This is kind of random but I just got really stressed out and want to talk about something I feel is important.
If you have depression or any other mental illness/condition that affects your daily life and can make it hard to function, please try to at least brush your teeth. Bare minimum. When even that’s too much I sometimes will just swish around some mouthwash when I piss or something. Anything.
Depression really fucked up my mouth and now it hurts to eat/drink most things and my dental bills are high because of how neglectful I got during particularly bad episodes when I was younger. Teeth can’t repair or replace themselves, so take care of them as best you can. If not just for the health aspect of it, keeping up your dental hygiene could save you from a lot of financial stress in the future.
ok that’s all take care toodles
FUCKING THIS ^^^^
I honestly just stopped caring at one point and my teeth are quite literally dying in my mouth.
Every other day part of some tooth is breaking off in my mouth, and eating is so fucking painful.
Not to mention that just BREATHING causes pain to shoot through my gums to the point that sometimes I’m in tears.
Please, PLEASE, force yourself to brush your teeth. I wish I would have.
I recently had to have three cavities removed and a root canal because of this. Please. Please take care of your teeth.
If you can’t force yourself to get out of bed and go to the bathroom, they make mini disposable toothbrushes with toothpaste, like Colgate Wisp. Keep them next to your bed and use them.
Extremely this; three of my teeth just crumbled recently because brushing my teeth was something that fell by the wayside when i was too depressed to even get out of bed most days! Its really hard but believe me, the feeling of your own tooth falling to pieces in your mouth is infinitely worse
I got nine cavities in my mouth and paid out the ass for it. But i learned things:
A cheap-ass basic tube of toothpaste has virtually the same amount of fluoride as a fancy one. Unless ordered by your dentist or needed for other reasons, you can skip expensive pastes and use a more affordable brand
Same with toothbrushes. Unless you need special angles or find them really helpful, you can buy a cheap brush.
If cavities are small enough, they can be reversed with care. Like when you feel a zit coming on and treat it before it becomes an issue. It does take a lot of diligence though.
Drinking water after consuming soda and sugar is a good idea, as it washes the abrasives out and reintroduces fluoride to your mouth. Even just a mouthful or two helps.
Flossing once a week is better than never at all. Yes, you will bleed, but that’s because your gums were irritated by all the crap you just removed.
When you do brush, make sure to hit your gum line and get all that gunk. Get the back and sides too. 2 min total is ideal, but do your best.
a tip my dentist shared with me is that you do not want to brush your teeth for about half an hour after you eat because that is when your enamel is weakest! as the above poster says, rinse your mouth out with water instead. if your tap water is safe to drink, it should have fluoride in it even if it’s on the acidic side, which will help.
they also make these things called xylitol mints that help prevent tooth decay which you can take after meals too!
something that has really worked for me in terms of self improvement is trying to form a single habit at a time. i’ve self-sabotaged countless of times trying to turn my life around in a single night, like, writing down a schedule where i’m going to wake up early, do yoga, cook my own food, work six hours and then write for another two, etc, etc, and like, that does help form a coherent picture of what you want your life to look like, it helps visualizing the path before you, but it just like… the Disorders get in the way, and even with a quote unquote healthy brain it’s not something anyone can just achieve overnight. so like, for example, last year i started forming the habit of reading for half an hour before i go to bed instead of scrolling my phone, and this year i added journaling, too. i just started forming the habit of not scrolling tumblr as soon as i wake up and i’m saving a lot of time in my mornings.
and like, it wasn’t something that i immediately got used to, i was so upset the first time i forgot to write about my day or sometimes i end up googling useless stuff instead of reading a book, but now it seems more natural than not to do these things.
i think my point is, and maybe this is obvious but it truly has been a reality check and a revelation for me, is that focusing on a single, small thing is so much more helpful than beating yourself over not being able to suddenly become a healthy person with healthy habits. forming habits takes time, adopting healthy routines takes time, and trying to do it all at once is incredibly discouraging, but little things add up.
I first read about a technique like this in a Rookie article, How to Structure Your Days If You’re Depressed. After reading it I decided I wanted to try it, and made it my goal to wash my face every day before bed. It wasn’t easy at first, and I still miss some days, but I can already tell it’s helping me and I feel more capable and more in control of my life. Plus my face looks a lot better, so I’m starting to feel more self-confident. Anyways basically I just mean to say that this is really solid advice I wish I’d known about earlier and I hope if you’re reading this and have trouble structuring your days that you give it a shot!
depressed kids in the media: I don’t wanna go to therapy! I don’t need help! I’m not some specimen for you to dissect!
me, rollin up to my therapist’s office and collapsing in relief: what is UP my homeboy I fuckin missed you,, hope ur ready to hear some Bull Shit that fuckin happened to me this week
families of depressed kids in media: okay sweetie we’ve researched depression for ten hours straight and signed you up for therapy and re-arranged your school schedule to be less stressful
actual parents of depressed kids: look i get you’re sad but someones gotta do the goddamn dishes stop being lazy get up. why didn’t you go to school today, what’s wrong with you, you’re such a burden on this family.
