Concept: Maybe “neurotypicals” who consistently reblog post about autism and other mental disorders and illnesses because they relate to them actually aren’t neurotypical, and just don’t know it.
Even the ones who say, “But everyone does this!” might only be saying it because they do it, and therefore think everyone does, when that’s not the reality.
Like, I remember someone who very obviously had OCD saying, “Everyone gets constant, upsetting intrusive thoughts, and does things to make them go away! It’s normal!” and everyone who responded to them were like, “Uh… No, it’s really not. You have a mental illness.”
I hate how everyone is so quick to assume anyone who relates to their posts without having every aspect of their mental state listed on their blog is obviously an evil, appropriating neurotypical. Maybe they are technically neurotypical, but have one or two traits associated with whatever form of neurodivergence. Maybe they’re neurodivergent and just don’t feel like listing it. Maybe they think they’re neurotypical, and are in the process of realising that they actually aren’t.
Please don’t be so quick to judge. This gatekeeping helps no one.
This is an extremely important point.
I know at least one trans person who didn’t realize they were trans until they were talking about how much they relate to trans things. Only, it was in the context of being dismissive of trans people. “Oh, sure, of course you prefer those pronouns. Everyone does.” But that wasn’t a cis person being dismissive of trans experiences; it was a trans person not understanding that they were trans.
Same thing with a lot of mental illness stuff.
Honestly, if you relate to an experience, you have the experience. Doesn’t matter whether you have it for the same reason someone else does.
On a similar note that I was thinking about recently: perhaps some neurodivergent people who are dismissed by their parents have neurodivergent parents who don’t know it. Like, if your mom says “everyone has that” when you tell her about your depression, there’s a decent chance that she’s not minimizing you, she just has depression herself and doesn’t realize it.
Bless you all
Also important to note that not everyone lists these things on their blog.
Ive had someone angrily come at me in messages because I was reblogging BPD posts when I “didn’t have BPD” but when I explained that I do, in fact, have Borderline Personality Disorder, they were apologetic but that doesn’t take back the distress their ask caused. Same thing with gender issues.
Please don’t assume that everyone on tumblr is willing to list their mental illnesses on their sidebar like a badge.
On the subject of dismissal by parents that is absolutely a true thing that I have experienced. My dad and I both have ADHD and we only both found out when I got diagnosed like a month ago. He’s always really supportive but I’ve had a lot of really painful conversations with him where he’d be telling me the whole “that’s normal everyone gets that” thing, and it was pretty much because he’d been living his whole life with ADHD and had no clue. People judge what’s normal based on their own experiences, and because everyone tries to manage and hide the things they’re struggling with, it’s easy to assume everyone is dealing with the same problems as you when they might not be.
me: ok edgelord we get it what if i slit my wrists right now can we please just focus
Additionally; me: *waiting for the subway* intrusive thoughts: what if you jumped me: it would cause a four hour delay while they pick your body parts out of the rails you fucking prick, can we please for once get on public transit without going through this
Also; Me: *walking along a busy road* intrusive thoughts: What if you just fell over in front of this truck? Me: It would back up traffic all fucking night and probably hurt a lot of people you prick.
Gosh. I never have thoughts like this
didnt ask but that sounds nice
Me: *walking down the stairs* Intrusive Thought: I could throw myself down these flight of stairs and leave more time for everyone else! Me: Or you end up with a broken wrist and sprain ankle you dickhead keep walking
Me: *driving on a bridge* Intrusive thoughts: I could just drive straight into that lake and finish it right now. Me: You asshole, this is a new car. Just fucking keep going like everyone else you prick.
oh my god,^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I needed this
Me: *standing at a lookout* It’s so beautiful here…
Intrusive thoughts: yeah, look at that view, you could just step out into it and you’d probably never feel the impact when you hit the ground 20m below…
Me: Bitch, don’t ruin the view for everyone else. Fucksake.
me: *walking along the street*
intrusive thoughts: what if you just started screaming really loudly
me: i’d freak ppl out and someone might think someone was getting hurt, don’t ruin ppl’s day like that
i have a weird relationship with how i perceive my body. not in shame way, in the more basic sense of “shit, i have a body”
every once in a while i have an odd feeling of “…hey…wait a minute…i have a physical body that people see and associate with me! i have a body! i’m not just a brain with hands!”
and sometimes i’ll catch my reflection in a window or something and just stare because whoa, that’s me right there
My dietician says that the body image things are the last part of anorexia to go. You decide that you prefer to maintain a weight at which you can be healthy (and gosh, deciding that is complicated all by itself). Then you gain weight until your brain functions normally and you’re not fatigued all the time. Then in theory I am told you get back to having normal hunger signals and being able to mostly eat when you’re hungry and still get enough calories. And then maybe if you’re lucky some of the body image stuff fades.
