting better and then nothing improves in the long run. I’ve heard of people having one or two depressive episodes and then getting over it, and I’ve heard of people never getting depressive episodes at all, and I’ve heard of people being depressed for more or less their whole lives, but I don’t feel like I ever hear about people being depressed for a decade or more than then finally making lasting, long term progress that makes the struggle worth it.

I do. I’m married to one of them. I know others.

And… Like, even some of the people who are depressed their whole lives are still, on the whole, okay with that. Anhedonia’s a bitch, but sometimes you find a way to derive value from things anyway. I dunno, man.

But I know a fair number of people that I know felt just like you describe feeling for, I dunno, a decade or more, and now they’re happy they made it through that. It happens. Which is no guarantee for you, and… I dunno. People link me to a lot of your posts, and I just want to say, I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, I don’t think it’s your fault, and I think you deserve better, and I hope you find it.

*waves* seebs’s spouse here. depressed since early childhood. learned to do the thing @inkskinned is talking about in adulthood (after many much much worse coping mechanisms i won’t get into) and kept at it until i got really good at it. and that was it for years – i was depressed, but also sometimes very happy. believe it or not, the two states are not mutually exclusive. i didn’t have the energy to react strongly to good things, and sometimes i had anhedonia to the point where my happiness was very muted, but it was still happiness. i think if you look in the recovery or depression tag on my blog and you go back a ways you can find my posts about that.

and if that was all the better it got, i would’ve stuck it out and been – on the whole – glad to be alive.

but i’d kept trying various meds off and on over the years, and persistence paid off. i found the one that actually worked. it took two weeks to climb out of hades, like orpheus, holding my breath and refusing to look back. two weeks as the medicine worked its molecular magic on my brain chemistry. and then It Happened: a Day Without Depression.

i woke up and looked at the day ahead of me and was curious about what would be in it. i felt awake, i felt alive, i know that’s a cliche and doesn’t convey anything but i really felt like i was the one breathing, you know? finally MY lungs and MY heart and MY blood and bones, not an oubliette where i passed the time befriending rats and sparrows. not every day is like that now, but enough of them are that i’m a lot stronger on the bad days. i’m not so exhausted all the time. 

more and more often, i look up at sunlight through leaves, or a firefly lands on my hand, or seebs gives me a big good hug, and i feel that bright upwelling joy that used to be so vanishingly rare.

don’t. give. up.

i swear if i’d lived unmedicated eighty years and only been depression free the last year of my life, it would still be worth it.

the-real-seebs:

wirehead-wannabe:

inkskinned:

elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey:

aloeplantt:

does anyone else have those moments where they just fall in love with being alive? like, maybe you’re in art class with soft music and you realize that this peaceful feeling is a part of life that you love and you want to just keep forever, and there are so many other parts of life too that are so wonderful and maybe existing isnt so bad after all

is this what being not depressed is like

no, this is what recovery is like. this is what being depressed is like, and it’s why we stay. because even when we’re sure this is it, this is the last day we can put up with it, this is the last hour, the last second – some part of us remembers these moments, and thinks – what if tomorrow has one of them. 

i used to joke i have bad days and worse days. i almost never do well. i feel like i keep barely a nose above the water.

but in those rare, rare, rare seconds where the waves stop for one second and i catch sight of something other than dark, i see it. the way a rose looks after a rain. how my mother smiles when she knows it’s my favorite meal that’s cooking. my best friend looking over his shoulder to flip me off again. the bike i rode at 7 and crashed at 17. a little bug struggling with five little legs – but walking, walking.

recovery isn’t smashing into these moments and realizing it’s finally happened, what those people said is true and it “all gets better”. recovery is remembering those moments and deciding – i want them back. it’s looking for them. sometimes it takes hours. sometimes days. sometimes months without any sight of them. but you look, you search even when you’re too tired to keep your eyes open, because you promised yourself … tomorrow. tomorrow will be the day we find one. a four leaf clover we know is our sign, the rainbow, the wishing well – the way out.

and when you find one, they get easier. four leaf clovers always grow in the same patch, after all. and your eyes get sharper. you figure out what makes any small part of you happy. you figure out that you might not be happy, but it’s good enough to stick around to watch the way oil looks in puddles and how she always cries at new year’s. and it might not be blisteringly, soul-crushingly happy in the way other people seem to feel things – in that mind-numbing wordless joy that shines in them, that glow i’m so envious of, that effortlessness – but it will be like this, just quiet, a moment of rest, of the shouts dimming for a minute, a peace.

it’s easy to say “i’m depressed, i’ll never be happy.” maybe. i hope not, because i’m still looking. and in these moments i’ve rediscovered that i am funny, that i like the color pink, that kittens and puppies never fail me. in these moments i’m still depressed, still me, still fighting an illness that wants to end me. but i’m fighting. i seek these moments in every second i get because i’m here and breathing and after all this i’m going to be pissed if this gets the better of me. 

maybe i’ll never figure out how to feel effortless and free. but i know that i feel love when the music is blaring and my hands are out the window and i feel love somewhere on the beach and i feel love watching salamanders wake up in the mornings. it’s not other people’s love, it’s far-off and it’s distant and it might not be “normal”, but it’s goddamn important to me. 

i didn’t wake up better. i forced better to come fight me. i’ve been walking towards recovery since i was 19. five years later and no, i’m not cured, but i see a lot more of these moments. or maybe they were always there, and only now am i realizing what i got in front of me.

and when it’s been bad again? when i’m not even breathing? when it’s been months since i felt anything, when the stress is too much and the sky is dark and the moon in me has fallen silent? i say: hang on. tomorrow might be the day we find it. tomorrow might be worth the fight.

the best part about this? eventually, i’m right.  

