A mental health blog and diary, focusing on DID/OSDD, personality disorders, autism, psychosis, trauma, and other topics. Personal posts are ok to interact with unless tagged otherwise.
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♡ You are loved, you are worthy of love, I see you ♡
Welcome to haunted selves, a mental health blog and diary, focusing on dissociation and trauma, personality disorders, autism, psychosis, and other topics.
Personal posts are ok to interact with unless tagged otherwise.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional, researcher or otherwise in the psychology field. I can't diagnose you. I'm here to provide resources and interesting research, and while I'm happy to help you with mental disorder related asks, I'm not a stand in for professional help.
this is a list of resources for when you're in crisis, whether you're suicidal, triggered, having a panic attack, or any other mental health
Notice: please don't send any asks about PD comorbidity!
The place where even “trauma informed” care fails is that it assumes safety can be “reestablished”, that safety after a traumatic event is primarily internal (e.g stopping dangerous coping behaviors or reducing the peaks of emotions), and that the world is a fundamentally safe place and your trauma was an aberrant blip. I feel that this is inseparable from the fact that PTSD was coined for and modeled off of veterans whose trauma was first and foremost foreign to their life- that is, they quite literally were transported away from that trauma and were expected to subsume back into their Safe Normal American Life as Heroes and could not (how can you expect someone to see and commit the blood tithe required to maintain an empire and not come back wounded?). The political context of this experience are erased (your imperialist country sent you to suffer and die to maintain its power and now you’ve returned feeling the immense burden of what you’ve done) and it becomes merely an issue of falling “out of time” and being “unable to realize that you are safe”- something which may ring truer for some veterans, particularly those with no qualms about the role they played in imperialism, just the pain they had to suffer to do it, but still conveniently ignores (by design! because the military had a hand in this!!!) the political contexts.
For many traumatized people, the world is not a safe place- for women, for trans people, for disabled ppl, for BIPOC, for really even the most privileged person under capitalism… this isn’t a cognitive distortion, it’s a truth. It reminds me of being in eating disorder therapy and being told that we’re not fat, it’s all in our heads- but what about those of us who were? Who know what society thinks of and does to fat people? Who have been ordered to and encouraged to develop the exact behaviors that we performed too well or too literally? Even some of the best trauma care wants people to believe that all fear and danger is a product of a diseased or broken mind, rather than a very reasonable adaptive response. I’ve spent so long trying to berate myself for continuing to feel terrified and worthless in a world which is both terrifying and committed to telling me I am worthless. We have to find ways to live and thrive within this danger, to feel out the boundaries of danger and carve hideouts within it, to create livelihoods where we are naming it + confronting it + destroying it, rather than finding a way to slip back into the unconscious illusion of a safe, picturesque American life.
It wasn’t until my actual safety improved that I saw any sort of improvement
And by improving safety I mean very concretely, a rental contract in my own name, government financial support and a slowly growing social support network of friends and people who love and respect me
Many of these so-called symptoms are, in fact, well-known and well-documented coping strategies commonly and purposively employed by people who are traumatized. It is reductionistic to ignore purposiveness and to assume that the behavior and orientations in question are the products of a disorder.
What underpins this inadequate conceptualization of the response, the underlying assumption embedded in a PTSD diagnosis, and, indeed, in many other diagnoses, is that the world is essentially a safe and benign place. In this view, there is something wrong with people who see or respond to the world as if it were otherwise.
I have a few questions that I was thinking you could help me with.
I’m 18. Recently I was diagnosed with ADHD. I know I have it. For the sheer fact that all the symptoms fit, and my therapist also tested me, but some of them don’t make sense. Now, the problem I have with this diagnosis is if I have ADHD why is it I can focus on some things so much that I forget everything else. It’s like the rest of the world is gone and I can only focus on what I’m doing. It’s usually only when I’m painting, playing video games, and sometimes reading. But other times I can’t focus on either of those for very long. The other question I have is, I was also diagnosed with Cyclothymia. Now, would that have an affect on my hyperactivity? Because sometimes, I can sit still for as long as I want. I can even meditate. But other times, I can’t stop moving.
Okay, so there are a few things that need clearing up here.
First let’s talk about cyclothymia, which I probably have but haven’t been diagnosed with.
Cyclothymia is kind of like bipolar disorder, but you never have full manic states, just hypomanic ones. Hypomania is basically a sub-clinical mania, meaning that it’s mania without all of the extremes of full mania. When I’m hypomanic, I feel really positive about everything in my life, kind of like I could probably accomplish anything I set out to do. I don’t really get tired at night, and I function pretty decently on five hours of sleep (or less). Of course, the flip side of that is depressive states which never get quite bad enough to be considered major depression but include all of the usual symptoms of depression (it’s basically mild or moderate depression - it’s real depression, it’s just not bad enough to qualify for a separate diagnosis).
