:D @buriedbycandies - Tumblr Blog

people don't talk enough about how su/c/dal/ty is comfy in a way

TW for mentions of suicide and depression

KIND of a vent? i'm not too sure, i just wanna see if others feel the same way

Let’s talk about dysthymia—not in a clinical, detached way, but in the way it actually feels to live with it. Imagine waking up every day and the world feels like a faded photograph. The colors are there, but they’re muted. The joy is possible, but it’s always just out of reach. You’re not in crisis, but you’re not thriving either. You’re just… existing. And after a while, you start to wonder if this is all life is supposed to be.

Dysthymia (or Persistent Depressive Disorder, if we’re using the official term) is sneaky like that. It doesn’t knock you down like major depression might. Instead, it wraps itself around you like a heavy blanket you can’t take off. It whispers things like, “This is just how you are,” or “You’re not meant to be happy.” And because it’s been there for so long—months, years, maybe even decades—it feels like part of your identity. But here’s the truth: It’s not.

You are not your dysthymia. You are not the fog that clouds your mind or the weight that drags on your heart. You are a person who deserves to feel alive, to experience joy, and to know what it’s like to wake up and feel light.

Healing from dysthymia isn’t about flipping a switch or “fixing” yourself overnight. It’s about small, intentional steps toward reclaiming your life. Therapy can be a game-changer. Medication can help. But if you’re someone who likes to work through things at your own pace, or if you’re not ready to dive into therapy yet, I want to share something that might help: The Dysthymia Cure Workbook.

This workbook isn’t about quick fixes or toxic positivity. It’s a compassionate, practical guide to understanding your dysthymia and learning how to manage it. It’s filled with exercises to help you challenge negative thought patterns, build healthier habits, and reconnect with the parts of yourself that dysthymia has tried to bury. It’s not a replacement for professional help, but it’s a powerful tool to use alongside it—or as a first step toward healing.

If you’ve been living with that constant, low-level sadness, please know this: You don’t have to stay there. You are not broken. You are not beyond help. You are a person who deserves to feel whole, and healing is possible.

Take it one day at a time. Be gentle with yourself. And if you’re ready to take that first step, maybe this workbook can be part of your journey.

the-future-is-chrome

the neurodivergent experience:

20% of the time: wowwieee!!! i love my passions and interests!!!!! they make me so happy i want to jump up and down!!!!! weee!!!!!!! :3333333333

80% of the time: this mind is a prison

chaoticfruitcake

for the past few months it's been more like:

11% of the time - yippeee !!! my friends are beautiful magical beings i love being around them !!! also maybe i actually do have interests and actually like studying history !!! maybe i can have a nice job after grad !!!

89% of the time - existence is futile i wish i was a ghost what is the point of being here if everything is boring and painfully long

audhd-space

Hi. Do you have any tips on how to be productive and how to stick to a routine? I create routines but can barely stick to them, and it's stressful trying to stay on top of schoolwork and other extracurricular activities. Thanks!

Hello, been away to focus on my health.

I’ll try to keep it simple: so a lot of the times people with ADHD fail to stick to routine or have difficulty forming habits is mostly due to our object impermanence.

So taking account object impermanence when forming a routine means :

1. Creating ADHD friendly space at home.

• some people with ADHD have struggles with teeth cleaning / brushing teeth, so what you can do is place it near your bed

• some people with ADHD have problems with misplacing items, so what you need is not to be more vigilant, BUT YOU NEED VISUAL CUES, and place the items where it is EASY TO SEE AND REACH. If putting it in the middle of hallway is easy for you to take it every morning (even if it is odd place), then that’s the routine that works for you!

• same as eating, if you have problems forgetting to eat, having a few snacks/ready to eat food placed in front of you will reduce the amount of energy/spoon you need to take in order to get food.

• some adjustment I made to make my home ADHD-friendly is to have a lot of label stickers (at door, at switches, at kitchen). I also switched to transparent container so my items can be seen and easily found.

2. Your body already has its own routine, you just need to tune in and listen to it.

• What is automatic for you? Observe your one week and track the pattern. What is the best task you have ever completed and why is it so engaging? This is not going to be straightforward, but it shouldn’t be because everyone is different and unique.

• If you have ever felt guilty for playing games while eating, then that’s also how your ADHD brain trying to keep you engaged and focus doing your routine (eating).

• same as if you need to do your homework while watching a documentary or listening to podcast, sometimes adding more distractions can help people with ADHD concentrate better.