Like, I get that you and a lot of people find this helpful, but I don’t see it. I’ve had so many moments where it feels like I’m getting better and then nothing improves in the long run. I’ve heard of people having one or two depressive episodes and then getting over it, and I’ve heard of people never getting depressive episodes at all, and I’ve heard of people being depressed for more or less their whole lives, but I don’t feel like I ever hear about people being depressed for a decade or more than then finally making lasting, long term progress that makes the struggle worth it.

I do. I’m married to one of them. I know others.

And… Like, even some of the people who are depressed their whole lives are still, on the whole, okay with that. Anhedonia’s a bitch, but sometimes you find a way to derive value from things anyway. I dunno, man.

But I know a fair number of people that I know felt just like you describe feeling for, I dunno, a decade or more, and now they’re happy they made it through that. It happens. Which is no guarantee for you, and… I dunno. People link me to a lot of your posts, and I just want to say, I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, I don’t think it’s your fault, and I think you deserve better, and I hope you find it.

recovery from CPTSD is complex. Sometimes, it can feel so hopelessly complex that we totally give up and get stuck in inertia for considerable lengths of time. This is why it is so important to understand that recovery is gradual and frequently a backwards and forwards process.

Effective recovery is often limited to only progressing in one or two areas at a time. Biting off more than we can chew and trying to accomplish too much too soon is often counterproductive. As a flight type, I spent years in mid-range recovery workaholically spinning my wheels trying to fix and change everything at once.

We often need to simplify our self-help efforts in early recovery. Accordingly, I recommend making shrinking the critic your “go to” response if you feel unsure how to proceed.

Once the critic is reduced enough that you can notice increasing periods of your brain being user-friendly, impulses to help and care for yourself naturally arise. As this happens, it becomes easier to tell whether you’re guiding yourself with love or a whip. When you realize its the whip, please try to disarm your critic and treat yourself with the kindness you would extend to any young child who is struggling and having a hard time.

Complex CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, Pete Walker, pg 70
(via thetwistedrope)

jabberwockypie:

PTSD is your brain trying to make sure you DON’T DIE.

Humans are really good at adapting so that we don’t die.  That’s kind of our whole *THING*.  We adapt.

If something BAD and SCARY and DANGEROUS happens, your brain tries to teach you to react better next time.  If the Bad Scary Dangerous thing happens a lot, that’s reinforcing it.  With CPTSD, the Bad Scary Dangerous thing happened often enough and frequently enough that your whole psyche developed around it.

You learn to notice the tiny things that signal the Bad Scary Dangerous Thing might happen – even if you don’t consciously know that you know that – so that you are braced to react and defend yourself.  They become triggers so that you are primed to respond.

Hypervigilance? Better to panic unnecessarily than to get dead because you didn’t recognize a threat in time, right?  It’s uncomfortable and a waste of energy but you’re not dead.

Nightmares about the Bad Thing?  Dreams are PRACTICE.  You are trying to learn how to react better or faster or more effectively next time.

Avoidance? Dissociating is better than just completely breaking and shutting down entirely.

The thing is, even if you are not in that situation anymore, your brain did not get the memo.  It is trying! But it takes a lot of work to convince it that “No really, it is safe now!”

I guess what I’m saying is cut yourself some slack.  You are doing your best and you’re not dead. ❤

roachpatrol:

glumshoe:

Quiet moments are dangerous. That’s when the melancholy sneaks in and catches you. The whale tour is running very late and I’m stuck on a picnic table with nothing to do except let my brain gnaw itself raw, and I don’t have the battery life to compose mediocre poetry about it.

this is why i have as many tabs of fanfic open on my phone as possible at all times

the-real-seebs:

legoloveletters:

violent-darts:

jumpingjacktrash:

undastra:

hashtagdion:

My emotions are valid*

*valid does not mean healthy, or good, or to be privileged above common sense and kindness

A distinction for anyone who is young and hasn’t figured this out yet:

You are allowed to have whatever emotions you want. No one can control your emotions. Emotions are healthy responses to things.

You are not allowed to have behaviors that are harmful just because you have certain emotions. Your behaviors are what you can control, and they are far easier to control than your emotions.

You can be jealous about someone or their talents until you turn green, but it is harmful to yourself and to that person if you try to sabotage them because of it. You can be so angry you can literally feel your temperature rise, but this does not give you permission to rage at others.

Your emotions are valid. They are always valid. You are a person of value. However, you behaviors are not always justified just because of those emotions. You may not be able to control you emotions, but you can certainly control your behaviors.

and this one, i beg you to learn before you become right-wing fundamentalists: just because something gives you revulsion feelings does not mean it’s morally wrong.

you may be sex-repulsed; that doesn’t mean sex is dirty and bad. maybe you were bullied by teenage girls; that doesn’t mean teenage girls are a force of evil. perhaps a villain in a work of fiction reminds you of someone who abused you; that doesn’t mean people who enjoy that character or that fiction are abusive. your feelings about those things are absolutely valid, and it’s not right for people to tell you you shouldn’t feel that way. but it’s also not right for you to act out against others based on those feelings.

that instinct to generalize served our species well when we were hunter-gatherers living in small bands in a hostile wilderness. you nibble a delicious-looking berry, you throw up, you know that berry is BAD and you make the yuck face whenever you see it so the other hominids know it’s a bad one. but in the modern world, in the information age, there are so many complex things you might encounter, you’re going to have badfeels about a lot of things that aren’t actually across-the-board bad.

you need to not be ruled by your hominid yuckberry instinct. that’s where bigotry comes from.

Thiiiiis. 

I’m old and still need refreshers on this.

it is not my favorite thing to see people advocating that everyone should shun someone because they’re “gross”. it was not my favorite thing when i was a kid and it was mostly directed at gays, and it is not my favorite thing now.