Cyclothymia could definitely have an impact on a person’s hyperactivity. I know that when I’m hypomanic I have a lot more energy than I normally do, even though I’m not sleeping as much as I ought. I’m also more irritable and on edge, and I have way less patience than I normally do. When I’m depressed, I have less energy, I feel “down,” and I have a lot of negative thoughts.
Now let’s talk about ADHD.
Obviously you know that ADHD stands for “Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder” and that one of the major symptoms has to do with a lack of attention or focus (hey, it’s right there in the name).
Here’s where the common understanding of ADHD falls down: ADHD is actually an executive functioning disorder.
Executive functions are things like making plans, following through on plans, controlling impulsive actions, internalized self-talk, changing activities, and, yes, paying attention or focusing on the things we need or want to attend to. There are others, but these are the ones I know the most about and they seem to be the ones that plague us the most.
Let’s go through these executive functions one at a time, to help you understand them better. (“You” being the global “you” at this point, not just tikawilleatyoursoul. I think a lot of people don’t really understand executive functioning very well.)
Making Plans.You get up in the morning and you have to decide what you’re going to do that day. Whatever list of activities you choose, that's making a plan. Here’s another one: you need to clean up your room, so you stand in the doorway and decide what to do first. That's making a plan.
Executive dysfunction (ADHD) makes this really hard for a lot of people. Because we tend to see the whole picture better than the little parts, tasks like “clean your room” can be overwhelming. We need it broken down into smaller steps, like “put the clean clothes away and the dirty clothes in the hamper, then put the books on the bookcase.” For some people, even that is too much at a time. They need it broken down to “pick up the first piece of clothing you see and figure out if it’s clean or dirty; if it’s clean, put it in the correct drawer of your dresser or hang it up in the closet, and if it’s dirty, put it in your hamper.”
Difficulty with this kind of thing can cause a lot of anxiety, and it’s why we tend to freeze up when faced with large, complicated jobs. We simply don’t know where to start, because making a plan is not something we are good at.
Following through on plans. Once you have a plan, you start at the first thing and you work your way down the steps until you’ve completed them all, right? Right. Well, executive dysfunction makes it really hard to do this.
Part of it can be overwhelm: we look at the list of steps, see how long it is (big-picture thinking), and conclude that it’s impossible so we can’t do it. Other times we might not think we can do any of it right, or we might not know how to complete the step we’re on. Or we get distracted, or hung up on one of the steps (a lot of us are perfectionists).
Controlling impulsive actions. Most people are able to keep from saying every little thing that pops into their heads. They don’t buy things just because they like them without thinking about whether or not they’re too expensive or something. They control how they react to their emotions and save angry outbursts for whatever they think is an appropriate time and place.
Executive dysfunction makes this really hard.
ADHDers don’t have much of a “filter” unless it’s been drilled into us through behavioural conditioning (usually done by society in response to the stuff we say or do). So we think something and we say it, even if it’s hurtful. We buy stuff we like and then can’t pay our bills but hey we have a hot tub! We act out in anger and then wonder why people are afraid of us or mad at us five minutes later, because once we’ve raged we’re good and not mad anymore. As a general rule, we always intend to do the right thing… it’s just not always possible because our brains like to follow every impulse they have.
Internalized self-talk. Everyone has what’s known as “self-talk.” For people with low self-esteem, this is pretty negative. But it’s not just about what we tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s also how we get through situations (“Five more situps and we’re done for the day!”) and work through problems (“Next time Jimmy says that I’m going to tell him to go jump in a lake!”). By about age seven or eight (I forget exactly when; it could be older but I’m pretty sure it’s sometime in elementary shcool), most people are really good at keeping all of this silent and in their heads.
Not so for those of us with ADHD. Executive dysfunction means that we don’t internalize our self-talk until much later, assuming we ever do. I still talk to myself out loud most of the time, though I do internalize a lot (especially in public).
Changing activities. You know the law of physics that says that an object that is at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by an external force, and that an object that is traveling in a particular direction at a particular speed will not change direction or speed unless acted upon by an external force? That’s called inertia, and that’s basically what we’re talking about here. (This is like the one thing about physics that I find truly useful in my everyday life. Kinda sad.)