I really wish someone had told me that several years ago. Lots and lots of the generic advice for eating disorders gives the impression that, like, you have to combat your unhealthy body image that is presumably driving your eating disorder, that you have to become all right with maintaining a healthy weight, that you have to grapple with the things that made you want to be thin in the first place.
As far as I can tell this doesn’t seem to be true. You have to eat a lot. You have to eat when you’re not hungry and don’t feel like it. You have to learn to manage nausea and manage stress and manage restaurants. You have to keep eating when you feel like you’ve been doing this eating thing for a while and it’s not at all rewarding and your weight is close enough can you call it a day.
There is probably some value to be gained from figuring out why you want to be thin, and why you have the emotions you have around food, and what you actually want, and so on. But all the introspection in the world will actually just get you… a really clear mental picture of having an eating disorder.
The thing to do to get healthy is to consistently eat a lot of food.
This is both better and worse than advertised. It is better because it means I don’t have to change my mind, suspect my own wants, interrogate my self image, rewrite my preferences, in order to recover. I thought I’d have to do that and I did not want to and I think I was very justified in not wanting to. It is worse because it means doing something which varies from ‘vaguely unpleasant’ to ‘awful and directly contrary to everything I want and everything my body is telling me’ six times a day (three meals, three snacks) with no breaks and no exceptions.
But I am doing it. It has been harder than anticipated and I do take breaks and make exceptions (and I notice that this is negatively affecting me, and I plan ways to not do it again), it’s much more of a full-time job than I could possibly have guessed, but I am doing it.
Sometimes it even feels like it’s getting easier.
“I don’t have to change my mind … in order to recover.”
This times a million. Construing my disorder as explicitly medical helped more with my recovery than calls to introspection ever did. I am not concerned with the emotional roots of bingeing and purging. I’m concerned with whether or not I’m chafing my throat and ruining my digestive system, and taking Vyvanse is what enables me to not do that. I have a life; I’m tired of spending energy ruminating on the noxious seed. I’m just happy I can keep it from growing.
this is important for a lot of reasons, and one of the reasons is that eating disorders are not always psychologically based.
i have disordered eating because of sensory processing disorder. i don’t experience hunger properly and never will. i will always have to eat when i don’t feel hungry, and stop eating when i still feel hungry, and eat things that don’t feel like food, at times that don’t feel like food times.
i’ve accepted i need assistance with this. i have a helper who comes in 5 mornings a week to make sure i eat breakfast, and while i can’t always eat the whole thing, i at least get enough that my meds don’t burn a hole in my stomach. she leaves me tidy little portioned-out snacks in the fridge. for the rest, i rely on my spouse and friends to keep me on track. but even with all this, there are times when i don’t eat, or barely eat, for days.
accepting that this isn’t a moral issue, and it’s not an issue of mental health, or willpower, it’s just one of those things that happens, has really helped me keep fighting for my health.
someone: how do you cope with your mental illness?
me:
me: well first i don’t
one of the least helpful things ive been told as a neurodivergent person is “don’t half ass things”
if you can quarter ass something, do it! if all you can do is clean a corner of your room, or only read one of the two assigned chapters, or write the heading for your resume, or put all the papers for taxes in a pile, do it! if today isn’t a whole ass day, take pride in the portion of ass that you were capable of
don’t let neurotypicals work ethic define how you did today
honestly this info/post is so so so important.
like i have lived in my new appartment for about half a year now and my autistic ass would never have cleaned it even once if i hadn’t allowed myself to halfass my cleaing.
instead of waiting for a day (that would never come) where i would have the energy and executive function to clean all of it, i took it one bit at the time. one day i might vacuum the kitchen. another day i might dust the livingroom.
you don’t have to do it all at once. it’s ok to just do a little bit.
being mentally ill is just being fed up with your own shit 24/7 like oh my god are we really going to do this again can I have like one hour of peace just one fucking hour oh my god p l e a s e
I feel like neurotypical ppl tend to underestimate MI ppls level of self-awareness abt our disorders. Like, believe you me, I am well aware that my brain is a rampant shitshow. That doesn’t mean I can make it stop doing shit though.
just moving along like everyone else 