• if your body relies and thrives on novelty, then you have to find ways to keep improvising your daily tasks. Don’t feel bad for not being able to stick to routine, you probably thrive more from sticking to your routine from variety of places or working with different people.

3. Always gamify your task and keep it fun.

• this is how I try to keep daily tasks and routine less daunting.

• it sounds weird but do your routine/daily task with the craziest approach you have right now.

• just like in games, it works better if you have a buddy or enemy you need to squash in order to tackle the tasks!

Most important lesson, for me with ADHD, is ACCEPTING THAT I HAVE AN EVER CHANGING ROUTINE.

It is part of how I move, it is part of how I get things done.

adhd-chaos-queen

Okay, so i have an ADHD hack, and usually these don't work for me, but this one did.

So, i saw this on TikTok. If you have multiple chores, and don't know where to start, just write them all down, and then number them.

Then roll a dice, and whatever chore that number is, do it. (And if you don't have a dice, there are thousands of apps for that.)

It makes the chores approachable.

You don't see the mountain of all chores anymore, it's just one thing. Also you don't have to think about the next thing, because you don't know what it is.

And then it's done, and you can move to the next thing the dice tells you

I just did this to clean up my room.

I put bed, couch, nightstand, desk, chair, floor etc. And hell it worked. My room is actually clean now...

Like, try this, i swear, this is amazing!

catboynutsack

Okay I'm gonna share an ADHD hack I know for the ADHDers that lose stuff often, like me. (Or for anyone that loses anything, frankly. I don't gatekeep self help lol)

Get a spool of ribbon or a strip of fabric or string in a colour you like--the shinier and easier to spot the better--and tie it to things you lose often. A good several inches of length for sure. You can even colour code certain objects so you're looking for a piece of ribbon. It's fabulous when stuff accidentally gets covered up but that ribbon is still hanging out or if it gets accidentally lost in the couch cushions or under a table cuz it got knocked off. For example I have a pair of thread scissors I lose often. So I tied some green thread to them and boom. Never lost again. And if they are they're quickly found. You can do it to pretty much any object.

Anyways. Hope this helps someone!

starfishinthedistance

I've talked a bit about this before but if someone tells you they feel like their trauma wasn't bad enough to be valid and your response is to just start talking about """big T and little t trauma""" I hate you and sincerely hope you step on glass.

All that you're saying is essentially "Oh you feel like your trauma isn't bad enough compared to other traumatized people and it's causing you a lot of emotional turmoil? I have the solution! Here are two arbitrarily created boxes I've called 'Big Scary Traumatizing Valid Events' and 'small events but you're having reactions so I guess we have to acknowledge you', and you're actually in that second box! You actually don't have the same problem as the Big Scary Event People! They have the big problem and you have the little one! Do you feel better yet?"

Like, I've already talked about how trauma and its severity is subjective and the Big T vs little t bullshit has no set definition and varies wildly from person to person, but even setting that aside, do you think creating another box and separating the """little t people""" from other survivors is going to make them feel more valid and secure? Epescially how when people talk about """little t trauma""" they always talk about it like "oh the event wasn't that bad but you had a Big Reaction and it was your Feelings that caused the trauma" like...you're essentially saying they're overreacting disguised with a bunch of therapy buzzwords.

"The event wasn't that bad but we still feel hurt 😢😢😢". Go fuck yourself. ESPECIALLY when therapists/psychiatrists/etc tell this to their clients. To have a professional tell you your trauma doesn't fit into 'bad event box' and is just caused by you overreacting does so much fucking damage. Professionals should fucking know better, especially if you claim to be trauma informed.

Just say "Trauma is any event where the brain feels it is in danger, and trauma symptoms are simply when the danger response prolongs past the event. Doubting your experiences and the validity of them is a very common and severe trauma symptom. It's a way of your mind trying to separate itself from the trauma to protect you from the pain of it, and it's observed in almost all survivors with all kinds of trauma. In cases where the trauma is abuse, it's also indictive of severe psychological abuse using methods like gaslighting and other kinds of manipulation."

There. Gets the message across better than telling them they're just apart of the 'not that bad' group of survivors.

God I hate the wellness TikToker-ification of trauma discussions.

starfishinthedistance

I talk to many people who say things like "oh I have trauma but I don't have PTSD", but then when I talk to them a little more I realize that they most likely do, they just can't recognize it as such due to how lacking PTSD awareness is, even beyond the whole "it's not just a veteran's disorder" thing.