Therapists in the media: *understanding head tilt*
My real live therapist whom I adore: Natalie, that is the DUMBEST thing I’ve ever heard.
Therapists in Media: Lets do some art therapy and be really quiet while we talk about your feelings :)))))) also I’m prescribing you 500 different medicines
My therapist Brian who I love to death: Jack, I think your first problem is you stay up too late looking at memes, so let’s try taking a nap
My real life therapist: Okay, before we start, I found this hilarious video I know you’d love.
Therapist in media: serious face the whole time
My therapist: *laughs awkwardly*
therapists in media: refined, cultured, poised, “I’m afraid I haven’t [heard of the nerdy thing their patient just referenced]”
my old therapist derek, from across the reception area, seeing me for the first time after the summer of 2015: HEY DID YOU SEE AGE OF ULTRON?? IT SUCKED, RIGHT???
my current therapist ian, in our very first appointment: do you like star wars? anxiety is like the force, it can consume you, or you can learn to keep it in balance… you’re my padawan now
Actual things my therapist has told me:
“You’re bassicly a glorified sad lizard.” (It makes sense with context)
“Damn girl you need to get your shit together.”
“Go home and cry. Stop drinking in bathtubs. Eat something that isn’t bleach or memes.”
I’ll add more tomorrow after I see her again.
my late lamented 74-year-old-therapist with margaret thatcher hair and eyeglasses on a chain: “so in this dream were you the fuckER or the fuckEE?”
depressed adult men in media: depression is for girls, i’m just brooding and drinking because it’s cool
me in real life: *to the tune of rubber duckie* lexapro pill, you’re the one! you make it possible to have fun!
—
depressed adult men in media, when forced at gunpoint to see a therapist: nothing is wrong, everything is peachy, three seasons of trauma have not given me PTSD because i’m a protagonist, can i go now
me in real life seeing stacy the brain mechanic: … help?
—
therapist of adult man in media: good, you expressed a feeling, well done! same time next week ok?
stacy the brain mechanic: dude, you do realize that if anyone else talked about you the way you talk about yourself, you’d kick their ass
this is real bad and i still gotta make it until the 16th. thats 10 days away.
one of the most insidious things about depression is it doesn’t ‘feel’ like depression. even when you have it, you know you have it, you’ve been diagnosed—you still find yourself thinking, no, nope, this isn’t it, can’t be. it’s like the mental illness equivalent of that knight in monty python that keeps going ‘it’s a flesh wound! i’m fine, really! this is just a scratch, i’ll be up in a moment!’ even after all his limbs have been hacked off and he’s lying there helpless.
one of the most common narratives around it is that no one realizes they have depression until they start checking off what they consider to be normal aspects of their lives—and personal character flaws— against the checklist for depression symptoms. really key symptoms include:
lack of motivation
constant tiredness, even exhaustion
finding no pleasure or satisfaction in activities they used to like, or that they know should feel good
not seeing the point of doing anything
increased and even unmanageable anxiety and fearfulness
any one of these symptoms drains away your ability to do work, cope with setbacks, overcome difficulties, or stop procrastinating. multiple symptoms create a pretty perfect storm of intertia and anxious self-loathing. you stop doing anything because it’s hard to get going, unpleasant while you’re at it, and afterwards there’s no reward. why bother, right? and when you’re always tired you get conservative of what little energy you can manage, and when you only feel emotions on the ‘empty to miserable’ spectrum you get really aversive to making mistakes. the whole mess very quickly and very insidiously loads every single thing in your life with toxic emotional baggage.
and then someone says to you— or you say to yourself, ‘stop being lazy’. and that haunts you forever. because you’re lazy! the work is so easy. everyone else does it. everyone but you, you lazy asshole, lying around all day not doing this totally easy thing that you should be able to but aren’t. you don’t have depression! of course not. mental illness is for victims, is for blameless innocent people who can’t be blamed for being so understandably sick. but you can be blamed. you have a character flaw, and it’s getting worse by the minute.
and that is how people who have been diagnosed, who have been medicated, who have been through therapy, can still spend all day hiding in bed and chewing themselves up over their failure to just somehow magically be a good, healthy, useful person, instead of treating themselves to a sick day and saying ‘yup! it’s depression. i need to be kind to myself.’
Fuck this is so important and relevant
Nope reblogging twice in a row because u want to scream this from the roof and plaster it over the walls and never shut up about it
just moving along like everyone else 