Basically, once we’re engaged in an activity, we’re in it until something happens to get us to move on. That’s why alarms work for some people - they jolt them out of their current activity and trigger them to move on to the next thing. (Of course, an ability to ignore alarms is also part and parcel of inertia. Yay!)
Paying attention or focusing on the things we need or want to attend to. So, the whole “attention deficit” part of “ADHD” is pretty ludicrous, because it’s not really a deficit of attention that we’re dealing with; it’s more an inability to control what we pay attention to. So we can hyperfocus (focus exclusively on one thing for hours on end) or we can jump around from one thing to another, and we don’t really have a lot of control over that. I’m sure you can see how all of the other aspects of executive dysfunction contribute to our lack of control over our attention.
Okay, that’s my crash course on executive dysfunction. I hope this was helpful!
i'm glad to see you're back , i hope live has been treating you well, and if it hasn't that it will soon
you were one of the first blogs i ever found when i was first discovering what pds were and trying to work out that i might be suffering from some kind of mental illness back .... 3-5 years ago, my memory is bad
you helped me and my system go to therapy (and discover there was a system at all) and that we'd been suffering for our whole lives from trauma from abuse and neglected mental illness, even if healthcare isn't that effective the entire reason i know about help is because of you, i still check your neocities every now and then to remember certain things about the pd traits i have, to read your archived posts, and so on. ik there were a billion things that led me down the specific path in my life to no longer be suicidal but i wouldnt have gone down that path if it werent for you
you deserve the world i think. i can't imagine how many people you must have helped by running this, that you put the effort into making it accessible. i hope you find a time where the pain of what happened to you to bring you to make this blog doesn't stop you from living any longer if that hasn't happened already
wow, thank you for your kind words! I'm glad you're doing better now! here's to us all getting out of the hellhole that is suicidality 🎉
I'm going to try and be more active here (and update my neocities, wow its been nearly 3 years 🙈)
I have a few questions that I was thinking you could help me with.
I’m 18. Recently I was diagnosed with ADHD. I know I have it. For the sheer fact that all the symptoms fit, and my therapist also tested me, but some of them don’t make sense. Now, the problem I have with this diagnosis is if I have ADHD why is it I can focus on some things so much that I forget everything else. It’s like the rest of the world is gone and I can only focus on what I’m doing. It’s usually only when I’m painting, playing video games, and sometimes reading. But other times I can’t focus on either of those for very long. The other question I have is, I was also diagnosed with Cyclothymia. Now, would that have an affect on my hyperactivity? Because sometimes, I can sit still for as long as I want. I can even meditate. But other times, I can’t stop moving.
Okay, so there are a few things that need clearing up here.
First let’s talk about cyclothymia, which I probably have but haven’t been diagnosed with.
Cyclothymia is kind of like bipolar disorder, but you never have full manic states, just hypomanic ones. Hypomania is basically a sub-clinical mania, meaning that it’s mania without all of the extremes of full mania. When I’m hypomanic, I feel really positive about everything in my life, kind of like I could probably accomplish anything I set out to do. I don’t really get tired at night, and I function pretty decently on five hours of sleep (or less). Of course, the flip side of that is depressive states which never get quite bad enough to be considered major depression but include all of the usual symptoms of depression (it’s basically mild or moderate depression - it’s real depression, it’s just not bad enough to qualify for a separate diagnosis).
Cyclothymia could definitely have an impact on a person’s hyperactivity. I know that when I’m hypomanic I have a lot more energy than I normally do, even though I’m not sleeping as much as I ought. I’m also more irritable and on edge, and I have way less patience than I normally do. When I’m depressed, I have less energy, I feel “down,” and I have a lot of negative thoughts.
Now let’s talk about ADHD.
Obviously you know that ADHD stands for “Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder” and that one of the major symptoms has to do with a lack of attention or focus (hey, it’s right there in the name).
Here’s where the common understanding of ADHD falls down: ADHD is actually an executive functioning disorder.
Executive functions are things like making plans, following through on plans, controlling impulsive actions, internalized self-talk, changing activities, and, yes, paying attention or focusing on the things we need or want to attend to. There are others, but these are the ones I know the most about and they seem to be the ones that plague us the most.
Let’s go through these executive functions one at a time, to help you understand them better. (“You” being the global “you” at this point, not just tikawilleatyoursoul. I think a lot of people don’t really understand executive functioning very well.)
Making Plans.You get up in the morning and you have to decide what you’re going to do that day. Whatever list of activities you choose, that's making a plan. Here’s another one: you need to clean up your room, so you stand in the doorway and decide what to do first. That's making a plan.