The main reason they think they don't have PTSD usually has to do with flashbacks and nightmares, either they have one but not the other or have neither. But here's the thing, those are only two symptoms out of the 23-odd recognized symptoms. Flashbacks and nightmares are two of the five symptoms under Criterion B (Intrusion), which you only need one of for a diagnosis. The other three symptoms are unwanted upsetting memories, emotional distress after being reminded of trauma and physical reactivity after being reminded of trauma (i.e. shaking, sweating, heart racing, feeling sick, nauseous or faint, etc). Therefore you can have both flashbacks and nightmares, one but not the other, or neither and still have PTSD.

In fact, a lot of the reasons people give me for why they don't think they have PTSD are literally a part of the diagnostic criteria.

"Oh, I can barely remember most parts of my trauma anyway." Criterion D (Negative Alterations in Cognition and Mood) includes inability to recall key features of the trauma.

"Oh but I don't get upset about my trauma that often because I avoid thinking of it or being around things that remind me of it most of the time." Criterion C (Avoidance) includes avoiding trauma-related thoughts or feelings and avoiding trauma-related external reminders, and you literally cannot get diagnosed if you don't have at least one of those two symptoms.

"Oh I just have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, but I don't have nightmares." Criterion E (Alterations in Arousal and Reactivity) includes difficulting sleeping outside of nightmares.

"But I didn't have many/any trauma symptoms until a long time after the trauma happened." There's literally an entire specification for that.

Really it just shows how despite being one of the most well-known mental illnesses, people really don't know much about PTSD. If you have trauma, I ask you to at least look at the criteria before you decide you don't have PTSD. Hell, even if you don't have trauma, look at the criteria anyway because there are so many symptoms in there that just are not talked about.

PTSD awareness is not just about flashbacks and nightmares.

libraford

I dunno, I'm thinking darkly about how some things are socially acceptable self harm. Like punishing yourself by skipping meals (diets), burnout cycle (the grind), overexercise (gains) and that injuries and pain from these kinds of activities are somewhat celebrated in a society that seems to demonize rest. These kinds of things can become addictive, and it can be hard to stop. It just feels like they're similar, but I don't hear about that being talked about often.

daysofdull

signs it's getting bad again:

your mind becomes foggy

finding yourself staring into space more often

(not blinking)

sluggish movements

body aches for no reason

crying at nothing/everything

intense anger that comes quickly but takes forever to go away

so so tired

feeling so bored you wish you were dead

the emptiness. the fucking emptiness

oshidorifuufu

sometimes when i have this motivation to get better in my head i always end up realising i actually just like the thought and aesthetic of being a mentally healthy person rather than actually being one

i’m too mentally ill to actually do it

dorianbrightmusic

Having depression is inherently depressing.

That is – when every tiny task is utterly exhausting, it's pretty frustrating. When you once weren't exhausted by these tasks – when you know you used to be someone else – that's downright devastating. When you're wondering whether you're going to get that energy back and not knowing, that's also exhausting.

When you are feeling inherently more stupid because depression has cognitively ruined you, that's embarrassing and confusing and so upsetting. When you are unsure whether you will ever get your old cognition back, that's terrifying. When you do not, in fact, ever return to pre-depression baseline, that's just exhausting.

When you are numb, trying to go through the motions of happiness; sadness; fear; frustration; and phatic interest is so, so tiring. When you cannot effectively perform these emotion states, it is embarrassing and isolating.

When you are too tired and too numb to be social, you are alone.

'What do you have to be depressed about?' Well, this disease is inherently giving me something to be depressed about. And it's very easy to want to cling to that, because at least it's an answer.

And frankly, I think folks who haven't gone through depression may not understand that oftentimes, recovery from a bad episode is kinda piecemeal. My cognition, my disposition, and my capacity for optimism are all substantially altered from where they were pre–depression. I cannot take the person I used to be for granted, and I cannot take the beliefs I used to hold as gospel. Even when I'm not depressed, depression has altered most parts of my life and thoroughly warped my sense of self. I cannot safely believe in baseline happiness at this point.

I'm not saying this to complain, but to make a point. Depression alters your life in ways that, even outside of a depressive episode, give you things to be depressed about. It can completely ruin your sense of who you are, what your world is, and what your future holds. It makes it that much more tempting to believe in the depression narrative of loneliness and helplessness, and it makes those narratives subjectively very real. All of this makes the depression (should it return) and its consequences (however monumentally they've carved into your life) so much harder to deal with.

one-time-i-dreamt

Remember this viral post? Wanda and Jamal and her husband Lonnie are the most wholesome people, this story brought tears to my eyes originally and I am crying once more learning from Jamal's social media that Lonnie has sadly passed away.

Rest in Peace, Lonnie :(

one-time-i-dreamt