Tag: depression

panniekew:

dailypsychologyfacts:

5 Not Obvious Signs of Self Harm | psych2go x Katia

Despite halloween coming up, this is an important issue to look into. 

This is an important video.

However, I feel like I should add to this because I thought this video was going to go in a completely different direction – Forms of self harm that might not always be obvious, because they don’t occur externally.

Let me explain.

I self harmed in High School to cope with parental abuse. I made a promise to myself that I have yet to break on Christmas Eve, age 17, that I would never do that to myself again. I am now 23 and happier than ever, having moved out, graduated from college, and found the love of my life.

However, even tho no blade came to my wrist, I continued to self harm in ways that did not manifest in cuts or bruises for a good 5+ years afterwards.

I would self harm in words. Saying things to myself and others like “I’m a piece of shit,” “nothing I do matters,” “I’m worthless,” etc., and although those words never leave a mark, they’re still hurting you on the inside.

I know people who have, by the physical definition, have never self harmed, but by my definition self harm every single day.

In short, we need to expand the definition of self harm.

My grandmother is the first person that comes to mind.

She is on her way out of this world, she’s 81 atm, her husband is losing his memory, and in that way, she is losing her husband.

She is arguably the closest thing to a perfect person I have ever met in my entire life. And I don’t just say that because she is my grandparent. She is incredibly talented, keeps her house cleaner than a hospital, cooks incredible meals, is sharp as a tack and has enough intelligence for the next 10 people, and has the cutest highland Scottish accent you’ve ever heard, especially when she swears ❀

There’s only one problem. She’s never been mean to another living soul, but she’s mean to herself every day.

Every mistake she may make, she says “I’m so stupid,” “I’m just a waste of space,” and other things that just make me wanna cry on the spot when I hear them.

I finally told her, ”Grammy, you don’t have much time left. And if I have one wish for you, it’s that before you go, you see how truly amazing and incredible you are. I look up to you. In my mind, you are the best at everything in the entire world and the adult I could only dream of ever being.”

She started crying. (My Grammy does not cry in front of people first of all so this is already a huge deal.) I could tell this message really resonated with her.

Because she lives in Scotland and I live in America, I can only afford to see her once a year. I came back the next year and she was still treating herself the same way.

I still wish, before she leaves us, that she will stop hurting herself the way she does.

When we expand the definition of self harm to include people like my grandmother, we can start bringing awareness to how harmful words can be not only to others, which is discussed all the time, but to ourselves, which is very rarely discussed.

We have already thoroughly acknowledged that words from others can hurt, words can even kill in the form of suicide from bullying, but we never talk about the harm that negative words used for ourselves can hurt or even kill.

Listen to how people talk about themselves. Observe if they express pride in their achievements, or dismiss them onsite. You’ll start to see patterns of self harm in a lot of people this way. Under my definition of self harm, a lot more people self harm than meets the eye. And nobody is talking about it.

TLDR: We need to expand the definition of self harm to include words and actions towards the self, because those wounds, although not visible, do not mean they don’t exist or don’t cause pain.

👆👆THIS👆👆

Why “doing something relaxing” does not help your anxiety

systlin:

noriannbraindripshere:

systlin:

tatianathevampireslayer:

lovelyplot:

merrybitchmas91:

A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.

This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.  

THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.

You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind. 

People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.

In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture. 

Therefore, I present to you: 

THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS

–Go on a walk

–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.

–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching

–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind

–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift 

–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:

–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.

–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see. 

–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in. 

–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (
I hope. If it can, then
ignore this one.) 

–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety. 

–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel. 

–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless. 

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:

–List the capitals of all the U.S. states

–List the capitals of all the European countries

–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors. 

–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.

–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.  

Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself.  I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too. 

(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)

This would’ve been great an hour ago

If your anxiety includes rapid heartbeat for no reason then it may help to exercise! It helps for me because I’m focused on whatever moves I’m doing and breathing, and it gives my heart rate a reason to be that high so that I can start the slow cooking down process and (hopefully) bring that heart rate down with it. Look up a quick cardio workout on YouTube or something and just do it in your room!

This is so, SO true. 