Executive dysfunction (ADHD) makes this really hard for a lot of people. Because we tend to see the whole picture better than the little parts, tasks like “clean your room” can be overwhelming. We need it broken down into smaller steps, like “put the clean clothes away and the dirty clothes in the hamper, then put the books on the bookcase.” For some people, even that is too much at a time. They need it broken down to “pick up the first piece of clothing you see and figure out if it’s clean or dirty; if it’s clean, put it in the correct drawer of your dresser or hang it up in the closet, and if it’s dirty, put it in your hamper.”
Difficulty with this kind of thing can cause a lot of anxiety, and it’s why we tend to freeze up when faced with large, complicated jobs. We simply don’t know where to start, because making a plan is not something we are good at.
Following through on plans. Once you have a plan, you start at the first thing and you work your way down the steps until you’ve completed them all, right? Right. Well, executive dysfunction makes it really hard to do this.
Part of it can be overwhelm: we look at the list of steps, see how long it is (big-picture thinking), and conclude that it’s impossible so we can’t do it. Other times we might not think we can do any of it right, or we might not know how to complete the step we’re on. Or we get distracted, or hung up on one of the steps (a lot of us are perfectionists).
Controlling impulsive actions. Most people are able to keep from saying every little thing that pops into their heads. They don’t buy things just because they like them without thinking about whether or not they’re too expensive or something. They control how they react to their emotions and save angry outbursts for whatever they think is an appropriate time and place.
Executive dysfunction makes this really hard.
ADHDers don’t have much of a “filter” unless it’s been drilled into us through behavioural conditioning (usually done by society in response to the stuff we say or do). So we think something and we say it, even if it’s hurtful. We buy stuff we like and then can’t pay our bills but hey we have a hot tub! We act out in anger and then wonder why people are afraid of us or mad at us five minutes later, because once we’ve raged we’re good and not mad anymore. As a general rule, we always intend to do the right thing… it’s just not always possible because our brains like to follow every impulse they have.
Internalized self-talk. Everyone has what’s known as “self-talk.” For people with low self-esteem, this is pretty negative. But it’s not just about what we tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s also how we get through situations (“Five more situps and we’re done for the day!”) and work through problems (“Next time Jimmy says that I’m going to tell him to go jump in a lake!”). By about age seven or eight (I forget exactly when; it could be older but I’m pretty sure it’s sometime in elementary shcool), most people are really good at keeping all of this silent and in their heads.
Not so for those of us with ADHD. Executive dysfunction means that we don’t internalize our self-talk until much later, assuming we ever do. I still talk to myself out loud most of the time, though I do internalize a lot (especially in public).
Changing activities. You know the law of physics that says that an object that is at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by an external force, and that an object that is traveling in a particular direction at a particular speed will not change direction or speed unless acted upon by an external force? That’s called inertia, and that’s basically what we’re talking about here. (This is like the one thing about physics that I find truly useful in my everyday life. Kinda sad.)
Basically, once we’re engaged in an activity, we’re in it until something happens to get us to move on. That’s why alarms work for some people - they jolt them out of their current activity and trigger them to move on to the next thing. (Of course, an ability to ignore alarms is also part and parcel of inertia. Yay!)
Paying attention or focusing on the things we need or want to attend to. So, the whole “attention deficit” part of “ADHD” is pretty ludicrous, because it’s not really a deficit of attention that we’re dealing with; it’s more an inability to control what we pay attention to. So we can hyperfocus (focus exclusively on one thing for hours on end) or we can jump around from one thing to another, and we don’t really have a lot of control over that. I’m sure you can see how all of the other aspects of executive dysfunction contribute to our lack of control over our attention.
Okay, that’s my crash course on executive dysfunction. I hope this was helpful!
you don't have to answer this if you don't want, but I would love to hear your thoughts on that post going around with whether endos have reason to use words like protector and persecutor. (the answer seems pretty obvious to me but I would love to hear your opinion)
Let me just — (saves as draft so I don’t lose my progress on writing this for a third time)
God, I wish I could find the image I was looking for, because it just. Perfectly describes what my thoughts are. I hope my description does it justice, but I know it doesn’t.
There was a chart I recall seeing. On one side, it explained the trauma a person experienced, and the role, and on the other side, it explained what that looks like in a system.
For example: Jane is treated as worthless and weak (protector) —> Kyle is strong and valuable to protect Jane from others.
( @sysmedsaresexist I could’ve sworn you posted it, but I can’t find it anywhere???)
Regardless. I think… at the end of the day, I’m fine with endogenic systems using those terms. The communities grew together, for better or for worse, and with that comes shared language. I just also don’t think all Endogenic systems are using those terms quite correctly, or understand the connotations of labeling themselves with those terms.
For instance, I’ve seen endogenic systems (ones who claimed to have no trauma whatsoever, mind you) who said they had persecutors “because Headmate Y is mean to us.” That’s not what a persecutor is.
I worry that this shared language makes the impact of these terms less.
But at the end of the day, I’m a bit more pressed about my lived experiences than I am about what someone else is doing.
A chart comparing alter formation as coping strategies.
Coping strategy: This did not happen.
Alter created: A Lois who knows, and a Lois who does not.
Coping strategy: I must deserve it.
Alter created: Bad Lois, whose behaviour would explain trauma as punishment.
Coping strategy: I must have wanted it.
Alter created: A sexual alter, Sherry.
Coping strategy: I can control it better if I take charge.
Alter created: An aggressively sexual alter, Vickie.
Coping strategy: I would be safe if I were a boy.
Alter created: Louis, Lois' male "twin".
Coping strategy: I wish I were a big man who could prevent this.
Alter created: Big Jack, based on some person of power.
Coping strategy: I wish I were the one who could hurt someone and not be hurt.
Alter created: Uncle Ben, or a more disguised identification with the aggressor.
Coping strategy: I wish I could feel nothing.
Alter created: Jessie, who endures all yet feels nothing.
Coping strategy: I wish someone would replace me.
Alter created: "The Girls", who encapsulate specific experiences of trauma unknown to Lois.
Coping strategy: I wish someone would comfort me.
Alter created: Angel, with whom Lois imagines herself to be while the body is being exploited and "The Girls" are experiencing the trauma.
I think this is a very good list. Ofc no experience is ever universal, and I would be cautious about reminding people to take their medication, if you don't know their personal relationship to medication. I know that for me and many others, it can be very triggering when people check in whether we took our medication, when we're already in crisis.
In any case, very good list, just wanted to add a word of caution to allies, that unless you are quite confident that the person has an ok relationship to their medication and simply struggles to remember and prioritize it during active psychosis, it may be more triggering than helpful to bring it up.
Let's Talk About The Overlap Between Autism, ADHD, and Schizophrenia
I've been wanting to make a graph like this for awhile, about the overlap between these three disorders. Tagging @auschizm because it's highly related to that blog :D
Text transcribed below the cut because it's long!
Title: Can We Talk About The Overlap Between... AUTISM, ADHD, AND SCHIZOPHRENIA?
Description: You always hear people talking about AuDHD, but schizophrenia has the same if not more overlap with these disorders, and it's not talked about!
Let's start boosting schizophrenic people's voices. There's more to the disorder than just psychosis!
Graph based on my personal experience with schizophrenia, my experiences with autistic and ADHD communities, and the words of people with AuDHD themselves.
Made by @gray-gray-gray-gray on tumblr.
Schizophrenia Only
Typical age of onset between 15 and 54 years old
Before the onset/ first psychotic break, there is a "prodrome" where you have a drop in functioning
Reoccuring episodes of psychosis (Hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, etc)
Likely had less noticeable or covert symptoms pre-onset
Often daydreaming, 'in their own world', hyper-self-reflective, 'space cadet'
Autism Only
Need for familiarty & routine
Sudden disruptions to routine are highly distressing
ADHD Only
Craves new experiences & novelty
Autism & ADHD (AuDHD)
Interest-based nervous system (meaning attention & focus is activated based on personal interest, not how important something is)
Onset in very early childhood -- before age 12
Autism & Schizophrenia (Auschizm)
Self-soothing via repetitive behavior
Higher rates of catatonic symptoms
Social withdrawal or exclusion
Difficulties filtering speech
Flat affect
Alogia
Concrete and/or literal thinking
Higher rates of personality disorders, dissociative disorders, and trauma
Internally oriented behavior
Difficulties wording what they
want to say correctly & disorganized speech
Difficulties with insight into what is part of the disorder and what is neurotypial
ADHD & Schizophrenia (SchizoDHD)
Impulsivity & hard to sit still
Difficulties regulating attention & focus, also causing social cue difficulties
Difficulty keeping a daily routine
Jumping around or out of sequence speech
Forgetfulness
Failing to reach a clear end goal or point in speech
Less coherent progression from start to finish in stories
General difficulties with thinking clearly
Drawing blanks / losing train of thought often
Difficulties finding motivation to do things
Lots of energy some days, no energy other days
Troubles multitasking
Planning poorly or not at all
All Three
Stimming
Echolalia, echopraxia
Executive dysfunction
Sensory issues & overload
Emotional dysregulation
Interconnected/webbed thought
ND communication (infodumping, connecting ideas, shared interest bonding)
Increased risk of victimization
Hyperfixations
Higher rates of depression, anxiety, OCD, BFRBS, bipolar, suicidality, sleep issues, eating disorders, and substance abuse
Eye contact differences
Difficulties switching tasks
Masking
Hyperfocusing
Restlessness
Prone to boredom
Memory issues
Social situation difficulties
Time blindness
Difficulties with school, learning, and following tasks
I really like this infographic! I want to add that while the first major psychotic episode is indeed often between 16 and 54 for schizophrenia, many of the symptoms mentioned here, that overlap with autism and adhd, are often present since early childhood the same way they are for autistic and adhd people. And I think that's an important thing to keep in mind, when thinking of the overlap in experience between these diagnostic groups! Because most people who go on to develop schizophrenia can relate to the experience of growing up obviously neurodivergent.