All ‘doing something relaxing’ ever did for me was give my brain MORE free time to FREAK THE FUCK OUT. 

I like how this boil down to grabbing something then tell the brains weasels to GO FETCH YOU PIECES OF SHIT

I mean. 

That’s basically it tho. 

What I noticed about other people with mental illness;

fallenamanda:

People with anxiety will go out of their way to make sure you’re not uncomfortable or anxious about what’s going on 

People with depression will joke & be silly & try to make you laugh

People with PTSD will respect your personal space & boundaries & ask before they invade your bubble

People with ADHD will not get impatient or snap at you if you talk to much/ramble/don’t get your point across quick enough

People with bipolar disorder will not judge you when your moods change & you “aren’t acting like yourself” one day

What I noticed about other people with mental illnesses is that they are the most understanding, empathetic, easy going, tolerant people. We know what it’s like to live & struggle with these issues every day & we always wanna make damn sure other people don’t have to go through it too if we can do anything to help it.

That’s literally my motto

mrozna:

hawkeyedflame:

biphobicerasurer:

hawkeyedflame:

t-i-a-r-n-a-c-a-p-a-i-l-l:

If you’re one of those people who thinks executive dysfunction only happens for things we don’t like (school, cleaning,) then please consider the fact that I’ve been meaning to plug my phone in for 20 minutes and I’m now at 2% and still putting it off to write this post ¯_(ツ)_/¯

My anime/video game list consists of over 100 titles, easily, and yet I almost never get around to watching/playing any of them.

Executive dysfunction is not just for boring or unenjoyable things. It’s for everything. Even eating.

What is executive dysfunction? O.o

Put simply, it’s difficulty/inability with initiating tasks. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions, like decision-making and impulse control. People with ADHD and other neurological disorders that affect the prefrontal cortex often experience difficulty making decisions and performing tasks, as well as exercising self restraint. Part of why people with ADHD tend to procrastinate so badly is out of genuine inability to begin tasks, even if they’re very important.

It feels, for me at least, like I’m constantly waiting for something and I can’t start X task because I’m waiting. I never know what exactly I’m waiting for, but that doesn’t stop me from wasting hours and days not doing the things I need to do, even if I have a desire to do them.

It feels, for me at least, like I’m constantly waiting for something and I can’t start X task because I’m waiting. I never know what exactly I’m waiting for, but that doesn’t stop me from wasting hours and days not doing the things I need to do, even if I have a desire to do them.

Oh thank god, someone put it into words.

For me it’s also waiting for the “right” time to come to complete the task because for some reason my brain thinks doing the task at any other time is horribly, horribly wrong, weird, and out of order. The “right” time might come eventually, might not. It’s a lottery.

Dude this is the exact description of me and I had no idea that this was actually a thing 0_o can depression cause this too?

ube-makaveli:

revan-trevelyan:

Sometimes the help you need isn’t the help you want. Call 1-800-273-8255 if you’re thinking of suicide.

This comic meant a whole lot to me. It was sincere in its depiction and treated the issue through the eyes of a grounded person. Not some godly hero saying everything is better than it seems, but a person trying his best before bringing her somewhere who can actually help.

Okay, I’m reblogging this for a couple reasons. 1, Deadpool is awesome and I love him XD (duh), 2, Hamilton is also awesome and I too love the musical (double duh XD) and 3, suicide is no laughing matter, but this comic have a heartfelt message across about a serious subject, and that’s not always easy to do. Sometimes giving up seems to be the easiest thing to do, believe me, I know. But sometimes that moment when we want to give up, may just really be a sign that we need help, becasue the weight of the world might be too much for one person, and that we need help. Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone, wether you believe it or not, there is always at least one person who is waiting to give you a helping hand.

Source: revan-trevelyan

Just drew this yesterday, this is the first time I’ve drawn this OC to anyone, so consider yourselves lucky XD I’ll probably post the digital art of this at some point if I get around to finishing it. This OC was originally based around Pinkamena from MLP, but over time I edited around until she became this, basically a manifestation of insanity. She’s covered in scars and dirt, and her cutiemark has been covered with a stitched on patch. When I get around to the digital art there will be more details so it’ll be more clear.