Rumination is probably the most common type of OCD compulsion, but I rarely see anyone talking about it. I've talked to multiple people diagnosed with OCD who didn't even recognize it as a compulsion.
Basically, if you have OCD you have terrible intrusive thoughts. They can be about anything, but common themes are fear of being a bad person, fear of hurting someone, fear of contamination. etc.
Rumination is when you get stuck in a spiral. Rumination is when you spend hours catastrophizing, overthinking, analyzing, telling yourself it's going to be okay.
I'll say it again:
Rumination is a compulsion.
Rumination is a compulsion, and that means you have to stop doing it.
I did ERP (exposure response prevention) for my OCD with a therapist! For 9 months! And it did help, but the idea didn't really click until I found this website a couple years later.
And Oh My God. It made things make so much more sense, and I was able to pull myself out of an episode even though I wasn't in therapy or on meds at the time.
Genuinely if you have OCD, or even if you suspect you have OCD, I'm begging you to read some of these articles.
Like this was genuinely life changing for me.
Here are some of the ones that were most helpful to me:
Just want to add that if you're on the spectrum, you may also experience Autistic Rumination, which is distinct from the obsessive variety, despite the two having some overlapping characteristics!
Don't date thirty-year-olds until you are at least 25.
Having a glass of water for every glass of alcohol will give you a 50% reduction in hangover viciousness.
Bad people will use your willingness to be quiet as a weapon against you. If someone's being awful to you and trusting you'll be quiet to keep from making waves, surprise them.
There is no physical object in the world that is worth as much as your honor.
Honor is not the same as dignity. Retaining one sometimes means leaving the other aside.
Don't have any sex you don't want to have; have as much as you want of the sex that you do, whether that's a lot, a little, or none at all. Nothing you can do to your own body is immoral, unless you're doing it as an act of self-punishment.
Food is morally neutral. You do not have to earn the right to eat calories. Fat and sugar keep your brain from eating itself.
Learning to sit still and breathe--in, in, in, hold, hold, hold, out, out, out, out, out, out--can give you five feet of clear space around yourself in a maelstrom.
Find out how to make three good meals: A comfort meal you can make for just yourself relatively easily, a fancy meal you can use to wow a date, and a meal you can feed a bunch of people. All the other cooking can come later, but you can build a community on those three meals.
If you ever get to the point that things are so bleak you can see no other way forward but to die, make any other choice. If that means leaving everything you own and being a beach bum, or quitting your career, or taking up or leaving a religion, or deciding to bicycle across the country, so be it; living means more chances, dying means everything stops and you don't get to see any more interesting things. As you have not yet seen all the things that can interest you, it is better to live.
do you have any recommendations for like, actually good and trustworthy informative resources about ramcoa? resources that are not either the hack stuff like colin ross or the stuff that argues it’s all rumors or false memories. i’d really like to learn more about it.
Hello! Yeah, this is a really common problem: a lot of the most popular RAMCOA resources are... Well, made by quacks. Here's some places I use and some places I avoid.
People & places I do not trust:
Svali, because of her insistence of a New World Order, that the "magic" used in SRA is real, and generally promoting antisemitic conspiracies. I can't in good faith say if she did or did not experience RAMCOA, but she is an anti-science religious fanatic who deeply misunderstands what she experienced (if she experienced anything at all).
Fritz Springmeier, for being even more out there and bigoted than Svali, who thinks that asking a survivor their favorite Pokemon can tell you what kind of programming they've endured. (Screenshot.) He's generally just unhinged, dangerous, and any time I stumble across his writing I can feel my braincells exploding.
Unwelcome-Ozian, for also using antisemitic conspiracy theories and memes, being ableist towards pwPD and addicts, and racism. (Post about it.) This includes their book, Chainless Slaves.
Deprogramwiki, because it platforms these three.
Papers by Braun, as he has a history of implanting SRA memories in patients. He has also abused patients.
Generally, sources that speculate on if a popular figure is a RAMCOA survivor or not should be avoided. Most of these are just repackaged misogyny ("x female singer is beta programmed because she is sexually provocative!") and it's deeply unprofessional, invasive, and at its core, useless.
Of course, any source that spouts antisemitic conspiracies and dogwhistles (New World Order/NWO, Illuminati stuff, "the global elites", Qanon, etc.), and any source that does not focus on victim wellbeing or support are not ones to trust. These sorts of groups and sources are more interested in political agendas than the survivors.
People & places I trust:
EndRitualAbuse, as it is run by a professional and is one of the oldest RAMCOA resources on the internet. It's a good "intro to RAMCOA" site as it's not as huge as others and formatted in an accessible way. Here's the full article index. The woman who owns the site, Dr. Lacter, can be contacted for questions about programming, referrals to specialists who deal in RA, and more. (Contact page.)
RA-Info, which is similar to the above, but with more resources. It hosts lots of papers, dissertations, convictions, and more relating to this topic, and is run by a survivor. I like their MC basics page and this page, which when clicking on the drop down menu, gives you a huge list of categories.
Becoming Yourself and Healing the Unimaginable by Alison Miller are classics in survivor spaces. Basically some of the first pieces you'll be suggested when you start digging into RAMCOA. I haven't read them yet.
Safe Passage To Healing by Chrystine Oksana; another classic, another book I haven't read. From 1994 but often referenced by survivors still.
Papers by Ellen Lacter. She's a big name and has worked with a lot of reputable organizations to get where she is. Yes, the same one who runs EndRitualAbuse.
Ritual Abuse and Mind Control: Manipulation of Attachment Needs by Orit Badouk Epstein, Joseph Schwartz, & Rachel Wingfield focuses on how, often parents, use a child's basic instincts against them within the context of RAMCOA. Attachment needs are a huge part of programming as well.
Papers by Michael Salter. He’s part of the “new generation” of RAMCOA researchers, compared to the “old guard” of folk like Lacter. He has a book out, mainly about CSEM & the internet’s role in organized abuse, versus the focus on ritual and religion of the earlier folk. He does have a really good piece out about the role of ritual in RAMCOA though, so he hasn't completely ignored that element. Salter also runs the website organizedabuse.
Both Dialogues with Forgotten Voices and The Alchemy of Wolves and Sheep by Harvey Schwartz. The former is covers DID and organized, ritual, & extreme abuse, and the latter specific to forced perpetration in organized abuse contexts. Both are really helpful but really heavy. Link to the first and link to the second.
Some miscellaneous sources I can't find a place to put, whether because they are one-offs, or I don't have much to say about 'em:
[x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]
Of course, there are some pieces to salvage with bad sources, and things I disagree with in the good sources. Deprogramwiki has a decent list of alter roles that are common in RAMCOA survivors, for example, and there's definitely some hardline Christian resources listed in RA-info that make me uneasy. Being perceptive and cautious are the biggest things you need when researching this.
Consider this a "Master-masterpost" about autism and terminology
(written by an early diagnosed nonverbal higher support needs autistic, meaning that I can only write about what I know. This is about a medical perspective because the medical perspective is my everyday life. It can sound pathologizing, but all I want to do is explain terms and some history)
Hello autistics who aren't well-versed in "high support needs autistic" circles and want to learn more, especially with autism acceptance mo
"Ok, I read that, but what should I say for the situation when I suddenly can't speak anymore?"
- Common are "speech loss" or "verbal shutdown", but here is a big list with suggestions:
If you suddenly can't speak/struggle to speak:
losing words
losing speech/speech loss
no mouth words
out of words
speech loss episode
"Why do people still talk about severity when it comes to autism? Why do NTs always want to categorise us?" - a double link
- alright, apparently we have to do this again, here:
I just saw one of those "autism isn't linear, it's a spectrum" posts again and one pi
"Everyone is talking about autism levels. Are support needs the same as autism levels? What are support needs about?"
- there's a TL;DR if you want a quick answer:
With autism acceptance month coming up, this post aims to make the difference between autism levels and support needs more clear, because th
And please remember that a lot of different countries, and therefore many different diagnostic manuals, educational systems, and experiences clash on Tumblr.
My country has very little autism awareness, so I thought I'm one of the lower support needs ones. Then I saw people in the tags here. I'm s
And yes, doctors, psychologists, and teacher aides can make mistakes. They can use incorrect words. They can have outdated views. Don't think just because it's their job, that they know absolutely everything about autism and that they're always up to date. They only know what they learned, and especially what's relevant for their job. And many unfortunately don't make an effort to understand the whole autism spectrum, they're specialised in one particular group of us and may have a vast knowledge there, but not on the rest of the spectrum.
Image description: A comparison of hypomania vs mixed hypomania (hypomanic + depressed) by symptom.
Elevated energy
Pure hypomania: Motivated, driven, productive.
Mixed hypomania: An uncomfortable, anxious energy that feels "wired, restless, crawling out of my skin".
Elevated mood
Pure hypomania: Euphoric, excited, giddy, good humored, a spiritual sense of connection.
Mixed hypomania: Labile, with rapid swings between irritable, sad, anxious, despairing, and rarely giddy or euphoric.
Irritable
Both: Impatient, quick to anger, starting arguments or isolating to avoid fights. There's often a mild paranoid sense that "people have it out for me", and the patient is quick to cut off relationships or split others into good and bad.
Increased confidence
Pure hypomania: More certain of their ideas or abilities, optimistic, self-important, arrogant, ignoring risks.
Mixed hypomania: When mixed with depression, the heightened confidence doesn't make the patient feel too good about themselves. Instead they come across as demanding, intimidating, or stubborn. Depressive self-doubt is replaced by an undue certainty in their beliefs, leading to frequent arguments.
Decreased need for sleep
Pure hypomania: Sleeping less than 6 hours while still carrying on their usual activities.
Mixed hypomania: Even when decreased in quantity patients still feel they need sleep, either because of depressive fatigue or because they dread consciousness. Sleep is reversed (up all night and asleep during the day) or random.
Rapid or pressured speech
Pure hypomania: Rapid, loud, interrupting and talking over people, difficult to follow.
Mixed hypomania: Speech is often rapid or loud, but what is more apparent is the urgent, emotional tone of desperation.
Racing thoughts
Pure hypomania: Lots of ideas, mental clarity, or multiple trains of thought that are hard to follow.
Mixed hypomania: Their mind is crowded with depressive or anxious thoughts, imagining worse-case scenarios. Patients complain that they "can't shut my mind off", particularly at night.
Distracted
Pure hypomania: Changing tasks frequently, thoughts shift from topic to topic, easily distracted by external stimuli.
Mixed hypomania: Shifting tasks in a directionless manner, disorganised, hard to think, thoughts shuffle from one anxious topic to another.
Hyperactive
Pure hypomania: Exercising or moving more, restless, socialising more, making lots of plans or starting many projects.
Mixed hypomania: Agitated, tense, and "driven to do something but don't know what to do". The patient paces from room to room or goes on random walks or drives.
Impulsive
Pure hypomania: Spending more money, driving faster, sudden travel, starting new relationships or projects, saying things they regret, sex, gambling, drug use, crossing social, moral or legal lines.
Mixed hypomania: Reckless, destructive actions. Suddenly leaving relationships or jobs, breaking things, aggressive driving. When pleasure is pursued patients explain away the impulsivity as an attempt to lift their mood (overspending through "retail therapy", binge eating, pornography). Rates of addition, self-harm, and suicide are elevated.
A few years ago while trying to find ways to commit suicide as painlessly as possible, I came across a PDF of Dr. Paul Quinnett's The Forever Decision. Thinking it might go into actual methods of suicide (I read an article once that actually did that and was trying to find it again) I started to read it, and I think I only got about two pages in before I was crying too much to actually see the words.
I downloaded the PDF to my hard drive and I open it again whenever I'm feeling too suicidal to do much else, but not enough to start booking a ride to the hospital. And every time without fail I only go up to a few pages before backing off and choosing to live another day just because suicide suddenly seems even more unbearable than whatever the hell upset me in the first place.
All the book really does is [I'm pulling a summary from GoodReads here as, again, I've read no more than 5 pages] "discusses the social aspects of suicide, the right to die, anger, loneliness, depression, stress, hopelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, the consequences of a suicide attempt, and how to get help."
But it also starts with the author kindly asking the reader to complete the book before going through with anything, and for some reason I'm compelled to really just try to read it all before finalizing everything. Despite not yet completing it (hopefully never will) I think I can safely say it's saved my life at least a few times now.
It's intentionally legal to copy and redistribute this book to keep it as accessible as possible, and it's very easy to find, but here's a link for it anyways.
